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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsThe Southern Graveyard is a trap
by Zach Yonzon 
Mar 28th 2009 at 9:00AM
"Capturing the Southern Graveyard will now automatically capture both the East and West Graveyards."
Great. Give all those scrubs an excuse to capture it while on offense. Thanks, Blizzard.
Let me explain why capturing Southern Graveyard is one of the worst things you can do for your team while on offense. You see, when you capture Southern Graveyard and your team is progressing Southwards through the Gate of the Yellow Moon and the Keep, members of your team who die during the effort will rezz near the yellow gate. Where are the tanks and charges that you need? That's right. They're downhill to the Northeast and Northwest. This means that your team will need to run down just to get a tank. In a timed Battleground, time spent running down just to get a tank is time wasted.
It's important to capture the Eastern and Western Graveyards because doing so unlocks the Sparklight and Rigspark Workshops respectively. This means you will spawn right where you pick up Demolishers. But if you capture Southern Graveyard, you will spawn farther away from tanks and the nearest bombs are behind the yellow gate. The latest Battleground change is completely baffling and I'm not certain why Blizzard is implementing it. At best, it will encourage defenders to protect Southern Graveyard -- another scrub thing to do.
The one and only time when capturing Southern Graveyard is a strategically sound move is when the keep has been breached or needs only one blast from a Massive Seaforium Charge. At that point, Eastern and Western Graveyards should already have been captured and are largely irrelevant to the final rush. Blizzard should at least place seaforium charges at the Southern Graveyard rezz point to raise its strategic value. Otherwise, it is a trap for the offense and capturing it is guaranteed to slow down your team. That is the flaw of the Strand of the Ancients map, and the Patch 3.1 change is only going to aggravate it.
Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, PvP, Battlegrounds
Reader Comments (Page 6 of 6)
Fenom Mar 28th 2009 6:28PM
you people who only talk about his choice of words and not his actual point are probably the very same scrubs that take south gy, the very same scrubs who are tunnel-visioned and never pay the most attention to the most important things, the very same scrubs who never play the flag in wsg, etc etc
Jawajoey Mar 28th 2009 7:19PM
I did not know this about Strand of the Ancients. I started playing WoW again a few weeks ago, so Strand is very new to me. From the handful of Strand Battles I've played, I surmised that it's by leaps and bounds the worst and least fun Battleground in the game.
Knowing this "Don't cap the southern GY thing" won't make it any less terrible, but it does reinforce the idea that this BG sucks. That really is a terrible and inexcusable design flaw. The BG is the hardest to figure out, next to AV, and throwing in a counter-intuitive thing like this, that you have to just deduce from experience, is very silly.
Another thing that bothers me is that I haven't heard this until now. Never once has someone helpfully said "Don't cap Southern GY!" What I HAVE heard, in every single Strannd battle I've been in, is "ZOMG You noobs, don't you know how to play Strand? you guys suck."
nagglecow Mar 28th 2009 9:12PM
wow, I'm glad I quit wow yesterday.
nerdrage
knightgil Mar 28th 2009 9:20PM
every time an elitist jerk like Zach calls people who don't follow the cookie-cutter tactics a scrub, I do the opposite of what they are saying just to annoy them.
Bikhai Mar 29th 2009 3:12AM
The kind of attitude expressed by both the author and by several people commenting on the article is exactly the reason I don't do battlegrounds anymore.
Regardless of what the dictionary definition of the word scrub is, the context in which it's used in WoW and in the article above is negative, and therefore the word itself is negative. As an author posting on a widely viewed site, you're expected to convey at least a little professionalism, even when making a post on the deficiencies of battlegrounds and their players. Calling players scrubs 3 times over the course of a 3 paragraph article and telling them they don't know how to play not only puts yourself on a pedestal, but it also breeds the kind of animosity that so many different people (myself included) are showing you and really turns off the ears of anyone who might actually be looking for help with the bg.
I've done one SotA. I was called a noob twice through the course of the battle, once while I piloted a tank on my way to blowing the door to the keep up and winning the round for us. Take-home message: your brand of qq takes away the fun of learning a bg for the first time. That you expect everyone who plays the game to come in as a pro the first time is unreasonable and saps the enjoyability out of the game. Yes, there's a learning curve, and no, not everyone in the game reads an in-depth strategical breakdown before they queue for a bg. Get over yourself and let us play the game the way we want.
Afterall, sabotaging a team's chance to win by camping GY's for HKs is one thing. Merely being inexperienced and still learning the ropes is entirely different. You want people to stop being "scrubs?" Ditch the attitude an make an honest attempt to educate the masses via your articles. Want people to disregard whatever good advice you have because you can't take the time to step off your pedestal and explain professionally? May I refer you to http://www.wowinsider.com/2009/03/28/the-southern-graveyard-is-a-trap/ for a good example of what to do. Could have been a great article. But it isn't.
gtech Mar 29th 2009 10:00PM
I approve this message,
along with all other scrub bashing.
Antistes Mar 29th 2009 1:20PM
May I suggest one (although highly situational and likely small) advantage to the new GY link?
If your only manage to break through on one side (the side which I am on, setting an example to use tanks against the gates instead of pc's), or if the GY's for some reason are being heavily defended, go for S GY!
But seriously, Zach should've written an article like this:
" SotA basic TL;DR Tacs:
OFFENSIVE:
1. Get bomb
2a. Get tanks-----shoot----> Gate
2b. Run ------ place bomb ---> Gate
3. Repeat 1+2 Until Yellow = down
then
4.Repeat 1+2
if no tank:
5. Defend tanks (cc = good)
6. 1+2b
When yellow = down
7. Destroy yellow cannons
8. Repeat 1-3
DEFENSIVE:
1. Man 2 cannons @ gates in non-breached northernmost tier
2. Destroy tanks
3. Defend E/W GY until 2nd tier falls
4. Repeat 2 until yellow falls
then
5. Zerg @ yellow
NB:
NEVER EVER DEFEND/ATTACK S GY
Anthology Mar 29th 2009 11:56PM
Anyone who seriously uses the word scrub is a fucking douchebag.
"BAWWWWWWWWW, YOU DON'T KNOW EVERYTHING SO YOU APPARENTLY SUCK. I'M SO MUCH BETTER THAN YOU, I'M A HARDCORE, PRO GAMER."
Redguy Mar 30th 2009 4:10AM
Everybody who is offended by the word "scrub" and posted here must have captured SGY at one point
jboy Mar 30th 2009 12:06PM
I used to BG a lot. A ton. And I knew how to play. And I would try to help out people and point out things.
But I stopped because there are too many elitist jag offs that call everyone scrubs when they quite possibly are in their first BG ever. Frankly, I was a good player, and they lost me. And they lose a lot more players who would suck the first few times they do it, but get better, simply because they think in terms of others being scrubs for making mistakes or not knowing any better.
Take all these guys, stick them in one BG, and don't let anyone new join or play with them. Then they might be happy. But probably not.
dorcas Mar 31st 2009 9:10AM
Here's the thing. Everyone who is bitching at the people who are angry over the 'scrub' usage are missing the point. Every single 'oh QQ, you must be scrubs too lulz' just brings us further away from the point. Cause when you get right down to it, words make people crazy.
So, if you're a semi-professional, you avoid words that might distract from your point IF you want people to listen to your point. Don't tell me 'it's just a word'. Even if it's one YOU don't personally find offensive, if it's generally agreed that someone could get pissed about, why not just leave it out? IF you want to get your valid point across.
If you just want to start a shitstorm of pages of comments mad about the word and NOT talk about your point, then by all means, be my guest.
myass342000 Jun 2nd 2009 9:35AM
Call me a scrub, but the southern gy is somewhat useful. Isn't it annoying when the enemy resses in the middle of the road that your tanks are supposed to take to get to the yellow door?? And the 'scrubs' in the bg on YOUR side don't properly defend the tanks? OR don't properly drive the tanks and start ramming the defenders on the road while being hit by about 10 turtling defenders AND the turrets (assuming that the attackers aren't smart enough to take them out) Capping the south gy allows most of the attacking team to push the defenders back into the courtyard and keep them there (while advancing the courtyard kills achievement) while the players who semi-know what they're doing bring the tanks up and get to the door.
Or put seaforium charges back at the southern gy so the attackers can push the defenders back to the door and get a head start on bashing down the door. Sure, you lose a bit of time, but it's worth the effort.
And, since the...umm i think its red and purple door turrets can reach the east and west gy flags and i can't remember if the yellow turrets can or not, that helps.
Yes, I do realise that my argument does not raise any 'proper' points and this bumps me down to 'noob'.
I may have lost the plot somewhere in that first paragraph. Sorry.
myass342000 Jun 2nd 2009 9:54AM
Crap! Now we're talking about use of the word scrub and whether you're expected to be pro at pvp (or pve) in the first few seconds.
I'm a wintergrasp nut. I have the 100 wintergrasp wins achievement. I try whenever I can to help out new players to learn the system. But i despise hardcore ulduar25 raiders that think they can walk in, assume they know EVERY SINGLE TINY DETAIL of wintergrasp on their FIRST FUCKING TIME and tell ME how to play wintergrasp. Go back to raiding, jerks.
Or, how bout when it's a level 77 or lower that tells me how to play? With the exception of one person, you can barely hit the f*cking tanks, douche! Those low levels are probably alts, but come on!
Oh, and to Bikhai: So, you're saying that your 'scrub' actions won the match?
I agree with you. Totally.
oh and my last post was meant to go to http://www.wowinsider.com/2009/03/28/the-southern-graveyard-is-a-trap/