Usually you have much less attacking, some are dead, some are picking noses in a corner, and because you leave defense at the two you have, a rush team would be max 10, but usually less.
Also, you only need one defender most at farm/stables and that leaves up to 7/8 at the front two bases, of which one is usually BS so you have quick response to farm or stables, depending on what faction you are.
Of course, if you have a strong Zerg force of about 10 players, you can leave the other 5 to sit on the flags and you cap the enemy team out and bottle them in the spawn.
Rushing Mill has been an Alliance staple since AB was released. Its convincing enough alliance to leave Goldmine alone and go BS thatâs the hard part.
Kinda hard to move a defense force from GM to LM, or LM to GM, when theyâre on extreme opposite sides of the map. This concept is lost on Alliance to this very day.
It also doesnât help that Horde have the easiest 3 node defense setup: BS, Farm, LM. If a massive amount of players respawn at Farm, they can defend BS faster than an alliance team that respawns at Stables can move to BS (if they hold BS).
Gold Mine is meh, hard to defend because nobody can see what is going on there. Definitely worth a cap/back cap but be prepared to have a lot of trouble there in spurts.
defenders should stand 20 yards off a flag cap to prevent the rogue from having time to sprint + sap into capping the base before sap breaks.
The caveat to #1 is that I donât remember who can trinket out of blind in vanilla, since pvp trinkets werenât universal cc breaks back then. You may need to reserve pet classes or blind-trinket-capable classes on defense.
Once in a winnable situation (up on bases, and/or ahead enough on points to secure the win with the bases you currently have) the smart play is usually 1-2 defense per flag, and the rest floating at intermediary points between the bases, waiting for an incoming call.
In a full premade setting, you should be AT MINIMUM 4 capping, if not 5 capping and spawn-GY camping them unless against another organized group⌠Donât waste your time with morons who are only 3 capping, you can literally do better pugging.
When defending mines as a warlock. Park your succubus near the flag in invisibility. Then you go sit on top of the house near the gy. From on top of the house you have a perfect vantage point to see the map and make call outs (rather than being completely blind down in the pit), while your succubus can cover the flag for you and is only detectable to other warlocks or people buffed by warlocks. As a bonus people will constantly assume they can cap on you via your distance from the flag and reveal themselves via trying to ninja, rather than attack you outrightâŚand if they do attack you first and actually manage a kill, you are so close to the gy that you can body rez before they can even run from your corpse to the flag. Itâs exceedingly difficult in such a case to get the flag capped before backup can arrive.
In premade vs premade where both teams are actually good, the game can literally be decided by who ever caps the first 3 bases, because the team with the advantage literally doesnât even have to win a team fight as much as just stall the primary team fight out indefinitely with a closer gy to the flag. People paying attention to the flag can render it impossible to cap, even if a team does waste all 15 bodies on it.
Also, if your team possessed the basic ability to count, and they sent 15 at blacksmith, for example, you could immediately swap to a 11 man blacksmith âspin to winâ strategy while leaving one each to defend the two you already have and the remaining two headed to cap the now undefended bases.
Pulling defenders to go all out offense is kind of like pulling a goalie on hockey, itâs a desperation move that will often backfire
When pugging BGs, this attitude had to come to all of us eventually.
I remember one AV when someone was screaming for everyone to âtake the high road.â Like they were alone in their knowledge of winning tactics. You saw this every game.
Down among the bottlenecked swarm, I for some reason felt inclined to educate this person this one time.
âMost of us have been doing this long enough we can tell in the first minute if itâs going to be a quick game or not, and our time is better spent farming honor on the road before bailing.â
Are you talking PUG or Premade?
If youâre PUG, good luck. Youâre just playing the Darwin lottery.
In Premade, you leave 1 at farm/stables.
Rush other 3 groups to each LM, BS, Mine, kill, cap, push other teamâs stable/farm, and drive them back into graveyard letting no one escape.
If you gotta a rogue, send him straight to other teamâs farm/stables for stealth cap if possible. Rogues are crap in the fray anyway.
6 minute wins if your team knows whats up.
Group makeup is important, definitely want a healer/WF/ARMs war in each group if youâre serious about grinding honor. Sprinkle in mages/locks/last resort dps as needed.
Iâd just add this is one of the rare places a good feral/feral geared druid is good. Just leave them guarding a flag. They can run away, bear form, moonfire people capping, etc. They are great for sole guarding a flag in a pre-made.