[Guild PvP] How do you guys organize structured PvP nights for casual PvP?

[Thundertom]

Hey guys,

I'm an officer in a casual raiding guild. We raid 2 nights a week. However recently we have quite a few people interested in PvP as well, and as we go, more and more people seem interested.

These are all people who are used to PvE and only recently picked up PvP.

We use a forum to signups for raids, and I have added a PvP night to this as well, to spark some PvP action in our guild.

However, it is tough for me to structure. We have roughly 7 dps in at least Combatant PvP gear, and some epics (such as myself) and 2 PvP geared healers.

Then we have a few people in half PvP gear, and mostly raid gear. And quite a few who will 'oh sure, I'll join for a few games, is this the one where we kill the flag? Oh my spells don't do anything, guess I'll just spam sheep, oh I'm not specced Frost Nova' people, who probably try their best, but don't contribute much, other than a few laughs on TeamSpeak.

How can I squeeze the most out of this group of rag tag people? We tried rated, but ended up being obliterated. Arena's isn't really an option, as you'd have to pair weaker and stronger people.

Random bg's is probably the best option, but then again we usually have more than 5 people willing.

Should we make groups of 5 and split the PvP and the PvE people? Or have all the PvPers together and PvEers together?

Any suggestions?

Tom

[Rucati]

If you really want everyone to be involved your best bet is to just stick to RBGs. People will learn, RBGs aren't all that hard, and they'll gear up at the same time.

If those people who currently have no gear and no clue what they're doing want to PvP with you guys just have some of your good members queue with them in random BGs, it'll get them gear, practice and they can ask for help on teamspeak.

Otherwise yeah, your best bet is to split the group 5 and 5 and do random BGs, if people don't want to get better and take it seriously there's no sense doing anything competitive.

[cymru]

We normally form the group, and then queue for random (non-rated) BGs to get everyone warmed up, usually their easy wins and it gets excited and interested. Then transition into trying an RBG for the opportunity to get a 660 on a win. I wouldn't split your group up, just like when you raid you have to learn encounters, teach the PVErs how to PVP, they'll pick it up.

[Deleted]

Keep doing rbg's, you need a few games before getting a 50/50 win/loose rating, there is no need to cheat with preform and randoms.

Use there initial loses to send people moaning and bitching on their way, they will come crying back when they see those wins and epics in guild chat. If you invite them back is up to you. =)

[Terahertz]

You could always try going for wPvP for some warming up as well as have people learn their class a bit. In general however each player must know what to do and how to play. If your players really are that inexperienced then send them into random BGs, have them use keybinds as well as play some 2s. I'd recommend pairing people up as DPS/healer comps. That's how I started getting better in PvP as it's a less stressful comp due to not instantly dying. I never learned a thing from playing double DPS in 2s because of my mentality being "play to win" rather than "play to learn".

[Thundertom]

Thanks for your suggestions everyone. The goal here is to just have an enjoyable PvP experience, not to get rank 1 or anything. I just want these folks to see how awesome PvP is and have something fun to do as a guild.

Still struggling on the healer bit tho, as we currently have 2 well geared PvP healers only, and they have great synergy together as they play together a lot. However if I can make 2 teams of 5 people, and split them, that would increase both teams' success chance a bit, won't it? As a well geared healer can make a lot of difference in smaller battlegrounds.

And yeah, I don't want to mess around with queue addons. I want to keep it low key, and as I said, just something fun to do with guildies.

If you have any more suggestions, I'm all ears. These are great.

[Reveries1]

I did this with my guild last season. I didn't commit to RBG's until I had enough players to do them we ended up having 12 players and rotating players out and had a lot of fun for a few weeks tell we lost players and ended up not playing a few scheduled nights and then it all kind of fell apart. Having a good understanding of your options will better help you decide the direction you want to take.

1. Do randoms in multiple groups (group of 5 group of 4)
2. Do rated and pug an extra player.
3. Do world PvP (doesnt really exist but maybe all go to ashran together could be fun.)
4. Split and do Arena (less of a group feel)

IMO number 2 is your best bet. You can pug people and good players you can let them know you do this on X day at X time and try and get them to commit to be a regular with you. It takes time for PVE players to get used to pvp the number one problem we had is players not using there CC as much or how they should and it just takes time. Using your guilds forums to discuss different map strategy's can encourage other guild members to join in as well as make things easier when you pvp.

Another thing I did and recommend is assisting players in getting capped in arena. Whether you are doing 2's with 1 or 3's with 2 its good practice and helps regular PVE'rs understand the importance of CC and stopping damage to their team mates. Players who have gear enjoy pvp a lot more than players that dont in my experience.

[Deleted]

Some randoms thoughts:

* I would avoid splitting the group, as much as possible. That just creates shitty situations where people wanna play with the best players / OP chars, and instead of having fun and learning together you can end up with heaps of drama quickly. my2cents
* get everyone into 620+ gear
* low mmr RBGs, nothing fancy, just basic tactics (3 cap arathi, WW zerg gilneas, 2/2/flag eots, stuff like that) and go from there. Don't go all skill-capped on them on the first attempts, it's most important that there is a game plan that everyone understands and can remember and follow during the match. 10 people being on the same page about what you even wanna do in the first place will get you 'far' by casual standards. There are quite a few yolo rbg groups around these days (easy points which creates a positive atmosphere), so it's a pretty good time to get involved imo. It might actually be the best time ever since they implemented rbgs.
Don't get discouraged if kotmogu is a huge clusterfuck.
* attack the opposite faction's main city. I used to love doing that with my guild when I had a proper pvp guild, just push in, kill as many dudes as possible, hide in some random ass buildings, set up ambushes, laugh at people getting choochoo'ed by the defender train, spam your factions trade chat from the other end of the world. It's not an alldayeveryday activity but can be loads of fun with the right people
* If not enough people are around queue random bgs and form a 5man kill squad, just some light-hearted zerging haha (like blowing ppl up with the tradeable engi rockets, never gets old )