Battlegrounds

Battlegrounds are instanced maps where a team fights a similarly matched team of the other faction. They sit between the chaos of world PvP and the tight fights of Arenas and Solo Shuffle: dozens of players work together, and victory comes from an objective, not from kill counts. They are the main source of Honor for PvP gear, and below max level they also give experience, which makes them a real way to level.

Maps fall into three styles: capture the flag, resource races over several capturable nodes, and full-scale warfare where you wear down the enemy's reinforcements and destroy their defenses. Regular battlegrounds are always Alliance against Horde; rated battlegrounds and War Games can pit two teams of the same faction against each other. Talking to the enemy team is blocked, so anything they say in /say or /yell comes out garbled.

Standard battlegrounds, used for random and rated play, have 10 or 15 players per side. Epic battlegrounds have 40 per side.

• Queue: open the PvP window from the micro menu (or talk to a battlemaster) and pick up to two specific battlegrounds, or one Random Battleground, which usually has shorter queues and lets you exclude two maps you dislike. Choose the roles you can play from your specializations.
• Start: you get about 2 minutes in your faction's starting area to buff and prepare, with a Preparation buff that makes abilities cost nothing. Then the gates open.
• Dying: you can die any number of times. Release and a Spirit Guide at a graveyard brings everyone nearby back in waves, at full health and mana.
• Power-ups: Berserking (+30% damage dealt and +10% damage taken for 1 minute), Restoration (heals health and mana) and Speed (+100% run speed for 10 seconds) spawn at fixed spots.
• Flag carriers in capture the flag maps slowly take more damage: Focused Assault adds 10% per stack every 30 seconds and turns into Brutal Assault, which also stops them from running faster than normal.
• Leaving early, or being reported as AFK, gives the Deserter debuff, which blocks new battlegrounds for a short time.
• Below max level, players are grouped by level brackets and raised to the top level of their bracket, though they still lack spells they have not learned yet.

Honor comes from honorable kills, from objectives such as gathering resources, stopping flag captures or destroying structures, and from a larger payout at the end, especially for the winners. Battlegrounds also give Reputation and Renown with their own factions, such as the Warsong Outriders or the Stormpike Guard. Alterac Valley, Ashran and Wintergrasp each have a quest that gives 150 Conquest once per season.

Rated battlegrounds are the top level of battleground play: premade 10v10 teams, voice chat, set tactics and the same item and ability limits as arenas. Only a party leader with enough members can queue. They award Conquest and rating, which leads to titles, mounts and achievements, and capture the flag matches run for 20 minutes instead of 15. Rated Battleground Blitz is a faster 8v8 rated version. War Games use the same maps with no rewards at all.