Battlegrounds: Warsong Gulch

Okay, so Warsong Gulch has long been my least favorite battleground, and not because of the fact that it is glorified Capture the Flag (and not even glorified enough — we played camp-wide CTF tournaments in 4-H camp, complete with face paint, camoflage, and prison breaks, and Warsong Gulch just doesn't compare). It's because of the people in it.

See, from what I can tell, there are really two ways to play Warsong Gulch successfully. You can split your team so that half are on defense and half on offense, and hope your defense can hold the flag long enough for your offense to capture it. Or you can zerg the enemy flag, then intercept their offense and return your flag on the way back to your flag room.

Oh, there are other ways to do it — you could tie up their team in the middle while a strike force goes for their flag, or you could rush them, send them all to the graveyard, then camp them there the whole time while one or two run the flag. But really, in my experience, the first two methods are the most successful when you're PUGing the battleground.

Unfortunately, trying to get the rest of the PUG to see this is like herding cats. Most of them prefer to just fight in the middle while the other side caps the flags. Lame.

I often end up on defense, so I've kind of devised a strategy based on that. If you can get 1-2 other people playing defense, you can usually tie up enough of the opposing team for long enough to keep your flag safe, even if half of your team is fighting in the middle.

What you need: People who know how to play their class. They don't have to be awesome, but they do need to know the tricks. For example, you want a hunter who will drop frost traps, not exploding traps, and who knows the map well enough to call out if the enemy is coming via the roof or the tunnel. You want a rogue who knows to stunlock/blind to take one or two out of the equation, a mage who can CC effectively, a shaman who knows their totems, and so on.

As a hunter, I usually find myself dropping a frost trap periodically. If it gets set off and the carrier's not an AOE'r, I'll drop a snake trap at their feet and wing clip — if they are, it's another freezing trap, because AOE will take out your snakes pretty fast. Then back off and hit Concussive Shot every time it cools down, with the appropriate stings and Arcane Shot in between. The goal is to slow down the flag carrier enough that the rest of your team can whale on him. Keep an eye on any other offense, to see who is in line to pick up the flag next. (If you are a survival-specced hunter, I believe you can also pop Readiness and drop yet another trap, too.) And for the love of God, if it's a healing class (or a class capable of healing), drain their mana ASAP. I have capped on Ahami several times because I could sit and self-heal until backup came to take out my pursuers.

As a shaman, I do the same thing with earthbind totem and frost shock, but I also have to heal my team. If I keep them up longer, they can deal with the threat more effectively. I usually hit Shift + V when I'm in the battlegrounds so I can keep a closer eye on who needs heals. This puts health bars above everyone's heads (not just enemies). I also try to hit chain lightning whenever the CD is up, if my team doesn't need heals and I have the mana to spare. This does a lot of damage, not just to the carrier but to his backup.

I can't really speak for other classes, though I have been on a few good two-man defense teams — as long as your partner can CC, then you'll be fine.

When there is a healer backing up the flag carrier, I will slow the FC and switch focus to do as much damage to the healer as possible. If the healer is healing themselves or dead, there's a better chance of taking out their carrier. When I am acting as heals for our own carrier, I know that unless someone takes me out, I can get the carrier back to our base no problem — so take out the healer!

When playing defense against a vastly stronger team, the longer you can slow down their carrier, the more time you have to do damage and perhaps even convince your team to come in as backup instead of HK farming in the middle.

I do not play offense enough to really speak on how that works — I really do play defense pretty exclusively in every battleground but Alterac Valley.