Winning battlegrounds doesn't just take good gear, it also takes good organization. I've been running a ton of BGs, both pug and org, to farm honor for my arena-ing shadow priest and pick up the 2-minute PvP trinket for my mage, and the one thing that's struck me (especially in Eye of the Storm) is how much more honor I get when I'm a) running with an organized group (where everyone is well-prepared, in TS, and following directions) or b) in a pug that is actually communicating well. Today I thought I'd share five addons and one macro that I've found especially helpful in either organized or unorganized battleground pvp.
AlphaMap
AlphaMap is an excellent BG map mod that I have set up to pop up whenever I enter a battleground. The addon provides a transparent, scaleable map of the entire battleground that you can drag to anywhere on your screen. The huge advantage to this, of course, is that you have a constant view of the battleground's progress without ever having to hit M to look at the in-game map. AlphaMap will also display the location of everyone else in your raid on the map, and gives a special icon to the flag carriers in EotS and WSG. A right-clickable menu on the side of the map lets you broadcast information like the number of nodes needed to win in AB, the location of a flag in WSG, or the number of enemies incoming in AB.
Deadly Boss Mods
DBM is familiar to many raiders as one of the two main contenders (along with BigWigs) for raiding boss mods and timers. If you're already using DBM and want to take advantage of its battleground timer features, just make sure you have the Battlegrounds suite installed and enabled. (If you're looking to pair timers with a good map mod, I recommend AlphaMap.) Fans of other boss mods or folks looking for pure PvP addons can find similar functionality with Capping.
Stinkyqueue
Without Stinkyqueue, there would be no organized Alterac Valley. (Without Stinkyqueue, I might never play Alterac Valley again until patch 2.4.) Stinkyqueue is a mod that allows you to join AV as a premade group. Technically speaking, it just synchronizes the queue requests to greatly improves the chances that your entire group will end up in the same Alterac Valley, but the effect is largely the same. Here's how it works: everyone in the raid must have Stinkyqueue downloaded and enabled, and must talk with the battlemaster to open up the queuing window. The raid leader types /sq q to simultaneously queue everyone in the raid. For Ace fans, Lightqueue is the Ace alternative, and will work even if some of your raid is using Stinkyqueue.
Capping
Capping is the Wowace heir of Battlefield Commander, an old standard long-favored by PvP veterans. (Battlefield Commander is no longer being maintained.) It's an all-in-one informational BG mod that provides popup maps and timer bars, and lets you broadcast the estimated time to win or time until a node caps by ctrl-clicking the bar. To move the timer bars, click them once to highlight, then drag them by the title text that appears above them. Capping also provides a flag carrier frame that you can left-click to target the flag carrier in WSG or EotS.
Wopumentia's BG Defense Macro (modified by Snapfizzle)
This macro will call out incoming enemies along with your location, which it automatically detects in the first line. It broadcasts via a raid warning if your BG leader gives you assist. For minimal disruption while you're dealing with the incoming wave, just mash the macro once for each incoming enemy. Three lines of raid warning = three enemies to deal with. This macro is especially useful in AB and EotS.
/script cL = "";
/script if ( IsRaidOfficer( ) ) then cL = "RAID_WARNING"; else cL = "BATTLEGROUND"; end
/script SendChatMessage ( "<<"..mP..">> has inc! 1 per spam...", cL, nil, nil);
There are also addons out there that do the same sort of thing (see AlphaMap, which has a similar menu), but if you ask me, this is a far simpler and more lightweight solution. Just type /m, create a new macro, copy and paste the green text above, and drag the macro to your toolbar.
Whether you're just starting out in PvP or looking to improve your game as a battleground veteran, I hope this list had something useful. If you have another favorite battleground mod you'd like to share, please leave a note in the comments!
