Node Battlegrounds: Creating Pressure

Often in battlegrounds, we see a lot of people saying "Fight on Flag," "Don't fight in mid," and things of the like.  There is generally a lot of truth in the matter.  If you're not fighting directly for a node or around one, you're not making a "hard contribution" to the battleground objectives, IE winning.

However, there is a time and place for "soft contributions," where you and your teammates create a favorable situation without necessarily taking control of a node.

First and foremost, there needs to be made a distinction.  A dead player is of no use and a living player is always better than a dead player.  A dead player cannot take nodes, create pressure, or kill other players.  A living player can do everything I just mentioned.

When in Arathi Basin, Eye of the Storm, or Battle for Gilneas, the ultimate objective is to control the most number of nodes for the longest period of time.  This involves a distribution of players defending nodes from the opposition.

The way the different battlegrounds are designed though, is that whichever team has the more nodes will have less players distributed and creates a situation where the opposing team can put more of their players onto a node, in an attack, to gain the node.

So, how does a game not become a tennis match? Well, generally superior level of play.  If a player can kill 3 players during their time alive, then obviously those 3 dead cannot achieve anything and that living player can.  In these battlegrounds, where controlling the most number of nodes for the longest period of time, the team that dies less generally wins more.

However, if you're finding that superior level of play is not on your side, a good way to play to psychological.  In AB, EotS, or BfG, teams will have to respond to attacks for fear of losing nodes.

So, next time you are on defense and you successfully thwart an attack, do not rest up for another attack.  Through attrition, you might be beaten and lose your node.  It would be better to quickly attack while your opponents are dead (Unable to respond to your attack) and force your living-opponents to respond. 

This does not mean run your whole team to their node.  You should definitely succeed in taking their node but will probably fail in defending the other nodes.  This also does not mean you should, alone, run to take their node.  That is not a large enough scale-attack to gather attention.  A small group, 3-4, will suffice.

This also doesn't mean kill yourselves.  This applying of pressure should not be a suicide run.  If you can kill a couple more of your opponents, maybe grab the flag.  Then you should run.  Surviving is more important that gaining a node that you may or may not be able to defend.  But if you're drawing the opponent's attention, it will support your defense and therefore you will be able to maintain more nodes for a longer period of time.

And who knows, you might accidentally take all the nodes with the pressure being applied and win even faster!