I found myself as part of a long losing streak doing the daily Strand of the Ancients last night. We had so many players AFKing a mimimum of 5 from the start of the battle! I reported them. Seeing the same AFKers load in on the 2nd and 3rd games really made me mad and I started pushing others to report them over Battleground chat.

Anyway, on the 3rd match I noticed that I was Battleground Leader, so I started … well leading. Telling people when to fall back, when we needed more at a gate, to kill vehicles (it seems obvious, but maybe it isn’t?).

And we won. With about 3 still AFK (although we’d removed some of the repeat offenders).

I don’t think I’m an expert at Battleground strategy, but perhaps the majority of my team know less than I. Scary thought.

As for playing lone ranger as a healer, if you can go into an enemy node and distract 3 or 4 of them by yourself and prevent them from reinforcing somewhere else for 15-30 critical seconds, you may as well have gone in and one-shot them all. If you killed them all instantly, they’d be sitting waiting for a rez. If you got them to chase you to a remote corner of the map before they killed you, you’ll probably be back in meaningful action before they will, and you’ve effectively changed the odds somewhere else in your teams favor by 2-3 bodies.

Also, don’t forget mana burn!! Ret paladins are a great candidate for mana burning, since if your shield absorbs their judgement they don’t get mana back! And, divine plea may be dispellable… I can’t recall atm.

Finally, whenever I enter a BG, I first look for the plate dps with the larget HP pool/Gearscore. Ideally, you want someone with ~30k hp, warrior is usually best, dk 2nd, and ret last. (Warrior has MS, which makes taking out those opposing healers much much easier.)

When I see someone, I’ll whisper them “Hi my new friend! xD” They usually are like wtf?!and I’m like… Do you like disco? Lol… they usually start laughing at that point and we run the whole BG together.

Failing a plate dps, look for a well geared rogue with a arena tabard, or pvp title. They probably will do well.

Finally, if you see some caster dps in like full relentless, they will prolly rock as well. (Warlock with 30k hp works fine, esp if they are affliction.)

Great post btw – I have to admit I just started reading this week but that I didn’t expect to get a great PvP article like this.
.-= Vikt’s last blog … Night Elf Mohawk Pt. 2 =-.

One thing I can suggest, especially for alliance, is to make a helpful suggestion rather than a typical BG gripe (you &*%$ noobs, tards, morons, you #@&*%$ suck). These inarticulate expressions of rage, while therapeutic, don’t really tell people what they need to be doing.

A lot of people are screwing up because they don’t know what the heck is going, so try saying “need two on defense at MT” or “please don’t cap unless we control middle” or god help us, I can’t believe it needs to be said: “please run the flag to a tower we control and not into a group of the enemy”.

Funny thing is when I’m playing my hunter I pick a healer and follow them around. It really keeps the deaths to a minimum in the lvl 80 BGs.

I don’t get it. Alliance used to kick ass at Eye of the Storm in BC.