Winning in Plunderstorm has not only the thrill of a win, but you will unlock a feat of strength in World of Warcraft and earn increased Plunder (reputation) with the Keg Leg's Crew faction (bonus plunder for the win and late-game kills).
If you’re not familiar with Plunderstorm, you can read our Plunderstorm Overview article to learn more about this limited-time World of Warcraft Battle Royale game mode. To see what shiny rewards there are for playing the new game mode, we put together a List of all Plunderstorm Rewards.
The best builds and strategy tips in this guide have been written with input from Method content creators that have had success in frequently winning in Plunderstorm. Some of these players are heavily into PvP, and some that barely touched PvP at all. These best builds and strategies for Solo and Duo focused playstyles are based on their opinions; these are not guaranteed to be the absolute best setups, but is how they have personally achieved most of their wins.
General gameplay advice
- PvE is the most important early game. Try to avoid PvP encounters as much as you can until you’ve collected spells and leveled up, unless you’re feeling confident.
- Prioritize Elite NPCs, they give the most experience and drop abilities. Try to group up an elite with surrounding NPCs for efficiency.
- Kill non-player enemies whilst rotating around the map for maximum efficiency.
- Manage your Health Brew. Ideally you don’t want to be taking fights with your Health Brew recently on CD. You want to be taking fights with the option of being able to disengage, top yourself and get back in.
- Mobility is the key to the game, make sure you always have at least one mobility spell, no matter what build you are playing.
- Open chests that you come across, they drop abilities and give a good chunk of experience.
- If you are playing duo, spread out whilst remaining relatively close to your partner to maximize PvE farm.
- Play what you’re comfortable with! The balancing of spells by Blizzard has been incredible, and winning Plunderstorm is capable with any talents, so play what you feel fits your personal style the most.
- Always be careful of being 3rd-partied, so keep moving your camera around to make sure there isn’t someone being sneaky.
- After using your Barrel Roll, make sure to pick up another item if you come by one.
Where are we dropping?
The ideal start to the match is to land your parrot onto an elite mob that is surrounded by more elite mobs and chests. This gives you the most opportunity to level up quickly and have a higher chance of obtaining the skills you want early into the game.
With the map being smaller, where you spawn with your parrot being random and the importance of being quick to earn experience at the start of the match, its best to fly to the ground as quickly as you can rather than finding the perfect place to land. If you stay in the air for too long, you may end up landing somewhere that has already started to be farmed.
Ideal Drop Locations:
- Stromgarde Keep
- Hammerfall
- Ar’gorok
Good Drop Locations:
- Quarry (outside Stromgarde Keep)
- Dabyrie’s Farmstead
- Go’shek Farm
- Witherbark Village
- Newstead
- Elemental Tower
- Horde Outpost
From our content creator’s perspective, they believe an aggressive playstyle of going to an elite dense part of the map, regardless of if other players are also dropping there will be more beneficial to achieving a win, taking the early fights if necessary.
If you get a good first ability (such as Fire Whirl) then you can take some fights early, before killing any remaining elites and non-player enemies; if you don’t get a good first ability, then avoid other players, killing elites and opening chests until you get a better offensive ability and have leveled up.
We have put together a handy graphic of how our content creators personally enjoy playing at the start of a Plunderstorm match.
Recommended Plunderstorm Builds
These are by no means the only viable builds to win in Plunderstorm. These particular builds are the ability and utility setups that our content creators have had the most success and fun with.
Mana Sphere + Rime Arrow + Fade to Shadow + Faeform
Playstyle: Poke, kite, defensive. Rime Arrow → Mana Sphere → Rime Arrow. Use Rime Arrow on cooldown and to interrupt Health Brew. Create distance with Fade to Shadow and immune abilities / kite with Faeform.
Mana Sphere + Storm Archon + Fade to Shadow + Faeform
Playstyle: Poke, CC, defensive. Combo Mana Sphere → Storm Archon / Holy Shield. Use Faeform and Fade to Shadow to immune abilities and kite.
Can substitute Storm Archon for Holy Shield, and you can substitute either Fade to Shadow or Faeform with Windstorm for another ranged stun.
Searing Axe + Fire Whirl + Hunter’s Chains + Faeform
Playstyle: Aggressive. Engage with Hunter's Chains -> Searing Axe (or Earthbreaker) -> Fire Whirl.
Can substitute Searing Axe for Earthbreaker, and after the nerfs probably Fire Whirl for Earthbreaker.
Earthbreaker + Searing Axe + Windstorm + Fade to Shadow
Playstyle: Aggressive, invis close to a player, Windstorm into Earthbreaker > Searing Axe
By using the double-stun into the Searing Axe, you can do a massive burst of damage, almost 1-shotting other players.
Toxic Smackerel + Slicing Winds + Fade to Shadow + Faeform
Playstyle: Poke/Aggressive. Use Slicing Winds to jump through a player, hit them with Toxic Smackerel and play back, dodging their counter attacks with your movement abilities. Re-engage with Slicing Winds when off CD.
Quaking Leap Builds
Slicing Wind + Searing Axe + Quaking Leap + Fade to Shadow
Playstyle: Aggressive. Quaking Leap --> Searing Axe --> Slicing Winds
Slicing Wind + Fire Whirl + Quaking Leap + Fade to Shadow
Playstyle: Aggressive. Quaking Leap --> Fire Whirl --> Slicing Wind
Earthbreaker + Searing Axe + Quaking Leap + Fade to Shadow
Playstyle: Aggressive, burst. Quaking Leap --> Earthbreaker --> Searing Axe
Recommended Gameplay Strategy
We start by landing our parrot on an elite mob (killing it instantly), ideally in an area where there is a dense population of elites.
Spread out (If you’re in a duo) and kill elites. The experience range is incredibly large, but obviously stay within a reasonable distance to your duo partner to defend if attacked.
If you pick up an early AOE spell such as Fire Whirl, Earth Breaker or Star Bomb you should round up a bunch of non-elites and nuke them down.
Early movement spells are great for being as fast as possible when farming, whilst being able to evade early PvP. Open all chests along the way!
With the recent Plunderstorm updates, it is now fairly worth-while to PVP, so if you land in an area alone, once you have farmed it, you can begin to look for a scuffle.
As you start moving in with the Storm circle, try to look for elites/chests in the distance, and clear those whilst looking for a fight to stay efficient.
As the circle gets smaller, I recommend taking utility spells that fit your build or that you enjoy playing with. For example, if you prefer more movement based gameplay, or being a stun-bot.
Duo Abilities & Fighting Together
The great thing about Duo queuing, is the ability to kill an enemy incredibly quickly together. This can be done with abilities; a popular combo is having 1 player take Hunter’s Chains and another player taking an AOE spell such as Star Bomb or Earthbreaker.
This can also be achieved by just communicating effectively, for example, if you see the enemy running Repel then one person can bait the spell out whilst the other uses their spells once they see Repel used.
Items of Interest
Items often don’t get the mention they deserve, using them to your advantage can be really impactful to farming, escaping from a fight or initiating one. Below are a few items that stand out to us:
- Barrel Roll: great mobility for escaping tricky situations or rotating towards more elites for NPC farming.
- Mechano-Hog: incredibly useful for rotating around the map, especially in duos since both team mates use it.
- Smoke Bomb: decent item, makes players immune to abilities that require you to be targeted, for example Rime Arrow and Hunter’s Chains.
- Gnomish Gravity Launcher: incredibly useful to engage, or disengage from fights. Deals damage on impact, if you can successfully land on an enemy.
Random Plunderstorm min-maxing Tips
Genuinely, none of this is vital to winning at all, but these are some random min-max things that we have found whilst playing:
- Using your free ‘Barrel Roll’ item at the start to run to the next elite faster.
- Using movement spells whenever it is off CD to get to every pack quicker.
- Letting Elite mobs with the spell “Call Help” finish, for that extra XP gain.
- If you are fighting near the storm, you can briefly walk into the storm and use Health Brew before re-entering, this is especially useful later in the game.
We hope that we helped to provide some useful information and tips for players to get their first win or to help farm them and all the bonus plunder it brings!