I read the topic about suspensions for “non-participation in BGs and saw comments that you had to do damage or healing in at least 50% of the matches you joined. Back in the day, I would play the Arathi Basin BG (or other “node control” BGs) on my Rogue. I’d defend a node by hiding in Stealth and using Sap on any enemy trying to cap what may have appeared to be an undefended node. Then I’d call out “inc lm (or gm or bs or farm)” to alert my teammates. I could Sap a few times before the DR kicked in, but by then, support would arrive. And I’d just Stealth off to another node. Would that be considered “non-participation” under the new criteria? Or is Sapping enemies considered sufficient engagement?
1 Like
Are you saying that by the time either team reached 2000/1600 points, literally all you had done was used Sap?
Once all the enemies were there, surely you used Cheap Shot/Garrote on at least one of them?
4 Likes
Ha ha… actually, yeah. I literally would never break stealth for a lot of my matches. Sometimes I’d get knocked out by some AoE and I’d Vanish and get out of there.
And during this entire process, your thought pattern was that:
- Remaining in stealth, going to a different flag at a reduced movement speed and entirely avoiding battles
would be more productive to your team than:
- Stunning an enemy in the middle of a capture battle and then stealthing/vanishing away?
Long story short: If you want to be a battle grounds, you’re going to be in combat. End of story. There isn’t any fancy term to redress the ‘I’m defending’ point. Engaged with the other team or don’t join the pvp.
6 Likes
You correctly cited the metrics so you can answer your own question 
Yes, if you guard a point and do no damage then your metrics will show - no damage. If your team reports you for non-participation and you have more than 50% of your matches with no dmg or healing, you will be suspended.
Camping a spot “just in case” is not how most groups play it right now. You need to be going with the team strat, not doing your own thing off in a graveyard or at a flag.
Again, someone doing a quest once is fine. Camping once, disconnecting, having an emergency you could not play during. All fine. They don’t look at a single game that might be an anomaly. They look at a group of games and if over 50% have no dmg or healing that is the metric they use.
You will need to garrote, ambush, or otherwise do damage.
11 Likes
Well to be fair, the node capture BGs tend to have a lot of action at all the nodes. I don’t recall ever having a match where I didn’t deal with at least half a dozen incoming enemy attacks. So I felt I was pretty active. I knew plenty of other Rogues who did the same thing. But I get your point. I wasn’t suggesting a “do nothing” strat and using Sap just to create a minimal amount of activity. There was actually a lot of work involved to be good at the strat, and it really can be effective. I was just curious if the criteria was “damage done” or just “combative actions performed”. Anyway, if I play BGs in the future, I’ll make sure to drop a little damage in there.
Thanks for the feedback!!
1 Like
Your team would probably appreciate you at least helping to kill enemies from time to time. While I’ve had my matches where I literally never saw an enemy player to actually damage them, those are rare. Even if I’m stuck guarding Stables, an enemy player is almost always going to come along to try to take it at least once in a match.
1 Like
And just to add to this, while it may not be a player’s fault that the AB node they are guarding is being ignored, that’s when you go help your team. If a player is at Stables and no enemy is attacking, that means your team is 10v9 elsewhere (or 40v39 in AV).
1 Like
It depends. You usually can’t leave a node undefended. You might be able to get away with it if the enemy team doesn’t have any stealth but you have to really keep track of where all the enemy players are and make that judgment call and hope they don’t take advantage of seeing you leave. (Talking about normal battlegrounds here, not blitz)
It’s almost always worth it to guard a node. Even just someone’s presence at a node that stops another player from trying to take it is worth it. And like I said it is extremely rare to sit a node that doesn’t get attacked once for the entire match. This isn’t like AV where nobody ever contests Snowfall, people are always trying to take all nodes on AB like maps.
3 Likes
If you spent a whole with zero damage and healing, then no, the node did not need to be defended. Regardless of the individual strats, regardless of whether it’s AV, AB, EotS, whatever map you’re on, Blizzard’s stance is the same:
A match with zero damage and healing is putting you down the path towards a non-participation penalty.
And if that’s only ~2% of your matches, you have nothing to worry about. From the people who have been penalized for it, it was well over the majority of their matches ending with 0 damage or healing.
You can’t completely avoid it ever happening, and having it happen once in awhile is not a sign you’re playing wrong or at risk of getting actioned. Some matches are just weird and you won’t ever enter PvP combat through no fault of your own. It’s a problem when it starts happening often.
4 Likes
Correct. But 2% is still starting down that path to 50%.
Incorrect. You are absolutely 100% in control over how much you participate in a BG.
The tired argument of “I was defending” is not an acceptable excuse, so please do not put it out there that it’s fine.
“Defending” a node that isn’t being attacked, especially for an entire match, is not defending. There is ample time and opportunity to do some damage or healing, even just one time.
3 Likes
Okay look, you’ve barely done any battlegrounds at all (at least in retail). I have. That’s not an insult or anything bad, it’s just that you don’t really play them so you don’t really understand how things play out in practice.
If you volunteer to defend a node in AB and then you leave that node, your team is rightfully going to get upset with you especially if someone ninjas the node from you after you leave. Yes, due to the way some of the maps are designed you really do need to have people sitting on each node your team controls to defend it. Not talking about AV here, but AB, Gilneas, and Deepwind Gorge.
Basically it’s about team work. Just like how if you’re the volunteer flag carrier in WSG or Twin Peaks and your team will get upset with you if you go off route to try to get involved in a team fight you don’t need to be in instead of doing your job and capturing the flag. Just like how if you’re holding an orb in Temple you are doing your job standing there and not trying to leave middle to engage the enemy team. Just like how if you’re running the crystal in Deephaul Ravine you can get zero damage and healing if your team is camping the enemy team’s graveyard.
Somebody has to do these jobs, and while rare, you will occasionally get matches where doing your job means that you do no damage or healing because you never had a chance to enter PvP combat. Typically if your team is stomping the other team and graveyard camping them.
I have never heard of anyone getting suspended for non-participation because they were doing their job and working with their team in a battleground. If you’re the flag carrier your job is to capture the flag. If you’re holding an orb, your job is to sit middle and hold onto that orb as long as possible. If you’re defending a node in AB or Deepwind your job is to watch that flag like a hawk and never leave it alone unless someone else is there to take over for you. You might be uncontested while running the flag in EOTS or the crystal in Deephaul Ravine.
These are all jobs that somebody on your team has to do, and rarely you will get a match where for whatever reason the enemy team never contested what you’re doing, but you still need to do it. You can’t win WSG if you don’t run flags, and in a “perfect” match of WSG your flag carrier will never even see an enemy player.
My point is I doubt Blizzard is going to look at someone who is running flags or defending stables and having a couple games where they do no damage or healing, and it’s bad advice to tell people to stop actually playing with their team out of fear of being actioned for literally doing the actual objectives required to win a map.
Again, not talking about classic AV here. Just trying to stop the spread of misinformation. If you play with your team, if you play for the objectives, if you don’t “defend” Snowfall every match in AV, you’re probably going to be fine. If you just sit in stealth all game and maybe occasionally sap someone, yeah you’re not really helping your team out.
To put it another way:
I have had Temple maps where I grabbed an orb and sat in middle with the other 3 orb carriers on my team because the enemy team gave up. I did 0 damage or healing that game.
I have had WSG matches where as the druid I was running the flag and my team camped the enemy team’s graveyard. I did 0 damage or healing but got 3 flag captures.
I’ve had AB matches where I did 0 damage or healing because I was watching stables all game and the enemy team had stealthers. They never contested stables but I still needed to be there in case they did.
I’ve had AV matches where the Horde rushed our boss with 4 towers up, so the match ended before I even fought another player.
I’ve had Isle of Conquest matches where I sat in the airship cannon all game, thus doing 0 damage or healing (but did do siege damage). But somebody has to sit in the cannons.
I’ve had matches that I backfill into and they end before I even make it to a fight.
To be clear, these are rare occurrences, but will happen. PvP is unpracticable, and if you play enough games you’ll eventually have some that are just weird and don’t go as planned but you still have to do the objectives to actually win the match. You can’t win WSG if you don’t capture any flags. You can’t win AB if you never defend your nodes. I cannot believe that Blizzard would want people to avoid doing objectives out of some fear of getting actioned.
At the end of the day as long as you’re actually participating in the matches and playing with your team, you don’t have to worry about getting hit for non-participation. You have to really be trying to be AFK.
7 Likes