Wintergrasp
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 Wintergrasp
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| Level 77-80 PvP | |
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| Races | Unknown |
| Location | West-central Northrend |
Wintergrasp is a large region located between Sholazar Basin, Borean Tundra, Dragonblight, and Icecrown Glacier. It was the site of the once larger Lake Wintergrasp, however the lake has shrunk since then.
Wintergrasp appears in the second World of Warcraft expansion as the first non-battleground zone fully dedicated to World PvP, even on PvE servers. It focuses on siege weapon warfare.[1]
Contents |
History
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| This article or section is a lore stub. You can help expand it by editing it.
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Wintergrasp was once the location of a vast lake, then known as Lake Wintergrasp. In Wintergrasp, there is a valuable mine. This mine is contested by both the Horde and Alliance, who both seek to reap its riches.[2]
Geography
In World of Warcraft, it is about the size of Westfall.[3]
Wintergrasp can be reached by flying path at anytime and via a portal from Dalaran, while in-between matches (Portals are shut down while the match is going on).
While a player can fly to other regions from Wintergrasp, via the flight master. It is impossible to use a flying mount to Wintergrasp (it is a No-Fly zone).
Maps and subregions
Adjacent regions
| Zone Name | Faction | Level Range | Direction | Access |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Borean Tundra |   | 68-72 | Southwest | By flying mount |
| Dragonblight | | 71-75 | East | By flying mount. |
| Sholazar Basin | | 75-78 | North | By flying mount. |
Notable characters
- Horde
-
Commander Dardosh
- Hoodoo Master Fu'jin
- Lieutenant Murp
- Primalist Mulfort
- Siegesmith Stronghoof
- Tactical Officer Kilrath
- Alliance
-
Anchorite Tessa
- Commander Zanneth
- Bowyer Randolph
- Siege Master Stouthandle
- Senior Demolitionist Legoso
- Tactical Officer Ahbramis
Quests
- Main article: Wintergrasp quests
- Horde
- [80Daily PvP] Victory in Wintergrasp
- [80Daily] Stop the Siege
- [80Daily] Fueling the Demolishers
- [80Daily] Slay them all!
- [80Daily] Healing with Roses
- [80Daily] Bones and Arrows
- Alliance
- [80Daily PvP] Victory in Wintergrasp
- [80Daily] Stop the Siege
- [80Daily] Fueling the Demolishers
- [80Daily] No Mercy for the Merciless
- [80Daily] A Rare Herb
- [80Daily] Bones and Arrows
The quests in Wintergrasp yield money, honor, and also Stone Keeper's Shard for completing them.
Resources
Wintergrasp has the regular mineral nodes and herbs found in Northrend, but is also a prime source of crystallized elements. There are elementals of all types in Wintergrasp which drop their respective crystallized element. There are also more powerful elementals, called Reverents, that have a higher drop rate, a minimum guaranteed drop of 1 and as many as 3 per mob. These are visible only to the side that is currently in control of Wintergrasp.
Wild creatures
Level 80 Elementals of all the various kinds (earth, fire, water, air, shadow, life) wander in various areas. Each side also has level 76 elite NPC guards. However guards, while having health consummate with an elite mob, do not do much damage and can be easily soloed.
PVP Zone Wintergrasp
In this new outdoor player versus player zone, one faction will have to defend the keep, while the other will assault it. Which faction controls what will be decided according to a fixed schedule. Both sides will fight over towers and siege workshops scattered around the zone.[3] If the attacking force succeeds in capturing the keep, that faction will defend it during the next rotation. If that attacking force fails to capture the final objective before the next rotation, that faction will be given more resources (unknown to what those might be for now)" to balance out the fight, and give every faction a chance to hold Wintergrasp.[3] It will be necessary to destroy the walls with siege weapons in order to take the keep.[4]
Wintergrasp will hold PvE implications as well — among other items, it will feature a variety of new daily quests. These quests include (but are not limited to): quests where you have to ride a mount with an NPC, holding attackers at bay; flying aircraft quests; flying mount quests where you have to lower ropes to evacuate NPCs; in these quests, mounts can hold multiple players![5] When a faction controls Wintergrasp, bosses in Northrend will drop Stone Keeper's Shard for that faction only. These objects will be necessary for buying certain PvP gear and jewelcrafting recipes.[6]
New Marks of Honor, known as Wintergrasp Mark of Honor, will drop in the zone. These marks are necessary for honor gear acquired through the honor system.[4]
As with the Spirit Towers in Terokkar Forest, Wintergrasp is only be under control for a certain period of time, after which it becomes available for capture. A faction controls Wintergrasp for approximately 2 hours 30 minutes after capture after which time it becomes contested. The battle then lasts 40 minutes, or until the attackers successfully capture the keep. The status of Wintergrasp and whether or not it is contested can be seen from the Northrend map, by the appearance or absence of a faction symbol over the zone.
Ranks
Wintergrasp uses a two rank system. After killing sufficient enemies, either players or NPC guards you are given the rank of Corporal (rank 1). This allows you to purchase Catapults at a Factory. With more kills you are promoted to First Lieutenant (rank 2) which allows the purchase of Siege Engines and Demolishers. The precise number of kills required varies based on the number of players in the battleground at the time.
Siege Weapons
The largest defining point of Wintergrasp is the use of Siege Weapons. These vehicles can be obtained at Factories while under your faction's control. In order to use many of the siege weapons, you must attain a higher rank in Wintergrasp.
| Vehicle Name | Seats | Rank Req | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Forsaken Catapult | One | Corporal | |
| Siege Engine | Two + Passengers | First Lieutenant | |
| Demolisher | One + Passengers | First Lieutenant | |
| Goblin Shredder | One | Unknown yet. | |
| Flying Machine | One or Two* | Unknown yet. |
The Flying Machine comes in two types, normal and bomber. The bomber has a second seat for a player to drop explosives on enemy towers. Currently the flying vehicles Have not been spotted yet, but seems that it will come in a further patch, or a serious, hundred perhaps players, where you need to pass First Lieutenant, Game Masters gave no indications of what it is, when we get it, all they say is that it is ingame. Passenger means players can ride the vehicle with no control over it.
Catapults are capable of throwing plague barrels along ballistic trajectories which cause small amounts AoE damage to players, vehicles, and structures. They also can create a flame jet doing cone damage in the front of the catapult to players and vehicles, but not buildings.
Demolishers are capable of throwing burning boulders along a ballistic trajectory which cause medium amounts of damage to players, vehicles, and structures. They also can ram which does cone damage in front of them, and is particularly damaging to structures.
Siege Engines are capable of ramming which does cone damage in front of them and is the highest damage to structures available. They also have a cannon that can shoot boulders which do high damage along a ballistic path, however it requires a second player to operate.
Strategy
Wintergrasp is a classic "assault" style game play. The objective of the attackers is to capture the keep before time runs out. The objective of the defenders is to keep them from doing so. Should the attackers capture the keep, the battle ends immediately and they gain control.
The objective in Wintergrasp is a large orange sphere located inside the keep itself. The sphere must be activated by a player for 10 seconds, in the same way capturing a flag works in other battlegrounds. If this is done successfully, the attackers win. Any damage caused to a player attempting to activate the relic will cause the activation to stop.
To reach the relic, three levels of walls must be breached. First the outer perimeter of the keep must be breached. This can be done in any of three different courtyards. The front courtyard is empty, other than NPCs, the east and west courtyard contain vehicle factories for the defenders. The inner keep walls then must be breached, which leads to a courtyard with higher level NPC defenders. The final barrier is the door to the keep itself. Once that is down, the attackers have access to the relic inside.
Vehicle Factories
Each side has access to two vehicle factories, exclusive to them. For the defenders, they are located in the keep itself. There are portals to allow vehicles to teleport out. For the attackers, they are located in between the towers on the southern side of the map. These can be destroyed by the opposing side, using vehicles, and do not appear to respawn.
There are also two capturable factories that are nearer to the keep. They start out under the control of the defenders, but the attackers can capture them. Capturing is done in the form of EoTS nodes, simply have more players standing at the node to capture it. Holding these factories has the dual advantage of allowing vehicles to be built closer to the keep, and increasing the total number of vehicles a side is allowed to control.
Towers
The keep has towers as part of its design, at the corners of walls. The defenders also have three towers at the south of the map. It is unknown at this time what the defender's towers are for. All towers are destroyable using siege equipment. The towers feature defensive turrets which players can use to fire at enemies. These towers do high AoE damage (up to 5000 for a well aimed shot) and fire quite quickly and thus are quite useful in defense. They can be destroyed by attack with either vehicles or direct attack by players, however they will respawn after some time.
Vehicles
The primary purpose of vehicles is to attack structures such as the keep, vehicle factories, and so on. They can be used to attack other vehicles but are not necessarily that efficient. Vehicles have a large amount of health, but are not particularly armored and thus are vulnerable to basic infantry attack. A player doing a concerted attack on a vehicle can destroy it quicker than the same player attacking from another vehicle.
Attacker Basic Strategy
If you are on offense, your first goal is to take the factories near to the keep. If you have to buy vehicles from the factories in the south, it will take a very long time to reach the keep (vehicles move around regular character running speed). Once you have one or both factories, you want to concentrate on breaching the outer wall. You also may with to fire at the cannons on the wall, as they will do a lot of damage to your vehicle if well aimed. If you break in to the east or west courtyard, destroying the vehicle factory there can be useful, as they can be destroyed. Once you begin to have higher rank players, you should split forces between attacking the keep and attacking players. Siege Engines are the most useful against the keep, and demolishers as well. If you are using a catapult, focus on enemy players and NPCs to try and keep them off your heavier vehicles. Also you can ride along on the vehicles and if they fall under attack, hop off and kill the attacker.
Once the inner keep is breached, all focus needs to go to the relic. Get in there and take it. AoE fears and such to get rid of defenders are useful in here. It is just like a flag capture situation in AB.
Defender Basic Strategy
As defenders you need to divide your forces. It is tempting to simply sit in the keep and repel attackers from behind the walls but this is almost certainly doomed to failure. The keep walls aren't that sturdy so even with a heavy defense, you are likely to get breached. Part of the force should stay in the keep and defend it, in particular by manning cannons, the others should go out and assault. If you can keep the attackers from capturing and holding the nearby vehicle factories, you gain a huge strategic advantage. They either need to spend a lot of forces capturing them, or drive vehicles up from the south which is slow.
When you get rank 1 or 2 it can be useful to get a vehicle from the keep and try to strike at the defender's points. If you destroy their southern vehicle points, they then can only purchase vehicles at the norther points and if those are under your side's control, they will have no vehicles. The towers can also be destroyed, but it is unclear what the advantage is at this time.
If the attackers have breached the inner keep, you need to fall back as that's all that matters. It is then just a fight to keep them off it. If you see someone trying to capture it, hit them, and damage will break their attempt. AoEs are extremely useful. You must keep them off until the time expires to win the battle.
Numbers Balance
Being a world PvP zone, Wintergrasp has the possibility of numbers imbalance between the sides, possibly quite severe. This is countered by a buff called "tenacity" This buff increases the health, regen, healing, and damage of the players that have it. The more the imbalance, the higher the buff. You can very well see cloth characters with 50,000 or more HP in the event of a large imbalance.
If you have tenacity, you need to use it to your advantage. You are more powerful than normal and need to play as such. In particular, acting as basic infantry and attacking an enemy vehicle and lead to it being destroyed very quickly.
If you are facing tenacity, you want to avoid direct conflict with enemy players when possible. Use your numbers to your advantage and focus fire, it'll take multiple people to take one of the enemy out. Remember the buff applies to their vehicles too.
Gallery
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References
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