>I first must admit that I have been, until recently, out of the battlegrounds loop. I spent a lot of time there in The Burning Crusade, but since Wrath of the Lich King has launched I have been so busy in other aspects of the game that I haven’t found the time to get inside a battleground. Now however, I’m fully hooked on the BG experience again.
I still have a tremendous amount of things to keep me busy in game. WotLK has introduced a plethora of achievements, activities, gear, reputation, and events to keep one busy at all times. I really hate hearing people complain they have nothing to do, there is always something to do.
Presently I’m working toward my Crusader title and I would also like to finish out the last three cities I have at Revered and get them Exalted.
For now though, as the name implies, I will be talking about my experiences in Strand of the Ancients, the battleground that was introduced in WotLK. I encourage you to read the Strand page on WoWWiki.com
Without repeating what WoWWiki has done a wonderful job telling, the background, lore, etc., I’ll go into a little detail onto what a Rogue can expect and what they can plan on doing inside a match.
Offense:
When you are on the attacking team, as fun as it is to get into a tank and start blasting I would recommend grabbing seaforium charges off the docks and getting to a gate as fast as you can and lay the charge. You can mount up while carrying the charge and stealth, so get to the gate (or close to it) stealth in under the noses of the gunners, and drop the charge. At that point you can fall back and protect your vehicles from attackers. This is somewhere Rogues can truly shine – dropping in on an enemy focusing solely on the vehicle they are attacking and you can tear them up without much effort.
Another fantastic aspect of the Rogue in Strand that is found in other BG’s but I find it even more exciting here is falling behind slightly and picking off the weak in the herd. When clothies hang back to take out your vehicles from a distance and put a gap between themselves and their melee cover you can stealth in and take them out and slip back into the shadows to do the same again.
Lastly, keep an eye on the bombardments coming down from the turret guns as they have a fairly large radius and will instantly pull you from stealth while doing a good deal of damage (4K I believe).
Defense:
On defense you have two options – man a turret or defend the beach.
I personally love manning a turret at the beginning of my defensive round. I head right for the blue gate and grab a gun. Rogues absolutely shine on the beach though. That really is where we belong, but man I love getting into that gunner seat and it makes more sence for us on Defense then on Offense. When I do not man a gun I rush the beach and hang by a vehicle and wait for an enemy to jump in. The others are usually pushing up the beach and the vehicles are slightly behind as they move at a slower clip so when I feel it is clear enough to break stealth and start stabbing the vehicles I do so.
We do very respectable damage on the vehicles and if you are spec’d into Fleet Footed you are in an even better position to lay down the hurt. I can easily, if left untouched, take out a vehicle before it reaches the gates if I can get on the offensive early. Just remember, there is a person manning that vehicle, so when you blow up the tank, vanish, that way you can land a solid opener on the driver who pops out.
Constantly apply pressure to the vehicles on the attack, and try to avoid the typical “honor farming” tactics found in Alterac Valley where you just kill randomly. Make your kills count. Go after the healers, take out the vehicles, and this is very important: Watch for charges being dropped on walls, you an diffuse them and you should ALWAYS diffuse a charge you see on a wall. They do a LOT of damage.
Do yourself a favor and queue up for some Strand of the Ancients matches. You will not be disappointed! It is a fantastic battleground, very well done, visually stunning and a thrill to play. Oh, and the best part, a match will absolutely never go longer than 20 minutes in total, so it is fast honor to be had.
Enjoy!
~Rilandune
