After getting honor cap on the new BG (yes, you can tell me to touch grass), I have to say I think it’s my favorite BG (though I didn’t experience any BGs made after cata). On the surface it’s easy to judge it as just a reskin of EotS, but I think of it more like the best of both worlds of AB and WSG. AB was my favorite BG to play normally in Classic, but it would get a bit stale with the “hold 3 and deathball rotate” strategy. WSG suffers from having everything be about the flag, and your dedicated flag carrier being the most important member of the team. Spinning base captures is very important in DSI, but it isn’t everything, because spawns are much further from capture flags relative to AB, and you can feasibly get a base assault after a spawnwave occurs, and you’d still get value from it. Furthermore, deathballing doesn’t work as well in DSI, because small skirmishes to contest bases can have massive impact, from denying points and GYs or forcing enemies to move and thus opening up the center flag or other bases to contest while they work to recover. Running flags matters a lot, but unlike WSG it’s not usually about outrunning all enemies and it’s instead generally decided by actually fighting over it. As a Druid, I can have both WSG and AB style strategies at once, without feeling forced into any particular playstyle. I really do see it as the best of both worlds for the two main Classic BGs, so I think it’s a great addition to Forever. Even compared to EotS, it feels far less frustrating to not have to sit at a point to move the arrow and not be faced with actual instant death if you get feared or mind controlled or knockbacked into the water (though I do still think it would be nice if fears like Psychic Scream didn’t push you directly down into the water as far as possible).
The pickup spawn also feel great: rejuv by the middle helps keep healers in the fight and extend the brawl, speed is placed in a good way to be an option for FCs to evade enemies but not something to always pick up for efficiency (and can help for defensive rotations), and berserking between the two natural bases is the best spot for it. Not having pickups in the bases themselves makes defending feel less random (compared to EotS), and making good use of rejuv can be essential in the mid-map brawl.
Shipwreck Cove having a bugged flag makes it a bit hard to determine balance. It can create a big knowledge gap if players don’t know to use the interact key to cap it, but WSG walljumps are far worse to deal with in my opinion. Bugged flag aside, I do think this BG could be slightly Alliance-favored, because the speed buff is easier for Alliance to access relative to Horde’s speed buff. Ruins seems much harder to hold and spin relative to AT or SC, due to it not having much options for LoS to spin the flag, and Camp is asymmetrically stronger because both rejuv and speed spawn on Camp side (and Camp has a lot of area for defenders to run around and hold out).
I am also a bit worried about Epic mounts potentially disrupting the current balance that feels pretty good, because just as it is with AB it’s far easier to rotate to defend and attack bases with epic mounts, which can make deathballing far less risky than it currently is. But that judgement will have to wait.