General How to win AB (for all brackets)

How to win AB
(This is on paragraph/text-wall form. If you've never read and book and can't handle paragraphs, better flee. Also when I click post, the paragraph indentations are never retained, which sucks and makes it look even more like a daunting text-wall. I'll put a space between paragraphs to make it less daunting.)
You'll hear most ppl say take 3 adjacent flags and keep 5 people per flag. That's almost right. Except you want only 1-3 players per flag. That's important. I recommend 3, unless the 1 or 2 are very tanky. The rest of the players, and it matters which classes, but I won't go into that, should be sitting on their mounts on the road directly in between your 3 flags. This is your mobile defense squad, and should include at least 1 healer, unless you already have a healer at each flag. This group's job is to ride quickly to whichever flag gets attacked since they are already mounted, out of combat, and half way their when the defender calls "incomming."

This is really all you need to know. It will win every game at this level, 100%, unless the other team is just way too overpowered and can win with uneven numbers.

As I mentioned, we won our games 2000-0, which means we took all 5 flags, but this is mostly what we fell back on to make sure we won if we were facing a horde team that could challenge us.

We'd also have stealthies scouting enemy flags to ninja them if they were not adequately defended. 2 rogues together can Sap-cap against 1 defender. We had a mage or priest at LM who could cast Slow-Fall or Levitate on people so they could jump and glide over to BS quickly if needed. As a night elf hunter, I would defend flags solo by shadow melding out of the way somewhere while my pet kept anyone from capping the flag until help arrived, forcing them to try to kill the pet. Took too long. We had all kinds of tricks. We kept track fo how many stealthies the enemy team had and where they were. Kept enough ppl at the flags they could get to to survive them until help could arrive. But you don't need all that to win 90% of the ABs in this bracket. I didn't go over how to make sure you get 3 flags in the beginning. There are strategies for that, but you dont' really need them since it seems like most teams get 3 adjacent flags at some point anyway, and then lose them via stupidity.

Here, I'll give you one, so you get an idea: BS is the most important flag, so we'd send a large # there. BUT not all of then would dismount and get in combat if not needed. If the enemy only send 3 to BS, we'd have 4 ppl engage them, and the rest would ride over to LM or GM. (LM is preferable because you have better vision from there.) This means we didn't have MORE ppl at a flag than we needed to take it(just like we didn't keep MORE ppl at a flag than we needed to defend it). Inevitable, the enemy team would take a flag with more people than they needed, which is inefficient. That let us take 3 to their 2. Often 4 to their 1. Then, often, we'd keep 1 player per flag and attempt to take their starting area(farm) 11 vs 15. If that push failed, we'd rez back at BS, GM, and LM in time to defend them by the time the enemies could mount up and ride to them.

But you don't need all that shit. That's way more complex than necessary to win 95% of AB games. You just need 3 ppl per flag and 6 on a mobile, mounted defense squad. That's it. gg. And again, this is not theorycrafting. This was tested and proven effective in 1000 of redundant "experiments" when you guys were in diapers.

Oh, one other thing.....
In this bracket, or with random noobs in any bracket, the defenders will not call incoming in time, usually. Fortunately you don't need them to call incs, if you're smart. From your mount between BS, LM, and your home flag, you can SEE BS and your home flag. And you can look on the map to see which of your team mates are at LM. Keep an eye on their health/resource bars in the raid boxes. If you see their health/resource bar move, they are under attack, and you go help them. If you see ppl at BS or your home flag, you go there. If you see enemies attacking both, use your judgement.

If one is completely overrun by a ZERG, and the noobs won't respond to defend it because they're stupid or scared, take the one across the map from the Zerged one, or the one the Zerg just abandoned. (Zerg= large group of morons running around all together taking 1 flag at a time - not effective against a smart team who re-caps behind them.)

If you are an enchanted priest, meaning you are over-powerd, or something like a 29 BM, you can be the solo mobile defense squad all by yourself, and win the majority of games. It doesn't work great solo, the noobs will completely abandon the flags and you'll have to go defend by yourself, and no longer be able to defend all 3. But it still helps to do it when you can. I've won 90 AB games on this character and lost 50, and pretty much all 140 games I was just solo-qued using the random BG que. Maybe a few I was queued random with whoever I was doing 2v2 with. So 90W - 50L is not a bad ratio for 1 player out of 30 in the bg. (And I don't afk out of losing games.)

(Funny story: There used to be a ridiculous ladder on TwinkInfo for f2p players based on things like BG win/loss records and flag caps/returns [only certain classes should be carrying flags or in melee range to click to return flags], and as a result, ppl started /afking out of losing games or refusing to dps the EFC unless they were the only one in range to click the flag ahead of their team mates. It was fucking sad. Good players were doing it. I remember winning some games that started out as losses after good players like Phrontistry would /afk out after the first enemy cap. Bisonpower started doing that too, and got to the top of the ladder haha. He was my friend, but that shit was lame. To avoid each loss, he had to get a 15 minute deserter debuff. For a meaningless ladder. Must have sucked.)

Being a strong class helps no matter what you do, but knowing where to go and what to do to maximize your impact allows you to make a much bigger difference.
The End.
 
smooth. Still haven't covered all the tactics, not counting exploits.
 
How to win AB
(This is on paragraph/text-wall form. If you've never read and book and can't handle paragraphs, better flee. Also when I click post, the paragraph indentations are never retained, which sucks and makes it look even more like a daunting text-wall. I'll put a space between paragraphs to make it less daunting.)
You'll hear most ppl say take 3 adjacent flags and keep 5 people per flag. That's almost right. Except you want only 1-3 players per flag. That's important. I recommend 3, unless the 1 or 2 are very tanky. The rest of the players, and it matters which classes, but I won't go into that, should be sitting on their mounts on the road directly in between your 3 flags. This is your mobile defense squad, and should include at least 1 healer, unless you already have a healer at each flag. This group's job is to ride quickly to whichever flag gets attacked since they are already mounted, out of combat, and half way their when the defender calls "incomming."

This is really all you need to know. It will win every game at this level, 100%, unless the other team is just way too overpowered and can win with uneven numbers.

As I mentioned, we won our games 2000-0, which means we took all 5 flags, but this is mostly what we fell back on to make sure we won if we were facing a horde team that could challenge us.

We'd also have stealthies scouting enemy flags to ninja them if they were not adequately defended. 2 rogues together can Sap-cap against 1 defender. We had a mage or priest at LM who could cast Slow-Fall or Levitate on people so they could jump and glide over to BS quickly if needed. As a night elf hunter, I would defend flags solo by shadow melding out of the way somewhere while my pet kept anyone from capping the flag until help arrived, forcing them to try to kill the pet. Took too long. We had all kinds of tricks. We kept track fo how many stealthies the enemy team had and where they were. Kept enough ppl at the flags they could get to to survive them until help could arrive. But you don't need all that to win 90% of the ABs in this bracket. I didn't go over how to make sure you get 3 flags in the beginning. There are strategies for that, but you dont' really need them since it seems like most teams get 3 adjacent flags at some point anyway, and then lose them via stupidity.

Here, I'll give you one, so you get an idea: BS is the most important flag, so we'd send a large # there. BUT not all of then would dismount and get in combat if not needed. If the enemy only send 3 to BS, we'd have 4 ppl engage them, and the rest would ride over to LM or GM. (LM is preferable because you have better vision from there.) This means we didn't have MORE ppl at a flag than we needed to take it(just like we didn't keep MORE ppl at a flag than we needed to defend it). Inevitable, the enemy team would take a flag with more people than they needed, which is inefficient. That let us take 3 to their 2. Often 4 to their 1. Then, often, we'd keep 1 player per flag and attempt to take their starting area(farm) 11 vs 15. If that push failed, we'd rez back at BS, GM, and LM in time to defend them by the time the enemies could mount up and ride to them.

But you don't need all that shit. That's way more complex than necessary to win 95% of AB games. You just need 3 ppl per flag and 6 on a mobile, mounted defense squad. That's it. gg. And again, this is not theorycrafting. This was tested and proven effective in 1000 of redundant "experiments" when you guys were in diapers.

Oh, one other thing.....
In this bracket, or with random noobs in any bracket, the defenders will not call incoming in time, usually. Fortunately you don't need them to call incs, if you're smart. From your mount between BS, LM, and your home flag, you can SEE BS and your home flag. And you can look on the map to see which of your team mates are at LM. Keep an eye on their health/resource bars in the raid boxes. If you see their health/resource bar move, they are under attack, and you go help them. If you see ppl at BS or your home flag, you go there. If you see enemies attacking both, use your judgement.

If one is completely overrun by a ZERG, and the noobs won't respond to defend it because they're stupid or scared, take the one across the map from the Zerged one, or the one the Zerg just abandoned. (Zerg= large group of morons running around all together taking 1 flag at a time - not effective against a smart team who re-caps behind them.)

If you are an enchanted priest, meaning you are over-powerd, or something like a 29 BM, you can be the solo mobile defense squad all by yourself, and win the majority of games. It doesn't work great solo, the noobs will completely abandon the flags and you'll have to go defend by yourself, and no longer be able to defend all 3. But it still helps to do it when you can. I've won 90 AB games on this character and lost 50, and pretty much all 140 games I was just solo-qued using the random BG que. Maybe a few I was queued random with whoever I was doing 2v2 with. So 90W - 50L is not a bad ratio for 1 player out of 30 in the bg. (And I don't afk out of losing games.)

(Funny story: There used to be a ridiculous ladder on TwinkInfo for f2p players based on things like BG win/loss records and flag caps/returns [only certain classes should be carrying flags or in melee range to click to return flags], and as a result, ppl started /afking out of losing games or refusing to dps the EFC unless they were the only one in range to click the flag ahead of their team mates. It was ducking sad. Good players were doing it. I remember winning some games that started out as losses after good players like Phrontistry would /afk out after the first enemy cap. Bisonpower started doing that too, and got to the top of the ladder haha. He was my friend, but that shit was lame. To avoid each loss, he had to get a 15 minute deserter debuff. For a meaningless ladder. Must have sucked.)

Being a strong class helps no matter what you do, but knowing where to go and what to do to maximize your impact allows you to make a much bigger difference.
The End.
I feel horde has a slight start advantage, because they come out right at the farm. i feel the farm, blacksmith and lumbermill are the best to capture as they are easy to get to from each other and if you sit on the road outside of blacksmith, you can easily get to each much faster than you can any other 3 flags.
 
BS, Farm/St and LM is all a team needs. The bulk of your team should stay at BS as a pivot point for the defensive group. LM can be used as a scout point as it can see the other flags save mines.
Alas, all too often players get greedy & impatient and want four bases. This often loses them the game.

Cheerio!!
 

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