Greedy Goblin

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

RBG strategies: Arathi

As we don't have fixed roster, we must always make our strategy on the fly. People expressed their need to have a longer discussion over strategies. Since we can't make 8 people wait for an hour until 2 will argue over strategies in chat, I here provide a series of RBG strategy discussion pages. While anyone can obviously use it, it's mainly for the guild, so "optimal roster" or "get a voice chat" comments will be deleted. The post will be rewritten based on comments and incorporated comments wiped to make space for more discussion.

I start with the easiest: Arathi Basin. We have 90%+ winrate on this BG, usually with 4-1, with several 5-0 wins. The reason for it is obvious, the voice chat that practically every enemy uses is just a disturbance here, and helps form mindless zergs that hold one and only one base.


Our current strategy implies using as many tanks as possible. One will guard Stables (ST). The other will fake Blacksmith (BS). Faking means attacking alone. If no one or just 1 comes, he will take it. If more, he hold them up. 2 groups move to Gold mine (GM) and Lumber mill (LM). I send the stronger to LM as the enemy use to like it. 1-1 pre-selected defender, who has enough survival capabilities and brain to not lose the base while alive will stay there and call incs. The rest push farm. Soon they have nothing but BS where they mindlessly send out zergs what we can easily counter. Here the defender spawns pretty close to the defended GY and - contrary to popular belief - the distance of neighboring bases is closer than any from BS, due to the terrain.

Tips:
  • Open the scoreboard and check for highest damage done. Focus on that guy, he is PvE geared.
  • If you are winning at a defended or captured base, don't stay there until the last bubbled paladin is down. Disengage and go somewhere else. 
  • If you are dead on a graveyard, count down. Of course don't spam, but give a number first if no one else gave yet and then every full 5 secs like 20, 15, 10. It helps people to know when it worth using survival CDs and when is it better to stop healing and die to respawn with full mana in 5 secs. This can make holy priests better than discs. They die, turn into angel, keep healing, click off the angel buff 2 secs before GY pulse and here they come again!
  • BG Defender addon makes calling incs easier.
List of basic fails that should be avoided and result in replacement if you do them.
  • Leaving a captured base as last guy.No exceptions. If you leave a base totally empty, you are a capital case idiot. "No one came here for 10 mins" is a very bad excuse.
  • Losing a base while alive. Unless 3+ enemies (or sub rogue + 1) comes, you must be able to stop capture while alive even if you are a lone guardian. You must also call "inc" before the base is attacked, preferably with the number of enemies arriving. The following info should be kept in mind:
    • Don't stand on the flag. A rogue saps you and captures it if you have high lag or reaction time. If you trinket sap, he blinds and does the same. Stand away, so he must run after sap, while you can instantly charge or use ranged spell.
    • If you are hunter, put a freezing trap to the flag.
    • If you are shaman, keep magma totem up and do stand on the flag. The enemy can't sap and break totem at the same time.
    • Warlock keep circle on the flag and use succubus.
    • If you have stealth (rogue, druid, night elf, hunter), use it. Let him open with going to the flag.
    • Keep watching all the time, all incoming roads. At GM and BS watch the cliff too, they can levitate. Call incs when you see him coming. Even if just one. The other can be in stealth.
  • Losing a base while alive. Did I mention this? It's important. Not only single defender can lose it. The largest possible fail is losing a base when several people defending, all busy nuking someone while someone caps. Always watch the flag. If enemy is near it, use AoEs.
  • Capping as DD in battle. You should be killing the enemy. Healers or tanks cap. You only cap if only DDs are around (bad) and in ninja situations. You shall try to wipe them, not wasting time capturing. Healers can safely capture. If they are busy healing, than the enemy is strong and capture is impossible anyway.
  • Not ninjaing when possible. The ninja situation is - situational. Happens when the enemy sucks. It means that they did the No1 fail: losing base while alive. In this case the fighters pull back from the flag and the enemy follows them. If you arrive later and don't cap but join the fight, you are doing it wrong. Especially if you are a stealther who arrived with a decoy exactly for that. If you are interrupted even once, don't try again, the enemy just proved to be not idiots. Also, if there is a combat going on, you must do something. Do the ninja-cap, or if impossible, join the fight. Don't stand there!
  • Assisting a faker. Faker is a tank or other high survival character (frost mage, affliction warlock, paladin, cat druid, any healer), who attacks a base only to keep 2+ enemy there or make them yell inc on voice chat. The faker is meant to die and the base is not meant to be captured (although we still remember when a faker blood DK killed 3 guys and capped BS creating 5-0). If you go there, you are as good as AFK.
  • Being unwanted second (third ...) defender. We captured the base. The dedicated defender is there. No enemies are around. Why are you AFKing there? Do something!
  • Healer stacking. I don't care how big an "inc lm" is. If the other healers there, or moving there and ahead of you, you don't go there. If they can't handle it, the enemy is zerging and you should attack another base with DDs. Saving LM doesn't worth losing all other.

19 comments:

Botter said...

Your post is wonderful and the strategy is a sure win. Although I disagree with having a lone stealther stay in stealth mode while defending a base.

From my experience people are less likely to attack an obviously defended base even if only one is defending.

Imagine this scenario which I have experience a lot:
While defending BS I see that ST is empty so "/bg ST empty" then 3-4 people are storming the stables, if a lone defender is there he/she have no chance whatsoever to keep them off for a long time unless he/she is a hidden Game Master.

Sean said...

Another tip is to mount up and move away from a node once the situation is under control. "Under control" doesn't mean that there are 0 enemies (a common mistake many PUGs make). If there's 6 allies with only 3 enemies, a couple can safely move to other areas.

Gevlon said...

@Azzur: included
@Botter: I want them to mindlessly storm a base, spending their time travelling instead of doing something. The defender calls inc and can also wast 6 seconds for all attackers by waiting in stealth while they cap and interrupt them the last seconds.

Anonymous said...

Any ideas on how to counter this strategy if the enemy is using it or similar?

Anonymous said...

I'd like to add Frost DK into your faker list.

With slows, strong AoE and great survival CDs a Frost DK can occupy 4 or 5 of the enemy at a base for a good minute or two whilst the rest of your team is off capping.

Eun said...

I don't understand why you chose Arathi Basin, other than to make your blog sound good? You said the post and comment were mainly for guild members, like me. However instead of telling your tacts on the BGS we have trouble on and argue on tacts you choose the one we have greatest success. Again this solves none of the problems on the BGS that we lose. You also started with, "I start with the easiest" does that imply you will add your other strats for the different BGS? If so, I will wait for those before commenting on my own strats and why I think they would be more sucessfull than those we currently use.

Shintar said...

I'm surprised that you have so much success with this strategy, as I don't see what's supposed to make it so superior. Any Horde team worth its salt will immediately have most BS attackers veer around and reinforce LM or GM when they see that you sent only one guy to BS, making it unlikely that you'll cap both. Then you end up with both teams holding two bases and fighting over getting a third (probably either LM or GM in this case), which is pretty par for the course. Sounds to me like you're relying heavily on your opponents simply being bad and unable to quickly react to the fact that you're not pushing for BS.

Gevlon said...

@Shintar: BS is on a hill. You can't see what is at the water. So BS-attacking hordies are right to assume that the guy they see is just the first and others are coming behind him. If they dismount and attack, they can't re-mount in time.

Also, if they reinforce LM, the GM team attack Farm.

Anonymous said...

"Also, if they reinforce LM, the GM team attack Farm."

Agree with Shintar about lousy opposition. Are you still letting your guild scrubs tank your MMR rating?

Here's how what you said would probably play out vs me.

You go LM+GM with one DK at ST.
I go LM+BS.

You send your GM team to Farm whilst my BS team see your one DK at ST send rogue+mage to ST then BS team back to farm.

Result roughly equal numbers at LM and Farm fighting it out, whilst you've got GM and I've got BS+ST.

If you're fighting teams that can't react to "Oh wait it's just one dk at BS just CC it lol" then you're not exactly fighting competant players...

Backthief said...

Would you use a list of macros so you wouldnt be losing time writing messages?

Example:

/bg They are zerging LM
/bg They are zerging BS
and so on...
/bg INC LM 1
/bg INC LM 2
/bg INC LM 3+
/bg INC GM 1
/bg INC GM 2
/bg INC GM 3+1
and so on...


Thats not a suggestion, its a question. How do you optimise your communications?

Anonymous said...

@Anon Any ideas on how to counter this strategy if the enemy is using it or similar?

Send a rogue (skilled mage/dk works also) to the valley between mine/farm. His job is to slow them while they are traveling, maybe kill one or two. His main job is to cc/slow the healer, have them wait on the others or go with half a group).

The GM is like a death trap. Its the most useless base in the game.

The people who were at BS should leave (besides 2 defenders) and go to farm/LM (support can easily arrive from LM). The travel time between GM and LM is longer. Support will arrive sooner at LM from horde. Horde now has 3 bases and defends these.

Why would you ever go for 4/5 bases in RBG, assuming you fight equal teams. I never understood this.

Gevlon said...

@Backtief: BG defender addon does that, added to text.

David said...

Couple of points towards the comments. He brought up arathi basin to begin a discussion on RBGs based on a strategy he knows to succeed.

Against smart teams implementing a similar strategy, it comes down to gear and focus ability. All of this is good for the lower levels, but when you fight 2600+ teams……. you better have voice chat and switch like mad.

For the nonverbal communication, BGDEFENDER……BGDEFENDER……BGDEFENDER. This is an amazing add-on that presents 7 buttons, 1-5 and help/safe. The add-on detects the nearest base and you can easily type in chat how many are incoming or more at the press of a button.

But I would recommend voice chat. All of my guildies use skype and most of them are gladiators who have 2800+ RBG ratings. I am the guild slacker this season, lookup Kudia to see my guild. We have rules for communication that must be adhered to such as no frivolous talk, obeying the orders of the raid leader or designated BG leader, obeying the kill commands of the primary attack force, and OBEYING THE ORDERS OF THE RAID/BG LEADER.

dozenz said...

It's been a few years since I've played but curious if the "Magic Dust" you used to get from Westfall dust devils is still around and useful against players. When we did AB I would load up on it with my priest because the sleep effect would allow me to occasionally cap a flag, or if at LM give enough time to cast mind control and jump the lone defender off the hill which would give me time to cap.

csdx said...

So it sounds like you're facing inferior pvp'ers in this situation.

Something like "If no one or just 1 comes, he will take it." Implicitly assumes that your guy is better at 1v1 pvp than someone on the other side. I don't think against an equal opponent you can assume that he'll always win. So if you can assume he's always winning a 1v1 then he's either one of your stronger players, or the enemy just isn't as good.

Anonymous said...

Hunters can use Eagle Eye to quickly scout enemy force strength across the whole field. Best surveillance skill in the game since all BGs are outdoors.

Lomez said...

The only other tip that I could think of is more general: “by knowing where your opponents are, you also know where they aren’t.” You can anticipate attacks and ninja attempts by monitoring the number and location of visible opponents.

Your individual tactics are thorough and well-rounded, but your group strategy is too single-minded. It hinges on the assumption that your opener succeeds, and provides no alternative strategy if it fails. It also assumes that your opponents will respond the same way every game, as you don’t discuss the different actions that they can take during your opener. There are plenty of things that can mess up this strategy, depending on exactly how many opponents are sent to each location and how quickly they respond. Scripting every possible scenario is impractical, but you should at least have some general “if-then” statements in your strategy for the more probable occurrences. Figuring out your opponents’ strategy is important when deciding on what you should do, so that you can set up the appropriate counter-strategy. Thus, it’s best to discuss these beforehand as well, or at least when you start facing the more-organized teams.

Anonymous said...

Let me just begin by saying that some of what you say is indeed accurate (about not leaving a base unguarded or starting to disengage - i.e. not allocating toom many resources for their too few) and to some extent, rather basic.

The main problem that won't let you learn properly is the "lose fast" mindset. (Maybe better Cp per hour in teh short run, but will never make you a good player/leader in BG).

"If you're fighting teams that can't react to "Oh wait it's just one dk at BS just CC it lol" then you're not exactly fighting competant players..."

"Sounds to me like you're relying heavily on your opponents simply being bad and unable to quickly react to the fact that you're not pushing for BS."

True: when we are he just calls out for a "lose fast"

"All of this is good for the lower levels, but when you fight 2600+ teams……. you better have voice chat and switch like mad."

We never play 2600 rating (we may even get them due to MM screwups but we never actually play them.

To learn how to play you learn better from the best and you learn more from losing (and actually playing the game) than from giving up or from battling poor players.

You're not dumb, but you do lack the experience. And that, dear goblin, is irreplaceable.


-Yuliya

Bee said...

in reply to Dozenz-

I have not tried the dust, but based on other similar items that you cannot use in rated battlegrounds(embersilk nets, living action potions) I would assume that Magic Dust is also unusable.

One thing that is usable? BATTLE STANDARDS. These can really make the difference, especially in flag carry BGs. Everyone on the team should be using them, and have a strategy behind it (sequence of dropping). A 15% health pool that lasts up to 2min for everyone in your 5 man group can make a huge difference.

Just make sure to try and drop the flag in a spot where it's not sticking out like a sore thumb. Use the terrain to your advantage.