Battlegrounds and Multi-boxing

After hitting level 70 in June, I have done quite a bunch of hours in battlegrounds. I wrote before about the woes of being forced to go and get a number of marks, what I want to focus on now is actually the game play itself.

For me personally, my favorite battleground for my quad boxing is Alterac Valley, followed by Eye of the Storm. Arathi Basin is ok-ish, but Warsong Gulch is my bane.

AV has the perfect group and map size for my taste. Me bringing four characters out of forty is just 10%, yet I can have a significant influence on the game result. Holding the Alliance bunkers in mid-field or retaking Dun Baldar's graveyards and then wiping the horde attack, as well as blasting through horde defense at Galvan or just going to push the graveyards in the attack - all of these are things that I can do with a good success rate. Usually I just look at the distribution of the Alliance team on the map to decide between attack and defense after Galvan. Good times.

For EotS and AB, a team of fifteen players has me taking 26% of the slots. In EotS I usually go for the attack on the southern part of the map and then jump bases as needed. The thing that I love about EotS is that what matters is who is left standing, with no flag tagging or interrupting at the bases themselves. That also prevents ninja-flagtagging and interrupt games and is more forgiving for PuG base guards. Also, jumping the enemy flag carrier and then returning the flag to your own base is good fun, but that is something that I don't actively go looking for.

Arathi Basin can be good fun, but most of the time it is just horrible. Nearly all my positive experiences in AB were the occasional premades. Usually I can take any base that I want - unless it is defended by 2/3rds or more of the opposing team. The trouble in PuGs is that I can count on nobody actually bothering to defend bases. Even if there are 2-3 people from my team at a base when the minute of taking it is over, I can be nearly certain that these will run off to die in some god-forsaken hill or on the road to nowhere rather than guard the base or call incoming attacks. Another bane in this battleground is that bases can shift owner rather quickly. If that happens when I am dying, I risk having my characters split between graveyards all over the map, wasting time until I am back to full fighting strength. My best role in AB is to be the flying company and come fast and hard to the defense of any node that needs it. Shock army indeed.

Warsong. Oh dear. About the only thing I can really do in PuGs is go after the enemy flag carrier and hope for the best. In this battleground, death is the worst out of all battlegrounds, because the timings are so close and I loose a lot of time regrouping. However, I can not really deal damage on the move, and the flag carrier and his escort are usually in a hurry. Suffice to say that the only reason that gets me into Warsong is a guild pre-made or marks that I have to collect.