Any effect i mention you can 'Eat' is referring to Devour Magic.

==GENERAL RULES OF THUMB==


Be A Friend To Healers

We'll just start off with this: all healers are your friends.
I do not care if he is from a different server and has a silly name, he is your friend. Bad people are going to try to hurt your friend.

Save him and he will reward you by making you immortal.
Do not ever abandon your friend to the rogues.


Be A Friend To Rogues, DKs and Warriors

There is an animosity between these classes and ours and it should not exist when they are on your side.

Warriors, DKs and warlocks are all highly visible classes that serve as excellent distractions for rogues. Any combination of the four classes can completely shut down any healer or group of healers or just create a nice big ball of chaos that can pull groups off of towers or return a flag.

If you see a well-geared, well-played representative of one of these classes, you should stick by him, as he can save you from a rogue.


Be A Friend:

Any class meshes well with your class in a BG. Any class. Backup is backup. If you supply no backup, you cannot complain when you receive none.

You have Fear, Fear saves lives. Use Fear to save lives, and earn yourself backup.

There's 10-40 people on the other team, did you honestly think you could do this by yourself?

Protect the flag-carrier. Support people taking or defending critical points. Assist the Hunter who's getting beat up by a Mage and maybe next time he will save your life when he notices it is about to end.

Whether they do or not is entirely up to them, if you do it, people will probably notice. You may find yourself suddenly getting heals even if you're pugging it. Clouds of melee that despise you may suddenly find themselves getting bum-rushed

Any backup is good backup.


Do Not Stop Moving

A stationary target is an easy target. If you are not casting, you are moving. Do not stand still any longer than it takes to complete the cast.

You can stand around when you're waiting to res.


His Trinket Is Probably Up

Always expect to lose your first CC.
Always.


You Have Shadow Ward.

You don't need to take the full brunt of any shadow damage because you have a spell specifically intended to soak some of it. Okay? Don't ever forget you have this spell. Ever.

If there are priests, warlocks or unholy DKs, you should have your finger on that button whenever you can.


Resilience?

BGs are not arenas. You don't really need a full suit of resilience gear, you can easily get away with several PVE pieces for additional punch. Build for around 500-650, easily attainable with Honor and WG gear.

Take this with a grain of salt, mind you, as there is a lot to be said for being able to aggressively live at enemy melee. High stamina values are doubleplusgood.

Whatever blend of survival and damage makes you feel most comfortable is probably just about right for you.


Get a 2-min PVP Trinket FIRST

This is your first purchase with Honor points: spend 8k and get a level 70 blue pvp trink with a 2-min CD.

First. Before you even consider anything else, you get that trinket.

You don't need the super expensive one with 84 resil right away, but you do need that trinket, and you do need the one with the short CD.

It makes a massive, massive difference.


There Is No Best BG Spec

Really, there isn't. Any spec is potentially workable. Some specs have certain advantages others lack:
*Demo's Meta effectively removes physical DPS as a serious threat for 30 seconds at a time
*Affliction's instant fearbomb is devastatingly effective and the dots are brutal
*Destro's wall of burst nullifies threats before they even know they're threats and Shadowfury is a brilliant way to snag initiative

..but to be completely honest, there is no 'best spec' for BGs.

There is personal preference and nothing else.


Keep your eyes open.

Swivel your camera a lot. Keep looking over your shoulder like you are a paranoid freak. Try to be as aware of as many things as you can.

Warlock survival in BGs relies entirely on keeping control, and you will lose control if you are surprised.

*If you see a rogue go stealth, assume he is coming for you (because he probably is.)
*Locate their healers and get on them.
*Locate your own healers and protect them.
*At any given moment, a stealthed druid or rogue can and will jump on you out of nowhere.
*At any given moment, Hunter shots can and will start punching you out of nowhere.
*At any given moment, you can and will be death gripped into a pile of melee.

Look over your opposing team on the scoreboard and recognize what COULD POSSIBLY HAPPEN at any given moment, and prepare for it.
If their team is melee-heavy, stick to a group.
If there are rogues, be ready for a gank.

Keep your eyes open, keep moving and be prepared.



Open Lines of Clear Communication Win BGs

Unless you have a full preset, you obviously can't ever expect your whole team to have instant communication, so /bg is just going to have to do.

Call incs with NUMBERS. Just saying "OMFG INC FR" tells your team nothing, and can put us at a serious disadvantage if either too many or too few reinforcements show up.

As many details as possible is absolutely the best. "3 inc fr, pally priest rogue" is optimal. Your team now knows exactly what is happening at FR and will be prepared to deal with it when they arrive.

Just two people connected by Vent, or any instant voice communication software, can significantly alter the course of any game.


Recognize Your Opponents

Half your ability to seize and retain control is your ability to visually recognize what's coming after you.

Does the warrior have a shield?
Hunter has a dinosaur?
The Shaman's DW'ing?
Paladin with a 2h?.
DK surrounded by tiny little maggots?

If you are caught offguard, you are probably going to die.


Know Your Terrain
Jeddia of Icecrown says:
[Pay attention to details of the terrain. Be aware of places where an enemy can't walk directly to you (a steep hill), or where they have to go around a bit to get to you (tower areas, bridges, etc.). Fences are interesting things sometimes...

Also, understand where the enemy players will be rezzing. AB is a fine example of a BG where knowing the enemies' next rezz spot can win or lose an entire match. You tend to see your teammates going directly for a node that will be crawling with enemies in sometime under 30 seconds...and will ultimately lead to useless slaughter. This wastes valuable time that you could use to defend a node or reclaim a contested one.

In WSG, if you and your mates go rolling into the enemy FR and slaughter 8 enemies - don't grab the flag and go out past the GY... Unless you enjoy being insta-zerged out of thin air.

The terrain in WSG is so prime for warlocks. My personal favorite thing to do in WSG is to sit at the top of our ramp (above our zerk hut) and weylay would-be flagrunners. You can usually get them feared before they even realize you're there. Half the fight is finished before they even dismount. And they spend time fighting you and hopefully never get to the flag itself - while your team is (hopefully) getting theirs.



Less Talk More Fight

Enough is enough. BG chat is for calling incoming, not telling some guy from Suramar he's a scrub because he didn't heal you exactly when you wanted to be healed.

It's far too easy to trash talk your own team when there's almost no chance you'll ever see them again (1.12 damn near ruined bgs), but god, enough.

It's a video game, calm down and look at what you're typing. What are you getting so upset over? It's a video game.
It's not worth it, whatever it is, whatever he said, whatever he did, who cares?
Do you care?
Stop for a moment here, please, take a very deep breath and ask yourself "why do i care?"

When you engage in a fruitless, useless and ultimately retarded flame war over something you will not remember in one hour, you are:
*Distracting your entire team
*Obscuring vital information, like where the hell the flag is or how many people are coming to the LM
*Removing yourself, your flame war opponent, and anyone who responds on any point, from your side. When you are typing, you are doing nothing useful.

Nobody is ever impressed with tough talk on the internet.

Nobody.


Speaking of which:

First complains, least skilled. No exceptions.

The first person to say "you guys all suck" when you are losing is the worst player on your team.

No exceptions.

==FIGHT DIRTY==

These people want to kill you. You are a warlock. They all hate you.
They are going to go out of their way to harm you as deeply and as earnestly as they can, and then they are going to /spit and /lol at your corpse, because everybody hates warlocks.

They hate fear, they despise dots, your felhunter is a rage magnet and deathcoil once made the entire wow population cry floods of bitter tears for over a year.

If you have it, there is no reason not to use it.
If it will score a kill or a prevent a warrior from teabagging your corpse, do it.
Cooldowns come back up.


Fear is your single greatest weapon.

Warlock Fear is the arguably the single best pvp CC in this game. Ranged cast, long duration, zero cooldown, permits damage.
Find your fear's damage cap and ride it.
The damage cap is being lowered? It's happened before. Adapt or perish.
Don't follow a fear with a nuke, you're going to break your fear, what is wrong with you.

Keep in mind that PVP CC's are kept in check through diminishing returns - your first fear can last as long as 10 seconds, your second only 5. Third fear lasts 2.5 seconds and then you cannot fear him again for 15 seconds. Howl of Terror is a Fear, so even though it only lasts 8 seconds, your second, single-target Fear is only going to be 5 seconds, tops.
Fear and seduce share DR.
Deathcoil does not.


Improved Fear Happens When The Fear Breaks.

Nightmare happens after the trinket. Unless he can shrug slow effects, Imp Fear guarantees five seconds of a slowed target.


DEATH POD COMES FROM THE SKY

You already knew this, but your Infernal is a cheap reagent and a 20 minute CD, he does respectable damage when he comes down, and accompanies it with 2-second AoE stun.
He has a strong melee attack and a constant aoe fire aura.

He's also a fifteen-foot tall rock monster covered in bright green flames.
He is immune to fire, non-paladin fear and stuns, he has a hearty healthbar and decent armor and, again, he is fifteen feet tall.

Infernal is a chaos engine. He stomps around in your enemy's faces and almost completely obstructs their view, screwing with their manual targeting, and his fire aura drags stealth out of hiding, and as of 3.09, he is Soul Linkable.

You drop him on tons of enemies. Zergs, turtles, wherever there are a lot of red names is exactly where you should drop him and if you can swing it, the absolute best time to drop him is – and this really cannot be stressed enough – when your enemies do not know you are there.

SURPRISE! ROCKMONSTER!

Paladins can chew him up and spit him out and of course enemy Warlocks can banish him, so be ready for this. Also keep in mind that if an entire Zerg focuses on him, they're going to shred him.

But then again, he's only going to last 60 seconds anyway. If they took the time to kill him, you have successfully wasted their time.


Trees Are Asking For It

When a Druid is a tree, he is saying "please, if it's not too much trouble, could you banish me repeatedly and then fear me until the DR on banish wears off? I'd be ever so grateful."

Do it.


If You are A Tailor, You Can Make Nets.

Why don't you have a hundred of these in your bags, right now?

It is a three-second immobilization that will save your life against CloS'ed rogues, Berzerking warriors and shelled/lichborned DKs.

Nets stop flag carriers. They stop people from riding past you on horseback. They stop people from running towards you or away from you. Nobody ever expects it. Sometimes people blow their trinket to get out of it.

They last three seconds and have a 2min cd.

If you are a tailor, you can make them.


Tracer Bullets Point Both Ways
Heorlic of Bleeding Hollow says:

There is a distinction between spells that give away your location, and spells that don't.

For example, as Horde, you start off in EotS by rushing MT. You're by yourself, because it takes everyone else 30 seconds to finish capping FR, and to figure out where you're going. Meanwhile, you've looped around behind MT, and standing in a ditch, fully dotting EVERY ALLY THERE.

(I run as affliction) Cast UA, CoA, Siphon Life, Corruption, Immolate....next target. Fear if you want, and are close enough. These spells have no animation that indicate the direction from where they came. With spells like Haunt and Shadow Bolt, they will know which direction you are, and it won't take them long to find you. Spells like Drain Life are terrible if they don't know where you are.

I've run healers oom healing themselves doing this, since they didn't know where the damage was coming from. My favorite place is in the many ditches/cliffs in EotS, though there are several bushes in WSG and other BG's that work quite well.

Be careful about dotting up classes with pets (DK, Hunters, Warlocks), as if their pet is on Defensive, that will give your location away.


Teleport: if you can, put it in a tree.
Jeddia of Icecrown says:
Demonic Circle - This spell, while shunned by PvE'ers as "utterly useless" is one of the single greatest things to happen to PvP warlocks since Kate Beckinsale came over the other night - naked. Oh wait, that was a dream. Regardless, our teleport is awesome when properly utilized.

In world PvP, I put it in a tree if I can. Or up on monuments, statues, walls, etc.

In AB, the mine roof, farm house, LM anywhere slightly hidden, bs house (if only we could still get on the roof!). Also, you can do really constructive things like: Place it on the road above the mine. Then jump off, cast an insta dot on someone below and teleport back up before you're outta range of it.

In WSG, it's obviously fantastic in the forts. Top floor or 2nd floor, and you got yourself a recipe for serious enemy aggravation. They'll figure it out eventually (or you'll get shredded by a couple of pissed off hunter pets), but it's fun while it lasts.

In Eye of the Storm, I put mine behind the towers, not in them. First they'll look inside, then they'll be confused and look around more. But by that time you are nearly healed and recovering from your giggling fit and can let the violence ensue.

Elizander of Bonechewer says:
Here's a quick and cheap trick with regards to melee and elevation. If you're on a relatively low cliff (one you can jump off) just toss Demonic Circle on it when melee is after you. Jump off. Melee follows. Teleport back up. Melee dumbfounded.

Works great on the bridge in arena and works great in EotS (tower edges), SotA (run into a turret area), and many other areas. Let them enjoy a nice 5-10 second stroll while 3-5 dots are ticking on them.

If they are DK, do not gloat on the edge of the cliff. You will get Deathgripped.

ADDENDUM:
Engineering has multiple AOE grenades, several with freezing or stunning effects. Test to make sure they'll work on players at 80.
Alchemy has Free Action Potions which can save every last inch of you.

==NOTORIOUS D.P.S.==


ROGUE
If his cooldowns are up and yours are down, you will probably die.
Save your trinket for Kidney Shot, it looks like a pink fist and it's the second stun he uses.
Do not blow it on a sap or a cheap shot or you will be stunned again almost immediately and probably die.
If you have instant HoT, blow it as soon as you've trinketed and immediately Fear - to catch him if he trinkets out of the HoT. DC or shadowfury if you don't.

Get distance. If he is in melee range he's going to do something terrible to you.

CloS is four seconds. Count three and cast fear if you have distance, count four and deathcoil if you don't. CoEx helps a lot, and so do Frostweave Nets. Run away. Watch for the buff to fall of and put your dots back on. If you cannot get away, you will probably die.

He Is Going To
*Pop out of nowhere and stunlock you into oblivion. If your trinket is down, you will probably die.
*Use CloS and vanish to retake initiative. If your trinket and aoe stuns or fears are down, you probably die.
*Blind you. It will break as soon as anything hurts you, sometimes you do not have that long. If your trinket is down, you will probably die.
*Sap you. GET OFF YOUR HORSE. DO NOT TRINKET.
*Kick you to interrupt or garrote you to silence. There's nothing you can do about either of these.
Devour Magic Eats: Absolutely nothing. This is the one class Felhunter is wholly useless against.
You will probably die.
At the very least try to get a coa on him after his CloS so he can't stealth for a bit.

HUNTER
First step is to see them FIRST. If he catches you unawares he can completely shut you down. If you can, get in close and fearbomb or shadowfury to fear or deathcoil to fear or FG/Meta intercept to fear.

You'll notice 'fear' is a key ingredient to success. If permitted to maneuver, Hunters are very well equipped to control a fight agaisnt a caster until you die from it.
Also note that some hunters can become completely immune to all CC, if him and his pet suddenly become huge and red, stop fearing. Drain Life might save you, death coil won't.

He Is Going To
*FD, clearing him as your target. Be ready to manually retarget him.
*Screw you up with traps. If you see him crouch for half a second, he just dropped a trap. Do yourself a favor and don't walk there.
*Pick you apart from range. Try to close the gap, but if you can, try to fear him. He is very well-equipped to annihilate you before you can get close enough to fearbomb, so watch yourself.
Devour Magic eats: Frost Trap, Silencing Shot, Entrapment


DK
DKs will annihilate you if you can't keep out of their reach. Unfortunately, he's really good at getting you into his reach, and we have limited ways to stop it from happening.

Nets are amazingly useful when they throw up anti-magic shell or lichborne, otherwise do everything you can to keep them feared and slowed and as far away as you can.

Kite. Kite like it is your job to do so and you are being paid very well to do it.
Silence them.
A spell-locked Death Knight is a worthless Death Knight for three seconds, silence robs them of their ability to hurt you..

Save DC or fearbomb for the deathgrip.

Throw a few SoC into an Army of the Dead and watch the meters suddenly love you and his cd go completely to waste.

If you see Bone Armor, throw up Shadow ward.
Their “Death Coil” is pretty strong and they'll want to hit you with it while you're kiting.
If they lose their DC to your shadow ward, they have just wasted a large portion of Runic Power.

Aftter rogues, DKs are easily the single greatest threat and there are thousands of him. They have way high melee burst, high health and multiple damage mitigation cds. If he outgears you, you're going to die.

If you can help it, don't attack him alone.

He Is Going To:
*Silence you. Eat it.
*Chain you. Eat it.
*Slow you. Eat them.
*Deathgrip you. Save your defensive CDs for it.
*Anti-Magic Shell. Net him and run.
*Lichborne. Net him and run.
*Interrupt you.
*Mark of Blood you. It heals him when you damage him. Eat it.
*Anti-Magic Field. Fear him out of it.

If you can't engage him alone, you might want to consider running away.

Devour Magic eats: Chains of Ice, Frost Slow, Strangulate, Mark of Blood.


WARRIOR
Times change, specs alter, but there will always be at least one Warrior spec that shreds Warlocks. They are the epitome of toe-to-toe combat and you are wearing magic toilet paper.

Do not stand and fight, run away. Kite him for everything you're worth. He has no ability to remove any of your DoTs, he has limited damage mitigation cds, he has is weaponry that is larger than you are.

Dot from a distance to force him into combat and he can't Charge you, but he can still Intercept. He'll Hamstring you to keep you close enough to mangle you, it's worth trinketing out of.

Fear has very limited use on a Warrior, as all of them can shrug fear and become immune to it at least once, and he's going to use that CD against you, because he knows you are going to Fear him.

Deathcoil and CoEx, Shadowfury and Seduce, Deathcoil and Intercept. Keep him at reach and kite him around with your dots ticking away.

All warriors can interrupt.

If you see:

*One 2h weapon: He is probably Arms, and can Mortal Strike for enormous damage that will cut your healing in half. As of 3.09, this is the rarest Warrior spec and as of 3.09, it's the easiest to kill. The most dangerous thing they can do is Bladestorm, during which they will spin for constant AoE weapon damage and be completely impossible to CC at all.

*Two 2h weapons: Hooray, fury. He is arguably the single highest melee DPS in the game, his normal melee attacks will cut your healing gains, drain life in melee range is suicidal.

Keep as many dots on him as you can and DC after his Intercept – if you DC before the intercept, he'll be right back in your face as soon as your one useful defensive measure against him wears off.

*A shield: As of 3.09, Prot warriors are bloody lethal. They have no less than three stuns, ridiculously high health and Spell Reflect. Spell Reflect has a very distinctive graphic – when you see It, STOP CASTING unless you really wanted to see what your deathcoil feels like.
It only lasts for 5 seconds, wait it out.

Prot has the least defense against Fear.
Prot Warriors can Charge while in combat.
Devour Magic Eats: Prot Warrior silence, “Gag Order”. This pisses them off, mind you. So does not casting when they blow Spell Reflect.


RETADIN
The paladin with the 2h is Ret and he comes with massive Holy burst and strong spells that specifically affect demons. If he is targetting your demon, fear him or you lose the demon.
He can fear your demon.
He can self-heal (and sometimes actually will), has no less than two stuns and a total invincibility bubble, as well as myriad CD self-buffs that will dramatically increase how badly he can hurt you.

You can eat all his stuns. He is going to rely on his ability to stun you so he can blow a few CDs and knock your brains out. Don't let him do this.

Using Devour Magic on pally stuns is absolutely key, eat one, trinket the next and he suddenly has nothing but his bubble.

Spell Lock is worth blowing on them, it removes a lot of their ability to hurt you.

Outside of his bubble, he can't be immune to fear at all, so fear him. Repeatedly. He can't dispel curses, so CoEx is fantastic, particularly as he has very limited ranged ability. If you have it, put UA on him first to dissuade him from even bothering to dispel, otherwise he's going to strip off anything he can.

The Bubble

Yes, he is going to bubble. He's going to become briefly immortal and by the time it wears off, he's going to be at full health. There is nothing you can do but pray a priest is nearby with a mass dispel and run away.

The icon for his bubble is a pinkish-yellowish shield-looking thing. You will know exactly when his immortality will wear off, because you can watch the buff tick down..

When it is almost off, cast a fear. If you time it right, he is suddenly feared the very moment he was able to be feared and hey presto, you have retaken initiative.

He is going to:
*Stun you. Eat the stun.
*Bubble. Run away and grudgingly accept that he's going to be at full health before it wears off.
*Lay on Hands. There is a chance that he will suddenly be at full health and there is nothing you can do to stop this from happening.
Devour Magic Eats: Absolutely everything they do save bubbles.

DPS, CON'T

MAGE
If he significantly outgears you, you are probably going to die.

This is a pure ranged dps class that is noted for having more and faster burst than you, as well as multiple escapes.

He is going try his best to make you explode as quickly as he can, so you need to seize initiative immediately. He he can blink behind you and ruin a cast, he will become invincible and shed all dots at least once, he has possibly a silence and at least a ranged interrupt, and, and this cannot be stressed enough, more and faster burst than you.

What we have over them is pure mana efficiency and a much better pvp cc.
It is a lot harder for a mage to seize control of a fight than it is for a warlock. Mages have a lot of ways to run away and several AOE movement impairments, but they don't have deathcoil and they don't have fear.

They have a talented silence ( you can eat), a talented dizzy (you can eat), have a talented stun (you can eat), a talented slow (you can eat) and polymorph (you can eat).

For Destro, this is pure burst-on-burst with one side possessing superior cc. For Demo and Aff, if he's well-geared or well-played, this might be a significantly rougher and briefer fight than you might prefer.

Don't let him cast.

Oh god he's Arcane: Remember the part about not letting them cast? Don't let him cast.. His instant burst is really a lot of damage, if you cannot keep him from casting at all, he is going to hurt you. Spell Lock, seduce or stun to gain and regain initiative, and just don't let him cast.

Mirror Image: Oh my god suddenly there's four mages! Three of them are standing completely still and casting at me! One of them is bouncing around spamming arcane explodey! Only one of them has buffs!
Which is the real mage?

Some mages have a fire-based knockback. Be very careful fighting mages near cliffs.

Dispels: All curses. You can force him to blow a GCD by hitting him with CoT.
Devour Magic Eats: Everything. Poly, slow, impact, frost nova, silence, scorch, everything they can do, you can eat. Except ice block.


SHAMAN
I have a soft spot for shamans, because once upon a time, Alliance had a faction-specific class that made PVE rather a lot easier and Horde had a faction-specific class that was alarmingly powerful in PVP.

Elemental Shamans have a way fast nuke and a fire-based nuke that can be glyphed and talented to crit for half of your life. Eat Flame Shock to prevent this from happening. Expect to lose at least one spell into a grounding totem, fear them out of their totem garden and pour on dots.

They have only weak interrupts and no silence, what they have is a lot of burst and a couple of fairly dangerous novelties.

Warlocks are especially strong against Ellies in all forms, but a skilled or well-geared operator can and will surprise you.

Elemental Shamans have an AOE knockback. Be very careful fighting an Ellie near a cliff.

Enhancement Shamans DW and will run right towards you. Deathcoil, fear, net, hot, shadowfury, do whatever it takes to keep him from reaching you. He has no intercept but he can roll up on you in traveling Wolf form, and he's going to frost shock you (you can eat frost shock) or drop an Earthbind near you to keep you from getting away.

Enh shammies are like guided missiles. When they arrive on target, they will severely damage or destroy that target. If they do not reach their target, they are wholly useless. Whatever you can do to keep them out of melee range is a good thing to do.

One large plus is that because Enh needs to physically close distances to DPS, they often don't give themselves enough time to drop valuable totems, such as Grounding or Tremor.

You should pay very close attention to that.

HOLY CRAP WOLVES: Yeah, they're really annoying. You can shadowfury or HoT them if you have the time, but mostly really run away.

All shamans can heal.

One last thing on Shamans – if he has not released yet, he might suddenly come back to life.
Take all shaman insignias.

Devour Magic Eats: All shocks.


DRUID
This is another class we've been strong against, although at the moment we're only particularly strong against Moonkin and Resto.

Feral Druids can be almost as deadly as rogues. They have at least two stuns and brutal physical DPS but lack CloS and Vanish.
Feral Druids can be immune to Fear, as well as passively resistant to Fear. If a Feral has jumped you out of thin air and has Berzerking up, you will probably die.

Trinket the stun and Deathcoil and then run. CoEx and nets have limited effect, as he can shed them by turning into a bear and then charging you and stunning you again.
Pretend the mean kitty is a cross between a warrior and a rogue, because that's what it is.
Fight them the same way. Kite, dot, CC whenever you possibly can.

Boomkin Druids are at a disadvantage against us, our CC is better and they can't heal in laser chicken format. Fear them and dot them or seduce them and blow the hell out of them. If he cyclones you and tries to time a starfire, spell lock, seduce it or have your FG intercept.

Drain Life through the sudden trees punching you in the head or HoT it away – those trees are very strong, particularly when all three of them are beating on you at once.

His burst is very fast and if permitted to cast freely, he will chew through your health like it was a delicious bar of chocolate.

Like with Mages, just don't let them cast.

Boomkin have an AOE knockback. Be very careful fighting laser chickens near cliffs.

Dispels: All curses, sheds all snares and slows by changing shape.
Devour Magic eats: All Boomkin dots, snares and stuns except Cyclone.
Devour Magic does not eat any Feral dots, stuns or snares.


SPRIEST
This is another class we're strong against.
Shadow Priests in PVP, and I mean absolutely no disrespect, are kind of like very stripped-down affliction warlocks. They have strong shadow dots and several shadow-based nukes – one of them is an instant and it hurts them pretty badly – and a killer channel, as well as constant health regen through dps.

They have a silence you can eat, a procced stun you can eat, and an instant AOE fear you can also eat. You can eat almost all of their dots and you can eat Mind Flay right off of you.

Shadow ward, try to aim spell lock for the VE but any shadow spell will do, be prepared to lose one fear to Fear Ward and be ready to burst through or eat a shield. UA to prevent dispel and keep in mind that an affliction warlock can out-drain him.

As with any caster, your ccs are better. Keep control and keep his casting to a minimum.

All Priests can Mind Control. If you have been MC'ed near a cliff, he is going to try to pitch you off of it.

Dispels: All magic-based effects.
Devour Magic Eats: Almost every CC, dot and buff they have.


WARLOCK
Okay, so:

Demonology: Fear the lock and banish the FG, pour on damage while he lacks SL. Treat Meta like you treat a Tree: if he popped demon on or near a Warlock, he is asking for it.

Destruction: Strip away Immolation and spell lock the Chaos Bolt. Fear and CoT, be ready to be seduced.

Affliction: Shadow ward at once and as often as you can. Ride the devour magic macro for everything it is worth, whatever your dog eats is good. Stop the Haunt and be ready for a lot of fears. Aff vs. Aff, traditionally, the first one to stick a fear will win.


WHAT DO I DO ABOUT WILL OF THE FORSAKEN?

If he's undead, you're going to lose an extra fear or seduce, and there's nothing you can do about it.
If he's an undead rogue, I feel for you, I honestly do.
Keep non-Fear/Seduce CCs handy - nets, for example, will help a lot.



==AIM FOR THE PRIEST==

Warlocks are now and have always been particularly strong against enemy casters. Their healers are their most valuable team members by a wide, wide margin, and because of this they absolutely need to die first.

Every time.

A good rule of thumb is that DPS will not die until there are no healers left.
It is your job to make sure the healer dies first.

Whenever dealing with any healer, your first and last order of business is to keep them pressured. The longer they are feared or healing themselves, the less time they are spending healing the Ret that is ravaging your side.

A "Win" isn't always a kill. Distracting a healer until his target dies on him is a win, even if it costs you a res timer. Especially if the healer's target is carrying a flag or obliterating your side.

Please remember - a healer who is healing himself is not healing the dps.

Even if you can't kill it, if its heals are too strong, if it''s practically immortal and omg nerf op, fear it or drain its mana.

Enemy healers are not your friends.

HEALERS, CON'T


PRIEST
The most versatile healers – they have the most and most varied healing spells - and also tend to be the squishiest, as they are the only healers that must wear cloth. Honestly the best way to kill them is to distract them long enough for melee to eat them.

Harass the hell out of them and just keep them focused on you, try to eat their shields and stay on them or everyone around them is going to be at full health.

UA to stop the dispels, be prepared to lose a fear to Fear Ward - cast another Fear immediately. CoT is strong, they cannot dispel it.

Dispels: All magic effects. This includes your fears and drains.
Devour Magic Eats: All of their shields, buffs, most of their dots, and all of their Ccs: that is Fear, Mind Control and Blackout.
Spell Lock: Any of their casted heals. Greater Heal is the most devastating if lost, as it means his target is about dead.


DRUID
Druids are insanely good at keeping large groups of people up at once with ridiculous hots, but their single-target heals are generally slow. Haunt and SE works magnificently on them but if you have enough burst, seduce-nuke is effective against pretty much all healers.

Resto are notorious for their ability to run away. Be prepared to lose all snares and slows effects on them – they vanish as soon as they change shape. Not "don't throw them," just "they won't stick."

Remember, if the Druid is a tree, he wants to be banished.

Resto Druids are really good at keeping themselves AND others alive while under pressure. Their hots are both unrivaled and instant, but they have no defense against Fear.

Dispels: All curses.
Devour Magic Eats: Roots, all their hots, dots, buffs and debuffs. Be careful about eating their hots - lifebloom will give them a huge health burst if it gets dispelled.
Spell Lock: Regrowth or Nourish.


HEALADIN
A holy Pally can make one guy immortal but completely sucks at keeping large groups up.
The one guy he can keep alive, though, will invariably be exceptionally dangerous, particularly since he has a bloody healadin following him around.

Spell Lock is ridiculous against them, they only have Holy. Catch a flash of light mid-cast and he is completely useless for eight seconds. He'll stun you and you can eat the stun.

Always assume both bubble and lay on hands are off cooldown and expect that he'll be healed to full at least twice and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. Prepare for it like you're on your Arena team – force him to bubble and then fear his heal target around until it wears off.

UA to stop dispells and full dot load, CoT to make him really hate you.

Do not attempt to take a pocket pally on alone, he has a really strong dps with him.

Dispels: All magic effects. This includes your drains and Ccs. They can also make any target immune to snares or slows.
Spell Lock Eats: Most buffs, all stuns, dots and debuffs.
Spell Lock: Flash of Light.


SHAMAN
They've got extremely fast heals, so CoT them and hit them with a fear while they're decursing it. Expect to lose spells into grounding totems and expect that none of your fears will run full duration.
If you don't have a moment to stomp it, prepare for tremor totems by casting fear more often. Tremor will eat it, but it's still a few moments the shaman was not healing.

As with any healer, keep them from casting for as long as you can.

Get them away from their totems, kill Poison Cleansing and Tremor totems if you have a moment, and chain fear them. Pour pressure on them. Be prepared to lose at least one spell to a Grounding Totem, do not let deathcoil be that spell.

Grounding Totem will not eat HoT or Shadowfury. Try to kite them out of their totem gardens - this is actually pretty easy, people tend to forget to be intelligent in the chaos of BGs.

Kousuke of Firestone says:

Quote :

/petattack
/petattack [target=Fire Resistance Totem]
/petattack [target=Windfury Totem]
/petattack [target=Earthbind Totem]
/petattack [target=Tremor Totem]
/petattack [target=Poison Cleansing Totem]
/petattack [target=Grounding Totem]

^Sends your pet after these totems so you don't have to.

Poison Cleanse totem is on that macro as part of the 'Be A Friend To Rogues and Hunters' campaign: that totem is robbing them of their efficiency. Kill the totem, help them out, the shaman and everyone around him will die much faster.

Dispels: All curses.
Devour Magic eats: All shocks. Strip off Flame Shock as soon as it hits you. Devour Magic will not eat Hex, so when you are a frog, run away.
Spell Lock: Lesser Healing Wave.


Set your Interface to always display your target's health bar as percentiles.
When the healer hits 25% health, hit Drain Soul immediately.


Enemy healers killed your dog and spat on your grandfather's grave. They all get together every night and laugh about it.

They are not your friends.

==DEMONS==

In descending order, your most valuable regular demons in Bgs are as follows:
1) Felhunter
2) Felguard
3) Succubus
4)Voidwalker
5) Imp


Take Your Dog Off Autopilot.

*Or he is going to die: He will get dragged off and murdered because everybody hates your dog.

*Or you will lose your only silence: Spell Lock is on a 24 second CD and is absolutely best used when the target is midspell. You want button control on it.

*Or you will lose your only dispell: Devour Magic eats all player-cast silences except garrotte, all pally stuns and dots, all priest and warlock fears and most dots and effects, most druid dots and roots, all mage CC and dots, DK snare and Frost slow, every buff or debuff that says 'magic', Devour magic eats.

Felhunter should be on passive, spell lock should be OFF auto-cast. Right-click the spell button to remove auto-cast from your pet's spells.

Fitti of Arthas says
Q u o t e:
#showtooltip Devour Magic
/cast [modifier:shift, pet:Felhunter] Devour Magic; [pet:Felhunter, target=player] Devour Magic

The quote box wraps this, but it's two lines, not three.

^Targets you, casts devour magic, retargets whatever you were just looking at, instantly, externally, and separate from your GCD.
Hold shift while clicking it to have it eat something off your target.

Make that macro.

Right now.

Felguard

Placing him on 'Stay' relatively close to you while leaving his intercept on Auto-Cast can save you from a rogue.
He does excellent melee damage, his smart-intercept is valuable and he is a highly visible target that will attract Banishes like a magnet.

If he's Banished, you need to run.


Succubus Pisses Everyone Off

Ah, seduce-nuke. Ever since the near-legendary Drakedog's extremely old-school PVP videos, the tactic of holding a player in place and punching him with magic bullets until his head comes off has been a Destro standby.
Seduce is one of the most despised ccs in the game, as it comes out of absolutely nowhere. Seduce can be dispelled or WoTF'ed, so be wary of using it on Undead or targets that are getting direct healer attention.
Seduce is also a channeled spell, she can be interrupted and you'll lose the CC.
Assuming you didn't dot the target, you'll get three seduces before DR steps in with its arms folded, so if seduce-nuke was your tactic, kill it in three hits or be ready to run away.

Fear and seduce share diminishing returns.

Seduce annoys everyone. Anyone caught by your seduce is going to be looking for your Succi. They're going to kill her as soon as they see her.

A visible Succi is a dead Succi.


Voidwalker

High health, good armor, nearly useless.
His AOE 'taunt' reduces hit chance, which can help against Fury warriors and Rogues, and his Consume Shadows health-restore will grant one level of See Stealth, but his melee attack is weak like fog and neither of the above abilities are at all convenient.
Mostly, its is Sacrifice ability that makes him even remotely useful.
Warriors will be unable to gain rage from damaging you, enemy damage will be unable to prevent you from casting, and the entire shield will collapse in seconds under fire.

VW sac can save your life, at the cost of an active demon, which, frankly, can end your life.


Your Imp Hates PVP

So you shouldn't subject him to it.



==BATTLEGROUNDS==


Eye of the Storm

The winning move at the beginning of the game is to secure three towers immediately.
Whichever team does this will win, full stop. If you look at your minimap and you see that all team members are moving towards towers, you have a strong chance of winning.

Each tower adds significant points to each flag capped. If you have only one tower, you can cap every flag in the world and you will still lose.

If you charge mid at the beginning of the game before we have any towers, you are contributing to our defeat.


Arathi Basin

Fight by the flag.

Fight by the flag. Fight by the flag. Fight by the flag. Fight by the flag. Fight by the flag. Fight by the flag. Fight by the flag. Fight by the flag. Fight by the flag. Fight by the flag. Fight by the flag. Fight by the flag. Fight by the flag. Fight by the flag. Fight by the flag. Fight by the flag. Fight by the flag. Fight by the flag. Fight by the flag. Fight by the flag. Fight by the flag. Fight by the flag. Fight by the flag. Fight by the flag. Fight by the flag.

Fight by the flag.

Have I mentioned 'Fight by the flag?' Because fight by the flag.

No, really.

Get off the road and get to a flag.

Then, fight by it.

It takes, on average, 3 players to hold a defense on a node. If you are one of three players on a node, do not leave the node.



Warsong Gulch

If you don't have Metamorphosis and you didn't bring your entire arena team with you, that's not your flag.
You wear cloth and have a marked lack of defensive measures. You have no escapes, no class-specific methods of increasing your speed, the flag on your head is a giant glowing beacon that reads “OH MY GOD KILL ME QUICK BEFORE I WIN THE GAME.”

Please don't take it.

The Ironman Achievement

Bring a Druid, a healer and a heavy-armor melee.

Druid runs the flag while you stay in your base with the healer and the heavy-armor. You, the healer and the heavy play defense, both of them work to keep you alive.

Druid brings you all three flags, drops them at your feet, you cap them and win.

Same thing with the identical EotS achievement - there is nothing that states you have to run the flags. Only cap them and not die.


Alterac Valley

Defense wins AV and warlocks are very effective as defensive support. Find a bottleneck and throw SoC at it. IBGY, SPGY and the entrances to either Keep serve as extremely valuable bottlenecks – areas where the entire team must pass through.

Small numbers can hold off larger numbers at these points, provided you keep pressure and do not permit leakage.

Each Tower destroyed significantly cuts your 'Reinforcements' – retake your towers even before you attempt to retake your GYs.

Defense wins AV.

Fifteen guys in your keep can keep the enemy O outside of your base with critical towers intact long enough for friendly O to punch through to into their base. You don't need to turtle, you do need a D.


Wintergrasp/Strand

You can destroy a vehicle very efficiently, because dots do enormous damage and tanks can't be healed or dispelled.
You can sit in the sidecars of the Demolishers and protect that vehicle extremely effectively - seriously, just fear anything that's close enough to fear. You should do that.

Strand
If your enemy is through Green gate, get the hell off of Blue, they're already through your line of defense. You need to fall back, or they are going to get through the next series of gates with no resistance.

GYs not only grant closer spawn points, the first two also offer additional tanks. If you are defending, make an effort to keep them. If you are attacking, get that flag.

If Seaforium barrels are nearby, grab one. Anything to get through those gates.
If a mounted player is charging a gate, he has Seaforium. Kill him.
You can disarm Seaforium by clicking on it.

Do it.

Wintergrasp
Kill the cannons around the Keep for free rank and also to prevent said cannons from shredding your team.

The three towers in the south are worth both 5% damage each, as well as additional time for assault..

If all three towers are dead, Offense loses TEN MINUTES off their time, but only if all three towers are dead.

If you are defending and there is under ten minutes, killing the towers ends the game.
Just remember - every tank and player down at those towers is not attacking or defending the keep.
A small force is best - two seige cannons, each with three guys, is more than enough.
Do not cripple your team by zerging these.

Catapults are anti-infantry. Their armament is absolutely intended to be used on enemy players, not walls.

Just because it can do structural damage does not mean you are not wasting that vehicle slot spending ten minutes hocking acid bombs at a tower.

Demolishers and Seige Tanks are not anti-infantry. If you are driving one of these vehicles, do not, please, use them to engage players. Even the slowest keyboard-turner is vastly more agile than your tank and can easily sidestep your not-precisely devastating ramming bar.

Driving in circles trying to ram that hunter will cost you the tank.

==The Zerg==

The word comes from a player race from Blizzard's Starcraft series called (this will come as a shock) 'the Zerg'.

Playing them involved making billions of tiny little monsters that mutate into larger monsters which mutate into even larger monsters and then when you have literally bajillions of them you pour them into your enemy's base until everybody drowns and then you win and the world is safe for horrible alien cockroaches hooray.

In WoW terms, it signifies a gigantic cloud of enemy players haphazardly charging around, crushing everything in sight.

Basically, it's a blitzkrieg tactic that relies on pure numbers over absolutely everything else.
It is extremely unsubtle, moving like a wrecking ball from critical point to critical point and absolutely annihilating everything in its path.

Do not meet a zerg head-on.

You have to be out of your mind, that is almost their entire team. No amount of bravado is going to help you, you will be swamped and consumed in seconds.

Get behind it. That's almost their entire team - the defense they are leaving behind on their newly-capped strategic real estate is going to be very very weak.

Zerg rush is very strong and very, very stupid. Look where they are, you will be able to easily tell where they are going next - zergs only turn when they have to.
If they just zerged GM coming from ST, Farm is very likely next.
They all just poured onto FR from MT, BE is next.

Wait until they all ride away and step on the one undergeared druid they left to guard it.

Either the entire zerg will turn around and come back to obliterate you, thus saving wherever they were attacking, or parts of them will come back, thus weakening the overall zerg, or they'll completely ignore it and you get your flag back.

Win-win-win.

This is not to say that you effectively combatting a zerg will swing the tide of the game, as there is a strong chance you will be the only one doing it.

One cohesive group of four people can win against a full zerg. Just stay behind it and eventually it will back itself into a corner with populated enemy GYs on both sides and from there it's not a zerg anymore, it's a turtle.

If You MUST Fight A Zerg

You may be forced to meet a Zerg head-on. Maybe it's your very last base and you've made no headway in taking new ones, or perhaps the Zerg is on its last legs, you have taken the GY right behind them and now you need to trap the Zerg and stamp it out.

Locate the healers. They'll most likely be in the back at what they will assume is a safe distance. They may try to hide in the scenery, they will very often be at least somewhat clustered together.

Look for anything in a dress, totem gardens, trees, yellow or green spell graphics, or that one nelf twenty feet behind the main zerg running back and forth with his hand in the air.

The Zerg's existence depends entirely on its sheer numbers – killing off the healers will help to degrade that critical mass.
Find the healers and sit on them. Destro can obliterate healers in a few undisturbed spells. Aff and Demo can occupy their full attention admirably.
Do it.

Death Pod. Infernal is extremely effective against a Zerg, as a Zerg is extremely chaotic and Infernal loves chaos.

SoC. Find someplace safe and out of sight and ride this button like it is a vintage Harley-Davidson.



==YOU ARE GOING TO DIE==

Rather a lot.

You wear cloth, ride a unique and very distinctive mount and have a demon following you. You are a high visibility target that people will want to murder fast.

Unless you have a fantastic healer who is welded to your side, you are going to die.

Your job is to hurt as many of them as you can before that happens.

Your dots continue to damage long after you're gone, weakening a defense or an assault and making it easier for your teammates to succeed. If you have dotted up even one person before getting gibbed, you did your job.

If you dotted all of them up, feared the healer around and generally made their lives hell before finally getting dragged down and mauled by three melee and a hunter, you did your job very well.

You have no durability loss from dying in PVP, your demon comes back with you (almost all of the time), you have nothing to lose by having huevos grande in PVP apart from a maximum of 30 seconds waiting to come back to life.

Carpe Jugulum.



But Why Did I Die?

So lets say you got whupped. And I do mean 'whupped', you had no chance, he held you down and had his way with you, and when he was done there was nothing left of you but very small bits and a nasty stain that is never going to come out.

“Ownt”, as the kids say.

Before you begin posting on any given forum about how unfair it is that X class/player wiped the floor with you, take a moment to determine why you died.


Outgeared
Yes, gear makes that much of a difference. If you're wearing greens and quest blues and your opponent has “The Immortal” or “The Flawless Victor” over his head, it is possible that he completely outgeared you.

If you cry about being outgeared, people will pay the wrong kind of attention to you.


Counter Class
Dear lord, a rogue killed you.
This comes as a surprise to all of us and is absolutely worth an entire thread.

Look. There are some classes that have distinct advantages over us, exactly like how we have distinct advantages over other classes. We're really strong against casters. We're not really strong against melee.

Rogues, warriors, hunters and now Dks can murder us, because we wear cloth and they're using physical damage.
Warlock susceptibility to physical damage is not a new thing, we are all very well aware of it and have been aware of it since beta..

If melee is in melee range and you have failed to get outside that vicious circle, you should not, ever be shocked that suddenly you fell over.

You can be the single best Warlock in the entire world, if your CDs are down and the Rogue's are up you are probably going to die.

Suck it up, it has happened to all of us.


RNG
The bane of arenas and luck-based PVE content. He got a lucky crit, your Fear got resisted, his trinket procced, you spent much longer being stunned than you expected.

It was just bad luck.

Move on.


You Were Outnumbered.
It's a BG. At minimum, there are ten guys on the opposite side.
Never rely on any situation remaining 1v1.

Ever.


You Failed It.
You opened with deathcoil and then didn't have it when you needed it.
You trinketed out of sap and then had no defense against a stunlock.
You accidentally blew your spell lock on the warrior instead of the priest healing him.
You got cocky and severely underestimated your opponent and he taught you why this was such a foolish mistake.

It was your own fault, you screwed up, it happens to the best of us.
Learn from it and move on.


Outplayed
He knew what you were going to do before you did it, countered it and maintained control of the fight.

He used his cds in flawless order, denying you the ability to harm him or defend yourself.

Tactics that work perfectly on other members of his class failed. Right when you thought you had control, you didn't.

And then you died.

You got outplayed. Get over it, get better, move on.

==When You Are Attacking An Enemy City==

Please, really, let's try to maintain a sense of reality:

You are in an enemy city.

They have every possible advantage, from a close GY to friendly NPCs whom they can buff and heal.

They aren't scared of you, they are not going to fold and run, they are going to attack you immediately because they are likely very bored and just hanging around. It is their boss.

They are also calling in reinforcements.

*Stick with the group: For God's sake. Stick with the bloody group. If you wander off, if you chase lowbies, you will die and nobody wants to come res you.

*The longer you take, the less likely you will succeed: They are calling in reinforcements and it's a city. It takes one portal to bring new and overgeared resistance right into your face. Get in, kill the boss, get out. Speed is everything.

*You have one shot at any given boss: This cannot be stressed enough. If you wipe, that is it, it is over, go someplace else.
If anyone in the raid says 'WE'LL ALL RES AT ONCE AND OVERWHELM THEM" and starts picking targets, that man is a fool and you should not listen to him.

They know exactly where you are, they are all at full health and mana, they are buffed, they are ready and waiting for you to res.

Just leave. Take the res sickness and hearth, go someplace else. If you failed, you failed, swallow it and move on. The element of surprise is gone, they are all going to hunt you down and carve your half-health, half-mana, unbuffed rear into strips as soon as they see your body go to bones.

Please, please, please keep in mind that the corpse runs to the enemy cities are notoriously long, with SW City's being almost ten minutes.

You don't want to do that corpse run and neither does anyone else.


Oh God, My Team Sucks
Brighteyes of Uldum says:
Since the last couple of posts kind of brought it up I'll take a stab at it: Idiots in the battleground.

There are two immutable truths of BG's. One is that is you are going to deal with idiots. Idiots come in many forms: the AFK guys, road warriors, WSG circle jerkers, General Patton, Mr. We Suck, Mr. Hurry Up And Lose, my personal favorite (the hold 2 and get the flag EoTS guy), and plenty more.

NOTE: I am not talking about Noobs. Newer players are something else entirely.

The second truth is that you can't make lemonaid out of idiots.

In other words, nothing you can do in that 20 minutes will, ever, get them to change. The genius with 3,000 HK's who argues with you in EoTS about running flags will not be convinced. The guys in the middle of WSG won't leave. The guys who don't watch the flag in AB won't suddenly learn to watch the flag thanks to your guidance. They are a giant frickin' tidal wave of stupidity that you can't stop. That leaves you with only a few choices.

1) You can AFK. I used to have a stigma about this because of all that went on in the HWL days but now it's a viable strategy as far as I'm concerned. 15 minutes is a small penalty for peace of mind and I don't feel at all guilty about leaving a group of idiots. People trying to win who are just outgeared is an entirely different matter.

2) You can /ignore them. Yes, it works cross realm and cross-faction. Blessed peace be with you.

3) You can rant and rave in raid chat. The irony about this is that most people in the BG won't have any more of a clue than the idiot so he might very well win the argument, "gosh, Bliz wouldn't put the flag in the middle of EoTS if it wasn't important".

4) If you can't beat them, join them. Sometimes, it's better to work together doing something stupid than work alone doing the right thing. If your team is gonna run flags in EoTS you've got two options, sit back and let the other team get that 3rd tower so they learn a lesson or join in and help them win by doing number 5.

5) Cover for the idiots. This works particularly well in AB. Basically you position yourself in-between nodes (the center of the triangle if you have it), watch nodes and respond to calls. If you do this well and get a sense of the BG you can literally single-handedly win games. AB is such that losing one node because some guy ran off can be the difference between a win or a loss. If you chose this option your job is to prevent that from happening.

Finally, there are gonna be games that you simply will not win. Sometimes you just get a bad draw and are massively outgeared. It doesn't mean you suck it just means that in WOW gear does equal some degree of skill.

==SPEC.==

You ought to know what you have, you spent the points.

Soul Link is still key for PVP and with its newly lowered tier it's very easy to get while maintaining more DPS-oriented Destro and Affliction talents, but the truth is, this isn't Arena and you can BG as about any spec.

You'll die faster without SL, but if you know you're fragile, you shouldn't be rolling alone. Find people to support and support them.

Not only is there no shame in working as a group, it's how you win Bgs.


Destro
Teknomancer of Onyxia says:
If you have shadowfury up, use it. Smack some people around with some stuns then unload a combo on one of the healer's to throw them off and/or gib them. Also a shadowfury + howl combo is a great and beautiful thing.

Pick on the other casters. As destro you should be able to eat the other teams casters alive. You've got nether protection don't freak out when a caster suddenly targets you. Half of the spells they throw at you are going to be negated anyhow.




More spec advice when 3.1goes live and I see what we have to work with.