WoW Forever Warsong Gulch Battleground Guide

Warsong Gulch is the first battleground you can queue for in WoW Forever: it opens at level 10, a full 20 levels before Darkspear Islands. The rules are the ones Classic players remember, ten players a side and three flag captures to win, but what you earn has changed. Blizzard raised Honor from the smaller battlegrounds so Alterac Valley is no longer the only efficient grind, every match feeds your PvP rank, and Exalted with Silverwing Sentinels or Warsong Outriders now pays a Legacy Point. Below, we cover where to queue, how the map and flag rules work, the tactics that win games, and every reward the quartermasters sell.

Warsong Gulch at a Glance

If you just want to know what you are queuing into, here is the battleground in one table. Brackets are 10 levels wide, so a level 14 character never meets a level 19 twink from a higher bracket, and level 60 has a bracket of its own.

To see how Honor, Rank Points and gear fit together across every battleground, start with our WoW Forever PvP system overview.

What Changed in Warsong Gulch for WoW Forever

The map itself is untouched: same bases, same tunnels, same three captures to win. What changed is everything around it, from how the match pays out to who you get matched against. Blizzard has not published a change list for Warsong Gulch alone, so the points below come from its PvP posts, the beta development notes and the beta game data.

• More Honor than in Classic. Blizzard reviewed Honor gains across all battlegrounds so players aren't pushed into Alterac Valley for efficiency. In an October developer interview, the team said Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin and Darkspear Islands pay noticeably more than before, while Alterac Valley pays a little less.
• Rank Points instead of standing. Every match feeds a personal rank bar with a weekly cap, so you no longer compete with your whole faction for the next rank.
• Premades meet premades. Developers said full premade groups will be matched against other premades, and solo players and small groups against each other. The exact group size that counts as a premade is still being tuned.
• Holiday weeks, not weekends. The game data includes a Call to Arms: Warsong Gulch event, and highlighted battlegrounds pay extra Honor and Rank Points for a whole week.
• Marks stack to 30. The October 16 beta build raised the Warsong Gulch Mark of Honor limit from 20 to 30.
• Fewer places to hide the flag. Blizzard says it is closing spots where players hide the flag or stall a game, and will keep watching after launch.
• New rewards. The quartermasters sell new level 20 head pieces that only work in Warsong Gulch, account-wide level 25 mounts, and Exalted now grants a Legacy Point through the Master of Warsong Gulch achievement.
• Mixed rulesets. Battlegrounds are the one place where Normal and PvP ruleset characters fight side by side. Hardcore characters queue separately.

One thing that did not come back from later expansions is the match timer. Developers were asked about one and did not commit to it, so long games are still possible.

Our WoW Forever Normal vs PvP ruleset guide explains what the ruleset choice changes outside battlegrounds.

How to Queue for Warsong Gulch

You join Warsong Gulch through a battlemaster or at the battleground entrance. Every capital city has a Warsong Gulch battlemaster, so most players simply queue from town and keep questing or crafting until the match pops.

The entrances are worth knowing too, because the reputation quartermasters and the quest NPCs stand right next to them. Alliance players enter at Silverwing Grove in southern Ashenvale, where Illiyana Moonblaze sells the Silverwing Sentinels rewards (61.4, 83.8). Horde players enter by Mor'shan in the north of The Barrens, where Kelm Hargunth sells the Warsong Outriders rewards (46.6, 8.4).

Warsong Gulch Map Layout

Warsong Gulch is a long valley with a fortified base at each end: Silverwing Hold for the Alliance in the north and the Warsong Lumber Mill for the Horde in the south. The two bases are mirror images, so once you learn one, you know both. Each flag room sits deep inside its base and has three ways in: the tunnel in the middle, the ramp to the side, and the roof.

Between the bases lies the open middle field, where most pug fights happen. Each half of the field has two small huts that hold power-ups, and each base has a graveyard just outside it, next to its Restoration hut.

Warsong Gulch Buffs and Where to Find Them

Three kinds of power-ups spawn on the map. They respawn after a while, so a team that tracks them gets a real edge in the next fight.

The Speed buff is the one that decides captures. A flag carrier who grabs it on the way out of the enemy base can be halfway across the field before the defenders react, so many teams leave one player to guard it.

Common Warsong Gulch Callouts

Battleground chat moves fast, and most players use the same short names for places and roles. Knowing them makes /bg calls readable at a glance.

• FC / EFC: your flag carrier / the enemy flag carrier.
• FR: flag room.
• Tun, Ramp, Roof: the three routes into each flag room.
• GY: graveyard.
• Mid: the open middle field.
• Zerk hut / Leaf hut: the Berserking and Restoration huts.
• Inc: enemies incoming, usually with a number and a place, such as "inc 3 ramp".

How Flag Captures Work in Warsong Gulch

The goal is simple: take the enemy flag from their flag room and bring it back to yours. The catch is that a capture only counts while your own flag is at home. If both teams hold a flag at once, neither can score until one carrier dies, so a game can lock up for a long time.

These are the rules that decide most matches:

1. Pick up the flag by clicking it in the enemy flag room. You now carry the Silverwing Flag or the Warsong Flag.
2. Run it home and touch your own flag stand while your flag is there. Each capture is one point, and the first team to 3 wins.
3. If the carrier dies, the flag drops on the ground. A teammate who clicks it picks it up again; an enemy who clicks it returns it to their base. A dropped flag that nobody touches goes back to its base on its own after a short delay.
4. After a capture, both flags respawn in their rooms after a few seconds.
5. The dead respawn in waves at their graveyard, roughly every 30 seconds, not one by one.

Some abilities drop the flag the moment you use them. Mounting up, Divine Shield, Blessing of Protection, Ice Block and Feign Death all make you lose it, so a carrier should never press them out of habit.

Unlike later versions of the battleground, there is no stacking debuff on a carrier who holds the flag for a long time, and no time limit has been announced. If both carriers survive, the match keeps going until one team breaks the stalemate.

Warsong Gulch Strategy Tips

Most random Warsong Gulch games are lost the same way: all ten players brawl in the middle while nobody carries a flag. The team that splits into clear jobs and keeps chat clean usually wins, even against better-geared players.

Split Into Offense and Defense

A common pug setup is six or seven players on offense and three or four on defense. Offense escorts its carrier and hunts the enemy one; defense stays near the flag room, calls incoming attackers and stops the enemy from leaving with the flag.

• Kill the enemy carrier before he gets home. His graveyard sits next to his base, so near his flag room his dead teammates rejoin the fight every 30 seconds. In the middle of the field he is alone.
• Call the carrier's route. "EFC tun" or "EFC ramp" in /bg chat tells your offense where to cut him off.
• Wipe the enemy team before you push. Entering a defended flag room with half your team dead rarely works; win the fight in the middle, then go in.
• Don't overstack defense. Three players who can crowd-control and heal are enough. Ten players guarding one room means nobody is scoring.
• Carry the flag even if you're not ideal for it. A slow carrier still beats a game where no one picks the flag up.

Flag Carrier Tips

The carrier's job is to survive, not to deal damage. Run with a healer, stay near friends, and use corners and the ramp to break line of sight.

• Never mount. Mounting drops the flag on the spot, and mounting by accident is the most common way to lose one.
• Grab the Speed buff on your way out of the enemy base if it's up.
• Remove slows. Roots and snares are what kill carriers, so a Druid shifting forms or a Priest using Dispel Magic on the carrier is worth more than extra damage.
• Don't hide in unreachable spots. Blizzard is closing places where carriers hide the flag, and players have reported some wall jumps as exploits in the past.

Best Classes for Each Role

Every class has a place in Warsong Gulch, but some jobs suit some classes much better. This is the usual split.

A Druid carrier with a healer behind them is the classic winning setup, so if your team has one, give them the flag.

Solo Queue and Premades

In Classic, solo players often ran into organised premades and lost in minutes. WoW Forever matches premades against other premades, so a solo queue should mostly face other solo players and small groups. Developers also mentioned War Games, which let one group challenge another directly, but they may not be in the game at launch.

Warsong Gulch Rewards: Honor, Rank Points and Marks

Every match pays three things at once. Honor is the currency you spend at the PvP vendor, capped at 25,000 since the October 1 beta build. Rank Points never get spent: they fill your rank bar toward the 14 PvP ranks, up to a weekly cap. The third reward is the battleground's own token, the Warsong Gulch Mark of Honor.

Marks stack to 30, so spend them before you hit the limit or the extras are wasted. Their main use besides reputation is PvP gear: each Warsong Gulch-linked piece costs marks plus Honor. In the September beta, the wrist and gloves cost 10 marks each and the legs 15 marks; the October 1 build then raised the Honor half of most prices by about 50%.

When Warsong Gulch is the highlighted battleground of the week, every match pays extra Honor and Rank Points. That week is the best time to farm it. The Legacy perk For Great Honor also raises the Honor you earn from PvP.

Every slot, mark and Honor price is listed in our WoW Forever PvP gear and Honor costs guide, and our WoW Forever Honor farming guide compares Warsong Gulch with the other battlegrounds. To learn how the weekly cap shapes the climb to the top, explore our WoW Forever PvP ranks guide.

Silverwing Sentinels and Warsong Outriders Reputation

Each faction has its own Warsong Gulch reputation: Silverwing Sentinels for the Alliance and Warsong Outriders for the Horde. You start at Neutral, and it takes 42,000 reputation to reach Exalted. Higher standings open more of the quartermaster's stock, and Exalted completes the Master of Warsong Gulch achievement, which grants 1 Legacy Point. It is one of four Legacy Points from battleground reputations, one per battleground.

How to Earn Warsong Gulch Reputation

Matches themselves give little reputation; most of it comes from turning in marks. These are the quests that pay it, all handed in at the entrance camps or to your faction's officer outside the battleground.

The once-per-bracket quests are the best deal for a leveling character: one mark buys 200 reputation and a big chunk of experience, so do them in every bracket you pass through. The game data also lists two Ashenvale dailies worth 1,000 reputation each, Repelling Invaders for the Alliance and Clear the Forest! for the Horde, handed in at the Moonwell and Bonfire bases. Blizzard hasn't explained how they are unlocked yet, so treat them as beta data. The Legacy talent Diplomat raises reputation gains if you plan to push for Exalted.

Warsong Gulch Reputation Rewards

The quartermasters sell versions of the same item for several level brackets, so you can buy a fresh ring or weapon every 10 levels. The standings below are the ones from Classic. The WoW Forever data lists these items without standing requirements yet, so expect small changes at launch.

The linked items are the level 58 and 60 versions; the quartermaster also sells lower-level copies of each.

New Warsong Gulch Rewards in WoW Forever

Two groups of items are new to the quartermasters, and both are cheap enough to buy on a leveling character.

• Warsong Gulch head pieces (level 20). Resilient Cloth Headband, Resilient Leather Mask and Resilient Mail Coif reduce all damage taken and your chance to be critically hit by 5%, but only inside Warsong Gulch. That makes them a strong pick for a low-level flag carrier.
• Trainee mounts (level 25). Trainee's Sentinel Nightsaber for the Alliance and Trainee's Outrider Wolf for the Horde are account-wide mounts that work only in Ashenvale. They cost about 8–9 gold, far less than the 100 gold of your first riding training.

Raising reputation with mark turn-ins takes many evenings. If you'd rather skip straight to the tabard and the Legacy Point, see our WoW Forever Warsong Gulch reputation boost. For what Legacy Points unlock, read our guide to Legacy Points from PvP in WoW Forever.

More WoW Forever PvP Guides

Warsong Gulch is where most players start their PvP climb. These guides cover the rest of it.

Warsong Gulch FAQ

These are the questions players ask most often about Warsong Gulch in WoW Forever.