Charax
Battleground Superstar
Charax Silvershield here with my third guide in my Master Class series. For those that are new to the series, my previous must read guides are Charax Guide: Don't chase the tail and Charax Guide: How to approach Horde base.
I see a common question in BG chat is:
Pugs are unreliable at providing this intel because usually they are not following the Path of Charax and are thus fighting away from the flag. Those following the Path of Charax may be Chasing the Tail of the EFC and often get lost, wondering where the EFC went to.
For new battleground fighters and old, Charax will provide some sage advice on finding that EFC.
Who is the EFC?
Knowing the name of the EFC is important (see next section Targeting the EFC). Those players that are light on mod usage will be at a disadvantage. You're scrolling up through BG chat, which can be spammy if there are idiots faction yelling at opponents, flaky FC's dropping and repicking their flags to be annoying and to sift through the drek of players arguing with each other.
Mod to get:
SSPVP - I've recently picked it up and I really like it. Amongst a few things it does, it will display the EFC and FC names on your screen with their health percentage (if you are in range of the EFC)... very helpful information.
Targeting the EFC
Great so now you know who the EFC. Next, you need to target him. If you are light on mods, you might have to type /tar <first few letters of enemy name>. It's a headache having to do that. You waste time, there might be funny characters, hunters will sometimes name their pet after them, and other players may have similar names, so you will need to type additional characters.
Mod to get:
BattlegroundTargets Classic - very similar to Battleground Targets, you will have a bar display of all of your enemies, colour coded and how many allies are targetting each enemy player (helps to focus fire). Of interest to this topic, you can click on a bar to select the enemy player, saving you time.
Whose base is the EFC in?
Sometimes, you may lose track on whether the EFC crossed the field or not. If you are around your base, try to Target the EFC. Your target range is fairly far, so if you cannot target him, he's not in your base. You can apply the same logic in the opposition base. If you can't target him, he's not in his base. You may be hiding somewhere along the edges of the map. This helps narrow down the area you need to search.
Sometimes, if I am in the Horde base and I have the EFC targeted and I suddenly lose my target, that means the EFC is in the opposite direction of where I was moving. For example, yesterday I had an EFC targeted and I was heading from Top to Horde ramp and lost my target. That told me that the EFC is somewhere in the fringes of his GY/portal area (I was right).
If you can maintain target, at this point, you just need to manually search the area for all the nook and crannies where an EFC likes to wait/hide. If you have a hunter or warlock on the team, it's time for you to yell at them to do their job.
Hunter, the Master Tracker
Hunter is a very powerful class in the 19 bracket. Accordingly, it attracts a lot of the bad players because they can score skills despite back pedaling and just being generally terrible. Relying on an unskilled hunter to find the EFC is the type of thing that gets me salty in BG chat. For the terrible players that are looking to better themselves and reading my guide, here is what you need to do.
You have two useful abilities: Track Humanoid and Track Beasts. They put dots on your mini-map of enemy players within your vicinity. A druid in bear form is considered a beast. For druids, you may need to alternate your track from Humanoid to Beast to have him show up on your map due to the EFC changing forms. Once you've narrowed down the general location of the EFC (see Whose base is the EFC in?), you now need to scan your mini map of the dots and match up to the EFC name. You can then proudly declare to your team Where the EFC is! If the EFC goes mobile, part of your job is to keep pinging the dot of the EFC to convey where the EFC is heading to.
Follow the Pet!
Sometimes, the EFC dot within a base may not necessarily tell you which level of the base the EFC is on. Your pet, however, can sniff that out. If you're Targeting the EFC, send your pet to attack, then Follow the Pet!
This is a clever tactic that a Warlock can deploy. A Warlock does not have a track humanoid/beast ability so he too can send his pet to attack the EFC and then Follow the Pet!
Conceptually, Finding the EFC seems simple but if you employ my Master Class tactics, you too may Track Like Charax.
I see a common question in BG chat is:
Pugs are unreliable at providing this intel because usually they are not following the Path of Charax and are thus fighting away from the flag. Those following the Path of Charax may be Chasing the Tail of the EFC and often get lost, wondering where the EFC went to.
For new battleground fighters and old, Charax will provide some sage advice on finding that EFC.
Who is the EFC?
Knowing the name of the EFC is important (see next section Targeting the EFC). Those players that are light on mod usage will be at a disadvantage. You're scrolling up through BG chat, which can be spammy if there are idiots faction yelling at opponents, flaky FC's dropping and repicking their flags to be annoying and to sift through the drek of players arguing with each other.
Mod to get:
SSPVP - I've recently picked it up and I really like it. Amongst a few things it does, it will display the EFC and FC names on your screen with their health percentage (if you are in range of the EFC)... very helpful information.
Targeting the EFC
Great so now you know who the EFC. Next, you need to target him. If you are light on mods, you might have to type /tar <first few letters of enemy name>. It's a headache having to do that. You waste time, there might be funny characters, hunters will sometimes name their pet after them, and other players may have similar names, so you will need to type additional characters.
Mod to get:
BattlegroundTargets Classic - very similar to Battleground Targets, you will have a bar display of all of your enemies, colour coded and how many allies are targetting each enemy player (helps to focus fire). Of interest to this topic, you can click on a bar to select the enemy player, saving you time.
Whose base is the EFC in?
Sometimes, you may lose track on whether the EFC crossed the field or not. If you are around your base, try to Target the EFC. Your target range is fairly far, so if you cannot target him, he's not in your base. You can apply the same logic in the opposition base. If you can't target him, he's not in his base. You may be hiding somewhere along the edges of the map. This helps narrow down the area you need to search.
Sometimes, if I am in the Horde base and I have the EFC targeted and I suddenly lose my target, that means the EFC is in the opposite direction of where I was moving. For example, yesterday I had an EFC targeted and I was heading from Top to Horde ramp and lost my target. That told me that the EFC is somewhere in the fringes of his GY/portal area (I was right).
If you can maintain target, at this point, you just need to manually search the area for all the nook and crannies where an EFC likes to wait/hide. If you have a hunter or warlock on the team, it's time for you to yell at them to do their job.
Hunter, the Master Tracker
Hunter is a very powerful class in the 19 bracket. Accordingly, it attracts a lot of the bad players because they can score skills despite back pedaling and just being generally terrible. Relying on an unskilled hunter to find the EFC is the type of thing that gets me salty in BG chat. For the terrible players that are looking to better themselves and reading my guide, here is what you need to do.
You have two useful abilities: Track Humanoid and Track Beasts. They put dots on your mini-map of enemy players within your vicinity. A druid in bear form is considered a beast. For druids, you may need to alternate your track from Humanoid to Beast to have him show up on your map due to the EFC changing forms. Once you've narrowed down the general location of the EFC (see Whose base is the EFC in?), you now need to scan your mini map of the dots and match up to the EFC name. You can then proudly declare to your team Where the EFC is! If the EFC goes mobile, part of your job is to keep pinging the dot of the EFC to convey where the EFC is heading to.
Follow the Pet!
Sometimes, the EFC dot within a base may not necessarily tell you which level of the base the EFC is on. Your pet, however, can sniff that out. If you're Targeting the EFC, send your pet to attack, then Follow the Pet!
This is a clever tactic that a Warlock can deploy. A Warlock does not have a track humanoid/beast ability so he too can send his pet to attack the EFC and then Follow the Pet!
Conceptually, Finding the EFC seems simple but if you employ my Master Class tactics, you too may Track Like Charax.