Season 9 Newbie Wildcard Ascension PvP Guide
A Basic-Flithy-Casual-Timmy-Budget Wildcard Ascension PvP Guide
Note: this guide is a summary of a more detailed PDF that has been pinned on Elune's Season 9 #pvp channel of the official Ascension Discord since June 5, 2024. If you're looking for the original and full version, you can download it there!
Alright, so I wanted to shake things up a little, to the benefit of fellow casuals who just want to get into WoW Ascenion Wildcard PvP and have fun. Here’s a quick and dirty basic guide about how to succeed in PvP as a casual player on Wildcard Ascension… with limited time and gold budget.
What this Guide is NOT
If you’re looking for a competitive guide to become the best healer, DPS, or tank in Ascension PvP, then this guide is NOT for you (and you’re never going to find one anyway - no one has time to write stuff like that). This guide will NOT make you the most powerful player on Elune. This is a casual guide, made by a filthy casual (me!) for casuals (hopefully you).
My advice for competitive PvP, if you really want to go down that rabbit hole? Go to the official Ascension Discord server and read the latest chats between the active pro players in the #pvp chat, build whatever they are building. The metagame for competitive PvP is wild. I suppose that’s it’s own kind of fun, but the constant changing is also why creating a guide for the metagame is difficult. It changes every week or so, same with the best PvP gear. But if you want to be the best, that’s what you must do.
If you’re like me and not really interested in competitive PvP, but want to play for giggles, then read on.
What this Guide IS
Instead, we will focus on utility and tactics: absolute basics that every casual should have.
This guide is both filthy and casual: it is filthy in that it will explore some of the cheapest, dirtiest, and most underhanded (yet perfectly legal) tactics so that anyone—even someone with low healing or DPS—can directly contribute to winning in Battlegrounds. It’s casual because it seeks to lessen the need to constantly reroll to perfect your build. It’s meant to empower casuals on Ascension so that we can capture flags and objectives, harass the opposing team, and feel great while doing it!
You see, some casuals aren’t motivated by anything logical, like overpowered DPS and healing. Some PvP players just want to laugh while watching the Battlegrounds burn. Interested? Read on!
Summary of the “Build”
That said, here’s a quick summary of the basic key elements of the “build” (I use the term very loosely). The rest of the subsections will explain why each of these are useful and when plus how they should be used in Battlegrounds.
The Essentials
Track Humanoids*
Levitate**
Thunderstorm (or Blast Wave)
The “Blinks”: Blink, Unchained Blink, and/or Shimmer
The “Mass CCs”: Mass Hysteria and/or Mass Entanglement
The “Evasions”: Dispersion, etc.
The “Battleground Trinkets and Items”: Alliance/Horde Battle Standard, Insignia of the Alliance/Horde, Battleground Healing Potion, Battleground Fruitcake
One thing Ascension promises is that you can build your hero any way you want. With the above essentials, the rest of the build is entirely up to you! Track Humanoids* and Levitate** can be gotten very easily (and at almost no cost to your build), so if you roll Thunderstorm, one of the “Blinks”, one of the “Mass CCs”, and Dispersion, then buy the—very cheap—Battleground Items, that still leaves you a lot of space to develop your own favorite build over it. Now for the fun part: teaching you how to abuse it!
Note that this guide presupposes you already are familiar the win conditions for the various PvP Battlegrounds. If you still don’t, and you want to get into casual PvP, you may want to look at online strategy guides for them, which are easily available on YouTube or a quick internet search, since these Battlegrounds—and the various ways to win in them—have been around on retail WoW for a decade or so, and are relatively public knowledge by now. I’ll mention some win conditions in passing as we go along. So let’s get to it!
Part 1: Track Humanoids*
*Track Humanoids is available as a Mystic Enchantment in WoW Ascension (GET IT. NOW.)
One great thing in Ascension Wildcard PvP is that abilities like Track Humanoids can now belong to anyone. While you could roll it up as an Ability, the easiest way to have it on you is to simply get the Mystic Enchantment for it. It depends on the trade-off: in most cases, the more accessible Mystic Enchantment version is far more beneficial than sacrificing an Ability from your build (the only real difference being that, as an Ability, you can toggle it on or off). Because of it being so accessible, there’s really no excuse not to get it.
But why is it useful? Information. In casual PvP, especially when it comes to capturing objectives, you live and die by information. With Track Humanoids, you will almost always—and I say “almost” because it can be foiled by Stealth and concealment abilities—have accessible and practically free information about where your enemies are. Suddenly, wanting to secretly capture bases in Arathi Basin/Eye of the Storm or sneak in to take the flag in Warsong Gulch or Twin Peaks becomes VERY possible!
“But, Anino!” you’re probably thinking to yourself: “You said so yourself, what if someone wants to Stealth and Ambush us when we take bases?”.
I won’t sugarcoat it: this possibility is very real. However, I used to be a PvP Hunter on retail WoW and I assure you that, out of the 1,000+ bases I’ve ever sneak-captured thanks to Track Humanoids while no one was looking, less than 100 of them were traps. Statistically, 9 times out of 10, those bases are totally unguarded. PvP players are notoriously impatient and obsessed with driving their DPS and healing numbers up for the scoreboard, so they would rather be fighting than standing guard. We don’t care about that nonsense: use this against them and steal bases, flags, and victories under their noses! Ever wanted to assault five bases in a single match in Arathi Basin? It’s really fun, and that’s how I do it.
Part 2: Levitate**
**Levitate is available as a Manastorm Reward in WoW Ascension (GET IT. NOW.)
Another thing you want to have in PvP is mobility and utility. The Priest Ability Levitate is democratized in WoW Ascension, because literally anyone who does a few Manastorm runs can buy this Ability (at no additional cost to their list of Abilities). Among all the “free” abilities, this one is the most useful for PvP: Call of the Elements is great, but only if you have totems, and Conjure Refreshment was great before the cheap Battleground Fruitcake made it superfluous, leaving Levitate as the absolute best and most universal PvP ability that you can add to your arsenal. For “free”!
But why is it useful? Like I said, mobility and utility. Levitate adds a whole dimension to PvP that, like with Track Humanoids, there’s very little reason not to get: if you are pushed off a cliff, you can slow it down to prevent fall damage, and you will almost never have to swim in a Battleground again, though the ultimate reason to get Levitate is that you can fly from a high area to a lower one at high speed. This is especially useful in Arathi Basin and in Eye of the Storm: mount up on your favorite mount (except if you’re carrying a flag), do a running jump, then pop Levitate. If you don’t feel confident doing this in PvP, you can practice in the open world. As a Horde player, I practice jumping off Thunder Bluff.
Concretely, this means you can float down from the starting point in Eye of the Storm to either of the two towers on your side of the map, or the center, incredibly quickly. In Arathi Basin, this makes the Lumber Mill the best base, since you can float from the Lumber Mill down to the Blacksmith, and from the Blacksmith down to the Gold Mine, potentially capturing three bases in quick succession—even getting just two of those within the first minute of the match feels great. In Warsong Gulch and Twin Peaks, Levitate can be used by flag carriers and chasers alike to float from the elevated parts of any given base down to the middle of the map. One “free” ability with so many applications!
Part 3: Thunderstorm (or Blast Wave)
On the opposite end, we have the Shaman Ability Thunderstorm. On retail WoW, this Ability was notorious for the exact opposite reason that Levitate is fantastic: you can push people to their doom. Especially useful in Eye of the Storm, where the towers to be captured are all elevated, and it’s possible to push people from the center of the map to a very long fall, Shamans have been using this ability to “ring out” players more powerful than them for a very long time. Now you can do it, too! There are little things more gratifying than using Thunderstorm to push the top DPS of the other team to fall for ten seconds then have them wait another twenty seconds to respawn. Taking out a big gun of the other team for half a minute is a big deal in a ten-minute game! That said, the fall damage plus the base damage caused is decent, and the fact that you restore mana while doing it is icing on the cake.
Note that, up until now, none of the abilities mentioned above—Track Humanoids, Levitate, and Thunderstorm—actually do anything significant to DPS or healing. Yet individually, each of them was a menace in retail WoW PvP. On Ascension Wildcard, you can have them ALL. Now you have the ability to capture bases with some impunity and speed, while also killing players stronger than you. At the cost of one Ability slot, one Mystic Enchantment slot, and an hour or so of Manastorm. Isn’t that fantastic? If all casuals had these abilities and used them well, PvP would be far more interesting.
Lastly, and as a lead up to the “Blinks”: Blast Wave is a baby version of Thunderstorm that would require the Mystic Enchantment called Dispersing Blast Wave to push back half as much. That said, it could do in a pinch if you really need it, or if you have Blink and the talents that synergize with it. It’s also worth noting that Thunderstorm has the Mystic Enchantment called Dispersing Thunderstorm, which is horrendously excessive, even for me. However, if you want to smack your opponents like ping pong balls and be the most obnoxious source of rage quitting ever… go for it.
Part 4: The “Blinks”: Blink, Unchained Blink, and/or Shimmer
This one might take a bit of commitment, but if you want to frustrate opponents and capture flags quickly, but don’t want to make a dedicated flag build, picking up the three “Blinks” (without Faerie Blink) and their related Talents is for you. Did you know that there’s an achievement in Warsong Gulch called Quick Cap, where you capture a flag in under 75 seconds? It’s doable, and I have done it several times, using a simple macro with the three “Blinks”, and getting their related Talents to reduce their costs and cooldowns so that you can blink every 8 seconds (I’ll assume you know what macros in WoW are, and if you don’t, please stop reading this, look them up, and then come back here):
/castsequence Shimmer, Unchained Blink, Blink
Simple. Elegant. Captures the flag if left completely unattended for 75 seconds (more often than you think). That’s why veterans moan when someone goes AFK in the last three minutes of a Warsong Gulch battle: that’s more than enough time to capture two flags, and therefore win the game! It works particularly well for Warsong Gulch and Eye of the Storm.
Note that the “Blinks” have a fortunate side effect in that they free you from some movement impairment effects. More on those in a later part. If you don’t have any effects that bring you out of those, these are a fairly good investment for that reason as well. Oh, and their synergy with Blast Wave and all the related talents that allow them to shock, daze, and knockback opponents could also be compelling reasons to run these Abilities. Even one of the “Blinks” can be game-changing, though I’ve seen good flag carrier builds that use Travel Form, Sprint, and, of course, Levitate, too.
Part 5: The “Mass CCs”: Mass Hysteria and/or Mass Entanglement
Out of all the methods of harassment that this guide has taught you until now, this is by far my personal favorite. For no reason other than I just really like to troll people. But you probably figured that out by now—DPS veterans kill too fast. I prefer slow-burning torture. Anyway… I digress. *laughs in sadist*
The term “CC” means “crowd control” in WoW, and usually applies to PvE crowds of mobs, but their application in PvP is very much the same. The difference is that PvP players are usually equipped with means to escape Fear, Stun, Incapacitate, etc. effects (more on how to escape those later), but it’s still important to run them. Top players often use Fear for example, because it’s a quick way to incapacitate an enemy.
Me? I’m a big believer in “go big or go home”. While Mass Hysteria takes longer to cast than Fear and will most likely be resisted by my main target, I love to do it in front of a big crowd in PvP, which happens very often, but especially in Southshore vs. Tarren Mill and the Temple of Kotmogu. Since it inspires Fear in multiple targets close to each other, the odds that at least one of them will be helpless is far greater. Same applies to Mass Entanglement, though that one is instant (yet sadly not as hilarious).
One combo I really enjoy pulling off is using Mass Hysteria on a group of players in Eye of the Storm, ideally in the center of the map, run up to them as they cower, and use Thunderstorm to send a few of them to oblivion. I do this once a week and it’s very therapeutic! My other favorite setup for Mass Hysteria/Mass Entanglement is to distract a crowd that is after our flag carrier or headed to our base. In at least one game I did this in the last 10 seconds of the match, and it prevented the other team long enough to secure a close victory for my side. Practice a bit, and you can do it, too!
“But, Anino!” you’re probably thinking to yourself: “You mentioned that PvP veterans are equipped against these, so what use are they?”.
You’re right. PvP veterans are equipped for CC traps like that, and in the next section I’ll tell you why you need them too. But no one has an infinite supply of them, and furthermore, if every casual came equipped with Mass Hysteria and its ilk, then the chances of veterans being able to escape every single effect becomes that much less. Besides, before reading this, were YOU prepared for it? Thought not. Sadly, many who do PvP don’t prepare enough for this sort of thing.
Part 6: “Evasions”: Dispersion, etc.
Every pro PvP player is running some sort of damage reduction instant that doesn’t use the global cooldown, such as Divine Protection or Shield Wall plus things that remove CC effects like Berserker Rage or Will of the Forsaken. In fact, veterans use many combinations of these so that they are practically uncatchable in PvP. Because of this, you’ll probably need one (or ten) too, programmed on a few macros.
If you had to pick only one, and your DPS and healing are both “bad”, and therefore you just need it to escape and troll people, get Dispersion (and ideally the related Talents for it). You won’t be doing damage for the seconds you are practically invulnerable, but you can escape a fight and run in the direction of your teammates while you do it. Here’s a little macro I made just for the purpose of running away using Dispersion while chugging a Battleground Healing Potion:
/cast Dispersion
/use Battleground Healing Potion
Note that, because Dispersion doesn’t use the global cooldown, you can stack the macro with effects that free you from other CCs and/or reduce damage that don’t either (Dispersion already works against many and blocks quite a bit: it’s double duty), and/or a trinket that likewise does not (any one of the trinkets that are anti-CC or that absorb damage), and/or ONE healing spell that uses the global cooldown (such as Desperate Prayer, Rejuvenation, or Lifebloom). This will give you time to escape and reposition, which is often better than waiting for twenty seconds to be resurrected. Then you heal or eat a Battleground Fruitcake. Here’s an example of the macro I’m proposing (many variants out there):
/cast Berserker Rage
/cast Shield Wall
/cast Desperate Prayer
/cast Dispersion
/use 13
/use 14
/use Battleground Healing Potion
Make sure that Dispersion goes last as a spell, since you won’t be able to cast anything while it’s up! With this, you should be able to escape, or at least distract, your opponents long enough to turn the tide. I’ve made a career of running around bases and getting groups of opponents to chase me for several seconds, all while my team captures multiple bases, or even the flag. Diversions are fun, especially with 8 or so people chasing you for half a minute!
Part 7: The “Battleground Trinkets and Items”: Alliance/Horde Battle Standard, Insignia of the Alliance/Horde, Battleground Healing Potion, Battleground Fruitcake
Many of the PvP items require copius amounts of honor or arena points to buy, and some of them aren’t worth it because they are overshadowed by PvE gears and trinkets. This part discusses the exceptions, the ones which are cheap and worth it. Honestly, carrying one of the Alliance/Horde Battle Standards with you at all times, and adding either of these line to any of your macros, can change things in a very difficult battle (and can be used every 15 minutes, so almost once per Battleground):
/use Alliance Battle Standard
/use Horde Battle Standard
Really, that’s the first thing every PvP casual should invest their honor in and use it at least once per Battleground. While the effects don’t stack with more banners, it’s surprising that most people don’t even use one. Probably because they don’t know, which is why I am telling you this now: I’d rather that everyone have one on them at all times.
Similarly, if no other better trinkets are available, the Insignia of the Alliance/Horde can likewise free you up from CCs, all too common in PvP, and are activated using these macro lines (for trinkets):
/use 13
/use 14
Lastly, the Battleground Healing Potion and Battleground Fruitcake can be purchased for a very small fee at the robots that are always present in the waiting areas, starting rooms, and key bases of every Battleground, which are massively useful in recovering quickly when you need them.
Final Thoughts
Look, we are playing a game where some of the most powerful retail WoW PvP staples are available to everyone. PvP matches should become exciting showdowns of wit and tactics, with everyone making different builds to suit their playstyles. This information is free, and so I want it out there: I want casuals to know that they CAN humble top players by dumping them into Eye of the Storm with Thunderstorm if they’re careless. That casuals CAN steal bases using Track Humanoids and Levitate, which costs them next to nothing to have and learn to use. That by knowing the rules of each battleground, casuals CAN snatch victory from defeat.
Now go out there and win some Battlegrounds. Oh, and do me a favor: have fun while doing it!
- Anino, Shadow of Many Colors
Note: this guide is a summary of a more detailed PDF that has been pinned on Elune's Season 9 #pvp channel of the official Ascension Discord since June 5, 2024. If you're looking for the original and full version, you can download it there!
Alright, so I wanted to shake things up a little, to the benefit of fellow casuals who just want to get into WoW Ascenion Wildcard PvP and have fun. Here’s a quick and dirty basic guide about how to succeed in PvP as a casual player on Wildcard Ascension… with limited time and gold budget.
What this Guide is NOT
If you’re looking for a competitive guide to become the best healer, DPS, or tank in Ascension PvP, then this guide is NOT for you (and you’re never going to find one anyway - no one has time to write stuff like that). This guide will NOT make you the most powerful player on Elune. This is a casual guide, made by a filthy casual (me!) for casuals (hopefully you).
My advice for competitive PvP, if you really want to go down that rabbit hole? Go to the official Ascension Discord server and read the latest chats between the active pro players in the #pvp chat, build whatever they are building. The metagame for competitive PvP is wild. I suppose that’s it’s own kind of fun, but the constant changing is also why creating a guide for the metagame is difficult. It changes every week or so, same with the best PvP gear. But if you want to be the best, that’s what you must do.
If you’re like me and not really interested in competitive PvP, but want to play for giggles, then read on.
What this Guide IS
Instead, we will focus on utility and tactics: absolute basics that every casual should have.
This guide is both filthy and casual: it is filthy in that it will explore some of the cheapest, dirtiest, and most underhanded (yet perfectly legal) tactics so that anyone—even someone with low healing or DPS—can directly contribute to winning in Battlegrounds. It’s casual because it seeks to lessen the need to constantly reroll to perfect your build. It’s meant to empower casuals on Ascension so that we can capture flags and objectives, harass the opposing team, and feel great while doing it!
You see, some casuals aren’t motivated by anything logical, like overpowered DPS and healing. Some PvP players just want to laugh while watching the Battlegrounds burn. Interested? Read on!
Summary of the “Build”
That said, here’s a quick summary of the basic key elements of the “build” (I use the term very loosely). The rest of the subsections will explain why each of these are useful and when plus how they should be used in Battlegrounds.
The Essentials
Track Humanoids*
Levitate**
Thunderstorm (or Blast Wave)
The “Blinks”: Blink, Unchained Blink, and/or Shimmer
The “Mass CCs”: Mass Hysteria and/or Mass Entanglement
The “Evasions”: Dispersion, etc.
The “Battleground Trinkets and Items”: Alliance/Horde Battle Standard, Insignia of the Alliance/Horde, Battleground Healing Potion, Battleground Fruitcake
One thing Ascension promises is that you can build your hero any way you want. With the above essentials, the rest of the build is entirely up to you! Track Humanoids* and Levitate** can be gotten very easily (and at almost no cost to your build), so if you roll Thunderstorm, one of the “Blinks”, one of the “Mass CCs”, and Dispersion, then buy the—very cheap—Battleground Items, that still leaves you a lot of space to develop your own favorite build over it. Now for the fun part: teaching you how to abuse it!
Note that this guide presupposes you already are familiar the win conditions for the various PvP Battlegrounds. If you still don’t, and you want to get into casual PvP, you may want to look at online strategy guides for them, which are easily available on YouTube or a quick internet search, since these Battlegrounds—and the various ways to win in them—have been around on retail WoW for a decade or so, and are relatively public knowledge by now. I’ll mention some win conditions in passing as we go along. So let’s get to it!
Part 1: Track Humanoids*
*Track Humanoids is available as a Mystic Enchantment in WoW Ascension (GET IT. NOW.)
One great thing in Ascension Wildcard PvP is that abilities like Track Humanoids can now belong to anyone. While you could roll it up as an Ability, the easiest way to have it on you is to simply get the Mystic Enchantment for it. It depends on the trade-off: in most cases, the more accessible Mystic Enchantment version is far more beneficial than sacrificing an Ability from your build (the only real difference being that, as an Ability, you can toggle it on or off). Because of it being so accessible, there’s really no excuse not to get it.
But why is it useful? Information. In casual PvP, especially when it comes to capturing objectives, you live and die by information. With Track Humanoids, you will almost always—and I say “almost” because it can be foiled by Stealth and concealment abilities—have accessible and practically free information about where your enemies are. Suddenly, wanting to secretly capture bases in Arathi Basin/Eye of the Storm or sneak in to take the flag in Warsong Gulch or Twin Peaks becomes VERY possible!
“But, Anino!” you’re probably thinking to yourself: “You said so yourself, what if someone wants to Stealth and Ambush us when we take bases?”.
I won’t sugarcoat it: this possibility is very real. However, I used to be a PvP Hunter on retail WoW and I assure you that, out of the 1,000+ bases I’ve ever sneak-captured thanks to Track Humanoids while no one was looking, less than 100 of them were traps. Statistically, 9 times out of 10, those bases are totally unguarded. PvP players are notoriously impatient and obsessed with driving their DPS and healing numbers up for the scoreboard, so they would rather be fighting than standing guard. We don’t care about that nonsense: use this against them and steal bases, flags, and victories under their noses! Ever wanted to assault five bases in a single match in Arathi Basin? It’s really fun, and that’s how I do it.
Part 2: Levitate**
**Levitate is available as a Manastorm Reward in WoW Ascension (GET IT. NOW.)
Another thing you want to have in PvP is mobility and utility. The Priest Ability Levitate is democratized in WoW Ascension, because literally anyone who does a few Manastorm runs can buy this Ability (at no additional cost to their list of Abilities). Among all the “free” abilities, this one is the most useful for PvP: Call of the Elements is great, but only if you have totems, and Conjure Refreshment was great before the cheap Battleground Fruitcake made it superfluous, leaving Levitate as the absolute best and most universal PvP ability that you can add to your arsenal. For “free”!
But why is it useful? Like I said, mobility and utility. Levitate adds a whole dimension to PvP that, like with Track Humanoids, there’s very little reason not to get: if you are pushed off a cliff, you can slow it down to prevent fall damage, and you will almost never have to swim in a Battleground again, though the ultimate reason to get Levitate is that you can fly from a high area to a lower one at high speed. This is especially useful in Arathi Basin and in Eye of the Storm: mount up on your favorite mount (except if you’re carrying a flag), do a running jump, then pop Levitate. If you don’t feel confident doing this in PvP, you can practice in the open world. As a Horde player, I practice jumping off Thunder Bluff.
Concretely, this means you can float down from the starting point in Eye of the Storm to either of the two towers on your side of the map, or the center, incredibly quickly. In Arathi Basin, this makes the Lumber Mill the best base, since you can float from the Lumber Mill down to the Blacksmith, and from the Blacksmith down to the Gold Mine, potentially capturing three bases in quick succession—even getting just two of those within the first minute of the match feels great. In Warsong Gulch and Twin Peaks, Levitate can be used by flag carriers and chasers alike to float from the elevated parts of any given base down to the middle of the map. One “free” ability with so many applications!
Part 3: Thunderstorm (or Blast Wave)
On the opposite end, we have the Shaman Ability Thunderstorm. On retail WoW, this Ability was notorious for the exact opposite reason that Levitate is fantastic: you can push people to their doom. Especially useful in Eye of the Storm, where the towers to be captured are all elevated, and it’s possible to push people from the center of the map to a very long fall, Shamans have been using this ability to “ring out” players more powerful than them for a very long time. Now you can do it, too! There are little things more gratifying than using Thunderstorm to push the top DPS of the other team to fall for ten seconds then have them wait another twenty seconds to respawn. Taking out a big gun of the other team for half a minute is a big deal in a ten-minute game! That said, the fall damage plus the base damage caused is decent, and the fact that you restore mana while doing it is icing on the cake.
Note that, up until now, none of the abilities mentioned above—Track Humanoids, Levitate, and Thunderstorm—actually do anything significant to DPS or healing. Yet individually, each of them was a menace in retail WoW PvP. On Ascension Wildcard, you can have them ALL. Now you have the ability to capture bases with some impunity and speed, while also killing players stronger than you. At the cost of one Ability slot, one Mystic Enchantment slot, and an hour or so of Manastorm. Isn’t that fantastic? If all casuals had these abilities and used them well, PvP would be far more interesting.
Lastly, and as a lead up to the “Blinks”: Blast Wave is a baby version of Thunderstorm that would require the Mystic Enchantment called Dispersing Blast Wave to push back half as much. That said, it could do in a pinch if you really need it, or if you have Blink and the talents that synergize with it. It’s also worth noting that Thunderstorm has the Mystic Enchantment called Dispersing Thunderstorm, which is horrendously excessive, even for me. However, if you want to smack your opponents like ping pong balls and be the most obnoxious source of rage quitting ever… go for it.
Part 4: The “Blinks”: Blink, Unchained Blink, and/or Shimmer
This one might take a bit of commitment, but if you want to frustrate opponents and capture flags quickly, but don’t want to make a dedicated flag build, picking up the three “Blinks” (without Faerie Blink) and their related Talents is for you. Did you know that there’s an achievement in Warsong Gulch called Quick Cap, where you capture a flag in under 75 seconds? It’s doable, and I have done it several times, using a simple macro with the three “Blinks”, and getting their related Talents to reduce their costs and cooldowns so that you can blink every 8 seconds (I’ll assume you know what macros in WoW are, and if you don’t, please stop reading this, look them up, and then come back here):
/castsequence Shimmer, Unchained Blink, Blink
Simple. Elegant. Captures the flag if left completely unattended for 75 seconds (more often than you think). That’s why veterans moan when someone goes AFK in the last three minutes of a Warsong Gulch battle: that’s more than enough time to capture two flags, and therefore win the game! It works particularly well for Warsong Gulch and Eye of the Storm.
Note that the “Blinks” have a fortunate side effect in that they free you from some movement impairment effects. More on those in a later part. If you don’t have any effects that bring you out of those, these are a fairly good investment for that reason as well. Oh, and their synergy with Blast Wave and all the related talents that allow them to shock, daze, and knockback opponents could also be compelling reasons to run these Abilities. Even one of the “Blinks” can be game-changing, though I’ve seen good flag carrier builds that use Travel Form, Sprint, and, of course, Levitate, too.
Part 5: The “Mass CCs”: Mass Hysteria and/or Mass Entanglement
Out of all the methods of harassment that this guide has taught you until now, this is by far my personal favorite. For no reason other than I just really like to troll people. But you probably figured that out by now—DPS veterans kill too fast. I prefer slow-burning torture. Anyway… I digress. *laughs in sadist*
The term “CC” means “crowd control” in WoW, and usually applies to PvE crowds of mobs, but their application in PvP is very much the same. The difference is that PvP players are usually equipped with means to escape Fear, Stun, Incapacitate, etc. effects (more on how to escape those later), but it’s still important to run them. Top players often use Fear for example, because it’s a quick way to incapacitate an enemy.
Me? I’m a big believer in “go big or go home”. While Mass Hysteria takes longer to cast than Fear and will most likely be resisted by my main target, I love to do it in front of a big crowd in PvP, which happens very often, but especially in Southshore vs. Tarren Mill and the Temple of Kotmogu. Since it inspires Fear in multiple targets close to each other, the odds that at least one of them will be helpless is far greater. Same applies to Mass Entanglement, though that one is instant (yet sadly not as hilarious).
One combo I really enjoy pulling off is using Mass Hysteria on a group of players in Eye of the Storm, ideally in the center of the map, run up to them as they cower, and use Thunderstorm to send a few of them to oblivion. I do this once a week and it’s very therapeutic! My other favorite setup for Mass Hysteria/Mass Entanglement is to distract a crowd that is after our flag carrier or headed to our base. In at least one game I did this in the last 10 seconds of the match, and it prevented the other team long enough to secure a close victory for my side. Practice a bit, and you can do it, too!
“But, Anino!” you’re probably thinking to yourself: “You mentioned that PvP veterans are equipped against these, so what use are they?”.
You’re right. PvP veterans are equipped for CC traps like that, and in the next section I’ll tell you why you need them too. But no one has an infinite supply of them, and furthermore, if every casual came equipped with Mass Hysteria and its ilk, then the chances of veterans being able to escape every single effect becomes that much less. Besides, before reading this, were YOU prepared for it? Thought not. Sadly, many who do PvP don’t prepare enough for this sort of thing.
Part 6: “Evasions”: Dispersion, etc.
Every pro PvP player is running some sort of damage reduction instant that doesn’t use the global cooldown, such as Divine Protection or Shield Wall plus things that remove CC effects like Berserker Rage or Will of the Forsaken. In fact, veterans use many combinations of these so that they are practically uncatchable in PvP. Because of this, you’ll probably need one (or ten) too, programmed on a few macros.
If you had to pick only one, and your DPS and healing are both “bad”, and therefore you just need it to escape and troll people, get Dispersion (and ideally the related Talents for it). You won’t be doing damage for the seconds you are practically invulnerable, but you can escape a fight and run in the direction of your teammates while you do it. Here’s a little macro I made just for the purpose of running away using Dispersion while chugging a Battleground Healing Potion:
/cast Dispersion
/use Battleground Healing Potion
Note that, because Dispersion doesn’t use the global cooldown, you can stack the macro with effects that free you from other CCs and/or reduce damage that don’t either (Dispersion already works against many and blocks quite a bit: it’s double duty), and/or a trinket that likewise does not (any one of the trinkets that are anti-CC or that absorb damage), and/or ONE healing spell that uses the global cooldown (such as Desperate Prayer, Rejuvenation, or Lifebloom). This will give you time to escape and reposition, which is often better than waiting for twenty seconds to be resurrected. Then you heal or eat a Battleground Fruitcake. Here’s an example of the macro I’m proposing (many variants out there):
/cast Berserker Rage
/cast Shield Wall
/cast Desperate Prayer
/cast Dispersion
/use 13
/use 14
/use Battleground Healing Potion
Make sure that Dispersion goes last as a spell, since you won’t be able to cast anything while it’s up! With this, you should be able to escape, or at least distract, your opponents long enough to turn the tide. I’ve made a career of running around bases and getting groups of opponents to chase me for several seconds, all while my team captures multiple bases, or even the flag. Diversions are fun, especially with 8 or so people chasing you for half a minute!
Part 7: The “Battleground Trinkets and Items”: Alliance/Horde Battle Standard, Insignia of the Alliance/Horde, Battleground Healing Potion, Battleground Fruitcake
Many of the PvP items require copius amounts of honor or arena points to buy, and some of them aren’t worth it because they are overshadowed by PvE gears and trinkets. This part discusses the exceptions, the ones which are cheap and worth it. Honestly, carrying one of the Alliance/Horde Battle Standards with you at all times, and adding either of these line to any of your macros, can change things in a very difficult battle (and can be used every 15 minutes, so almost once per Battleground):
/use Alliance Battle Standard
/use Horde Battle Standard
Really, that’s the first thing every PvP casual should invest their honor in and use it at least once per Battleground. While the effects don’t stack with more banners, it’s surprising that most people don’t even use one. Probably because they don’t know, which is why I am telling you this now: I’d rather that everyone have one on them at all times.
Similarly, if no other better trinkets are available, the Insignia of the Alliance/Horde can likewise free you up from CCs, all too common in PvP, and are activated using these macro lines (for trinkets):
/use 13
/use 14
Lastly, the Battleground Healing Potion and Battleground Fruitcake can be purchased for a very small fee at the robots that are always present in the waiting areas, starting rooms, and key bases of every Battleground, which are massively useful in recovering quickly when you need them.
Final Thoughts
Look, we are playing a game where some of the most powerful retail WoW PvP staples are available to everyone. PvP matches should become exciting showdowns of wit and tactics, with everyone making different builds to suit their playstyles. This information is free, and so I want it out there: I want casuals to know that they CAN humble top players by dumping them into Eye of the Storm with Thunderstorm if they’re careless. That casuals CAN steal bases using Track Humanoids and Levitate, which costs them next to nothing to have and learn to use. That by knowing the rules of each battleground, casuals CAN snatch victory from defeat.
Now go out there and win some Battlegrounds. Oh, and do me a favor: have fun while doing it!
- Anino, Shadow of Many Colors
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"This guide is a summary of a more detailed PDF that has been pinned on Elune's Season 9 #pvp channel of the official Ascension Discord since June 5, 2024. If you're looking for the original and full version, you can download it there!"
but
There is no pdf files
https://discord.com/channels/215946029277642752/1184978362968576090/1247997662687531082
It was deleted. Could you please download it here?