SwagVault MMO Blog

Ten Things in Wintergrasp

December 5, 2008 – 5:29 am
Posted by: Barbarie

From: http://frostmage.net/index.php/ten-things-wintergrasp/

Point of fact I was sick. More to the point however I was Consumed By Ye Wrath Of Ye Liche Kinge.
Slacker!
I have something useful here though! Welcome one and all to

Ten Things I Think You Should Know About Wintergrasp.

• The basics: Wintergrasp is a PVP-enforced zone designed to encourage world PVP.
• Unlike Silithus, Eastern Plaguelands and the various PVP objectives in Outland, the dominant faction in Wintergrasp procs a buff that bleeds across the entire server.
• Like the Auchindoun buff, “Essence of Wintergrasp” allows the looting of currency tokens, called Stone Keeper’s Shards, off bosses. Unlike Auchindoun, this is not restricted to nearby bosses- all bosses drop them, and the number scales based on the difficulty of the dungeon (one per boss for lower dungeons, two to four for 80 dungeons and heroics). I don’t yet know if they drop from raid bosses.
• Also like Auchindoun, after a faction takes control of the zone it ‘locks’ in place for a set amount of time- two hours, thirty minutes.
• Unlike other world PVP, this action is considered like unto battlegrounds, in that you get honor and Wintergrasp Marks of Honor at the end of the game. This scales directly with your participation, and the rewards are higher for winning.
• The factions are strongly encouraged to battle over Wintergrasp- the resulting buff, in addition to allowing looting of currency (which can be used to buy all sorts of neat goodies), increases XP gain continent-wide by 5%. Think about it. 5% XP gain. You also gain access to a raid-boss on a three-day lockout, portals to various places, exclusive vendors, daily quests, and the right to farm elementals in the zone (which make a significant source of this game’s equivalent to primals).
• The Alliance (on my server the dominant faction, your milage may vary) will not simply steamroll acoss because of the hideous numerical advantage they enjoy.

So let’s go over the basics.

First: Understand that this is a no-fly zone, even for those with Cold-Weather Flying skill. You may teleport in (at apparently random times, still trying to figure this one out) from Dalaran. If you do attempt to fly in manually, you will be given the standard ten-second No-Fly warning, followed by forcible ejection (including unshifting for us druids) from your flight. You are, however, given a 40-second parachute instead of the normal ten, making this a viable option to approach the battlefield.

Second: Ranks. You gain ‘rank’ every time you (and occasionally nearby party members, again this seems fairly random) land a killing blow on either a hostile player or an NPC (Turrets or infantry). The animation is somewhat startling, and appears as a ‘ding’. At two kills, you are granted Corporal rank and may purchase a catapult. At ten additional kills, you are granted First Lieutenant rank and may purchase a Demolisher and a Siege Vehicle.

Third: Vehicles. There are lots of these. There are turrets on the towers, both for the defender’s keep and to guard the offense’s rear line. Anyone may use a turret. They can be destroyed by player action or by siege vehicle, and this will count as a killing blow for purposes of rank. It will not grant honor or XP. Corporals and First Lieutenants may requisition vehicles at any workshop under their control.

Catapults are one-man vehicles designed for skirmishing. Their Primary weapon is the plague barrel, which is a ballistic projectile weapon. It deals decent AOE damage as marked by the targeting reticule. Targets closer to the center of the blast will take more damage. This also deals light siege damage to buildings. Their secondary weapon is a forward-mounted flamethrower which does almost no damage to buildings, but is a decent anti-vehicle and excellent anti-player weapon. It is a three-second duration fire-breath, during which the vehicle may move freely. The cooldown is shorter than three seconds, so this may be spammed in combat if you do not need the primary weapon.

Demolishers are hybrid vehicles. The pilot controls a fireball projectile similar to the plague barrel on the catapult, along with a ram- this deals siege damage and is inefficient for anti-personell, but does disproportionately high damage to vehicles and buildings. It also has a knock-back effect. It is effectively a melee-ranged weapon usable only in the front of the vehicle. Demolishers move slower than catapults. Two players aside from the pilot may jump on the vehicle and fight with ranged attacks from the cupolas. Presumably this allows the tank to take damage in the player’s stead, I have not yet tested this theory. The passengers do not receive additional weaponry.

Siege Vehicles. Slowest and strongest of the weaponry available. The pilot receives only a heavy ram as weaponry, deals massive damage to structures, moderate damage and knockback to players and vehicles. A second player may elect to jump into the turret mounted on the tank’s back and fire the cannon- the cannon is a high-damage AOE weapon with free rotation (unlike the catapults on the two lighter vehicles, which are fixed arc). A third player may jump into the vehicle, but will receive no weaponry and is not in a cupola but is enclosed, precluding their fighting. They are however protected from attacks while in the vehicle, and it has been suggested (further testing underway) that they improve the vehicle’s stats for the other two pilots.

Fourth: Workshops, control of. While anyone of appropriate rank may purchase a vehicle in workshops, there are slight additional complications:
1: There are six total workshops on the field. The Keep shops are always under the control of the defenders; the Rear shops under control of the attackers. The Midline (referred to in-game as East and West Vehicle Workshops) begin under control of the defenders but may be captured via More Men In Proximity (Similar to the capture process for the Plaguelands towers, Halaa Flag or Eye of the Storm Towers). They capture quite rapidly.

2: Workshops may be destroyed. I currently believe that this applies only to the statically-controlled workshops- as far as I have so far been able to tell, the midline shops are invulnerable.

3: Workshops increase your vehicles limit. There may only be four vehicles under the control of your faction per workshop you control. If you eject from a vehicle without its being destroyed, it will stay on the field for several minutes before self-destructing, and will during that time count against the vehicles limit.

Fifth: On Being Outnumbered. This area balances based on faction size. If there are six Horde in the zone and twenty Alliance, such as happened to me last night, the Horde will be granted three stacks of the Tenacity buff. Tenacity, per stack, increases your maximum HP, healing taken, and health regeneration by 25%, and your damage dealt by 18%. This will also scale the health and damage of any vehicle you enter.

Sixth: Damage-Over-Time. DOTs, healing, and roots do not work on vehicles, including turrets.

Seventh: Zoning in and out. You may teleport here from Dalaran. You will end up in a tower. For a few moments after you teleport, you do not take falling damage. Jump on down! You may also teleport between graveyards your faction controls, while dead, by speaking to the spirit healer. You may leave at any time via the flight master (near the West vehicle workshop for Horde, presumably near the East for Alliance), or by right-clicking the faction insignia on your minimap ring and requesting “Leave Wintergrasp”. This option will put your hearthstone on cooldown. If your faction controls the zone, you may enter the keep and use the portals there- one to each battleground and one back to Dalaran.

Eighth: Honor points. You get a lot of these, and it scales based on rank. Fight hard.

Ninth: Destroying walls, and getting over them. Walls- the things that keep the Keep intact- may be destroyed by vehicles. There are also portals on the ground outside walls (and in the workshop courtyards) which the defenders may use to cross through the walls. Walls can be exited from inside via ramps or, if in a vehicle, the aforementioned defender portals.

Tenth: How to win.

This is the complex bit, but I’ll try to keep it relevant and concise. The objective of the attacking faction is to get siege vehicles to the keep, destroy an outer wall so they can penetrate to the Courtyard or either of the Workshop Courtyards, from there destroy an inner wall to allow them access to the Inner Courtyard, and from there destroy the Keep Door to allow them access to the Keep. One member of their faction must then complete a ten-second, non-hastable, ‘capture’ of the giant glowing orange orb, similar to an Arathi Basin graveyard capture. Damage interrupts this. A successful channel causes victory.

The defending faction needs to stop the attackers from doing this until the timer (45 minutes, unless I’m mis-remembering) runs out.

To that end, the prime objectives of the attackers can include:

• Destroy towers at the keep, which can fight back more effectively than foot soldiers.
• Destroy walls to allow keep access.
• Capture the midline vehicle workshops to increase the vehicle cap and allow easier attacks on the keep- these are significantly closer than the rear-line workshops.
• Destroy the east and west courtyard vehicle workshops- not always practical, but does make assault easier.
• Clear the guard NPCs from the Vehicle, South, and Inner courtyards.
• Blow the keep door.
• Get the orb!

The defenders, on the other hand, have a different task list:

• Maintain control of the midfield vehicle workshops.
• Defend the walls using vehicles or tower turrets- fight on foot only when forced to.
• Smash the rear-line vehicle workshops if this is practical; it reduces the number of vehicles that can be fielded against you.
• If you can smash the rear-line shops and capture the mid-line ones before the inner walls are breached, your team has just become invulnerable- the walls can’t be breached without vehicles.
• The above almost never happens, so more realistically, stop the opposing faction from breaching the wall.
• Don’t let the attackers channel the orb.

So that’s a basic run-down of how a Wintergrasp fight plays out. More as I discover it, when I can once more drag myself away from Wrath. I will say here that I think this could be the new Alterac Valley (at one point my main occupation in-game, before the quote unquote ‘balance’ tweaks took it from a 50-50 win split to a literal 2% win rate for Horde in my battlegroup).

P.S. You do NOT need to be 80 to play Wintergrasp; you can get the dailies at 79 but any level can play and, with vehicles, your level and gear are not tied to your performance. Go forth and CRUSH in the name of the Horde!