Battleground AdviceFollow

It's become apparent to me that several rogues frankly just don't know how to pvp in a group. As I:

A.) Want to see alliance rogues actually being contributing members to the team and not just "lol kb steal" people and

B.) Want to see some challenging horde rogues surface,

I've listed down a few "tips" that most rogues either haven't learned or don't practice.

Rig your battleground score key to shock you every time you look at it

I'm guilty of this myself some times, but anyone who plays in a battleground will tell you: your killing blows, deaths, damage done, hk's etc have no impact whatsoever on your overall contribution to your team. Sure it looks nice having your name up at the top with a nice shiny "I dominate you" placement, but if you're on the losing team what's it really matter? Furthermore, there is no "track record" in WoW, no one cares if you finish first or not as they will probably forget by the next game and there's no way to look it up anyway. So, stop sitting in the back stealthed waiting to shadowstep some poor low hp mage: fight.

You're not a lone wolf

This is partially Blizzard's fault. Ever since level 1, rogues are made to function alone (Stealth mainly). It's a great weapon to have, and definitely useful in every venue. It's one of the reasons why a rogue can beat any class one on one, and why we're so hated by most. However, in a battleground you're hardly ever going to get a one on one situation. Thus, you need to get out of the "lone wolf" mindset: travel mounted with your team mates to points (making sure to dismount and stealth before you're attacked) or stealth up ahead of them to alert them of the area. But don't try to "lone wolf" it. That only insures that you'll be spending about 95% of your time in the BG in stealth and thus not serving your team any real purpose.

You're not a warrior

Rogues have the lowest damage mitigation in the game. No shields, no added health gimicks. You hit us and we're dead. So, don't expect to be able to rush into the middle of 4-5 guys and expect to come out unharmed. Don't enter encounters outside of stealth if you can help it and don't expect to be the guy all the healers are trying to keep up. Rogues are permanent denizens of the shadows, meaning that if you're playing your class right you shouldn't expect to be in the spotlight. If you want that, by all means roll a warrior.

Healers are your friends

Although most of them generally won't bother to heal you, you shouldn't be insulted by it. This is mainly because a lot of rogues have strayed from our original duty and our healers aren't happy for it. That is of course, protect your healers. More on this later.

Enough with the random tips, lets get some actual tactics

So you're doing what you should do and sticking with your team. You come across an encounter. Now, what do you do?

1.) Analyze your Opponents
What classes are there, how many are there, what's their play style. The first two you can tell right off the bat, the last one you can only tell as the BG progresses. For instance, even though a person may be a paladin they may decide to be ret and not heal their group. Even though he's a paladin, he's not really a healer and thus not as important to his team, meaning that you should pass over him. Once you've done that...

2.) Set priorities
Always take out or protect healers first. Your order of attack should be rogues on your healers, healers, potential healers, casters/ranged then warriors. As for whether you should be defensive or offensive, it depends largely on your playing style and the group numbers you're facing. So, Are you aggressive, or defensive?

Aggressive- You need to target whoever is known to do the most healing first. A good healer can effectively increase the "relative" number of people in his group by keeping them up longer. So, since you have the ability to pick your targets and since you possess the best single target DPS in the game, you need to take them out first. Doing this serves your team more than anything else you could possibly do for them (as if the healer goes down, the relative number of fighters drops as well). You don't even have to kill the healer, just keep them busy (kick heals, stun them, etc etc). If another rogue is already on a healer, cover that rogue! Look for other rogues trying to take him out, or mages/warlocks/warriors diverting their attention to him. Support, support, support.

Defensive- Stay in the backlines and protect your own healers from other rogues coming across. Don't worry about not getting to participate in the action: whenever the bad guys see your healer friend giving a warrior a second life, they'll quickly turn their attention to him. Treat your healers as if they're your family: anyone who messes with them messes with you. They'll thank you for it (usually by tossing you a heal) and your team will thank you for it.

3.) Don't Run until you're the last man standing
If you've got a comrade there with you, stay with him till he dies. You never know how much damage two of you can do, but if you leave him to die you'll not only accomplish nothing, but also **** off your team mates as well. Whenever he hits the ground and the situation is hopeless, get out of there. It's what you're good at, so use it.

I look forward to seeing you guys on the battleground soon (or maybe at some other random neutral town, enjoying the stress free environment of senseless ganking).


Edited, Apr 1st 2007 6:57pm by Shaolinz