Wintergrasp

Wintergrasp is a large PvP zone located in central-western Northrend. It appears in Wrath of the Lich King as the first PvP zone, a non-battleground zone fully dedicated to PvP, even on PvE servers. It focuses on siege weapon warfare. You can purchase Wintergrasp honor rewards from vendors that appear when your faction controls the zone.

In patch 8.1.5, a 40v40 Epic Battleground version was added called Battle for Wintergrasp.

History
Wintergrasp was once the location of a vast lake known as Lake Wintergrasp; the lake has shrunk since then, leaving the basin open to exploration. Wintergrasp contains a valuable mine, ownership of which is contested by the Horde and Alliance in order to reap its riches.

Getting there
There are a number of methods for entering and leaving Wintergrasp.

As a PvP zone, Wintergrasp must be queued for by attempting to enter the zone. Unlike battlegrounds, players are not returned to their previous location at the conclusion of the battle; rather, players can choose the 'Leave Wintergrasp' option from the button on edge of the mini-map - which has the effect of instantly using the player's Hearthstone, even if it is already on cooldown - or simply travel out of the zone by themselves. Flying mount is the preferable method for directly leaving Wintergrasp; while it is possible to travel out of the zone at numerous points along its border, due to its elevation above the surrounding zones, attempts can often prove fatal without either some method of mitigating fall damage (such as Levitate) or great care. Probably the easiest place to attempt to exit on foot is from near the southwest graveyard, where the cliffs give players a fighting chance of surviving the descent.

Wintergrasp can be reached via portals from Dalaran, one portal for each faction. There is also a portal inside Wintergrasp's Relic Chamber that can be used by anyone who can get to it, which teleports you to the Violet Citadel. Wintergrasp can also be reached on foot, details of which can be found in getting to Wintergrasp through Icecrown (you generally have to die at least once, this way, though). Perhaps the most convenient method is simply to fly into the zone. Players should be aware that flying into the Wintergrasp zone (even when no battle is in progress) will cause a forced dismount; players should therefore enter at a low altitude unless they have some defence against a sudden fall.

Players can also fly in to or out of Wintergrasp via the flight master near the attackers' rally point. The Horde rally point is on the west side beyond the western goblin workshop (also known as the Broken Temple), and the Alliance rally point is north-east of the eastern goblin workshop (also known as the Sunken Ring). Entering the zone on a taxi (flying mount from a flight master NPC) lets you stay in WG even if it is full; you will NOT be ported out.

Geography
Wintergrasp is a frozen valley located in western-central Northrend, between Sholazar Basin, the Borean Tundra, the Dragonblight, and Icecrown. There are a few smaller bodies of water sparsed throughout the region. It is about the same size as Westfall in the Eastern Kingdoms.

Notable characters
Wintergrasp is home to several characters of status. Many of the commanding officers from both sides hail from the early days of Alterac Valley, including Lieutenant Murp and Primalist Mulfort. Senior Demolitionist Legoso and Tactical Officer Kilrath also make a reappearance from their first trials in the Burning Crusade, hailing from Bloodmyst Isle and Terokkar Forest, respectively.


 * Horde


 * Alliance

Quests
The PvP quests in Wintergrasp yield money and honor for completing them.

NPCs and monsters
Level 80 elementals of all known kinds (earth, fire, water, air, shadow, life) wander in various areas. The side that controls Wintergrasp Keep will be able to see elemental Revenants, with roughly twice as much health as the regular elementals and a guaranteed droprate for crystallized elements.

Each side also has NPC guards, which can be found near the vehicle shops, attacker's towers, inside the Keep, and at various points along the roadways. Killing the guards will reward credit for your faction's 'Kill Players' quest, as well as up your count for the rank. In the level 90 version of the zone, the guards are level 88; in the lower-level version, they are level 76.

Wintergrasp as a PvP zone
Every 2 hours 30 minutes (on average - the exact time varies), Wintergrasp becomes a unique type of PvP battleground, and anyone in the zone will be prompted to join the battle. The faction that won the last Wintergrasp battle must defend Wintergrasp Keep for 30 minutes, while the opposing faction attacks the keep. The battle for Wintergrasp is open only to level 90 characters.

Both factions can take control of workshops scattered around the zone. Once players have acquired sufficient rank (from killing enemy players or NPCs) they can go to these workshops to construct siege engines. To take the keep, the attacking faction must break down walls by causing siege damage with siege engines and items that cause siege damage, ultimately entering the Relic Chamber in the keep's innermost area to claim victory. The defending faction's task is simple; defend the keep until the battle's timer expires.

Three towers in the southern part of the zone provide an additional objective: Destroying a tower grants a damage buff, and destruction of all three towers shortens the battle's time by 10 minutes.

After Wintergrasp Keep has been captured, or successfully defended, it will be controlled by that faction for approximately 2 hours 30 minutes. The status of Wintergrasp and whether or not it is contested can be seen on the Northrend map by the appearance or absence of a faction symbol (or a PvP symbol indicating control of the keep is being contested) over the zone.

To find out when the next battle is starting, view the Wintergrasp zone of the World Map, which displays a countdown timer for the next battle. Prior to patch 3.3.3, the World Map timer would not display if you hadn't been to Northrend since logging in and would display the last known time if you traveled to an area outside of Northrend.

Ranks
After killing five enemy players, defensive cannons or NPC guards during a Wintergrasp match, you are given the rank of Corporal. This allows you to create Wintergrasp Catapults at Goblin Workshops. Ten enemy kills after your field promotion, you are given the rank of First Lieutenant, which allows you to create Wintergrasp Demolishers and Wintergrasp Siege Engines.

Queuing
Since patch 3.2.0 you have to queue to join the battle of Wintergrasp, by attempting to enter the zone. You need to be at least Level 75 to join. The queue will accept 120 players from each faction, so a total of 240 players can join the battle. Higher level players have a higher probability to join the queue than lower level players.

If you want to join the Wintergrasp battle and are queued but are not called to join, there is a bypass to this. Simply take a taxi from Dalaran or some other Flightpath in Northrend to your faction's landing camp in Wintergrasp. You won't earn any rank or honor from PVP kills unless you inflict at least some damage to the target.

If you are in the zone, but not in queue when the battle starts, you will be teleported away to a "safe" area of Icecrown just north of Wintergrasp. But be warned, all players ported out will be sent to the same location, Horde and Alliance alike. Since you will still be flagged as PvP, be prepared to fight.

Since Patch 4.0.3, players of both factions can only enter at a 1:1 ratio. If 10 Alliance are in the queue and 15 Horde are in the queue, only 10 from the Horde queue will enter when all 10 Alliance will enter. At that point, any future Alliance player(s) entering will be balanced with the same number of Horde player(s) entering. Because of this change, Tenacity is no longer applicable under normal circumstances. However if multiple players from one faction leave the battle while the other faction's players remain one may see a Tenacity buff, although very rarely and at low stacks.

Player-held weapons
Players are able to inflict damage to vehicles and turrets with spells and weapons; players cannot damage walls or towers without a vehicle or weapon that deals siege damage.

Goblin Workshops inside the keep and on the southern half of the map spawn multiple copies of The RP-GG, which can be fired at enemy vehicles.

Engineers have access to two schematics for explosives that deal siege damage to vehicles, walls, and towers. Goblin Engineers and Gnome Engineers can both learn to make and use Saronite Bomb at 405 Engineering, and Goblin Engineers can learn to make and use Global Thermal Sapper Charge at 425 Engineering.

Vehicles
The defining feature of Wintergrasp is the use of vehicles to assault buildings and towers.

In order to create vehicles in Wintergrasp, you must attain a rank of Corporal or better during a Wintergrasp match by killing enemy players or NPC guards. Once a vehicle has been created, any player can pilot or operate a turret on one. Vehicles are created at Goblin Workshops under your faction's control. These factories can be captured by the opposing team.

Catapults are capable of throwing plague barrels along ballistic trajectories which cause small amounts of AoE damage to players, vehicles, and structures. They also can create a flame jet which does a cone damage in the front of the catapult to enemy players and enemy 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. Passengers are vulnerable to attack in the Demolisher but can cast offensive and defensive spells.

Siege Engines are capable of ramming which also 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; the cannon requires a second player to operate. Passengers are protected from harm but cannot attack or cast spells.

A beta version of Wrath of the Lich King included a shredder, a fighter (one seat flying vehicle), and a bomber (two seat flier), but these were dropped before release.

Strategy
Wintergrasp is a classic "assault"-style gameplay. 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 Orb is instantly clickable (as of Patch 3.0.8). If this is done successfully, the attackers win.

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, and the east and west courtyard contain Goblin Workshops 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.

Goblin Workshops
The defenders have two Goblin workshops that cannot be captured, located in the keep itself; portals nearby teleport vehicles right outside the wall directly in front of the workshop they spawned at.

Currently (3.2), attackers are not given Goblin Workshops that cannot be captured. The southern workshops are vunerable to assault leading to attackers having zero allowed vehicles with defense access to 24. Obviously, this scenario leads to almost certain victory for the defending side. The workshops inside the keep cannot be captured by the attackers.

Two other Goblin Workshops are located nearer to the keep. They start out under the control of the defenders, but the attackers can capture them. Capturing is done in a manner similar to the towers in Hellfire Peninsula or Eye of the Storm; the side with more players near the workshop will eventually capture it. Holding these workshops 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. Workshops cannot be destroyed.

Towers
The keep has four towers as part of its design, at the corners of walls. The attackers have three towers at the southern end of the map. For each of the attacking team's towers that the defenders manage to destroy, the defenders will be rewarded with bonus honor.

Towers feature defensive turrets which players can use to fire at enemy players and vehicles. These towers do high AoE damage (up to 5000 for a well-aimed shot) and fire quite quickly, thus are quite useful in defense. Turrets can be destroyed with vehicles or by being directly attacked by players; they respawn after some time.

As of patch 3.0.8, each of the attacking team's towers provide a Tower Control buff, which is a 5% bonus to damage; this buff can stack up to 3 times for a maximum 15% bonus. If the defenders destroy a tower, that tower's bonus will be transferred to the defending team. This is intended to assist the attacking team in taking the keep, and provide a reason for defenders to leave the protection of the keep during a siege.

If all three towers are destroyed the duration of the battle is shortened by 10 minutes (as of Patch 3.3). If the game has less than 10 minutes left on the clock, this ends the battle. As the game starts with a 30 minute countdown, this could mean the difference between defeat or victory.

Vehicles
The primary purpose of vehicles is to attack structures such walls, towers, and Goblin Workshops; they can also be used to attack other vehicles. 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 often 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 wish to fire at the cannons on the wall, as they will do a lot of damage to your vehicle if well aimed. 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 base capture situation in Arathi Basin.

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 and try to strike at the attackers' towers. When the towers are destroyed not only does it transfer their buff to the defending team, but when all 3 towers fall the attackers lose 15 minutes off the time they have to take the keep.

If the attackers have breached the inner courtyard, shift forces to keep them off the keep's door while still attempting to take down the south towers if not already done. While generally running around attacking anything that can be targeted in this relatively small area is easy, grouping everyone at the courtyard entrance with healers surrounding the group away from the attackers can not only keep them out of the courtyard, but can potentially push them back out, depending on how many vehicles they're utilizing. The Titan Relic is instantly clickable, so once the keep's door is breached, your loss is imminent.

Quickly changing graveyards
An important tactic for both Defenders and Attackers is to quickly get to the key battle point (southern towers, inner keep). Dead players who are waiting for the Spirit Healer to bring them back can ask the spirit healer to have their ghost transferred to any other graveyard currently in control of their own team. Efficient use of Graveyard teleporting can help save areas in danger of being overrun.

Team balance and tenacity
Being a world PvP zone, it is possible to have grossly unbalanced teams in a Wintergrasp match. This is addressed by granting the smaller team a buff called Tenacity. The greater the difference in the number of players, the more stacks of Tenacity the smaller team gets. Tenacity also applies to vehicles the team controls. However, vehicles only get a health increase with tenacity not a damage bonus.

If you have Tenacity, use it to your advantage; you and your vehicles are more powerful than normal. Acting as basic infantry and attacking enemy vehicles will lead to it being destroyed very quickly. Deploying siege engines while your team has Tenacity will allow you to batter walls down quickly.

If you are facing a team with Tenacity, you want to avoid direct conflict with enemy players when possible. Use your numbers to your advantage and focus fire; it will take multiple people to take enemy players and vehicles out.

Tenacity also affects the number of kills needed to advance rank. In extreme situations a single kill can advance a player from Recruit to First Lieutenant allowing the side to begin building siege vehicles from the very beginning of the battle.

Tenacity does not appear to have any effect on the capturing Goblin Workshops. A team that is significantly outnumbered may be able to survive longer and damage harder, but will still lose a workshop due to overwhelming numbers of the opposition.

As of March 14, 2009, "Only players level 70 or higher can count towards the tenacity tally or obtain the tenacity buff and get credit for victory or defeat. In addition, only players level 50 or higher will be able to use the portal to Wintergrasp."

As of November 16, 2010, Tenacity is no longer applied to players during the battle. This is due to Patch 4.0.3 and the implementation of a population balancing system that calculates on a 1:1 ratio. As an example, if there are 10 Alliance players in Wintergrasp during the battle, there will also be 10 Horde players.

Wintergrasp and PvE
Control of Wintergrasp affects non-PvP play as well.

Instances and raids
When a faction controls Wintergrasp, bosses in Northrend will drop a Stone Keeper's Shard for that faction only. These are used to buy certain PvP gear and Jewelcrafting recipes. The controlling faction will also have access to a raid instance, the Vault of Archavon, within the fortress of Wintergrasp. Like other raid instances, the vault is available in both twenty-five player and ten player versions on separate raid lockouts.

Crafting resources
Wintergrasp has the regular mineral nodes and herbs found in Northrend, but is also a prime source of crystallized elements. Elementals of all types can be found in Wintergrasp, which have a chance of dropping their respective crystallized element. More powerful elemental revenants exist that have a guaranteed droprate of 1 element and as many as 3 elements per mob. Revenants are visible only to the side that is currently in control of Wintergrasp. Mature Lashers are the life element's revenant equivalent.

Although Frost Lotus can be collected from other Herbalism nodes such as Icethorn, Wintergrasp is the only zone that has Frost Lotus nodes.

Cinder Clouds can be found in the Cauldron of Flames.

Patches and hotfixes