HOW TO LEAD & SHOT CALL

HOW TO LEAD & SHOT CALL INTRO

Welcome to our course on how to lead and shot call in RBGs. Now we're going to assume you've already watched our map guides or you already have a solid foundation on strategies. What this course is going to do is it's going to take things to the next level, teaching you how to lead in an RBG environment. We hope you enjoy.

IMPORTANCE OF SHOT CALLING IN RBGS

Hey guys whats up and welcome to another video. A constant complaint we see on all our RPG related videos is as much as you guys love RPGs you just cant find a stable team.

One of the biggest reasons we find for this lack of teams is that there is very few people who can reliably lead or set up a team themselves, as essentially when doing so you're going to be required to micromanage 9 other players, which in all fairness is a daunting task for anybody.

But don't worry, we're here to help as today we're going to be learning how to lead and shot call like the number one rbg team. Alright so rated battlegrounds are unique in the fact that there are tons of different strategies and ways to play the multitude of different maps that you get.

Which means no two games are ever really the same, so you're constantly required to adapt and make split second decisions. These decisions are almost always made by whats called the shot caller or leader of the group.

Now yes its true everybody can give some input, but ultimately there's always that one person who has the final say and whose words and calls ring true. Ultimately though, shot calling and leading is as easy or as difficult as you want to make it.

It could be as simple as just leading by pre assigning players to bases or formations at the start of the game. Or it could be fully taking the reigns and shot calling, making those decisions that win or even lose your team the game.

And honestly, one of the best things about rated battlegrounds is that the right tactics and shot calling can overcome any player skill discrepancies. For example, if you took 10 of the most skilled players in the world and pitted them up against 10 average joes, but armed them with good shot calling and tactics.

The game would still be very close.

RBG LEADING & ASSIGNING

Let's start with the basics though, and the simplest form of leading is to just assign where players should be going at the start of each map. However basic that is, it's one of the most important skills to have in order to lead your group successfully from the get go.

Bear in mind, this should only really be loose assignments, as you probably already know things inside Raided Battlegrounds constantly change and you can't just stick x amount of people on one base for the entire game, but this is more so shot calling than leading, and let's focus on the latter to begin with.

To learn about leading, let's take the composition used to win a recent RBG tournament that took place. We've got our three healers, Mistweaver, Holy Paladin, and Disciplined Priest.

Then for the rest of our team we've got three druids, one warlock, one rogue, and then a warrior and death knight. What we're going to do is see if you the viewer are able to assign this team composition to the bases or positions on various maps.

Let's start off easy, Eye of the Storm. On this map if you've seen our guides you'd know the basic strategy is 8 people middle and then 2 defenders.

So we're going to have to assign 2 defenders and send them to one base each. Take a second to think which 2 classes should defend.

Our rogue is obviously the first choice, and then after that our second designated defender should be one of our druids, which we'll want to spec guardian. These are the two best defending classes we have.

After that we can send the remaining 8 members of our team to fight for middle. Well if you guessed that right, congratulations, your ability to lead groups is already better than most people you'll find in LFG.

Okay. Now let's move on to the other very crucial assignment, and this is just as important as who's going to defend, and is one that's very overlooked in almost all poorly led groups.

Can you guess what it is? The answer is who's going to peel off or float from the middle if you need help on your bases.

For this role we want a spec which is going to be able to quickly leave the center team fight and get to our bases in limited time. To take that role we've got two options, our mist weaver if we don't need healing in middle or a balanced druid if we can't spare a healer.

And our stick leading, just simply doing assignments for your team. But let's try a map which is a little harder, a flag map, twin peaks.

For this we're going to have to know the strengths and weaknesses of each spec we have in our roster. First of all we of course need a tank, this one's easy, it's one of our druids.

Then we're going to want to assign our three healers, having one defense, one offense, and one floating healer. Think about which healer you would assign where and why.

Paladin is one of the best defense healers, the reason being their blessings, which are great at helping your flag keep going.

And then priest is one of the best offensive healers, being able to assist their team offensively with damage and crowd control while also having good defensives to survive alone so should be put in offense. Which leaves monk and when you compare the mobility of all the healers monk is clearly the most mobile.

This makes them great at floating between team fights and keeping up with players trying to kite. Finally we're going to have to assign our remaining six dps.

For ease let's split them evenly. Take a moment to decide which three classes are best suited to offense.

A clue is these three classes share one thing in common. And that's their ability to stealth.

So we're going to be winding us into our two balanced druids along with our rogue. Now them being able to stealth is not the sole reason here.

Both balance and sub have very high on demand burst damage, instant cc, and lockdown coupled with high mobility and the already mentioned stealth, which allows them to have an easier time connecting and killing enemy flag carriers, where our remaining classes would struggle beyond all imagination.

Which then leaves our defense team of warlock, warrior and death knight. These classes are not just in defense by process of elimination.

Both frost death knight and warlock bring some incredibly strong slows and peels for the flag carrier.

Having the arms warrior there also brings a great abundance of peels and defensive tools but more importantly gives you very strong kill pressure when combined with the damage of a frost death knight and the dots of a warlock. Our final challenge is going to be the hardest map to lead players on at the start of a game.

This is going to be the hardest map to lead players on at the start of a game. Arathi Basin.

The reason for this is you're going to need to not only know the strengths and weaknesses of your composition and its classes but also know the tactics of the map. So using our same composition and playing from the horde side.

Lets first assign our defender for farm. Who do you think it should be?

Well we've got a rogue. Rogues are always going to be your first go to defender so naturally he'll be going to farm.

If you're aware of the tactics for Arathi Basin you'll know you want two main defenders and once again just like on eye of the storm. We want one of our druid champions.

We want our druid champion to go guardian and be ready to hold our second base once we obtain it. As we don't have a second base to begin with, a good thing to do is send your guardian to the base your not looking to gain control of.

That way he can spin the base and delay your enemy getting it. Using the basic strategy for Arathi Basin, we'll want to send our strongest team fighters to lumber mill as this is the base we'll be looking to overload.

First of all though lets pick a healer to go with them. A clue for which one of the three is that they have some special synergy with another one of our classes. i'm talking about disciplined priest. and why they're the perfect lumber mill healer is for a few reasons.

First of all you've got shining force which can be combined with your death knight in order to knock players down. Second of all as our plan is to overload this base and get it quickly the priest is crucial as it allows you to levitate to blacksmith afterwards.

Speaking of blacksmith as we're only planning on just spinning the base until we get reinforcements from lumber mill we're looking for a dps that can best survive of which we're going to pick one of our two balanced druids as when in bear form they are incredibly durable.

This is also good to do as we then keep the warrior and frost death knight melee synergy at the base we're looking to win. This means we then get warrior, death knight, warlock, and one boomkin up at lumber mill.

As for which healer goes to blacksmith it's obviously going to be the paladin as they have the most defensive tools in order to avoid both death and crowd control giving them longer to keep blacksmith. And for your floating healer it's of course the one with the most mobility.

In this case the monk. It's his job to go to the base where the enemy sends the most dps.

After you get lumber mill you levitate down and your guardian leaves gold mine and comes to defend farm as your rogue goes to lumber mill. Fighting an 8v8 blacksmith while having your monk or balance float as required.

RBG SHOT CALLING SCENARIOS

Arming yourself with a basic strategy on a map and the knowledge to be able to assign players is already a great foundation to work with, and trust us, you're going to be better than most groups straight out of the gate. But if you're serious about leading, you'll have to get used to shotcalling.

As we mentioned in the introduction, things don't always go your way, and you can't be expected to win every teamfight, but with good shotcalling you'll stand a chance no matter who your opponents are. So let's take a look at some scenarios.

You've just loaded into temple of khatmagu and are partaking in a 10v10 teamfight. You're the weaker team and one of your healers dies.

You notice your team's health dropping very low. Do you...

A. Continue the fight and hope to 2 heal.

B. Tell your team to quickly wipe and group up before going in again.

C. Peel off from your teamfight and grab what orbs you can, aiming to regroup at your graveyard.

Or D. Type slash afk and go to the next game.

You're clearly much weaker in the teamfight. Okay.

Let's do another scenario. The correct choice was option C.

As a shotcaller you need to realize that teamfights are not the be all or end all. Especially on maps like temple of khatmagu.

If you lose the first teamfight you can try to pick up as many orbs as possible. This can get you a point lead despite losing the teamfight, and from there you won't have to partake in more 10v10 teamfights.

And even at the very least you'll prevent the enemy from picking up 4 orbs and getting bonus points, meaning you won't be that behind when you spawn. Okay let's do another scenario.

Listen carefully. We win the last temple of khatmagu.

We win the last temple of khatmagu game, barely, and queue up and get the exact same team. This time though we're alliance on silver shard mines.

We're going to test both your ability to shotcall, but also hone back to see if you can remember how to assign your team. Hopefully by this point you've seen our beginners rbg video and know the general strategy of silver shard mines, but if not we'll leave a link in the description.

So do we want to with our starting assignments. A.

Send 8 players to lava with your 2 defenders heading to the closest cart which is top. B.

Send all 10 players to lava so that we're stronger in teamfight and make sure we get the cart. C.

Send 8 players to lava and then try to play for off carts by going for middle with your defenders and a floater from lava. Or D.

Change lava long and go middle with your team. If you guessed D, congratulations you're a great shotcaller.

This question was very loaded. First of all as a shotcaller you need to recognize when you have a weaker teamfight.

In this second scenario we were facing a team. We've already lost teamfights.

So unless it was a fluke we're more than likely not going to win a standard 8v8 at lava on silver shard mines. But as I mentioned we did win this imaginary temple of khatmagu so you're clearly leading a team that can play well objectively and listen to calls.

So why play for a teamfight we know we're at a disadvantage in. Instead a great strategy is to turn lava long using your rogue.

Then have your entire team head to middle. By the time the enemy team realizes what's going on you'll have full tag of middle and be ahead of the cart.

At this point you just slow the enemy from getting caught. Have your rogue go back to defending top with your other defender and you've successfully got two carts in the opener of silver shard without having to partake in any teamfight.

You can then look to always play at the carts your enemy isn't aiming to just avoid fights in general.

There are tons of different types of scenarios that can pop up in any game and in rbgs there's always a way to win simply by being more coordinated than your enemy team because quite frankly almost all groups struggle with just the basics.