Battleground Suggestions for Newbies. Please take note.

(Author's note: This article was post dated as it's unlikely I'll be writing about BG's for a while once WotLK comes out. May this serve as a reminder as we go into Northrend, possibly fighting the opposite faction for quest mobs, and grinding Honor in Wintergrasp and Strand of the Ancients.)

The litany of curses that my fingers would have typed out during this weekend honor grind count out in the hundreds and while using a blog to continuously rant about the dumb things people do in Battlegrounds could feasibly provide endless material, it's just not fun to read. Also, one of my new guild's rules is 'No Profanity'. And we're trying not to piss people off. But, Lord, it's hard when dumb people join Battlegrounds.

So here's my best suggestion for people who don't PvP very often, and if you're smart, it can make you a better player, regardless of your gear.

Pay Attention, Communicate, and Cooperate.

Everything stems from those three points. If you're paying attention, you can call out incomings to a node and you can see when people are capping a flag. If you have a strategy, you can let people know so others can work with you, instead of against you. If you are a DPS class and you see your healer getting mowed down because the other side has (intelligently) chosen to target your healers first (no way!), you can help better the situation through crowd control and/or selective targeting.

There are a billion more examples I can give to illustrate the merits of the above suggestion, but, really, who wants to read that boring list?

Instead, to the people who don't PvP often, I give you 3 suggestions to help brighten your experiences and those of others when you do choose to join a Battleground.

1. Mount Up. If you're not fighting and you're guarding a node or you're waiting to see where the opposition will strike next. Mount up. By the time the average call of "inc node" comes through, it's usually too late to mount up and move to support. And if you are riding to a location, take a look at the map before you go. If you see (count them) 10 dots already there, go somewhere else. Go defend somewhere else so that healer can go help deal with your teammates who need healing.


2. Keep an eye on the flag. No matter how much DPS you can put out or how much healing you can provide, none of it matters if your flag gets taken. Every class has an ability that can interrupt a flag cap, from Moonfire to Rain of Fire to Wanding (you did level up your wand skill right?) so there's no excuse for not tagging the capper except for dying while preventing a cap.


3. Fight on the node in EotS. It's really that simple. If you don't see a bar that shows the node status, you're in the wrong place.

And for you Rogues and Druids, a special suggestion:

• Stealthing around does not mean you are doing anything beneficial to the team. If you see an opening, take it. Every second your teammates are getting trained down, while you sit in the comforts of stealth, sipping your thistle tea, is a second of negative participation. You're doing more harm than good. As reference, I had a stealthed rogue sit next to an Arcane Mage for a full 5 seconds, moving back and forth trying to make up his mind, before he decided to cheap shot. During that period, I got Arcane Barraged twice, a POM fireball and 2 Slows applied (I dispelled the first). To survive all of that, I had to pop Pain Suppression, 2 Shields and PI to spam Flash Heals. Angry whispers were exchanged and now he's on /ignore. Before anyone comes to his defense, there's zero reason not to take the opener when your healer is in danger. Need proof? Ask your nearest healer. He'll tell you.

And remember, it's not about gear. I would have rather had a level 50 Rogue who knew how to take the CS into KS into Gouge to save his teammate than the one last night who sported raid gear and the decisiveness of a butterfly.

With WotLK around the corner, if you're on a PvP server like I am, treat each zone as a big Battleground. Save your fellow faction'rs from gankers and travel around in groups. Unspoken truce or not, there's always rogue players who just want to have a bloody good time.

Best of luck!