Tactics as a 5x Feral in AV

[Ualaa]

General Tactics:
The old adage, pick your fights...

This team seems a lot more fragile than other boxing compositions I have taken into battlegrounds.
Anytime it is a straight up battle, I put out a lot of damage; our Mastery affecting bleeds is probably too strong.
Especially given bleeds ignore armor because they are dots, and once applied they (60% of my damage) has 100% up time.
However, almost every melee class will kill me one on one; of course it is usually five on two or whatever.
So taking advantage of the initial alpha-strike, picking which fights to participate in and whether to heal or melee in those, and moving past impossible fights is key.
The team is a lot more tactical than I had thought it would be.



As a Feral team, I have very strong stealth; unless a horde literally ran over my they never noticed, not even if they were close enough to brush shoulders.... easily bypassed 4-5 horde who were "blockading" the choke between IB Tower and IB Graveyard.
Stealth is available 10 seconds after dropping stealth; so I would "power-shift" as I approached an objective, as it takes six second to cap something. As soon as it was tapped, immediately re-stealth as attention is drawn to whatever but it appears no one is there.
Then move away from the objective, and prepare to Charge-Ravage if anyone comes to reclaim it.



Feral Charge can get you places you cannot run to.
Or to enemies who are casting at you from above.
For example, Feral Charge up into the Iceblood Graveyard, by targeting someone up there.
If this was done from Stealth, we are still stealthed on arrival and can choose to engage or not.



Powershifting, was frequently used against root effects.
Simple macro: /cast !Cat Form
I would frequently alternate between this macro and my follow macro.
And disengage, to heal up some in "bad" fights.
Throw in Dash, once I was in the clear.



Unlike with Shammies, Towers vs Bunkers is the exact reverse.
With Shammies, Alliance Bunkers were so much easier to defend and/or recap.
But with a melee team, the "Donut Ring" around the top bluntly sucks, with IWT and Follow.
The best tactic was either Charge-Ravage, Follow Away, Repeat.
Or act as support healing from the stairs upwards almost to the Bunker.
Conversely, getting into the Towers Flag room, while a bit of a pain... it was much easier to fight up there.



I used Stampeding Roar, to give a very slight advantage getting out of the Gate.
Crusader Aura, already on or not on at all was fine.
Having it turned on or off, would frequently cause my mounted slaves to lose follow.



I ended up making a macro, to help my seemingly clueless allies out some.
I would press this once per AV, shortly before the gate opened.

Macro 1:
/bg Fast games = HONOR.
/bg 1. SKIP GALV, we do not want to rez on Def.
/bg 2. Take and HOLD Iceblood Graveyard, so we rez on Off.
/bg 3. Avoid Belinda, we do not want them to rez on Def.
/bg 4. Give them Stonehearth Graveyard, so they rez Off.

Macro 2:
/BG 5. Once IBGY is tapped, leave some there to hold it.
/BG 6. Send LOTS to IBT and TP, these are the key to winning.
/BG 7. Backcapping our middle field bunkers is great too.
/BG 8. At 10 mins in, Galv will be wide open and is really easy honor.

Macro 3:
/BG 9. Send a group to R. Hut, cap it before FW Graveyard.
/BG 0. Talk to Wing Commanders, honor when they make it home.
/BG X. Good hunting.



Large-scale PvP:
Have set up Grid to display eight columns wide, five rows deep.
With my toons always in column one.
And have a Repeater Region over the entire Grid frame.

Stick towards the back of any large scale altercation.
Have each Feral cast a Healing Touch on anyone below 60% health.
Which is anywhere from 50-80k in healing.

Cast five of these, then go into Kitty and run from the combat.
Without auto attack on, or an enemy targeted, combat drops almost right away.
Drink... the conjured mage table food gets me from OOM to full, in 4 seconds or so.
Less than 10 seconds later, start to throw another five heals.

In AV, there are lots of places to heal from unobtrusively.
In the "ditch" (where the harpies and rams are) on the stretch between the last alliance bunker and the hill up to Stormpike.
You can see everyone on the road, via Grid.
And no one seems to clue in where the heals come from.




Medium-scale PvP:
Anytime I came across more than four or five horde already in combat.

My tactics were to Heal as per the large-scale PvP.
And then go into Kitty form, and engage rather than run and drink.

Priority targets were:
a) Mages - these guys die very easily on Pounce, Ravage, Mangle, but are a pain otherwise.
b) Healers - always a priority target.
c) Fear Classes - with both Berserk + Trinkets, these are lower priority but still a priority target.

Mana would regenerate to full after a short combat.
A combination of not casting anything, so full spirit based regeneration.
And gaining mana almost every critical hit, which is better than every third hit.

Finish the combat by topping anyone up who needed it.




Smaller-scale PvP:
Ravage x5, would occasionally down targets (probably lower resilience players).
The first Mangle x5, would drop anyone, if the Ravage did not.
So this combination worked as an auto kill for any target, if I opened from stealth.
And the Ravage is not dependent upon stealth, but healers who were on the ball could react quickly enough to make it a few hits; Pallies bubbling the target were the only way to actually save someone.



Against a solo Paladin or Mage, or if they were the last target in a group.
As soon as they bubble, drop target and stop auto attack.
Run away and stealth.
Easy kill, when the immunity effect drops.

[Tim]

Hey Ualaa, could you post maybe 3 pictures to this thread? That way I can turn it into an awesome article on the MB.com frontpage

[Ualaa]

Edited a couple new thoughts into it.

I'll get a few screenshots.
Although if you wait a 3-4 days, I'll have transmuted enough Truegold to purchase Vial of Sands x5, which is 145k in vendor mats and close to 200k across the team.
Dragon Form x5, will be a nice screenshot too.

[Tim]

Dragon Form?!

[Ualaa]

12x Truegold
8x Flask of the Winds
8x Flask of Titan Strength
Plus 29k in vendor sold mats.

Initially, it required Alchemy 525 to learn the recipe. And the recipe was a rather rare from Archeology. Pretty sure the recipe can be traded now, and the Vial of Sands is not BoP anymore.

You become a Dragon, which is a very fast flying mount. You can carry one passenger. And of course, it is a unique graphic.

I went and crafted some weapons for the Druids, which will put their Vial of the Sands a little further back. Which is a mixed blessing; they wait a little longer for it, but have substantially better DPS in the meantime, and that allows me to transmute/sell more Volatile Air so I won't be quite as broke from 29k x5 in vendor mats.