Boxing Rating BGs... gonna do it?

[Alemi]

10s can work too, in wsg for example you're defending the base while your mates are going to grab the flag

Any half decent rogue can get by 4 or 5 shamans with ease. A really good dk can do it, assuming boots are up - and come cata, darkflight (even with it's nerf on beta today, pretty much means most lots of worgen combos can get by without any issue for horde boxers.

Back in the vanilla days (before battlegroups during the HWL/GM grind days) when we'd do premade wsg vs other premade guild wsgs, it was always about assist training and, quite literally, moving as a complete group. We'd leave 0 on defense and split into, normally a 7/3 split (7 to return ours on the way back and 3 to take theirs to the cap). I don't forsee it being that much different this time around.

As far as rogues in stealth, popping them out won't be as much of a problem as passive stealth was greatly nerfed. Unless I missed something, Master of Deception (increases stealth by 3 levels making it near impossible to detect without some kind of bonus) and Feral Instinct were removed or redesigned. I've been catching stealthers like crazy (nelfs too). And it is true, you can only detect those in your immediate LOS.

[heyaz]

Back in the vanilla days (before battlegroups during the HWL/GM grind days) when we'd do premade wsg vs other premade guild wsgs, it was always about assist training and, quite literally, moving as a complete group. We'd leave 0 on defense and split into, normally a 7/3 split (7 to return ours on the way back and 3 to take theirs to the cap). I don't forsee it being that much different this time around.

I played thousands of premades starting from early WSG twink days to the GM grind and I remember those strats. I see it being very similar. I see stalemates as well.

When I think about how rated BG's will be - I think of the incredible coordination and skill back in vanilla premades, multiply it by 5 (since twitchy, instant reflex. amazing pvpers seemed to come off an assembly line ever since late BC), throw in aoe cc and high damage or even bubbles for every class, and finally add the fact that people are familiar with multiboxers and their weaknesses.

It will definitely be a challenge, and no offense to any of the posters here, many of which did phenomenal in season 8 (which I mostly missed), but the 'I'll just do my super instagib nuke combo and win the game' nonsense is getting tired. If we want to formulate strategies that will work, we need to consider all the variables and possible counters instead of romanticizing about instagibbing flag carriers from behind trees in pugs.

[remanz]

Well, i think they just buffed HP by another 25% on PTR just now. 120k mages. and the flag carrier are gonna be tanks in premade. No doubt. So it will be a 200k prodin carry the flag. I don't think 4 shamans can do it there. Need to CC the healers on their side and coordinate to get a kill.

In addition, other than the HP madness, Skill like these really worries me:

Power Word: Barrier duration reduced to 10 sec, down from 25 sec. No longer absorbs a given amount of damage, now reduces all damage done to friendly targets by 30%. While within the barrier, spellcasting will not be interrupted by damage.

When they have a priest, you better got one for your own.