RATED BATTLEGROUND FLAG CARRYING

FLAG CARRYING INTRO

Welcome to our course on flag carrying. Being a good FC requires a lot of knowledge and confidence.

It's not something everyone's cut out for, especially these days. You really need to know what you're doing here, especially as you gain ratings, since players are gonna hunt you down the map from start to finish.

It's a vicious world out there, you know? We put together this course here to make things easier for you, giving you some bite-sized tips on how to flag carry in your next BG.

THE BEST TANKS FOR FLAG CARRYING

On two of the battleground maps you're going to need to have somebody capable of carrying the flag. It's easy though right?

Pick up the flag and take it from point A to point B. Well, not quite.

And to give credit where credit's due, flag carrying is actually one of if not the hardest role to fulfill correctly. But being such a niche role there sadly just isn't any information out there about it.

So how do you learn? Well, welcome to the only BG and RBG flag carrying guide you need.

To start let's talk about the tanks. Even now the tank flag carrying role is very much a two horse race between vengeance demon hunters and guardian druids.

The latter, which is by far the most popular and meta tank pick, is picked and played by any team who are worth their salt right now. The added benefit of incarnation with the legacy of the sleeper legendary coupled with their ability to stealth make them a more safe and reliable tank.

Whereas vengeance demon hunters have been the go to tank up until just recently, primarily down to their incredible mobility, survivability, and ability to see stealth targets. Now we know a little bit about our two viable tanks, let's cover how you should be building them.

Even just as a tank carrying the flag, having the correct talents, legendaries, and build paths make all the difference. We're not going to go too in depth here as this is something we've covered in both part one and part two of our RBG guides.

As a guardian your talents look like this. Picking up Mal'norn's swiftness for the added speed, emerald slumber to get your important cooldowns back, and toughness for the added reduction to stuns as your pvp talents.

Now let's talk about the tank. First off, the pvp talents.

Then for covenants you'll want night fey for soul shape and convoke the spirits, selecting the naya soulbind with the conduits on screen now. The most important ones being well honed instincts, tough as bark, and tireless pursuit.

Aiming to stack as much versatility and mastery as possible for your stat priority with your go to legendary being the ever so strong legacy of the sleeper. Then for vengeance demon hunter your talents should look like this.

Picking up reverse magic, illidan's grasp, and detainment as your pvp talents. Then for the pvp talents you'll want night fey for soul shape and convoke the spirits.

Selecting the naya soulbind with the conduits on screen now. Then for your covenant its of course once again going to be night fey.

The added mobility from soul shape combined with the damage and mobility of the hunt are just way too good to pass up. Selecting dreamweaver as your soulbind of choice primarily for the added slow from soothing voice.

The most important conduits here are fellfire haste and then fell defender and vicious ink. Last but not least before we move on, the legendary you'll want to take is either darkest hour or sefuse its up to you.

Opting for again versatility and mastery as your preferred stats.

FLAG CARRYING MAPS

Now that you've set up your tank ready to pick up the flag, let's take a quick look at the maps you're going to be required to do so on. There are only two captured flag maps in the current map pool.

These are Warsong Gulch and Twin Peaks. The two maps are almost exactly the same, and are both obviously CTF based.

The only real difference is that while Warsong Gulch is mirrored, Twin Peaks can have some advantages or disadvantages based on which side of the map you're playing from. This is down to the Horde side being surrounded by water, and the Alliance side being raised up.

PICKING THE FLAG

Before we discuss kiting routes and what to stay aware of, what you're probably not totally clued up on is that the game doesn't begin for you when you pick the flag.

There is a huge minigame before you even pick up the first flag, and you can gain early advantages from even doing something you might deem counterintuitive. Starting from the POV of the Demon Hunter, you have one goal, and that's to pick up the flag as safely as possible, without having to use any cooldowns to do so.

Enemy teams know this, especially if they have a Guardian Druid, so we'll always aim to try and get on you as soon as possible and force you to use stuff early. This means you're going to have to be smart about the opener.

Aim to use your spectral sight to track the enemy high priority targets before picking the best route into the enemy base, avoiding the most enemies in the process.

Only using your mobility as you're near the enemy, preferably combined with a blessing of protection and freedom from your Holy Paladin if you have one to prevent crowd control and stuns. Whereas Guardian, due to their prowess... ...has the unique advantage of being able to pick the flag whenever they choose to.

One thing you'll have to be wary about is enemy Demon Hunters with their spectral sight. So always have your team move in and get the Demon Hunter in combat to prevent him from being able to use this to get you out.

Once you've made it to the enemy base safe and sound, you've got a few different options. First is just to pick the flag as normal and try to safely get to your base.

The second option, and something we continuously see at the highest level of play, is not picking until the enemy flag carrier already has made it across the map. This may seem like a strange concept, but we'll show you why this is so amazing for Guardian Druids to do.

So you'll have your entire team in midfield fighting as normal while you're in stealth in the enemy base. At which point the enemy flag carrier will inevitably pick the flag.

Have your entire team instantly turn around and stick onto the enemy flag carrier, forcing them to use cooldowns. Stay onto the flag carrier, keeping up pressure until he's about to reach the base.

At which point you can pop your incarnation and soul shape as needed and escape taking a healer or two. ...and escape taking a healer or two. ...and escape taking a healer or two. ...and escape taking a healer or two. ...and escape taking a healer or two. ...and escape taking a healer or two. ...and escape taking a healer or two. ...and escape taking a healer or two.

Why this is so good, is that you'll then have up to nine players on top of the enemy flag carrier with them having nowhere to go, and can turn that pressure into a quick kill. While you can get away with a safe cap.

KITING ROUTES

Alright, so now you've mastered picking the flag, our next step is covering kiting routes. Starting with Warsong Gulch, your goal should always be to try to make it to your team's roof as fast as possible.

Why this is important is that the roof has only one point of entry, and while coming up the ramp your enemies can be slowed. You can even use area of effect abilities on the tunnel to prevent stealth classes.

And then once enemies start to make it up to the roof, you'll jump down and head out to the graveyard. At this point, assess the situation.

If you need to kite more and the enemy is following you, aim to jump down at the graveyard and go up the tunnel back to the roof and repeat the process.

If you've got good distance or the enemy team is attempting to cut you off, you can opt not to jump down and instead use the outside of the fence in order to line of sight or kite your enemies. But the standard roof to graveyard to tunnel back to roof is your bread and butter kiting route.

Then for Twin Peaks it's relatively the same concept. Your goal is to get to the elevated platform on each side of the map.

After which you'll want to again start to jump down to the roof and then head out to the tunnel. You can then guard the stairs with your defense team.

Granted you've got a lot less time than on Warsong Gulch, but it's still doable. Once the enemy team is coming up, you can jump down to the second floor and then head out to your team's graveyard.

At this point you again assess the situation. If you're safely away from the enemy, you can make your way around and back into the main entrance of your base and head up to the elevated floor once again.

Otherwise you'll want to make good use of your leaf hut on both sides of the map. This can be used to line of sight and kite enemies around until you can get mobility back in time for your dungeon.

And then head back to your base once again when it's safe and repeat the process.

AWARENESS IN RBGS

This next section is without a doubt the most important, and that's understanding what you need to be aware of when carrying the flag. So, teams will be split up into a defense and offense, your own included, hopefully.

When you're carrying the flag, you're going to have to pay extra attention to the enemy team's offense. More importantly though, the high priority targets.

For example, if the enemy team is playing with a rogue, arms warrior, and balance druid, who would you consider the highest priority to avoid? The correct answer is the enemy rogue.

Rogues are the highest priority target always. The main reason is that they provide not only high burst damage, but the lockdown provided to allow the enemy team to connect to you.

You can get blinded, sapped, and kidney shot, and just the stuns in general is the scariest thing you can encounter. Demon hunters can obviously do this a lot easier due to spectral sight, but this is why we always aim to head up to a part of the map where there is one point of entry.

So the roof on Warsong or the platform of Twin Peaks, so we always know where the rogue is going to be coming from. Although the enemy rogue is still the highest priority to keep track of, you still want to always keep track of the rest of the enemy offense.

This can always be done easily with battleground enemies. Simply clicking on the player's frame will show you their nameplate no matter the distance, so you can see where they are and where they are coming from.

This is something you should continuously be doing. The other really important thing to keep track of is your own defense team.

They're the players who are going to inevitably save you either by killing the offense team or slowing them. Ideally, you'll have a few DPS with good slows and you'll be able to get a lot of damage.

You'll be able to get a lot of damage with a lot of slow and crowd control or decent kill pressure. Making sure not to kite your own team is just as important as kiting your enemies.

So always try to get your defense healers to keep ahead of you at all times. You never want to have to turn back to them.

If you're on the roof or platform and about to jump down, your healers should be already down there and running your kiting route. If they're not, this is something you should be actively communicating to them.

If they're not ahead of you, you can get cut off and die very easily. Your DPS and defense are equally as important as your healers.

Although they shouldn't always be ahead of you, they should always be assisting you with slows or killing the enemy offense. If you're ever in a situation where you're just with a healer or two and lack any DPS, you're going to struggle to kite.

You heavily rely on the slows and peels of your team.

STAYING ALIVE IN RBGS

Our last section is going to be about staying alive and how to best do so. Staying alive as a tank is very much a team effort, but with you at the helm, and a lot of your defense teams should provide a multitude of tools for you yourself to utilize.

For example, your paladin's freedom is one of your best abilities at allowing you to kite. Try to call for this and combine it with your mobility to get greater distances.

You should also have one reliable slow in your defense team, either a death knight or warlock, but mages, rogues, and other classes can fill this role. Without these slows, you'll struggle to ever build distance, so try to make sure they're always near you and doing their job.

Always think about what tools you have available to you in your defense, and take the approach as if you're a raid leader, calling the defensives of your team.

Things like lifegrips from priests and ring of pieces from monks are two very strong tools that you can utilize as part of your mobility kit, allowing you to build great distances.

And finally, just like any other form of pvp, you're going to be required to use your defensives well and in tandem with your healer's cooldowns. So, if you're going to be using your defensives well, you're going to need to be using your healer's cooldowns.

So, if you're going to be using your healer's cooldowns, you're going to need to be using your defensives well and in tandem with your healer's cooldowns. So, be vigilant for high impact offensive cooldowns like incarnation, convoke the spirits, avenging wrath, or even shadow blades.

Also, you should remember the amount of damage you're going to be taking is increased by the focused assault buff. This stacks up over time, increasing the damage you take by 10% with each stack, along with also decreasing the healing you take by 5% per stack.

This simultaneously will also reduce your movement speed and ability to kite, so always something to keep track of.