Twin Peaks: It’s just the way I roll

As much as Twin Peaks is similar in nature to Warsong Gulch, I’m not a huge fan… but that doesn’t mean I don’t love it.

Yeah I have degrees of BG love… they are all well loved, it’s just a case of whether that love goes beyond the 100% mark.

I previously gave you a run down of my WSG strategy, that surprisingly works more often than not, so maybe it’s time to shine my light on Twin Peaks.

Once again, this is from the perspective of a Mage flag carrier, specifically an Alliance Mage… this doesn’t preclude any Alliance from using the strategy, well maybe the Blinks, but otherwise it’s a pretty much one-size-fits-all strategy. In fact Squidly, my Resto Shaman, runs the same course, but isn’t reliant on the expensive overhead of Water Walking Potions.

Preparation

This strategy is augmented if you have done a little preparation before entering TP and before the gates open. Note you can’t use the pots in RBGs, but you can chew on them in normals.

Pre-Twin Peaks

Source some Elixir of Water Walking, unless you are Shaman or DK… you B.Y.O. skills suited for this. These are a pain to fish up (60 fish from limited pools for a stack and change to pots), but they are well worth it for those of us without the natural ability to walk on water – more important than the other potions if you can’t.
Source some Swiftness Potions – Requires level 15 (You may use 6 per battle if you do the 3 caps… I keep 40 on me all the time, last thing you want is to run out when you need a burst of speed)
Source some Elixir of Camouflage Requires level 50 (This is optional, but I’d rather not have Hunters and Druids tracking my approach to the EFR)
Buy 1-2 healer friends, an annoying DPS never hurts either (These are optional… who needs friends when you are about to fly like the wind)
Re-roll Mage (Also optional, but well and truly advised by me)

Pre-Battle

Mage food (If you are a Mage… you are a Mage aren’t you… otherwise get some)
Lock Rocks/Candy (You may be on your own at times, this may save your bacon… mmmm bacon)
Proudly announce you will be flag carrying.
Tell Healers to stay mounted and wait for you out the front of the pipe – Ohh yeah, this is an Alliance strategy.
Tell everyone you are coming via Pipe, that you are fast, but you need the EFC down ASAP.
Pop your Elixir of Camouflage
With 15 seconds before the gates open, Slow Fall everyone (just common courtesy as a Mage). This is important. It allows everyone to just jump from the top rather than skirting around the roads. It’s especially important if you have a conscious Shaman that water walks everyone – any damage will remove that.

The Downstroke

So usual rituals prior to the gates opening, food, rocks and all the other normal buffs. If you have a Shaman request water walking, a DK path of Frost.

15 seconds before start Slowfall everyone. Once again a macro’d (or MageNuggets) Slowfall is best. Doesn’t hurt to throw your Mage armors on as you run out the gate.

The gate opens and…

Go!

Run out a few steps, mount up and ride along the balcony and launch yourself into thin air. You are aiming for the river, imagine you are going to run right up the river (and you may do this). Avoid the bridge but feel free to run up the land on the right if need be.

You are racing for the pipe, but if at any point it is obstructed by Horde a quick veer to the left will take you over their bridge and to the flag.

If at any point you lose your water walking (and damage will break it), assuming you don’t have a dot on you (no reoccurring damage), you can pop a water walking pot (you will remain mounted if mounted).

If you have a friendly shaman, DK (or even Priest with levitate if you are already on foot) about get them to keep an eye on whether your head is above water and if not buff you for the win.

If you have a pocket heal, get them to remain mounted outside on the shore. A priest in this position is priceless for a life grip if you exit under fire (chasers are stuck bobbing in the water while you are already racing on dry land).

As you run into the pipe, pan your camera angle for a quick enemy tag check. If there are none obvious, run right in. If you see some, pop invisibility.

Support Positions

Meanwhile your EFC killing/support crew will race to intercept the Horde. 90% o the time they are heading for the ramp on the right, “waterfall” side. Occasionally they will go up the middle ramp. Either way, intercept them on the right hand side and hold those that stay.

By this I mean some will slip through for the flag, that’s OK, sort out the midfield while they make go grab the flag. Hopefully by the time the EFC returns you own midfield and can take the EFC down before they hit the river.

Once again, 90% of the time the EFC will return via the “waterfall ramp”, 9% of the time they will come down the central ramp, 1% of the time they will come your graveyard side.

The preference is they kill the EFC before they reach the river, before they reach their GY respawn support. Chase the EFC, CC’ing their support away so they get out in front by themselves for an easier kill.

If the EFC makes it to their base with support, then you are probably better waiting until the debuff stacks up, or their support leaves to get your FC.

Grab!

Don’t waste your blink as you enter their room, just run and grab the flag. If you are invisible there is a good chance they won’t know you are there until you have left the room, the question is which exit to take of the 3 available options.

I rarely if ever exit via the front entrance, more likely to meet horde racing from mid field, or those racing around from the upper level.

So that leaves the two side entrances.

I favor exiting the same way I entered, via the pipe, but that depends on the state of the enemies flag room.

Pipe exit (Plan A)

If you can get out without being touched (a blink to remove line of sight can do this if pressured) or if there are defenders upstairs so you remove their line of sight then this is a good option.

Remember one love tap and you have lost your water walking, so blink to the pipe then hug the right wall to reduce LoS. If you have been dotted you can’t refresh water walking, so just swim or pray for a life grip to get you onto solid ground and give you a head start.

If you’ve lost water walking and aren’t dotted, you can water walk again.

If you have water walking, pop a speed pot now to race away behind the horde farm and reduce LoS and visual clues to your location.

Speed boots exit (Plan B)

The opposite exit is my next preferred exit. If the horde are “blocking” the pipe, go the other way.

Grab the speed boost and run, run, run. As tempting as the log is, even the water if you still have water walking, I have found I am normally better off rounding the corner and taking the horde bridge.

For one thing you drop the LoS of pursuers, you are also making those that entered their base chase around, or double back and finally, being centered on the map you can make a quick call on heading through the center or crossing the river.

The log on the other hand leads to the Horde GY, Horde midfield or EFC support.

Get Home

Your objective is to get back to your base as soon a you can, getting there is often enough to dissuade chasers who will be torn between protecting the EFC, or catching you.

When I’m running the flag I’m hoping every spare body will be focused on the EFC. Best case they go down midfield as I race into our flag room, often solo, with my couple of support crew delaying any chasers. That’s best case of course.

There are a few intercept spots that the Horde will most likely hit you. You are on your own to begin with (well maybe a healer), but as you travel down the map, you will come close enough to your Blockers and Chasers that they can impede the Horde.

BLINK!

Being a Mage your greatest tool is blink. As with WSG, you should be blinking as soon as its off cooldown, timed right you will find that it pretty much gets you from one hidden ditch to the next, so there is very little time spent clearly visible.

These ditches give a Mage another advantage. They naturally funnel your chasers, they will unintentionally group up in the ditch in an attempt to get you, but here’s the rub…

They are all in Frost Nova, Pet Freeze and Cone of Cold range, so they can all get… ummm… stucked.
A Ring of Frost dropped at the end of the ditch will force them to pop trinkets, wait, or back up – either into the waiting arms of your support team, or at the very least being delayed. Meanwhile your support crew can just run on through.
Did I mention that your blinks will be conveniently off cooldown as you are about to exit the ditch… Frost Nova, Ring of Frost, Blink, later suckers!

If you use you speed pot at the 1st opportunity after leaving the EFR (as you leave pipe, or once the speed boots have worn off), your speed pot cooldown will be up as you approach your flagroom ramp.

CAP!

Hiding Spots

This section isn’t really necessary is it?

You ran into your flagroom and the EFC was already down and your flag returned… right?

Hmmm… Listen, it’s real important that your Flag Blockers and Chasers get the EFC down quick. By quick I mean preferably before they reach the river. Once they reach the river, they are on the home stretch with lots of LoS in their favor, and more importantly, they are passing by they forward GY. Which means that heals you just killed is about to rejoin the EFC.

If you can keep them Alliance side of the river, then the EFC support has to cross… but by then you will have returned the flag right?

Keeping an Eye on the EFC.

Who needs mind vision when you have Focus. Make sure you have focused the EFC, you want to know what their health looks like all the time. If you aren’t standing on the podium when their health is less than 30%, I can only think of 2 possibilities.

Your Blockers and Chasers are damn good and you haven’t even reached the flagroom yet… right?
Your Flag is about to get taken for the 2nd time, which is just a pain.

So…

Corner of podium (Option A)

I like to squeeze into the corner, so I obstruct LoS from the balcony. Hunters love to go there, so do Locks and Mages, you don’t want them having a free shot, make them drop down to your level.

You can also keep an eye on the other entrances, throw down a Ring of Frost which will protect you and the flag if you get stuck.

Most importantly, you are a step away from a cap.

If you find that you need to move about, try to keep your blink up your sleeve, so you can blink back to the podium when you see (in your focus portrait remember), the EFC about to drop.

If you have a smart, friendly priest, you can dance with them, switching over on the podium… The Horde will have to search for you both, and they can pull you to the podium if your blink is down, you are CC’d, or you forget to watch the focus target… you are watching the focus EFC target right?

If you priest is on the balcony, they can heal relatively uninterrupted and pull you out of trouble if need be.

(Conversely, if the EFC is on ground floor, make sure your DK buddy pulls them up to the balcony to have some free hits while the EFC’s heals try to obtain LoS.)

Out the side entrance (Option B)

I don’t know why, but this position stumps the Horde that are chasing me down. I’m not in the flag room and I can duck out of sight if need be. Horde normally just race into the flagroom, turn a few circles, but by then I have the element of surprise.

I’m neither here nor there, it’s a spot that works and I have no idea why.

Lip of the balcony (Option C)

This isn’t a hiding place, it’s an escape route.

If need be, bolt out that door, but hang a really hard right, jumping up on the broken ledge.

Most likely any Horde that follow you will over shoot the mark heading downstairs before the do a quick U-turn.

If they do follow you on the ledge, just head down to the corner, there is a good chance they will fall off the edge while trying to take you down, but worst case you can bolt around the front.

The one problem with this escape route, is it puts you a long way from the podium, which makes it risky if the EFC is going down, but sometimes, you just got to live to make a cap.

Thanks due to Tickk for letting me in on this escape route, which he has used to awesome effect in the past.

Keeping the flag in play

If you are a loose player in the game and the EFC is going strong while your flag carrier is going down, head straight to the Horde flagroom to grab the flag. While you have the flag, you are depriving the Horde of a cap. You don’t have to carry it the whole way back if you are terrified (but make sure someone knows you are going to hand it off), but just get it away from the Horde.

Porting Graveyards

Finally, if there is one thing Mages know about it’s Ports.

Do you ever get frustrated when you die at the Horde base and want to get right back into the action, but your darling Spirit Healer has you back at the Alliance base?

Yeah, it’s a long run down field… unless of course you, yes you, hell anyone, could port to a forward graveyard.

Which you can, just doubleclick on the Return to Graveyard button and you are there. it might not be Stormwind, but you are a damn side closer now than you were!

Thanks to our RogueRaging Phlanks for this tip (yeah he’s a Mage in his spare time.. he knows about ports)

Gnomer and Out!