WoW Forever Arathi Basin: Bases, Strategy, Reputation and Rewards

Arathi Basin is the resource race of WoW Forever. 2 teams of 15 fight over 5 neutral bases, and every base a team holds adds resources on a timer until a side reaches 2,000. It opens at level 20 and runs up to 60, with the Alliance starting in Trollbane Hall and the Horde in the Defiler's Den.

Its quest givers stand in Arathi Highlands: Sergeant Maclear at Refuge Pointe for the Alliance and Deathstalker Mortis at Hammerfall for the Horde. Kills score nothing on their own here. Holding ground is what wins.

No base belongs to anyone when the gates open. Each faction has 2 bases on its own half of the map, and the Blacksmith stands alone in the center, so most matches settle into the same split:

Base	Where it sits	Who tends to hold it
Farm	Beside the Defiler’s Den, where the Horde starts	Horde: its easiest base to keep
Gold Mine	On the far edge, away from the main fights	Horde, often with a single defender
Blacksmith	The center, a short run from all 4 other bases	Whoever won the last fight there
Lumber Mill	A high ledge you can jump down from toward the Blacksmith	Alliance
Stables	Beside Trollbane Hall, where the Alliance starts	Alliance: its easiest base to keep

Turning a base takes 3 steps, and the enemy can stop each one:

1. The click. Using a banner starts a short channel, and a single hit cancels it. Kill, stun or pull the defenders away before anyone touches the flag.
2. The contested minute. A good click leaves the flag contested for roughly 60 seconds. Its old owners can reclaim it with 1 click until then, so the attackers stand on the flag instead of chasing.
3. The turn. After that minute the base belongs to the attackers. It starts adding to their resources and becomes their respawn point.

Income grows faster than the base count: a 3rd base adds more than the 2nd did, so 3 bases out-earn 2 by a wide gap. A lost base hurts twice, in score and in a longer walk back from the graveyard. Defend from on top of the flag: a defender who waits at range cannot interrupt the click in time.

Most Arathi Basin games go to the team that holds 3 bases for longer. Each faction's natural 3 are its 2 home-side bases plus the Blacksmith:

Faction	Bases to hold	Where it breaks
Alliance	Stables, Lumber Mill, Blacksmith	The Blacksmith; reinforce it by jumping down from the Lumber Mill
Horde	Farm, Gold Mine, Blacksmith	The Gold Mine, far from help; its 1 defender only has to stall until others arrive

How we split 15 players at the start:

Report attackers as soon as you see them, with a count and a base name. When a match stalls on 2 bases, hit the enemy base with the fewest defenders rather than the one they just reinforced.

Both sides have a level 25 quest that asks you to win the battle and bring back an Arathi Resource Crate. Each turn-in pays XP and 200 reputation.

Side	Quest	Giver and place
Alliance	Arathi Basin Resources!	Sergeant Maclear, Refuge Pointe, Arathi Highlands (45.8, 45.4)
Horde	Cut Arathor Supply Lines	Deathstalker Mortis, Hammerfall, Arathi Highlands (73.4, 29.8)

Every match pays Honor, Rank Points and Arathi Basin Marks of Honor, and a stack holds 30 since Blizzard's 16 October notes. Reputation goes to your side's faction:

Faction	Side	Quartermasters
The League of Arathor	Alliance	Samuel Hawke and the League of Arathor Emissary
The Defilers	Horde	Rutherford Twing and the Defilers Emissary

No time for the grind? Our PvP page farms League of Arathor or Defilers reputation to Exalted on your character, set in its builder.

Blizzard rebalanced Honor across all 4 maps before launch: a short Arathi Basin match earns its fair share, and nobody has to queue the long Alterac Valley games for the best Honor. Holiday weeks add Honor and Rank Points to the highlighted map.

Blizzard's new map borrows the same idea. Darkspear Islands is also 15 v 15 and scores held capture points over time, then adds a flag in the middle that a team carries to one of its own bases.

Players who like Arathi Basin will find Darkspear Islands in our WoW Forever PvP guide, and the flag map in our Warsong Gulch guide.