Group PVP is very different from running into a member of the opposite faction while leveling. In group PVP winners are almost always determined by how well your group works as a team. Like in an instance you will have a role to fill depending on what you do best.
Your Primary Role.
When doing battlegrounds, arenas or world PVP objectives you are at your best when you play an offensive support character. You should be right in the fray of the front lines because of your survivability and using your heals and buffs to help your teammates. It is possible for a paladin to be a pure offensive character like a warrior or a rogue, if they have good gear and a specialized talent spec. But warriors and rogues will always do a better job than you and by keeping them alive they can do damage in your place.
Healing and supporting
Healing in PVP is more than just watching health bars and spamming healing spells. You need to focus on your allies health, but you also need to focus on what your enemies are doing. If they start to focus on a specific player and gang up on him start chain healing Flash of Light, even when he still has high health. By the time you finish casting, his health will have dropped a good deal and the heal will save him. If the enemy isn’t ganging up on one particular player but spread out over several stand in the middle of your group and cast heals on the one whose health is lowest.

Even though your party members will probably be dieing more quickly and more often than in a raid, it is still important to buff your party when you have the chance. While waiting for the match to begin make sure to give your allies appropriate blessings. You will want to almost always give your melee characters Blessing of Might or Blessing of Kings if you don’t mind spending money on reagents. Casters are limited because Blessing of Wisdom will rarely have time to be effective. Instead I’ve found it better to use Blessing of Light on them because they take higher amounts of damage. If one of your party members dies and rezes don’t worry about buffing him until things have quieted down. Keep focusing on your healing. Also keep an aura up at all times. If your party is mostly heavy melee characters use Devotion or Retribution Aura, if it is

mostly casters use Concentration Aura. If your group is on horseback running to help others or capture something Crusader Aura is wonderful.
Using your bubble and shields
The paladin class is unique because it is the only class in PVP that can make itself invulnerable for up to twelve seconds. During this time you can heal yourself and your comrades back up. You should always save your shields as a last resort though for when you are very low on health or when the enemy all team up on you. If you have had to shield because you were low on health use this time to heal yourself back up. But if an ally is very close to death focus on saving him first then yourself. Also, don’t spam both of your shields right after another. When the enemy sees that you have shielded yourself they will usually stop targeting you and leave to fight your friends. By the time your shield is down they will be busy with your friend and you can save your other shield for when you need it.
Dealing with CC.
One major aspect of PVP is being able to control your opponents. Mages polymorph, Druids use Cyclone and Warlocks use fear. If you are incapacitated you can’t help out your team and then the enemy can take you out whenever they want. The simplest way to get around this is to use your PVP trinket to break out of them. But you can only use it once every two minutes. Fortunately nearly all crowd control will break if you take damage and paladins have a special trick for causing damage to themselves. If you cast Blessing of Sacrifice on one of your teammates you will take a little bit of damage every time they get hurt and usually it is enough to break out of a crowd control spell. When using this tactic though keep in mind that the damage you will be taking for your friend can stack up quickly and kill you if you aren’t careful. On the positive side you will be helping a friend stay alive longer.
Gear and talents.

When gearing up for PVP you should load up on Stamina, intellect and +healing gear. Stamina greatly helps with your survivability, but only if you get lots of it. And intellect and +healing give you the most from your healing spells. You will also want to consider

putting your points in the healing talents of the Holy tree and the survival talents of the protection three. The standard Illumination/Divine Favor build is usually acceptable.
Battleground Tactics.
Warsong Gulch.
This is the first and most popular battleground out there. It is basic game of capture the flag where the first team to infiltrate the enemy base three times and take their banner back to their base wins. Warsong Gulch is divided into three different battle zones. Your base, which must be defended at all times. The front lines in the middle of the battleground where most of the fighting will take place. And the enemy base where you will hack and slash through the defense to reach their flag. Each of these zones will require you to take a different role.
The base defense is usually held by classes that can cause havoc to the enemy. The only disruption ability you have is Hammer of Justice which can only be used once every minute so this is not a great place for you. If you stay here your best option of helping is to heal the defenders so they can last longer. Since most disrupter's are usually warlocks and priests that fall fast extra healing is very useful.
The frontline between the two bases is where the majority of the battle takes place. It’s important for your team to try and control the frontlines because when your team is trying to run the enemy flag back to their base they are incredibly vulnerable. By controlling the middle area and keeping the enemy on the defensive you can safely run the flag back to your base. When fighting on the frontlines you should still try to heal your allies, but in this area you can also engage in fighting the enemy yourself. You’ll mostly be fighting one on one or one or two fights here so the best strategy is to team up with another player and help them with their target.

The final team is the assault team that runs into the enemy’s base and steals the flag. The defense here will either beat you down as hard as possible or immobilize you with stuns or fears. If you are in this group healing is once again a must, but there is one other role you must complete first. The moment the flag taker has stolen the flag he will run to the exit while the rest of you try to protect his escape. Your Blessing of

Freedom ability is a real lifesaver since most of the enemies will try to stop him with stuns and roots. It will let him sprint ahead and get a head start.
Arathi Basin.
In an Arathi Basin match your team tries to gather a stockpile of resources by controlling up to five resource nodes. To win you have to defend the nodes you control and try to take other nodes away from the enemy. The basic strategy of this battleground is to not get greedy and spread yourself to thin. You can win by keeping control of only three nodes, but it is usually safest to aim for four. After you have captured a node keep a few people behind. Two or three is usually sufficient and it is best if you have someone who can do lots of damage quickly. After leaving a defense force the rest of your group moves to other nodes until you have three captured. Now the remaining players split into two groups. One is a mobile defense force that can run to the captured nodes if they are attacked by the enemy. The other is a mobile assault force that tries to take away an enemy controlled node.
Starting off your team will want to capture the node closest to their base. If you are Alliance this would be the stables and if you are Horde it’s the farm. Leave two or three people here, though a healer is usually not as necessary since these areas generally see less combat than the other nodes. Now your main group will split into two and try to take either the lumber mill, blacksmith shop or gold mine. Only take two of them though and leave a defensive group here. Now your remaining players are part of a mobile defensive squad that will run to one of your captured nodes when it comes under assault and try to assault a nearby node if the enemy is disorganized.
When playing in AB your best bet is to try and stay with either the second defensive groups or the mobile defensive groups. When in a second defensive group you need to try to heal your allies whenever the enemy shows up. Also try to dispel any magical debuffs and crowd control like Polymorph or DOTS. If the enemy does manage to make it to the node and tries to claim it disrupt them as soon as possible. Hammer of Justice and Holy Shock are great for this type of situation. If you are in the mobile defensive force always follow close to the leader so you can jump down and heal right away. There is very little you can do here offensively so try

to be a support character. If you are protection specced though it will sometimes help if you charge into the enemies first. They will usually waste a few seconds trying to take you down which will give your allies time to knock them back. An added benefit of being in the mobile group is that you can use your Crusader Aura to increase your groups mount speed, getting you around the map faster.
Alterac Valley.
Alterac Valley is the largest and longest of the battlegrounds. The objective here is to drive into the heart of enemy territory and kill their general to win the match. Along the way you need to claim graveyards and towers to weaken the enemy forces at the base and to strengthen your own. But the strategies used in Alterac Valley change more often than in any other battleground. The primary reason for this is that players can’t join as a group and every match is essentially a pick up group. This means that unless you’re lucky, the leader of the group will usually not be able to give effective orders and more often than not the other players won’t listen. Because this is the same for both sides of the game a well placed healer can literally be the deciding factor of who wins and who loses. When playing in AV you are at your most effective when guarding a graveyard before it is capped or healing tanks when they take down generals and commanders.
Currently AV has undergone some major changes and you can no longer simply race to kill the other teams general. There is now a point system like AB called reinforcements, and the goal of the game is to make the reduce the enemies reinforcements first. You lower them to zero if you kill their opposing general, but you also lower them by killing their NPCs and the opposing players in the battleground. This means defending towers and graveyards is key and your healing is even more vital.

If you are lucky a few team players will stay behind to guard any graveyards you have captured while the rest move towards the enemy base. If there is no healer here you should stay and guard the base till it is capped. Even after it is capped you should try to stay with your group unless the main force is hurting for extra help. Not defending towers and graveyards is the quickest way to lose an AV match. If you are not helping protect, move up and help the rest of the group take the relief hut and when that is capped start pulling the marshals or warmasters. It is really important that you

focus on healing here like you would in a regular PVE fight because agro is important and many players are not organized enough to avoid taking damage.
When all of the marshals or warmasters are dead have your tank head inside and attack the enemy general. This is a very simple tank and spank fight where the only issue is dealing with agro. Focus once again on healing but if an enemy runs in to cause confusion stun them with Hammer of Justice so the others can take them down. Keep the majority of heals on the tank and if you are all fast enough you will win the game.
One other tactic that a paladin may try is to capture one of the mines. This gives your team a steady stream of reinforcements and is very simple for a prot spec. The mines are filled with low level mobs that hit for very little and can be AoEed down very quickly.
Eye of the Storm
Eye of the storm is an upgraded version of Arathi basin resource gathering and Warsong Gulch Flag capturing. In this battleground you win by earning two thousand points before the other team by capturing and holding towers and capturing a flag and bringing it to one of your towers. When you capture a tower you will start to gain points like you gain resources in AB. But if you capture more towers your points will go up exponentially. Controlling one tower will give you one point every two seconds and capturing two will give you two points every two seconds. But when you capture three you get five points per tick and if you have all four you get ten points per tick. You will also want to maintain towers because in the center of the field a flag will spawn and if your team can bring it back to their base they get extra points. If you control several towers you can go to the one with the fewest amount of enemies and take less risk. But you also gain an extra 25 points for each tower you control.
Most of the strategies you use in Arathi Basin and Warsong will come into play here. Your team will be divided into two separate groups, one for tower control and the other for flag control. The tower team should consist of at least ten people spread out between the four towers. Each one should have about two to three guards depending on how many people are on the tower teams total. Guarding a tower here is especially important because you capture them faster when you have more people inside. If you can keep at least one person inside alive the

enemy won’t have a chance to capture it and your friends can run back from the graveyard. The flag team is a lot like the assault team from Warsong gulch. Four people should run to the center of the map and fight the other flag team for control. Try to put Blessing of Freedom the flag carrier when they run for a tower and disrupt the enemy carrier with Hammer of Justice or Avenging Shield.
Arenas
The arena focuses on straight up combat with no node capturing or flag running. There is no way to resurrect during an arena match and the first team to eliminate all opponents wins. Matches are very fast and brutal so teamwork and sticking to your assigned role is vital for your teams success. Fortunately, paladins are built for this type of situation. Taking the role as the indestructible supporter you will keep your teammates healed up and protected through out the fight.
2vs2 matches.
In this bracket your team will consist of yourself and hopefully a damage dealer. The paladins supporting abilities are a bit overkill though since you only need to focus on one person at a time. If the enemy attacks your friend you need to keep him healed, but if the enemy attacks you then focus on yourself. In the meantime your friend will do as much damage dealing as he can and hopefully he will take down one player so you can gang up together on the second one.
3vs3 matches.

This is a lot like 2vs2 matches, but you need to spread your attention to another teammate. But if you are a good healer it should be no trouble. If all three of the enemy focus on one teammate with an assist train chain heal him with flash of light as quickly as possible, and if he is in danger of dieing try to shield him with Blessing of Protection. If they spread themselves out to attack each of your teammates individually keep your heals on the ones who will die the fastest. This is mostly for light armor classes or classes being targeted by very high DPS enemies. Sometimes all three people will come at you first to try and take you out. In this situation it is usually best to shield

yourself before you are stunned and incapacitated. This will also give your allies time to attack one foe and hopefully take him down.
5vs5 matches.
This is the most intense of the arenas because you have to keep four other peoples health up and watch out for five enemies. A major issue with this arena is the effectiveness of the assist train where all five teammates target one character and beat him down in seconds. If one of your teammates is targeted by an assist train you have to put all of your attention on them, but they also have to increase their survivability on their own. They will need to use abilities like Evasion, Ice Block, Fel Guard’s Intercept and such in order to protect themselves. If you are ever the target of a train immediately use your shields so they will disperse to other characters.
General Arena strategies.
Healing and Supporting
This will be your primary function in an arena group. Healing in an arena comes in two phases. The start of the match is the hardest because the enemy will use all their hardest hitting abilities and you will have all of your team mates to keep track of. At the start of a match the enemy will all assist their leader and target one of your team mates. At this point you need to focus all of your healing on them. Use any abilities like Divine Favor or healing trinkets to heal as much as possible with heavy healing abilities like Holy Lig