by "Darkfact" with updates by Byron "Messiah" Mudry

The Eye of the Storm is a 15-man battleground available from level 61 to 70 and is located in the Outlands's Netherstorm. Unlike the other battlegrounds though, you may not enter this battleground through a normal entrance, instead, you will need to queue at one of the many battle masters in the cities.

Basics

Eye of the Storm plays like a combination of World PVP, Arathi Basin and Warsong Gulch. How is this possible? Let's analyze all the mechanics Eye of the Storm has and why it is so unique when compared to the other battlegrounds. To win, your faction must collect 2000 Victory Points which can be earned through various methods.

Tower Control: First and foremost, you need to control towers with the assistance of your raid group. There's 4 towers scattered around for you to control. The more you secure, the faster you earn Victory Points. It is recommended you hold at least 2 before attempting the other methods. To gain control of a tower, you must stand near the tower's flag point and have the marker move to your "side" (horde, alliance), it will let you know when you have capped the tower with an announcement in the battleground. If you're taking an enemy's tower, then you will need to wait twice as long to first slip it out of their control and then into yours. It is recommended you max out the meter to your side so you and your allies have the maximum amount of time to rush and defend should it be under attack. When you take control or capture a tower it is generally referred to as "capping" it (short for capturing), so may times you will see messages such as "G2 cap BE". This would mean that Group 2 should capture the Blood Elf tower.

Flag: The flag always starts in the middle of the battleground. It takes 10 seconds to pick up the flag from the center point and you must then make your way to a tower that your faction holds. Once you reach that tower you turn in the flag by simply standing on the flag platform there. Similar to other flag capture battlegrounds you can be interrupted by any damage you take while trying to pick up the flag. Also, you can't mount but you can cat form / ghost wolf form, so all Warsong Gulch flag-running strategies are applicable here.

There is no faction for Eye of the Storm, so your gains will be in pure Honor and Eye of the Storm tokens.

Points

Points are awarded for the two point generating methods above in the following fashion.

Towers generate points every 2 seconds (called a tick) for each team. The more towers you control the more points you earn.

By capturing the flag you also gain points for your faction. The points you earn are directly based on the number of towers that you control.

Typical Class Roles

• Druid - Probably the best class to run the flag. Druids can heal, but their biggest asset is their ability to dispel movement debuffs by changing form. Druids also may get a speed buff through their talent tree.

• Hunters - With sprinting pets (cats, for example, can learn dash), hunters can overrun just about anyone on the battlefield. Sending their pets on back line cloth wearers can seriously wreck their day. Hunters can also track an opposing flag runner. A hunter's stuns (like "wing clip") and traps (like "ice trap") make getting to the flag to a tower very hard for an enemy, while their DPS can seal the deal.

• Mages - The old "root and nuke" make mages excellent on the attack or on defense. Sheep enemies pursuing your flag runner, but keep in mind that sheeping an opposing flag runner can cause confusion (i.e. pursuers that just arrive on the scene don't know where the flag went or who to attack). Some of the best control players are frost mage's that can slow down whole groups of enemy pursuing your flag carrier or stopping the enemy flag carrier cold.

• Paladins - A healer in plate (or mail) is a major benefit to flag runners, offence and defense. While Paladin DPS (damage per second) can't match most other classes, Paladins shouldn't underestimate the difference their heals will make when exerting ownership over a flag or tower. Increased run speed combined with cleanse and blessing of freedom on a protection based paladin can also make an excellent flag carrier.

• Priests - A priest's role really depends on whether their spec is holy (healing) or shadow (damage). Some form of healing is essential to run a flag successfully, and nobody heals better than a holy spec'ed priest (shielding is awesome, too). Shadow priests are best at working with groups attacking or helping fear the opponent offense or defense.

• Rogues - Rogues are all-around players. They make good attacker because of the nasty damage they deal, on defense they can stunlock opposing flag runners and DPS them into submission, and have a nice class speed buff that's useful for getting the flag to a tower. A stealthed rogue in near the flag while waiting for a runner can make for a nasty surprise.

• Shamans - Shamans are excellent support characters, but they truly shine on defense. Totems are key to a strategic defense. A well-placed earthbind totem will slow a grab-and-go runner down within a certain radius, allowing surprised defenders to apply serious hurt, movement debuffs, fear, etc. In the face of a determined assault, healing and smite totems give defenders a boost.

• Warlocks - Warlocks are "crowd control;" by scattering a DPS'er or two with fear (the "DoT DoT Fear" tactic, referring to applied "Damage Over Time" debuffs before "Fearing"). Excellent in one-on-one encounters,  Warlocks seem best suited to supporting the midfield group with DPS.

• Warriors - Charging the back line cloth-wearers (e.g. priests, mages, and warlocks) on attacks are a warrior's forte. By doing so, they allow the damage dealers to hone in on the meleers who, chances are, will go after the charging warrior. Excellent on the attack due to survivability, and can carry a dropped flag effectively (with the aid of a healer) in a pinch.

Strategies

There's many strategies your team can try to win in Eye of the Storm, we'll go from fastest to slowest.

Fastest - 4-Cap the battleground. This ends the battleground in less than 10 minutes, and will only work if the other team isn't playing well or has a lower number of players. Flags are a non-issue, just concentrate on having 4 towers and you will win shortly after. A preferred tactic by "Premade" Teams!

Fast - 3-Cap towers, flag running as possible. While you may want to hold 3 towers and forget the flag, it's an added bonus to keep running it or at least keep the enemy from scoring extra points. Remember flag caps also bump up your honor rating!

Contested - 2-cap, each side keeps two towers, relies on flags to win. Simple, if you're fighting an even team, do your best and focus on the flag to turn the tide and eventually either take 3 towers or hold and win.

Tactics

Overall the tactics in the battleground remain the same no matter which strategy you plan on using and come down to the following simple rules:

Towers are more important than flags. You must control more towers than the enemy to win. If you play as Alliance, remind everyone of this fact as they tend to forget. It really is true though and easy to see when you look at the math behind it. On average a flag capture takes at least one minute. This is the time it takes to get someone into position, fight off the enemy, pickup the flag and then get to a tower. It can be done faster but in actual practice this is about as quick as possible even with a strong flag running team. So if you capture a flag with 2 towers controlled every minute you earn 85 points for the flag and 60 points for the towers for a total of 145 points. If you instead held 3 towers you would earn 150 points. It may seem like a small difference, but holding 3 towers is far easier than running the flag once every minute.

If you only have one tower, forget the flag, and get 2 towers ASAP or you will lose quickly. As shown above, towers equal wins. You need at least 2 towers so that you are limiting your opponent to 2 as well and making the battle about the flag.

Avoid fighting in places that are not your towers or you run the risk of the towers being lost to a sneaky enemy! While attacking you should rush right up onto the tower you are trying to capture. Your team can only capture it by having more players on the tower than the enemy. Fighting in the open in front of a tower doe not advance your primary goal of capturing the tower. Sure, you may be able to get some kills while out there, but it will not will the battle for you.

Always try to drag fights off your towers. The exact reverse of the previous point is critical when defending a tower. Setup your defense in depth by keeping your range and healer just in front of the tower and your DPS well out in advance. Stall them from ever reaching the tower as much as possible. If they can't fight on the tower, they can't take control of it away from you.

Sometimes it is easier to allow the enemy to pick up the flag than to pick it up yourself. This my seem counter intuitive, however if you happen across a few enemy in the center taking the flag and you have them seriously outnumbered, it is beneficial to allow them to finish grabbing the flag. Instead of attacking right away you should move to surround them and attack only once the flag has been picked up. This makes them take the 10 seconds to pick it up, you then kill the flag carrier and can pick it up from the spot it was dropped instantly. This often allows you to get the flag far easier than a drawn out fight, where you kill the person attempting a pickup, then they focus on your pickup, etc.

Defense is critical! Too many teams rush forward to capture the next flag or tower and leave a tower with only 1 defender or worse, completely undefended. You work hard to take a tower, don't lose it through foolishness. No one really wants to play defense all the time, so take you fair share of turns doing it so that everyone gets a chance on offense. The best defense is a healer, DPS and CC at each tower that you control. With 3 players at each tower and the rest roving between the attacked towers or flag you can hold the enemy off long enough for reinforcements to arrive.

Communication is even more critical! It can not be stressed enough, Communication is critical. Even more so than towers. You always need players calling out what is happening around them so that the rest of the raid knows. The standard short form used is the following:

This means that a message such as "Inc 3+ FR" would mean that there are more than 3 enemy incoming to attack the Fel Reaver Ruins that you control. "G2 cap BE" would be a directive that group 2 try to capture the Blood Elf Tower.

Do you have different tactics, tips, strategies, questions or comments? Email me your comments here: Byron "Messiah" Mudry or post in our PvP Forums.