First feedbacks on Arathi Basin

Over the past few days I've played maybe 60 games and I've got a few comments to make.

 

First of all I believe that it's the best BG in term of "fun".

Oh, sure, Horde still win everything (I think I won 3 games so far...) but, even when you loose you can still have fun.

 

The game is more "zerg" than what I was expecting but every now and then you can also enjoy some 2v2 and even 1v1 fights which is (at least for a rogue) a bit refreshing.

 

I hate to beat dead horses but, as usual, the reason for the Alliance losses are pretty common :

 

-It may not be that Horde has always a "winning" strategy but it's obvious that they always have a goal at any given point of the game. I wouldn't be surprised to know that while our raid channels are full of "help at Mill, help at BS", theirs is made of "get their mill, get their BS". Always having something to do helps keeping groups together. Even if it's "stay where you are and defend your flags" it's always better than no direction.

 

-They travel in pack and don't engage if outnumbered.

I'm amazed at how many alliance guys play it Leroy style.

Suicide is an option when you defend because you can delay the flag capture by quite a bit of time but, offensively, it's just useless.

 

-They typically have way more healing classes and more warriors than Alliance. I'd say that the core of their assault team is made of a warrior backed up by healers. Alliance

 

-Their support classes...support. You ALWAYS see the shaman in the back of the fight. Always.

 

-Our support classes don't support. I'm not kidding you but I think I've only been healed twice in those 60+ games and buffed maybe 3 times.

I really don't know what to say about that.

 

 

I tried to find posts about AB strategy but couldn't really find a good one (any clue guys ?) but here are my 2 cents.

 

 

- If Alliance wants to win it must, imho, have limited ambitions because they are easier to execute. Alliance MAY be able to own the 5 flags but I'm afraid that most of the time it will result in a catastrophy.

What we should aim at are close victories with rather simple execution.

I'd say that what looks to me as a viable strat is to focus on winning and keeping the 2 tactically interesting spots : the Blacksmith (BS) and the Mill (LM). Of course we need to hold the Stables too.

 

- An easier and more flexible way to defend BS and LM is to defend the crossroad on the right. Whether horde wants to take LM or BS they have to come next to this crossroad.

You have 1 or 2 players guarding the BS and LM flags to deter a solo rogue steal but the rest of the groups becomes a large defense team that can flexibly defend the LM, the BS or the Stables

(Stables need at least 2 defenders because it's more exposed to a sneak attack from the mine)

From this crossroad you see the horde Farm. Any horde you don't see is at the mine which allows you to be aware of any incoming attack on the Stables

 

-Horde can only assault from the mine side. If they go for BS you have time to send the LM crossroad team to the BS flag. If they go for Stables the defending players will have to buy some more time before they get support (also from the south crossroad squad)

 

-This brings me to something about defending a flag. If you can kill the ennemies it's fine but if you have any doubt about it, the ONLY thing you should focus on is to delay their flag capping. Capping is a 13 second process that can be interrupted by any dmg. Yes. Even a DoT.

A single warlock could cast DoTs on 2 or 3 opponents, making sure thy can't cap anything for a while.

Take a rogue for instance. Let's say I'm alone and I see 2 horde approaching : sap one. The second starts to cap. I cheapshot and hit a bit. I run. Launch a grenade if the first one goes after the flag. I can then gouge, Blind, vanish and repeat. One rogue can pretty much keep a flag safe for maybe a minute if all he cares about is survival and harrassment.

But I guess that all classes have a way to do the same. According to horde posts it's a nightmare to cap a flag defended by a Pally.

 

-Rogues. 2 or 3 rogues working together can be devastating. In the above scenario it would be great to send a rogue squad every now and then to harrass the horde flags and force them to keep a 3 players defense team at all time. Technically, 2 coordinated rogues can take on any 3 players defending team. Sap 2, slaughter one. Blind a survivor, kill the second.

Of course it would require a Vent channel just for that. But even if they don't cap flags they can do their harassment job.

Main target for that is the horde farm because its defenses can be assessed from the crossroads.

 

-Take flags back. After an ennemy succeeds in "de-capping" a flag it enters a sort of neutral mode for one minute. If an Alliance guy manages to re-cap it during this minute, the flag reverts as Alliance right away (and starts producing resources again). After this minute you'll have a much harder time getting it back and until you do so, it produces resources for horde

 

-When you capture a horde flag, don't try to defend it with the main force. You don't need this flag to win. If you start moving away from the strong 3 flags position and become greedy I'm afraid that the natural "horde qualities" will prevail and that the "steamroll" is just down the road.

Let's just have the rogues who managed to decap a flag harass the recap horde team so that they loose resource generation for as long as possible.

Hit/vanish/blind, whatever. If you are able to do this for one minute you've won your battle. They lost half of their resources for 3 minutes.

 

 

All of the above doesn't require much sophisticated coordination. The main group at the crossroad can SEE what is going on and can pretty much act on its own. Only "leadership" issue is to ensure that the Stables are guarded and, maybe, call for rogue runs.

 

damn...I'm late for a business lunch

 

cya later

Man this sounds like fun FG, I'd love to go play with you there sometime... if you are on this evening I might be on in time to catch you.

I HATE pvp, but I actually do have lots of fun in AB, even when we lose...which is about 80% of the time so far

I think i might be running more of this because of my new limited playtime. I cant seem to manage enough time for a baron run or and instance on my alt, but maybe i can squeeze a few games of AB in.

Yeah, it really doesn't take long, about a half hour each game. Which is something else I love about it, it's not so long that you just get frustrated and/or bored.

yeah ab is by far the best bg so far. I banked 14000 honour points for just a few days of playing. focusing now on getting my shadowcraft armour then ab all day =)

I lik it but it takes a very long time

My favorite place to cap is the lumber mill (LM or mill) simply because it is by far the easiest spot to defend in the game. There's a graveyard right there, and unlike the mine, it's uphill. That means attacks can come from only 2 directions, and you can always jump down and use some sort of damage mitigation.

 

The mine is, next to the blacksmith, the hardest point to defend. Also, if you're ressing at the mine, you have ONLY 2 exits. It's a great place to choke the horde...if it comes to holding 3 points and the horde having 2, make sure they have the mine and not the lumber mill or the stables.

 

I've been polishing my strategies when I get the chance, and it mostly depends on whether the horde are a PUG or a raid. If it's a PUG, I recommend that you do the following: send 1 person to cap stables, 4 to mine, 5 to BS, 5 to mill. Hold the mill and the BS, the mine is just a distraction. You actually want the horde to cap it and take it from you. What you should be doing is harassing their farm, and defending stables with 2, BS and mill with 3, and by any means necessary DO NOT let them cap the mill. Now, if the PUG is kind of sucky, then you have a rather unique strategy open to you. Everyone wants to cap the BS. The answer is to let them cap it, but make it cost them the other 4 points. Congratulations, you now have them encircled, and all you have to do is spread out your team evenly between all map points and send in small raiding parties from different directions. Don't use the bridges if it's not a direct line, rather come up from the water. It means the whole of the horde force is occupied defending the hardest spot to defend on the map.

 

If you're facing a real raid, I've not been too sucessful at these yet. AB is a more personal BG, and alliance may trump horde in mass PvP, but horde win at 1v1/2v2. That means you need to make sure you travel in groups of 3 or more. It also means your strategy will be an attrition rather than occupation. You want to defend the LM, stables, and farm. You want to constantly assault the BS and the mine, not with the intention of capping, but just distrupting supply flow. You can physically occupy 3 points on the map and your opponent 2, but if you don't have those places constantly capped (ie the horde are tapping your flag constnatly and you're getting it back) and the horde have their 2 solid, they win. I say farm and stables because they have horde coming from the fewest directions, and the LM is the best defensive spot in the game.

 

These are just my observations. Siege, when are we getting this team rolling?

Soon as I make a schedule spreadsheet, and we don't have any runs going on. I was thinking either today, or tues next week.

We played several games in a row yesterday with a couple of FP and tried to use the general strat I mentionned above.

5 to BS, 10 to Mill then BS. (someone grabs Stables on the way)

 

Sounds like a pretty easy plan. Actually, as far as holding BS and Mill is concerned it should even be a lot more successful than Heilel's since he is only sending 5 to Mill.

 

Well...actually I don't think we ended the opening phase with both BS and Mill a single time.

If a group of 10 cannot wipe the Mill and immediatly finish the fight at BS, then I really don't know how it is possible to win AT ALL.

It's by the way the same with 2 groups at BS and 5 at mill.

 

Each time I saw Alliance win they grabbed BS and MILL. Problem is that I saw that happen maybe 3 times in now over 80 games.

 

I still believe that a strategy is needed. And a simple one. Mobile warfare is not for Alliance. But then the key is the execution capabilities.

 

After reading Heilel's post I now believe that the golden triangle may be BS/MILL/Farm because they are closer from each other.

I don't think that any of the spot is easier of harder to defend. What makes Mill better is that you have a view on the rest of the battlefield.

 

I don't want to list all the execution problems I've seen but, really, one of them has to be a sort of "ganking" habit : it's pretty common to see a group of 3 or 4 Alliance beating up a hordie in the middle of nowhere while the rest of his buddies are just up the road moping the floor at our flag.

 

Rule of the day : if you're killing someone further than 20 yards away from a flag you are not helping your team.

(you could tell me that it's actually even since the horde guy is not helping either but I tend to think that horde actually benefits a lot more from having the game as "spread out" as possible since they tend to win equal fights more consistently)

 

Anyway...

 

As a side note I'd like to mention that Hinanin played his class to the perfection during our first game together.

We were both defending the mine and, boy, how many assaults did we counter there ? 6 ?

Basically I was sapping an attacker, we'd work on the others. He'd heal me. We'd kill one or two, then I'd die.

By the time I came back, Hinanin was still alive. We'd wipe the remains.

Rince, repeat.

 

Gratz Hin'

Thats why he is our #1 PvPer!