Filed under: The Art of War(craft) (PvP)

Zach wanted to time this article with the NBA Finals, but alas, shoddy internet had other plans.

Well, so much for PvP guilds, huh? That's good news for everyone, I think. That means I no longer have to put up a separate battleground-specific guild and break away from my more pacifistic friends who prefer dungeons and raids. Scrapping guild talent trees and currency just might turn out for the better and it's good that Blizzard decided to drop the bomb sooner rather than later. Perhaps if they'd told us that about the dance studio back before Wrath was released, we wouldn't still be whining about it. At least this way, we can set our expectations accordingly. Blizzard didn't reveal much about the Path of the Titans, so it doesn't feel like such a big loss. It was a cool, curious concept, but now we can keep our focus back on the basics.

Today, we'll discuss how to form our battleground dream team. Unlike battleground PUGs where we're beggars taking scraps -- figuratively, of course -- we can actually choose whom to bring in our battleground premades. For a guild to earn achievements or XP, roughly 75% of the team has to belong to the same guild. It's still unclear as to whether rated battlegrounds will function identically to arenas, where teams have set rosters at any given time ... although in that scenario, guild recruitment seems like an easier way to assemble teams.

Zach brings you the weekly column The Art of War(craft) where he talks about good, old-fashioned PvP. He's also a huge NBA fan, so he's taking this opportunity to remind you that Game 4 of the NBA Finals is on right about now. Which means you should probably read all this during halftime. Or not, since the StarCraft 2 commercial should be debuting during the game.

Last week's column generated quite a bit of a stir when I recommended taking a break ... even during an ongoing match. A lot of you took exception to the suggestion, noting -- with much merit -- that being away from the game has a detrimental effect on the ongoing match. I agree, although as unreasonable as this may sound, I still think it's no big deal. Make no mistake, I'm strongly against AFK play or soaking up honor while deliberately not doing anything. That's just abusing the system. Most of you downranked my responses to blackness, which is actually an encouraging sign for me because it means there's a lot to look forward to when Cataclysm unleashes rated battlegrounds.

I'll say right off that I don't take current battleground play too seriously because the environment simply isn't conducive to true competitive play. I would have said neither should you, but clearly many of you feel otherwise. This is a good thing. I still think arenas are currently the better environment for intense PvP competition, but it was promising to read your opinions because it revealed that many of you actually do get invested in the game and that you keep your focus clearly on the match -- even with a PUG! That's perfect, because rated battlegrounds will be the environment to do just that.

Zach has always been a Kobe Bryant fan, ever since his rookie year and even through those air balls he took in game 5 of the first round of the playoffs against the Utah Jazz in 1997. In fact, it was those three air balls that convinced Zach that Kobe was his favorite basketball player ever. Because taking those shots took guts. And taking those shots eventually resulted in Kobe's hitting game-winner after game-winner many years later. Zach also writes about the battlegrounds, and this is his cue to tell you that if you keep trying and you have guts, you just might become the Kobe Bryant of WoW PvP. All right, probably not -- but it's an inspiring thought, anyway.

More than a few comments on last week's column made me pause for thought, in particular some responses to my assertion that battleground play is an excellent stress reliever. I have to admit I've had more than my fair share of hair-tearing moments in the battlegrounds ... I might have made it easier on myself and my blood pressure had I pursued achievements using premades. But I'm a pugger at heart. That's likely to change when rated battlegrounds debut in Cataclysm, but for the vast majority of my PvP life, I've lived and died through PUGs. The glaring exception would be the old school honor grind, when going it alone was tantamount to tanking your weekly ranking.

I think PUGs are awesome. Yes, they can totally drive you nuts and sometimes be a colossal waste of time, but I've come to appreciate the wonder in a group of strangers coming together and performing well. There's a certain satisfaction to be gained from that -- I'm sure many of you have found PUGs that just clicked, where everything just worked out and everyone else on the team possessed more than half a brain and a decent grasp of the game. Those instances feel good, don't they? They happen only on occasion, but when they do, I personally think they make up for the times when I feel I've been grouped with, um, complete morons. For today's column, I've prepared a handy guide for you folks that should help you survive the wonderful world of battleground PUGs. After all, between now and Cataclysm, you just might need it.

Welcome to this week's installment of The Art of War(craft), a confusingly named column that actually discusses PvP and not, you know, art or crafts. It's a play on Sun Tzu's military treatise and predates the Paladin talent The Art of War. Yeah, the column's been around that long, even before arenas became the new hotness. Soon arenas'll be the old, busted joint and battlegrounds will be the new hotness. Or just hotness, because the battlegrounds are actually pretty old.

I've always believed in the replayability of the battlegrounds. It's why I've always thought they were some of the most valuable content the game has to offer. It's heartening to see how Blizzard has committed to giving more attention to battleground development in Cataclysm. Moving forward, I think it will only make the game more robust. At this point in the game, as the next expansion looms on the horizon, a feeling of impatience and even boredom pervades the playing community. The upcoming Ruby Sanctum is what I'd call pantawid gutom, a Filipino term that literally means "something that helps one get across hunger" It's not a real meal, just something to prevent us from starving. The sad thing is, no matter how awesome the Ruby Sanctum will be, it won't be appreciated as much, because everyone is looking forward to Cataclysm already. Arthas is dead. Bring on the new bad guy.

Right now, it's a bit of a waiting game. Killing time. Even our WRUP asked a couple of weeks back what people were doing in the time leading up to Cataclysm. I wasn't able to submit my answer to the bonus question thanks to my email flaming out, but my response would've been the same as it always is during the lull between expansions: I hit the battlegrounds. While the rest of the raiding world is waiting for the next big baddie, my true enemy never left -- players of the opposing faction. This is why I'm so stoked that Blizzard is ramping up the tension between the two factions in the expansion and bringing back the conflict that's supposed to be at the core of the game. We needed to be reminded that it's WARcraft, not cuddle-and-be-chummy-in-neutral-cities-craft. Battlegrounds are a great representation of the ongoing battle between the Alliance and Horde and overall gives Blizzard the most bang for their development buck.

Zach had hoped his people would be smarter this time around. He was wrong. They're dumber than ever. So, Zach ends up playing video games and escaping to a world where people aren't ignorant, misled sheep. Most of the time, anyway.

Arguably one of the biggest features of Cataclysm -- I say "arguably" because World of Warcraft's next expansion is going to have a ton of new features -- would be guild talents and progression. Not much has been revealed about this feature, but it has the potential to forever change the way guilds work. In particular, the emergence of rated battlegrounds combined with guild talents geared towards PvP play can possibly result in a schism between PvP and PvE players, forcing them to choose between a PvE-oriented guild or a PvP-centric one.

The guild progression system is such a great incentive for players to be part of a guild and allows guilds a better focus -- a guild's choice of talents should indicate the character of a guild. Although the benefits are relatively minor, they are telling of a guild's priorities, such as increased gold drops off bosses or reduced repair costs. Blizzard has only revealed a taste of PvE guild talents for now, but developers have mentioned that there will be PvP guild talents as well. This is where the potential for conflict arises. Players currently have dual specs that allow them to keep a spec for raiding and another talent spec for PvP, but will guilds have the same flexibility? There's not enough information to know for sure right now, but if there are distinct trees or talent for PvP and PvE, players will have to make some tough decisions when forming or joining a guild. In that scenario, guilds geared towards battlegrounds or even arena play will form and for the first time, players who thrive in PvP will have an environment in which to flourish.

Zach resides in a country where leaders are elected on the basis of genealogy, rather than any actual capacity to lead, and where the widow and son of a plundering despot can weasel their way back into public office because the electorate are an ignorant, forgetful lot. He takes much escapist comfort in the battlegrounds, where he can actually smite the bad guys.

The wind of change is blowing through the World of Warcraft. Whether we like it or not, PvP's focus in the expansion will shift from arenas to the battlegrounds. Blizzard has announced that they'll be shipping Cataclysm with at least one new battleground, the Battle for Gilneas City, and the promise of much more throughout the course of the expansion. MMO-Champion's datamined screenshots from the alpha -- before Blizzard ordered everything taken offline -- revealed a zone speculated to be a battleground, situated in the Twilight Highlands where the Dragonmaw clan of orcs and the Wildhammer clan of dwarves are locked in deadly combat. From all indications, this battleground will be ready by the time Cataclysm ships. That's exciting and is indicative of Blizzard's commitment to the new directive. Maybe we'll even see more than two battlegrounds on ship.

On top of that, wouldn't it be fantastic if the old-school battlegrounds such as Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin and Alterac Valley got some cosmetic changes to reflect the geographical upheaval that Deathwing wreaks upon Azeroth? It only makes sense, after all. Blizzard wouldn't need to adjust gameplay mechanics, just reshape the landscape a little bit. It would go a long way towards making the old battlegrounds feel new again and could even provide an opportunity for Blizzard to make Alterac Valley slightly more symmetrical. Charred earth, dilapidated structures -- these should serve to remind players that it's a broken world out there instead of feeling a blast from the past every time they zone in. Blizzard has gone all-out for Cataclysm and has confirmed that old instances will be getting some tweaks, so while I'm not holding my breath, it just might happen.

Okay, so The Art of War(craft) is a wee bit late this week, thanks to Zach's being crowd controlled rather handily by his three-week-old daughter. He would normally bubble, but it's on cooldown. Besides, baby poop breaks through Divine Shield. It works better than Shattering Throw, too, with better sound effects.

Two weeks ago, Blizzard unveiled their plan in Cataclysm to overhaul the badge system of acquiring gear and instead move it to a point system similar to the one used in arenas and battlegrounds. This change, which applies to both PvE and PvP gear, is significant and goes a long way into validating the PvP method of gear acquisition. Not long ago, Blizzard also adapted the system used by battlegrounds to create the dungeon finder, another example of how systems used in the PvP aspect of the game have improved PvE. It should be clear by now that PvP is an inextricably linked aspect of the World of Warcraft and has only served to improve the overall game experience. Even if you don't PvP, the game you enjoy has been influenced by all the things Blizzard has learned from their experience in designing for PvP.

Throughout the history of the game, the developers have tried hard to balance the rewards granted by the PvP and PvE aspects. In vanilla WoW, PvP and PvE item sets were completely different in both design and acquisition. In Burning Crusade, Blizzard stumbled somewhat by making PvP item sets that were mere recolors of PvE gear and were arguably a step behind in terms of acquisition -- the newest arena sets were knockoffs of older raid sets. Wrath of the Lich King provided what has been the best approach thus far by making gear acquisition in both PvP and PvE as parallel as possible. The return to an iterative design philosophy for PvP gear was laudable, as was the expanded method of acquiring gear. Ultimately, though, it might have been overwhelming to have the same gear accessible through too many avenues -- honor, arena points, honor and arena points, badges, boss drops -- which is why the proposed streamlining through a point system makes perfect sense.

Each week, Zach talks about his favorite thing to do in World of Warcraft -- PvP. That kind of makes him sort of one-dimensional. Like those folks from Flatland. Except, those guys were actually two dimensional. Come to think of it, being one-dimensional is a pretty groovy concept.

Finally, we arrive at the conclusion of our guides to fighting everything. Warriors. The most "basic" class that, at least in Cataclysm, will be available to all races (the selection was unavailable to blood elves for some unknown reason). Fighters are a fantasy staple. Big, burly guy with a sword or an axe. Maybe a shield. Everyone else is optional, really. Some generic magic user, sure. Throw in a dude with a bow and arrow for good measure. But a fantasy setting without a warrior? That's just wrong.

In PvP, warriors seem like a staple, too. They're central (or at least a warrior-like ability called Mortal Strike is) to a good number of arena team compositions. You could say Mortal Strike defined the PvP environment such that Blizzard had to dispense Mortal Strike-like abilities to other classes just so they'd be considered viable alternatives to a warrior. The good news is that Mortal Strike is actually a talent, so not every warrior will be walking around smiting every foe with it. The bad news is that even the fury tree has something like it. Not only that, when you're facing a warrior, you have quite a number of things to worry about aside from Mortal Strike or similar effects. After the break, let's take a look at warriors and the most common abilities you should expect on the battlefield.

Zach brings warmth to your day with a regular weekly dose of good, old-fashioned PvP. Like a comforting hot cup of cocoa with little pink marshmallows in the shape of stars. And battle axes. And skulls.

We'll take this opportunity in the lull between Cataclysm news to continue our introductory guide to killing this and that. Sure, it'll be radically different from now and the next expansion, but it should ultimately be useful to help a lot of beginners getting their feet wet (or bloodied) in the Battlegrounds until then. And believe me, the Battlegrounds is where it's going to be at. So take this opportunity to immerse yourself in the Battleground experience before Cataclysm shakes things up.

We left our guides hanging with an introduction to warlocks and the usual abilities they employ on the battlefield. Today we'll wrap things up with a closer look at the three specs. The fun thing about Wrath is that Blizzard made an earnest effort to make each warlock spec feel and play differently from each other, going so far as to tailor certain pets to work better with a specific spec. It was in Wrath where felpuppies became affliction warlocks' best friends, and destruction warlocks were encouraged to hang out with imps. Demonology, as always, had their burly bodyguards. After the jump ... how to spot them and, hopefully, squish them.

Zach has secret plans of weaning his two daughters on a steady diet of PvP videos, tutorials and tournament live streams so that one day, they'll make their daddy proud when they become fearsome High Warlords under the new Cataclysm PvP system. Of course, one is only two years and the other is barely even a week old so that secret plan ... might take a while.

After five years, Blizzard is overhauling the World of Warcraft almost completely, with the physical changes to Azeroth -- from the rending of the Barrens to the submersion of Thousand Needles -- merely being one part of a major shake-up to the game. Everything is being revisited, including class mechanics, which means class dynamics are going to change a whole lot. That means PvP, the game's version of rock-paper-scissors, is going to be very different.

Some classes will play differently, such as hunters and warlocks, who get new resource mechanics in focus and soul shards. Others will get tweaks to their resources, such as death knights, whose rune system is receiving a few changes. Character stats will be streamlined, there will be new itemization, and even entirely new game mechanics such as mastery and the Path of the Titans. The recent spate of class previews have given us a insight to the various masteries, but there's still much to learn about the various Paths. This early into the development of Cataclysm, we should expect that many of the announced plans are bound to change. That said, all of the information we have so far gives us a pretty good idea of where Blizzard is headed with the game. After the break, let's take stock of all the announcements so far and see how it affects PvP.

The world as we know it is going to change. We're taking a break from our soon-to-be-obsolete (but still ultimately useful until Cataclysm comes out, at any rate) introductory guides to focus on something that will shake the foundations of World of Warcraft PvP. A few days back, Zarhym took to the forums to explain how Blizzard was going to change dispel mechanics in Cataclysm, and boy, were they big changes. So big that we have to simply set aside whatever it is we're doing and try to wrap our heads around how it's going to affect PvP. Here's some of what Zarhym said:

Zarhym

• Druids will be able to dispel defensive magic, curses, and poison.
• Paladins will be able to dispel defensive magic, diseases, and poison.
• Priests will be able to dispel defensive magic, offensive magic, and disease.
• Shaman will be able to dispel defensive magic, offensive magic, and curses.

source

While he goes into detail a lot more in that post and through several other posts on the forums, that small nugget of the planned changes in Cataclysm should already give us an idea of where they're headed. PvP is going to change. All healing specs -- not classes -- will gain defensive dispels against magic, the most common debuff type in the game. Most team compositions will have at least one member capable of removing magical debuffs and capable of dealing with almost all forms of crowd control. That's huge.

Warlocks are a pesky bunch.

Warlocks. Well, this should be interesting. Perhaps no class has suffered such an ignominious fall from grace in PvP reputation as that of the warlock. Once a fearsome -- quite literally, in this case -- force to be reckoned with, the class has suffered a few bumps in the road that has led it to become less of a threat on the battlefield. Mostly, this has something to do with the ridiculous burst of the low resilience Season 5, which resulted in warlocks getting blown up in the opening ten seconds of a match, the rise of death knights, who are kind of like warlocks in plate armor, and the homogenization of caster gear, which meant far less Stamina for warlocks than they were used to prior to Wrath.

As resilience built up in Wrath of the Lich King and burst decidedly went down, warlocks have once again taken a return trip to power. Well, at least respectability. While with the balancing of crowd control, players no longer cry about how OP warlocks are, they still have a powerful arsenal at their disposal. They've also never been more fun to fight. With the distinctiveness introduced in Wrath, warlocks are now (a little) more than just getting your butt feared into oblivion. After the jump, we'll take a look at the common tools you should expect from every warlock and how to counter them.

Zach first ground out the Battlegrounds on a PvP server on a shaman, refusing to spec restoration during a time when shamans were only brought to raids because of Mana Tide. Man, those days sucked.

This guide shouldn't take us very long unlike the past two weeks' unexpectedly lengthy detour into all manner of backstabbery and ambushness because, as we all very well know, shamans don't PvP. Alright fine, that's not true. But we just don't see them around much. Historically, shamans have always been underrepresented in Arenas and Battlegrounds although not necessarily because the class has serious failings but also because fewer players play shamans than any other class in the game if census numbers are to be believed. Rogue and warlock numbers dropped over the years, too, but shamans have always been in last place for most of the game's existence.

Shamans are great, but have never really been established as a threat in PvP and very few players really quake at the sight of a shaman entering the battlefield. Undeserved reputations aside (or lack thereof), shamans are a very versatile class and any player underestimating them could easily be on the receiving end of a fatal shock spell. After the jump, let's quickly go through the shaman's commonly used abilities in PvP before moving to the different specs and what to expect.

Zach thinks rogues are dastardly, sneaky and will backstab you at the first opportunity. Take this guide, for example. Rogues just ambushed Zach with a ton of useless information. I mean, they're just stabby little things, aren't they?

This final part of our exceptionally long introductory guide -- who would've thought rogues could be such a long subject? -- we'll talk a little more about rogue playing styles, the different specs, and ways on how classes can counter them. I mentioned in the very first part of this guide that taking away a rogue's opener is important. If you have means to detect rogues in Stealth, make sure to use it and have instant cast abilities ready to quickly break them out of it as soon as you do.

An obvious fact that bears mentioning is that rogues are a melee class. They can't do you any real harm when you're outside of melee range, so the obvious strategy would be to kite them. Rogues have some abilities that allow them to break out of roots and snares, but these are all on relatively long cooldowns, so don't be afraid to reapply them. Even as a melee class, you'd want to keep applying a movement-impairing effect such as Hamstring or even Judgement of Justice. Impaired movement takes any PvP player out of their groove, and it disturbs rogues who must always have the ability to chase or flee.

Zach broke up this week's The Art of War(craft) covering rogues because, well, those rogues are darned sneaky! So sneaky that they surprised him with more secret information than he was expecting to write about. So read quickly. Because those rogues have sent all their best operatives to go all Ninja Assassin on Zach's sorry butt. Read and make it worth the sacrifice.

Rogues. The one class that everybody can truly agree to hate. Or maybe that was the paladin... I forget. Anyway, today we pick up where we left off in this introductory guide on how to deal with those sneaky little scoundrels. In the first part of the guide, we took a look at the most commonly used abilities of rogues in PvP. Today, we'll talk a little about how the class works and why this defines their limitations and playing style. A deeper understanding of how the class works should give you a better idea of how to handle them.

Combo points

Rogues have a unique class mechanic called combo points, with two sets of abilities that either grant them or consume them and scale according to how many combo points are on a target. The more combo points on a target, the most devastating the effect of their finishing ability. This means that rogues are basically single-target killing machines. Once a rogue chooses a target, they have tunnel vision on that target until that target is dead or are forced to change.

What does this mean for PvP? This essentially means rogues can't switch targets as easily as other classes. It penalizes them. They won't lose the combo points when they select another target, but combo points are lost when they apply even a single point on someone else. A rogue focusing on one of your allies is a great target for you because you're sure to get a lot of free damage in with little fear that she will switch quickly. Rogues are trained through their leveling to keep at one target until it's dead before moving on to the next one, with very few AoE options, Fan of Knives notwithstanding. After the jump, I'll break down a list of builders, or strikes that grant combo points, and finishers, or abilities that consume them.