Proud Aardvark's World of Warcraft Guides

How to Lead & Win in Arathi Basin

If you aren't honored with Arathi Basin yet this is probably not the guide for you. I assume that you will have at least a basic understanding of how the battleground works. This guide will be most useful if you are aiming to improve your team?s game against opposing guild or hand-picked teams. I am writing this from the perspective of a dedicated but not completely hardcore gamer (My hunter is decked out in blue PvP gear but no purples yet - I have to balance that whole real life thing). Also, this guide may at times be a little Horde-centric, but the principles should be the same for an Alliance team. My goal is to outline some strategies and principles that will enable your team to beat a team of better-equipped opponents by using superior teamwork. Special thanks to Rapscallion who is more responsible for developing these strategies in practice than I am.

Basic Principles

Always leave defense at a captured node! You should have at least 3 players at each node; You can get by with 2 at farm.

On defense, fight near the flag! If the flag is in your view, nobody will be able to cap it without your noticing.

Defend three nodes to win. You only need three. Not four. If you have three don't try for more unless your opponents are garbage.

Basic 5-5-5 Attack

One of the most common strategies in Arathi Basin is to send each 5-,man group in your raid to hold one of the three more central objectives, namely the mills, blacksmith and mines. One person stops to capture the farm en route, but doesn't stay to defend, making this really more of a 5-5-5-0 strategy. The main point is to capture as much territory as quickly as possible. This strategy has two main advantages. Firstly, it is easy to communicate to a pick up group. Second, it offers a pre-made group the best chance to roll an opposing pick up group, especially if player-for-player your group is superior.

However, there are several big disadvantages of the 5-5-5 plan. Most importantly, it offers essentially zero chance of beating an enemy force that has superior gear or teamwork. A second huge drawback, is that the ensuing game tends to be chaotic, with a large number of resource nodes changing hands at a furious pace. Again, this environment will favor a group of players with superior gear over a disorganized PUG. On Malygos, our "Hard Core" guild teams for example tend to go for the 5-5-5 for these reasons. However, this strategy has been remarkably unsuccessful when facing a well equipped & well organized enemy force.

Easy to communicate

Can win faster against a bad team

Violates some basic principles, and is inferior to more advanced strategies

Advanced Principles

Communication: Give enemy numbers, locations and intentions. For example: "3 Inc BS from north" or "1 hunter scouting at ping" and not "Inc Farm", which is too vague to be helpful.

Anticipation: Use "M" to check the deployment of your team, and be prepared to fortify your weak points before they are attacked. i.e. if your team has defended the mill, but there is only one person defending the BS, proactively move towards the BS before it needs help.

Flexibility: Use "M" to check the map and distribution of your team. Make sure that each node has adequate defense. If you are not immediately needed somewhere, assume a position between your nodes such that you can respond quickly no matter where the enemy decides to attack.

Minimal Force on Defense: If there are 5 people attacking the mill, and you already have 5 defenders, you don't need to send more people unless the enemy players are better than your team person for person. When you send too many people, you are creating a weakness that your enemy can exploit.

Maximum Force on Offense: Secure a 2 to 1 advantage in numbers if you are attacking a defended node.

Reconnaissance: Have hunters and druids use track humanoids to give early warning on attacks, and enemy defense.

7-7-1 Opening

Group 1 attacks the Mill. Group 2 attacks the BS. Group 3 sends 2 people to Mill and 2 to BS, while 1 defends farm.

Since we only need 3 resource nodes to win, we want our opening to maximize the chance of grabbing those three nodes. Assume you are fighting an enemy team of equal or even better players. If they use the 5-5-5, you will wind up winning two 7 vs. 5 battles at mill and BS, and thus will emerge from the opening with three nodes to your opponents 2.

Best chance of capturing 3 nodes against a good team

Will beat a 5-5-5 opening almost every time

5-5-2 + 3 Defensive Positions

We now hold three resource nodes, and will win the game if we can just hang on to them. Leave a full group each at the BS and mill. Have 2 people from group 3 defend at the farm flag. Have the other three people in group 3 "reset" to a point between your captured nodes. i.e. three people from group three would wait near the south ramp to the mill and the south bridge to the BS island.

Group three's 3 "floaters" can play away from the farm, because the farm is harder to hold onto than other nodes from the enemy perspective. Also, you will have more warning of an impending attack on the farm, as it is relatively farther away from potential avenues of attack.

Don't get stuck on who specifically from which group should be where. The battle will be chaotic and people will die and get out of position. The important thing is that everyone should keep using "M" to check the team deployment, and balance out the defense according to these principles.

Defending a Spread Out Position

Consider a case where our team controls the Mill, Farm and Mine. This position is weaker than a three-node setup that includes the BS, because it is more spread out. i.e. it will take defenders longer to reposition than it will take attackers. Optimal defense here will involve 2 "floating" groups of 2 from the third raid group. Group 1 defends mill, Group 2 defends Mine. 1 Person from group three defends at farm flag, while 2 groups of 2 play between the farm and mill and between the farm and mine respectively. The floating groups will allow our team to respond quickly to enemy attacks.

Thanks for reading my guide, feel free to send me an email with any ideas you might have.