Rated Battleground Meta & Best Compositions - Shadowlands RBG Guide

By Cherry Updated: 2023/11/29

OverviewDisclaimer:HealersAtonementBlessing of SacrificeUltimate SacrificeLight of DawnPeaceweaverRing of PeaceEarthen Wall TotemCycloneUrsol's VortexMighty BashMass EntanglementTotem of WrathEarthen Wall TotemGrounding TotemeveryviableDPSStarburstdoes not necessarilywinningCaster Cleave - “Rot Comp”Strengths

DoT protection - enemy healers are punished when they dispel DoTs or try to dispel CC off of their team.
Dispelling a Shadow Priest’s Vampiric Touch fears the player.

Dispelling an Affliction Warlock’s Unstable Affliction silences the player and causes a large chunk of damage.

Dispelling Balance Druid's Moonfire and Sunfire refunds Astral Power to the caster if they are using the Dying Stars honor talent.

Good positioning because this group composition can spread out more to avoid getting cleaved down since most rot classes are ranged (i.e. Affliction Warlocks, Shadow Priests, and Balance Druids opting for a Starfall and Star Burst based build).

Weaknesses

More difficult to spin flags on node maps because some spells and abilities do not spin, leading to a decrease in overall DPS output during team fights because 1-2 specific abilities need to be spammed instead.

Shadow Priests have to cast Shadow Word: Pain on individual targets in order to interrupt players from capturing a base.

Balance Druids can only Moonfire 2 targets with the Twin Moons talent and Sunfire only interrupts the main target from capturing a flag/base.

A Monk's Crackling Jade Lightning does not interrupt someone capturing a flag/base even though it does damage.

Difficult to peel out of team fights (i.e. Balance Druids would mostly likely be the fastest peelers on the team).

Melee Cleave

A melee cleave is as the name itself states - a group that primarily invites melee DPS. This damage is thus single target based and extremely bursty. You would invite classes such as Arms Warriors, Death Knights (Frost or Unholy), Demon Hunters, Retribution Paladins, etc.

Strengths

Strong single target burst and typically strong team fight pressure.

Strong cleave damage when multiple targets are stacked together.

Utilizing a Necrolord Death Knight's Covenant Ability, Abomination Limb, can help stack multiple targets for AoE stuns and cleave damage. This paired with a Kyrian Arms Warrior's Covenant Ability, Spear of Bastion, can set up for nasty cleave damage.

Weaknesses

Susceptible to AoE stuns and can be counter-cleaved by the enemy team.

Lack of ranged CC on other targets (most melee only have short range stuns).

Overlap on the type of CC they can put out (majority stuns - melee range disorients/fears can easily break from cleave).

Lack of efficient base sitters (some melee classes are susceptible to CC chains or burst damage without help).

Hybrid (Melee/Rot)Strengths

More group composition diversity and strategic possibilities.

More CC capabilities and thus longer CC chains.

Usually consists of decent base sitters because of pets or better utility (i.e. pet classes and hybrid's off-healing).

Weaknesses

Certain DPS will be preferred over others because some classes have a more difficult time standing alone (e.g. usually groups avoid bringing a Shadow Priest without another caster because they will be focused and interrupted a lot, negating a lot of their damage).

Try to avoid only bringing one DoT class (i.e. Affliction Warlock or Shadow Priest) because they will eat a lot of interrupts, lose out on a lot of damage, and the team will not have proper dot protection (see under "Caster Cleave - Rot Comp").

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Rated Battleground Meta & Best Compositions - Shadowlands RBG Guide

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