Since the changes to the pvp battlegrounds system in World of Warcraft, Arathi Basin can be a great place to grind honor and experience points alike. The best part about this strategy is that it doesn’t require you to have a full team to win, though it wouldn’t hurt if you can do so.
The first thing you need to do is put together a solid group of players. The minimum for this should be 5, encompassing one whole party. You will want a balanced grouping of damage dealers, or DPS, a tank, and at least one healer. You should all be decently geared for the level range you will be pvp’ing in. Of course, twinking helps, but is not necessarily required. Usually guildmates or members of your friend-list make the best members of your team.
Communication: This is key. In order for you to be able to pull this off you will need to have a way to communicate directly with members of your team. You can use the World of Warcraft voice chat system, or a third party tool such as Ventrillo or Team Speak. You may need to get a dedicated channel so others aren’t talking over your status updates and other vital information you may need to convey. Another side of the communication coin is the ability to communicate well with others that your group is joined to in the battleground. The key to this strategy is to effectively use those other players to secure the field of play. This may prove difficult at times, so you will need to use your powers of persuasion to make it work. Also, remember that voice chat is not your only form of communication. Make sure that someone on your team is relaying information to the players you are grouped with through regular BG chat.
Once you have gotten your group together, it’s time to discuss strategy. The most important thing to keep in mind while playing AB is that killing blows don’t matter when the game is over. While this may be easy for you and your team to understand, you will find that the average player will perceive your actions as honor-farming. What many don’t take into account is the system of diminishing returns for honorable targets. Nevertheless, it is important to remember that your primary objective isn’t always downing the enemy. The goal is to maintain control of the flag. If that means switching targets from a player with 20% health to smack his mate who is trying to cap the flag, so be it. This distinction of priorities is in place to buy your team time to spawn and run to the flag in order to keep it capped for your team.
Now that we have that covered, let’s get to the nuts and bolts of this operation. Your primary team of five will start off by heading directly to the opposing team’s home flag, either the Farm or the Stables depending on your alignment. In all other respects, every flag is worth the same amount of points, and thus no one flag is more important than the other. However, the home flag has a psychological advantage in that most AB groups do not collectively realize its unimportance. Thus, the enemy’s misconception is your greatest ally.
While your team takes the enemy primary flag location, it is important for the rest of the BG group to secure the remaining flags. You will find that some players will be uncooperative and will insist on joining your efforts at either the Farm or the Stables. This will take some finessing. If they can catch on to the objective of keeping the flag un-protested you might be able to get away with switching out one of your members to shore up the defenses elsewhere. The primary difference with this strategy from other common group-think reactions is that you do not leave your post to fight players who attempt to skirt around you or otherwise lure you away from the flag. You will find that large groups of players will attempt to take the flag from you based on numbers alone. The common BG thinking will also prevail in your favor in this regard as well. While you may be out-gunned and out-manned, the goals between the two groups are not aligned. As you race from the spawn point to interrupt any possible cappers, the other team will be primarily focused on killing blows. Thus, you will be able to slowly whittle them down between attempts at capping. Being the home team for that flag as long as it remains capped, your group will have a shorter distance to travel to replace the fallen comrades.
While you are defending your flag it is very important to call out Resurrection timers and any threats to holding control. This will give the rest of your group a good idea of what they are up against and whether they should rely on consumables to keep them up long enough to give reinforcements time to interrupt any capture attempts.
By sticking to this strategy and effectively communicating with your group you will win far more Arathi Basin matches. As you meet other pvp-minded players you may decided to increase your group size to include a fully premade team. By doing this you will eliminate any possible conflicts with players who may not understand the primary goals of winning in the least amount of time versus high killing blow counts.
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