Overview of Battlegrounds in WoW Classic

The battlegrounds present in Classic are Warsong Gulch, Alterac Valley, and Arathi Basin. Their release phases in the schedule are as follows.

Battleground	Phase Introduced	Battleground Type
Alterac Valley	Phase 3	Zone capture and bosses
Warsong Gulch	Phase 3	Capture-the-flag
Arathi Basin	Phase 4	Capture nodes

Alterac Valley is a 40-man battleground that features the most complex gameplay of the three available in Classic, mainly due to the huge number of variables and objectives present in the zone.

The battleground consists of the following objectives:

• Capture enemy bunkers and towers, while defending your team's own structures.
• Capture graveyards to claim a foothold further down the map, allowing your team to spawn closer to the enemy base.
• Defeat enemy NPC leaders to advance further into the enemy's base.
• Defeat the enemy General in the enemy's main base to win the game.

While these are the main objectives, players can also collect items from enemy players to hand-in for rewards, even allowing them to eventually summon a friendly raid boss that will fight for their team.

You can read more about Alterac Valley in our dedicated guide below.

Arathi Basin is a 15-man battleground that features 5 bases for players to capture and hold, gaining resources for each node that they currently control.

The bases are the Farm, the closest to the Horde starting area, the Stables, the closest to the Alliance starting area, and the Lumber Mill, Blacksmith, and Gold Mine, all of which are in the middle of the map. The first team to gain 1,600 resources will win the match.

You can read more about this battleground in our dedicated Arathi Basin guide below.

Warsong Gulch is the simplest of the battlegrounds, featuring 10 players on each team and a simple capture-the-flag gameplay style.

Each team will have a base that contains a flag and the objective of the battleground is to capture the enemy's flag by bringing it back to your own base. Once you have captured the enemy flag 3 times, you will win the match.

You can read more about this battleground in our dedicated Warsong Gulch guide below.

The Honor system is somewhat complex in Classic and can be difficult to understand from the base interface that Blizzard provides in-game.

We have covered the system fully in our Honor System Overview below, as well as provided information on which activities in each battleground will provide players with bonus honor.