PvP: 101 Arathi Basin

The Arathi Basin battleground is physically located in the Arathi Highlands at Refugee Point for the Alliance and behind Hammerfall for the Horde.   The Forsaken Defilers and the League of Arathor have set up camps to wage war over the natural resources contained in the basin. 

 









AB is at its heart "he who has the most toys wins" game, its a resource accumulation battleground. The goal is to gather 1600 resource points with the first team to reach that number winning the match and ending the game. There are five resource nodes which can be controlled by capturing the associated, nearby flag. The nodes are, The farm, the Lumber Mill, The Blacksmith, The Mine and The Stables.  The more nodes you control the faster you earn resources.  

 
 

All nodes start out in a neutral state, with no owners.  Once a flag is tagged, teams must protect it for one minute until it comes under their control.

After the flag at a node has been captured it will officially belong to that team.  You must defend your node because the other team will try to activate the  flag and throw the node into a conflict status.  You then have one minute to reclaim your flag before the other team gains control.




A node in conflict will provide no resources to either team, and players will no longer be able to rez at that node’s graveyard.

AB is a 15v15 battleground with level ranges 20-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70-79, 80.  Again communication is key.
 
This is an even larger map than WSG and will take longer for your teammates to come help you.  Be sure to be clear about what node you are at, try to give a number of attackers and give your teammates enough notice to get there before the evildoers snag your node.

The skinny on those flags at the nodes. 

• The action for capturing a flag is identical to opening a chest
• It is an 8 second channel to capture a flag
• Like any channeled ability in PvP, you can be interrupted by just about anything.
• Invulnerability buff effects prevent a player from capturing a flag.
• Whenever anyone tags a flag it announces it to the whole battleground.
• All captures, assaults and defenses are also announced to the whole battleground.

One of the best pieces of advice I can give to new players is to always fight near a flag, never on the road.  Fighting on the road achieves nothing except to leave your flag unguarded.  Making sure a flag is never left alone and is of primary importance.  Blizzard has added an incentive to players to protect the flag with the Honorable Defender buff. This increases the honor gained from killing enemy players by 50% as long as you're within reasonable range of the flag.

It's always ill-advised to leave a node unguarded, resist the urge to go where the fighting is.  Sometimes a player's worst enemy in Arathi Basin can be boredom, which can strike the defenders.  Decide for yourself which matters most, winning or your honorable kill total.

Having more nodes is better. While controlling three nodes is a slow and steady way to win the game, there's always the danger of losing a node and having the tide turn.  If its safe then go try to get another node.  But take care of spreading your defenses too thin, especially if you are in a pug.

There are some spiffy honor awards to come from the AB quartermaster.  The Alliance vendor for these items is Samuel Hawke  Alliance battleground entrance. The Horde vendor for these items is Rutherford Twing  outside the Horde entrance.

There are a number of quests involving fighting in Arathi Basin, some of which need reputation with the battleground faction. You can get them from one of the NPCs near the battleground entrances.
The first quest will usually be The Battle for Arathi Basin.

Arathi Basin is a fun, fast-paced game that, if you play it right, might even end up with very little PvP at all.  Even at level 80 its a good starter battleground for the newbie to PvP.