The Battle for Alterac Valley

I only got to fight in Alterac Valley a couple times in the last couple days, I have been doing dungeons on Brieanna and leveling my Shaman, Breeonna.

I fought in 2 battles, one win and one loss. The loss was the result of a failed zerg/blitz attempt. I can't even begin to tell you how sick and tired I am of hearing "ZERG" and "BLITZ" every time I go into that battleground. And it is every single time. The majority of the time it doesn't work because people have their own plan, they don't say anything so everyone can get on the same page, they just have their own plan. Needless to say that ends up in a loss most the time.

In the battle we won, we took out Galv, took down all 4 towers, then killed Drek. It was a maximum honor game. That happened as the result of a failed zerg. You also get the people that will say, when everyone is supposed to be zerging, "A few people get the towers, and a few get the graveyards, and a few more get Galv in case the zerg doesn't work". Well, of course it's not going to work at that point, the zerg is dependent on everyone going to Drek. You have people taking towers, graveyards and Galv while you're trying to zerg, it will fail every time.

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The Battle for Alterac Valley

I haven't been getting into the battlegrounds too much on Brieanna lately, I have been running a lot of Dungeons, you can read all about that at our other blog, A World of Warcraft Blog.

I did get to do some AV the other day though. The Alliance was having a so-so day in there with 4 wins and 3 losses. There was a lot of zerging going on, it seems to be all people want to do lately. That would not be a bad thing if it were more thought out, but it isn't. To have a successful zerg you need to put more effort into it that just yelling "ZERG!" when the gate opens. To have it work you need to find and assign a tank. You need to find and assign healers. You also need to make sure you have enough DPS willing to commit to the zerg too. It is best to mark the tank and heals before setting out. I don't know how many times we end up at Frostwolf Keep only to find we don't have a tank, or we don't have heals, or only 6 or 7 people showed up. That right there is usually a loss. The Horde just come back in numbers and wipe out the few people there and take their towers and relief hut back.

We did have a couple successful blitz's though. Those were the ones where the tank and heals were identified and committed before the gate opened. We also had enough DPS make it to Drek to pull it off. Drek is at 200% health and has 4 Warmasters with him when there are 4 towers up, you're not going to pet tank him. And if you don't have a tank that can hold all 5, or an off tank or two to take care of the warmasters, you are going to fail as the Warmasters just kill the heals and DPS. I have seen that happen too many times to count. Most of the losses were the result of poorly planned zergs.

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Isle of Conquest - Daily Battleground 3/13/10

Brieanna's daily battleground today was Isle of Conquest. There is really not much to say, I fought in 5 battles, all losses. 5 is the maximum number of losing battles I will fight in trying to get my daily done. I hear people in the battlegrounds saying they have fought in 20+ battles trying to get it done, not me, when you are in with fail groups it is better to cut your losses. The weekend is a hard time to get your daily done.

We just had really bad groups. Any plans that were mentioned were fail from the get go. Two of the plans involved getting the docks. The Horde sends almost their entire team to the docks, we never get the docks at the start and trying for them is a waste of time. The plan was to have people go to the Docks, the Workshop and the Hangar. Those are the 3 main points. The Horde sends whatever part of their team that doesn't go to the docks to the Workshop, we usually get the Hangar with only a token fight from the Horde. Sometimes we get the Workshop.

In the last battle I was in we had the gates to the Horde keep down for over 10 minutes and didn't kill their leader, Overlord Agmar. At that time, when we should have been in their keep killing their leader, we had people trying to get the Docks, people defending the Workshop, and people riding around in siege machines. That will give you an idea of the mentality of the people I was fighting with today. We lost that one on reinforcements, it was really sad. I was glad that was my last battle, I don't know if I could have taken any more.

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Alterac Valley - Daily Battleground 3/12/10

My daily battleground today was Alterac Valley again. I did it on Brieanna and we won the second one I was in.

We lost the first one to a failed blitz. Most blitz's fail and the reason for that is no planning. The people that are yelling "BLITZ" while we are in the cave, I call them Blitztards, aren't even bothering to see if we have a tank and heals for the blitz. You need to have a pretty good tank to tank Drek and 4 Warmasters when Drek is at 200% health but they don't worry about that, they just worry about getting everyone to the keep. Once we are all at the keep they will ask "We got a tank?". Half the time we don't and today was no exception. The next thing that is usually said is "Well, we're all here, lets try anyway". Fail...

In the second battle we also blitz'd but it was better thought out. There was a tank lined up and marked. Heals lined up and marked. We all went to the keep, and by all I mean about 15 of us, that is the best you can hope for out of 40 people to follow the simple "All to Drek, don't stop for anything" plan. Out of the 25 that didn't make it, 10+ were AFK and the rest probably can't read. Anyway the 15 of us got to Drek and took him down without a problem. I find I have to hold back a little bit when there are 4 Warmasters up or they come over and kill me, generating too much threat.

The last of the three battles I fought in was also a failed blitz. This one failed because people were sick of the failed blitz and didn't go. That is another problem, people spamming 3 or 4 plans before the gate opens. That causes the team to get broken up into 3 or 4 groups, all of which fail at whatever they are trying to do because there is no teamwork. I called it quits after that, it was the weekend already in AUS and the kids were on, we weren't going to win anything in AV that night.

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Alterac Valley - Daily Battleground 3/11/10

Today the daily battleground was Alterac Valley. I did it on Brieanna and we won the first one I was in.

I got in with a decent group on my first battle, we won but it was pretty close. It started as a blitz, most of them do, and failed, most of them do, but we still managed to hang on to Frostwolf Keep and cap the towers and relief hut there. Once we had the 2 towers down and relief hut capped we tried again and got Drek down for the win.

That completed my daily which rewarded me 19g86s, 1241 bonus honor and 25 arena points. Brieanna can use the honor and she needs the arena points to upgrade her Furious gear to Relentless so I am trying to do the daily battleground every day on her.

I fought in 13 more battles in AV, all wins until the end. As I said you can pretty much set your watch to the time when it starts going bad in there every day and when that happened I just stopped fighting in there and went on to do something else.

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Eye of the Storm - Daily Battleground 3/9/10

Today my daily battleground was Eye of the Storm again. I did it on Brieanna and didn't have quite the luck I did yesterday. I fought in 4 battles, 3 losses and 1 win to get it done.

The first 3 groups I was in were pretty bad. In the first one we decided to capture and hold 3 towers then run the flag if we could. Well, we couldn't even get 3 towers let alone hold them so the plan was changed to 2 towers and the flag. We couldn't get the flag... The next group wasn't any better. We didn't even have a plan in that group. The third group was the best of the first 3 fail groups but still not good enough to get a win. In the fourth group I finally got in with some people who knew what they were doing. We took 3 towers, kept pressure on the only tower the Horde had to keep them busy, and ran the flag a few times. We finally got a win and I got my daily done.

The daily battleground pays 19g86s, 1241 bonus honor and 25 arena points so it is worth doing. I put the limit at 5 though, I will only try 5 times for a win, if I don't have a win in that many tries I drop it and see what tomorrow brings. I refuse to be one of those people who are on their 21st try...

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Eye of the Storm - Daily Battleground 3/8/10

Today the daily battleground was Eye of the Storm. I did it on Brieanna and we won the first one I was in for a change.

I got in with a pretty good group today, no Flagtards. We went after 3 towers, captured DR, MT and FRR and held them. We kept heavy pressure on BET to keep the Horde busy and actually managed to cap that towards the end so we won with a 4 cap. One of the best groups I have been in, in EoS, in a long time. There was a time when the Alliance owned EoS, we hardly ever lost in there, now I am lucky if I can get my daily done in the 5 try's I allow.

The daily battleground quest pays out 19g86s, 1241 bonus honor and 25 arena points. Brieanna needs the honor and arena points and the gold's not bad either.

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More Alterac Valley

The battle for Alterac Valley rages on and the Alliance had another bad day in there. I only fought in 8 battles today on Brieanna, 3 wins and 5 losses. That was enough.

The main problem today was the blitz. People wanting to do the blitz but not planning for it at all. The majority of the time they would wait until the gate opened the start spamming, "Zerg Drek, Ride Straight to Drek!". I took the liberty of correcting the spelling errors for this post. At that point there was no planning, no tank assigned, no heals assigned, is it any wonder it failed time and time again? I wasn't surprised.

I did get in with a good group for a couple battles. We did the blitz in both of them and you could tell it was a different quality of players. They assigned and marked a tank before the gate opened. They assigned and marked the heals before the gate opened. Over 75% of the people actually went to Drek. We went in and tore him down for the win. The Horde were blitzing too so it was either blitz or lose in all the battles I was in. It is unfortunate that the Alliance can't work together and blitz and lose go hand in hand most times. Anyway by the 3rd battle with the good group the quality players had gotten thinned out enough that people were saying the blitz won't work. We still had our good tank and heals but not enough DPS. We couldn't get it through their heads that the Horde were blitzing so it was blitz or lose. They wanted to cap towers, wait for them to burn, and then kill Drek. Needless to say the Horde blitzed, we lost and that was my last battle of the night.

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The Battle for Alterac Valley

The battle rages on in Alterac Valley and Saturday brought back some memories, memories of how it used to be in Alterac Valley for the Alliance. I fought in 26 battles on Brieanna Saturday, 19 wins and 7 losses. That is the way it always used to be in Alterac Valley for the Alliance.

We were unstoppable for the most part. We were zerging, blitzing, taking towers, killing Galv, it seemed whatever we tried we won. We had at least a half dozen successful blitz's, at least that many zerg's and won a few turtles when the Horde decided to do that. I got a lot of kills and a lot of honor in there Saturday.

It was also my daily battleground on Saturday so I got that done in the second battle I was in. Yes, we lost the first one I was in and I hoped that wouldn't set the pace and it didn't. I love it when AV is my daily BG, I usually always fight in AV anyway so it is like free gold and honor, not to mention the arena points you get for your daily these days.

Sunday was a different story, it was back to business as usual for the Alliance in there. I fought in a total of 18 battles on Brieanna, 8 wins and 10 losses. It never ceases to amaze me how the Alliance can do so well in a battleground one day and so bad in the same battleground the next day, but it happens all the time. And not just AV either, we can win every battle in Isle of Conquest one day and lose every battle the next day. Same goes for all the other battlegrounds except Warsong Gulch which we just consistently lose in.

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The Battle for Alterac Valley 3/4/10

The Alliance weren't doing too well in Alterac Valley tonight. Earlier they were doing great, then the quality of players changed and it went downhill from there. The Zergtards came on, and when you see them it is best to just stop fighting in AV if you are there for Marks and Honor, you will not get a lot of either. I fought in 18 battles in there on Brieanna, 8 wins and 10 losses. Believe it or not that is really not too bad for Alliance these days in this battleground we once owned.

At least when a good team fails at the zerg you can farm honor and kills. When you get the poor quality players on you can't even do that. At night, every battle has to be a zerg, 9 out of 10 of them fail and the Horde just runs over what's left. You get the same people in battle after battle calling for the zerg, the "Guaranteed win". The only problem with that is it fails most times. They don't bother to check and see if we have a tank, or tanks, they don't bother to see if we have heals, they just keep saying "Zerg Drek!", "Everyone straight to Drek!". Sometimes I will stick around after that and farm kills, if we have a half way decent team. You can actually make more honor in a long drawn out turtle, and loss, with a good team than you can on a winning zerg. Usually I get a lot of kills but if the team is so bad we can't even get a front line going and the Horde are just running right over us I stop queuing.

I was staying away from AV but I have found that earlier on we do a lot better than we do at night, my time. You can almost set your watch to the time it all goes to hell every night. I attribute that to school getting out in AUS. I used to think the kids were the better players, with their quicker reflexes and all but I guess that doesn't make up for a complete and total lack of experience and teamwork.

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Alterac Valley - Daily Battleground 3/3/10

Today the daily battleground was Alterac Valley. I did it on Brieanna and it took 3 battles to get a win.

I ended up fighting in a total of 31 battles, 16 wins and 15 losses. We got most of our wins early on and most of our losses later. As I have said before you can almost set your watch to the time this battleground goes to hell. We were doing pretty good early on, we had a few successful blitz's, a few successful zerg's and even a couple turtles we won. Then the zerg tards came on. These are the people who just say "Zerg" at the start. They don't bother to check to see if we have tanks, they don't bother to see if we have heals, they just keep saying "Zerg Drek" over and over again. That is when it is time to quit if you are there for honor or marks. I didn't have anything better to do so I stuck around. From that time on it was one failed zerg after another.

In half of them we would get to Drek and wouldn't have a tank, or we wouldn't have any heals, or we would only have 5 or 6 people there. There is always an excuse for the failed zerg, not enough heals, not enough people went, someone pulled too soon, but not the zerg fails 9 times out of 10 which is the real reason it fails. Add to that the quality and and intelligence level of the players at that time is so low and you are lucky if you win anything at all. I feel sorry for the players that can only play at that time, it must take forever for them to gear. I believe the main problem is most of them are children. You can tell by the way things are spelled, what is said, the fits some of them throw. I guess that is when school gets out somewhere, not a good time to be in AV. Almost all the battles, after the failed zerg, end up in a long, drawn out, turtle.

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More Alterac Valley 3/2/10

I fought in some more battles for Alterac Valley on Brieanna today. The Alliance seems to be losing whatever edge they may have had in there. I fought in 20 battles, 9 wins and 11 losses.

One of the main problems today was the zerg and blitz. You get the same people in battle after battle calling for the zerg or blitz and failing almost every time. Yet they still do it... There was no good time to be in there today, it was a struggle for every win we had and the losses were long and hard. I hung on hoping it would get better but if anything it went from ok to worse.

At night, my time, is the worst time to try and get any kind of teamwork going, it just doesn't happen. It seems like everyone is going for the zerg but along the way you lose people to Galv, some people never even leave the cave, the AFK are really bad at night, and others just get lost and/or wander around. You are really, really lucky if you end up with 10 people out of 40 at Galv. Out of those 10 maybe 3 are bots. So you have 6 or 7 people that can actually help try to take Drek down. It is not enough. At that point the person who called for the zerg will say "Do we have a tank?". Because that's not something you want to get figured out before you rush to Drek... It usually ends with "Well, we're here we have to try". And by ends I mean ends. We wipe and end up back in Dun Baldar for the long hard turtle. This happened 5 or 6 times tonight. People would say, and I quote, "I won 5/5 so far today doing the zerg". That is a lie. Even on a good day it doesn't work that often. That is just to get people to follow them. When it fails, which I never had a doubt it would, they always have an excuse, not enough heals, tank not good enough, not enough people came... Not the zerg fails 9 times out of 10 though.

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Strand of the Ancients - Daily Battleground 2/3/10

Today my daily battleground was Strand of the Ancients. I did it on Brieanna and it took 2 battles to get a win which is about normal for the Alliance in this battleground. We usually win 50% of the time or so.

The first battle I was in we didn't do well at all, we didn't even get the yellow gate down, the gate of the yellow moon. The Horde had no problem getting to the Titan Relic and capturing it when it was their turn. They had the full 9 minutes to do it because we ran out the timer on our attempt.

The second battle went a lot better. We went first in both battles I was in. We got all the gates down and captured the Titan Relic in 5 minutes 30 seconds. Then it was the Horde's turn. They had the same amount of time we took, 5 minutes 30 seconds to try and capture the Titan Relic. If they had captured it, it would have resulted in a draw which is the same as a loss in my opinion, you only get one mark and you don't get your daily done. They didn't capture it though, they didn't even get through the yellow gate, so we won that one and I got my daily done.

This daily pays out 19g86s, 1241 bonus honor and 25 arena points. Brieanna can use the honor so I am good with that.

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What is Alterac Valley and why the Hell are we fighting for it?

One thing all the time I spend in Alterac Valley has taught me is that a lot of the people in there don't know why we are there, what we are trying to accomplish or how to accomplish it.

Here is a little background on Alterac Valley:

Hidden within the Alterac Mountains, Alterac Valley is the home of Thrall's own clan of Orc's, the Frostwolves. The Stormpike Dwarves have established a foothold in the valley and seek to plumb it's depths for riches and links to their ancestral past. The territorial Frostwolves, unwilling to suffer the dwarven incursion, have rallied an army... an army eager for righteous slaughter.

Alterac Valley (AV) is a 40 versus 40 PvP (Player versus Player) battleground. The Alliance are fighting for the Stormpike Guard and the Horde are fighting for the Frostwolf Clan. There is a book for the Alliance, The Frostwolf Artichoke - "Tales of Stormpike Glory - By Vanndar Stormpike" that is available free to all Alliance players from Thanthaldis Snowgleam, located in the Hillsbrad Foothills in the Alterac Mountains. This book, cleverly disguised as lore, is actually a step-by-step "How-To" guide for the Alliance to win in Alterac Valley. I believe there is also a Horde version, there must be, but I don't know what it is, sorry. I suggest every Alliance player reads and understands The Frostwolf Artichoke before they ever step foot in Alterac Valley.

Here is The Frostwolf Artichoke in it’s entirety:

* Chapter 1 - The Front Line

The front lines of the Frostwolf defenses are comprised of Frostwolf Warriors. The warriors are deployed to the front lines from Captain Galvangar's fortress: Iceblood Garrison. The most efficient manner in which to take out this layer of the defenses is to destroy Iceblood Garrison.

Lay siege to the fortress and destroy Captain Galvangar. Once this is done, the front lines will crumble.

* Chapter 2 - Iceblood and Tower Point

Once the first layer is down, the second layer of the 'artichoke' will be exposed. Destroying the Frostwolf towers that sit near the front lines will cripple the Legionnaire and patrols that swarm the rear flank.

The towers are heavily fortified, each housing one of Drek'Thar's elite Commanders. They must be killed. This will expedite the dismantling of the Frostwolf defenses.

* Chapter 3 - The Four Commanders

If you have been following the wisdom of this guide, then by now, two of Drek'Thar's Commanders are dead. Good work, soldier! Their resolve is already weakening. You must now complete the dissemination of the chain of command by slaying the remaining two commanders.

With all four of the Commanders slain, the Frostwolf Legionnaires that guard Frostwolf Keep will be scattered - left without command. Ripe for the picking!

* Chapter 4 - The East and West Frostwolf Towers

There is now only one layer standing between you and victory; Drek'Thar's most trusted and powerful guard units: The Frostwolf Guardians.

The Frostwolf Guardians are sent out from the platoons held in reserve at the east and west Frostwolf towers. Destroy those towers and watch the remaining Frostwolf Guardians flee in shame.

* Epilogue

"Smother the heart of the artichoke with garlic butter and mayonnaise. Compliment the meal with an aged, heady ale."

Drek'Thar now stands alone, his two mutts at his side. Capture the Frostwolf Relief Hut to aid in your battle and destroy Drek'Thar. When the General falls, this land will finally turn over to its rightful owner: The Stormpike.


In a nutshell this is telling you to kill Captain Galvangar, take down the 4 towers, which will leave Drek'Thar alone except for his two frostwolves, and capture the Relief Hut. Then you are set to kill Drek'Thar. This is pretty easy stuff, yet most Alliance have no clue how to go about winning in Alterac Valley.

Some other facts:

Each Tower/Bunker represents +25% health to Vanndar Stormpike or Drek'Thar and a Warmaster/Marshall by their side. This means with 4 Towers/Bunkers up, the General is at 200% health and has 4 Warmasters/Marshalls backing his play.

Each player death costs 1 reinforcement.

The mines give you reinforcements.

Each Tower/Bunker is worth 75 reinforcements.

Captain Galvangar and Captain Balinda Stonehearth are worth 100 reinforcements each.

Killing the opposing factions General wins the battle.

Running out of reinforcements loses the battle.

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The Battle for Alterac Valley - 3/1/10

I fought in some more battles for Alterac Valley on Brieanna today. I had been trying to stay away from AV lately because the Alliance has been doing so bad in there but after yesterday I decided to give it another try today. I fought in 21 battles, 11 wins and 10 losses.

We started off doing great, we were winning over 3/4 of the battles we were in and even had a couple successful blitz's and zergs. For the most part everyone was working together as a team and we were capturing objectives when that was our objective and rushing to Drek when that was our objective. We had a couple where the Horde turtled and we had to beat them all the way back to the RH in Frostwolf Keep, then take that away from them so they were rezzing in their cave. I love those, I get a lot of kills, a lot of honor from kills and we win on top of it :).

Later on in the day the quality of players changed. It happens every day like clockwork, you could almost set your watch by it. We started losing, and losing bad. You could tell the players were less experienced and you could definitely tell they couldn't follow even the simplest plan. I always have said that this is either when school gets out or nap time is over. Turns out it is when school gets out, I saw someone talking about it in reference to raiding in trade chat. They said school just got out now it was time for a lot of fail raids. I still stuck around for a couple more battles even after it went bad because they usually end up in turtles which is good for a lot of kills.

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Eye of the Storm - Daily Battleground 3/1/10

Today the daily battleground was Eye of the Storm. I did it on Brieanna. I wasn't too excited about this being my daily, all the times I have been in this battleground lately the Alliance has been doing very poorly. Today was an exception though.

We started off evenly numbered which is nice, and took DR and MT right off. Someone went and got the flag and I was afraid I was in a group of Flagtards but I wasn't, fortunately. We tried for BET and almost had it but the Horde rallied and held on to it. We captured the flag a couple more times. Then someone got FRR and that sent the Horde over there to try and get it back. While they were busy with that we attacked BET again and got it. We had a 4 cap for about 45 seconds before the Horde took FRR back. We captured the flag a couple more times and by that point I could tell I was going to get my daily done on the first try for a change. We held onto DR, MT and BET and ran the flag a couple more times for the win. All in all one of the best groups I have gotten into in EoS in awhile.

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Alterac Valley - Not too bad today 2/28/10

I have been trying to stay away from Alterac Valley lately because the Alliance is doing so bad in there, but today I tried a couple and we seemed to be doing pretty good. Brieanna ended up fighting in 16 battles for Alterac Valley, 11 wins and 5 losses. That is a vast improvement to how the Alliance has been doing in there lately.

Most of our losses were failed Blitz's. People still want to zerg Drek, but they don't bother to check and see if we have a tank and heals until we all get there. By all I mean half the team on a good try. When someone says they want to zerg before the gate goes up I always ask if we have a tank and heals for that. Half the time no one responds and I say don't zerg, we don't have a tank or heals, but when the gate goes up the cry "ZERG! ZERG! ZERG!" goes up and we're off. Usually to a loss. Time and time again the same people will do this and fail time and time again. Another problem is Galv. Galv is a tard magnet, people can not just ride by him, they have to go in and try to kill him. Usually the Horde packs his room full because they know they can wipe the group that tries, and usually they do. Galv has caused more zerg and Blitz fails than anything else.

We did have good groups for the most part and did manage to pull off a couple Blitz's and a few zergs. The difference between a Blitz and a zerg is the time. A Blitz is over in 6 minutes or less and a zerg we usually just kill Drek with all towers up but it takes more than 6 minutes. We had a couple battles where the Horde tried to turtle. AV is set up to the Hordes advantage in a turtle but it doesn't always work out for them, especially when we have a good group like we did today. I got hundreds of kills in each of those battles and did over 3/4 of a million damage in each. My damage is going up more and more with each new piece of gear I get. I usually do battlegrounds in Survival spec and it is good for some good damage and a lot of killing blows.

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Strand of the Ancients - Daily Battleground 2/28/10

Today the daily battleground was Strand of the Ancients. It is also the holiday weekend in SoA. I hate having my daily battleground fall into a battleground that is having it's holiday weekend, you get all the weekend warriors and twice the AFK in a battleground on it's holiday weekend.

SoA was no exception, but I got in with a pretty good group on my second try. We lost the first one horribly. We did manage to get the yellow gate down, then the timer ran out. That gave the Horde the full amount of time for their try. They had no problem capturing the titan relic in half the allotted time. We had a lot of AFK and a lot of people who had no clue what they were doing, not even sure if they knew they were in a battleground.

In the second battle we did much better. We slammed right on through and captured the titan relic in just a few minutes. That gave the Horde a few minutes for their try. We won that one without losing a wall/gate. We kept them on the beach and it was over in a few minutes. Whoever goes first sets the time that the second group will have. If we capture the relic in 3 minutes, then the Horde has 3 minutes to capture it and vice versa. Brieanna got the achievement Defense of the Ancients which not even my other 2 characters, Wranngar or Gomorra, have.

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Alterac Valley - Daily Battleground 2/26/10

Today Brieanna's daily battleground was Alterac Valley. I have been staying away from Alterac Valley and pretty much all the other battlegrounds lately as the Alliance is doing so poorly in them, but I decided to give it a try.

It wasn't too bad, we won the second battle I was in. Even the first battle we lost wasn't too bad, we came very close to killing Drek, and would have if the Horde hadn't gotten Vann down first. The battle started off pretty even in numbers, I think we were short 3 people. The second battle started off about the same numbers and someone said we were up against a Blackrock pre-made. That is usually when everyone gives up, but this time we decided to make it really hard for them. There were a lot of Horde players from Blackrock, but if it was a pre-made is was one of the saddest ones I have ever seen. We wiped them at Balinda, while half or more of their team was waiting at Galv for us I'm sure. They had quite a few on defense but we rolled right through them. We capped IBT and TP, took IBGY and killed Galv. Then we moved into Frostwolf Keep and took those towers and the relief hut. Once those capped we went in and killed Drek. It was all pretty simple.

I fought in 4 battles for Wintergrasp today too. It seems to me that the Alliance is striving to prove that they suck in all the battlegrounds lately. I used to see a turtle fail in Wintergrasp about once a week where everyone would stay in the keep. That is a guaranteed loss. Now I am seeing that happen twice a day or so... When we are on defense we need to take down the 3 Horde towers, there is no way around that, that is how you win. When we get a group of idiots that just stay in the keep, the towers do not go down and we have a long slow loss. Taking down the 3 Horde towers knocks 10 minutes off the timer. That reduces the time considerably that they have to capture the keep. People know this, or should, but still decide to stay in the keep and fail...

I fought in one battle for Strand of the Ancients today too, a win. It was my second battle in there and my first win. It was SoA's holiday weekend so I got extra honor for fighting in there. I may go back in there this weekend before it is over, I'm not sure.

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Assorted Battlegrounds 2/23-24/10

I fought in a few different battlegrounds the last couple days. The one I fought in most was Isle of Conquest.

I don't know what is wrong with the Alliance, how they can go from doing so good to doing so bad from one day to the next. This wasn't a time frame thing, I tried all different times and they were just doing bad. I fought in 4 battles on the 23rd, that wasn't too bad, 2 wins and 2 losses. The 24th was a different story though, I fought in 4 battles on the 24th too, all losses. It just happened to be my daily on the 24th too so I never got that done either. Hopefully they will shape up, we need at least one battleground they do well in.

I fought in 2 battles for Alterac Valley on the 23rd, both losses. There is nothing new there, between QQ pre-mades screwing up the queue's and the overall lack of experience we really don't stand much of a chance. On the 24th I fought in one battle, a win. It was a long drawn out win but a win none the less. We won it by killing Drek too, not on reinforcements. We got all the towers down and killed Galv so it was a maximum honor game.

We have even been doing poorly in Wintergrasp lately. I fought in 3 battles on the 23rd, 1 win and 2 losses. Wintergrasp is a battleground we own, I am not sure what the problem is. Maybe a lot of people got 80's off eBay for Christmas and now they are hitting the battlegrounds with them. We did better on the 24th, I fought in 2 battles, both wins. Tomorrow, Friday, I will be able to do the quests again which give A LOT of honor which I need. They also give Stone Keeper's Shard's which Brieanna can use too.

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Assorted Battlegrounds 2/22/10

I did a few different battlegrounds on Brieanna today. The one I fought in the most was Isle of Conquest. I am cutting back on Alterac Valley for awhile, it has gotten so bad in there.

We were doing pretty good in Isle of Conquest today. I fought in 18 battles in there, 10 wins and 8 losses. We were doing really well early on then it started to taper off so I got out. Over time the players change and you need to move on when the poorer quality players get on or you will just have loss after loss. This always corresponds to certain times of the day so you can kind of time it. The strat that still seems to be working is to get the Hangar so you have control of the airship, then jump from that into the Horde Keep and bomb the west gate from the inside while others in the team are firing on it from the airship and hitting it with siege equipment from the outside. We can usually get the gate down in a couple minutes that way. After that it is just a matter of killing Overlord Agmar. He is pretty tough but I don't think he is as tough as Drek'Thar in Alterac Valley. IoC is a 40v40 battleground.

I did fight in 7 battles for Alterac Valley, 5 wins and 2 losses. Down from the 10 to 20+ a day I usually do. To say the Alliance was doing much better in there today would be an understatement. I hit it at the right time I guess. I would queue for IoC and AV at the same time and if AV came up first I would take it. If I got into a battle that we were obviously losing or one that hadn't started yet but we were grossly outnumbered I would just accept the IoC queue when it popped and switch over to that one. We had 2 successful Blitz's and 1 not so successful Blitz. In the not so successful Blitz we had Drek down to 5442 HP when the last person died. The problem with that one was no heals. The other 2 went really well, we all rode to Drek, that was how you could tell you had a good group, 75% of the people actually went to Drek, and owned him. That is good for around 600 honor. I usually get 1200+ in a turtle from kills and anything we may cap but that can take 40 minutes, the Blitz is over in 6 minutes or so. AV is a 40v40 battleground.

I fought in 3 battles for Wintergrasp today, all wins. We were defending in all 3. People actually got out and captured the workstations in the first 2 and we got the southern towers down pretty quick. In the third one I was in people were sticking to the keep more and it took a lot longer and was touch and go for awhile but we pulled it off. I should be able to get one of my trinkets tomorrow even with the shutdown. Wintergrasp cycles roughly every 2 hours and 15 minutes. There are quests you can do in there too that give you 13g23s, 10 Stone Keeper's Shard's each and a lot of honor. I don't think there is a limit to the number of players in WG, I have seen 2 full 40 man raid groups plus a third partial one on our side in there at one time.

I fought in one battle in Warsong Gulch. I hate Warsong Gulch. I can't even begin to explain how much I hate going in there. When patch 3.3.3 comes out they will be getting rid of marks which means you will be able to get the PvP mounts using honor. I really like that idea, no more farming 30 Warsong Gulch Mark of Honor for each mount. 30 WSG marks is about 30 battles, 1 mark for each loss. I would say the Alliance loses 95% of the battles in WSG in this battlegroup. The main reason for that is people fighting in the middle instead of supporting the flag carrier or trying to get our flag back when the Horde have it. In almost every battle I have ever been in, people seem to be farming kills instead of trying to win. Maybe they have given up and just want their mark. The main reason I went in there was to serve a Great Feast so I could complete the Dinner Impossible achievement. Oh yeah, it was also my daily battleground but I dropped it after that. We lost 0 to 3. WSG is a 10v10 battleground.

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Battlegrounds 2/21/10

I fought in a few different battlegrounds on Brieanna tonight. Some were better than others.

I fought in 5 battles in Alterac Valley, the Alliance still isn't doing too well in there. I had 2 wins and 3 losses. The Alliance was having the same old problem in there, lack of teamwork, everyone doing their own thing, no one working together towards a common goal. It is the same old story in there and I am going to be spending less time in AV in the future I think. It is too bad too, it is my favorite battleground.

Arathi Basin was my daily battleground today. Unbelievably we won the first one I was in. I got in with a really good group and we had a 5 cap at the end. It is really rare these days that the Alliance does so well in AB because no one guards anything and that was the case tonight too, I was the only one guarding the Lumber Mill, we just came up against a really bad group of Horde I guess. This is a battleground we used to dominate. Completing the daily earned me 19g86s, 1241 bonus honor, which Brieanna really needs, and 25 arena points. I fought in one more battle, a loss but a close loss. Maybe the Alliance is starting to do better in there, I will keep an eye on it.

I fought in one battle for Strand of the Ancients, a loss. I had never been in there on Brieanna before. I served up a Great Feast as part of the Dinner Impossible achievement and now only have Warsong Gulch left to do before I complete it. This was another close loss, the Horde did capture the Titan Relic and we almost did, we had the gate to the relic room almost down, which would have resulted in a draw. Because we were unable to capture it the Horde won.

The battleground I spent the most time in tonight was Isle of Conquest. Tonight was also Brieanna's first time in there. I had queue'd for it many times before she turned 80 but never had the queue come up. We were doing ok in there. We started off winning, we won quite a few in a row, then we started losing. There are certain times of the day to fight in the battlegrounds when we do well and other times when it is best to just stay out of them. I started off in a good time and moved into a time frame when it was best to just walk away which I did. We had 7 wins and 10 losses in there.

I fight in Wintergrasp every time I see it queue up and we are doing well in there as usual. That is the only battleground the Alliance consistently does well in but it only queue's every 2 or 3 hours. We had two wins and one loss in the ones I was in. I am after the trinkets in there which are 25 Wintergrasp Marks of Honor each. We are usually defending which means I head down and help destroy the Horde towers in the south. The one loss we had resulted from just about everyone staying in the keep instead of coming out and going after the objectives. I see that happen once in awhile and am not sure why. You would think that after all this time people would realize that you WILL NOT win WG by staying in the keep, you need to get out and capture workstations, if just to keep them away from the Horde, and you have to destroy their towers. When all 3 towers are down there is an announcement that goes something like "The towers have fallen, victory is ours, clean up the remaining forces".

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Eye of the Storm - Daily Battleground 2/20/10

Eye of the Storm was the daily battleground today. I tried to do it on Brieanna but gave up after 5 consecutive losses. Five is the most times I will fight in a battleground to get my daily done. I have heard people, especially in EoS and AB, say they are on their 21st or 28th or so trying to get their daily done. Not me.

This is another battleground the Alliance used to dominate. I have most the achievements on Wranngar and Gomorra from then. I think I have one on Brieanna, the win EoS. I think that is probably the only one I was in that won too.

I was in one fail group after another. About half way through one of them I said "You people do realize that 3 towers beats the flag every time right?". I got responses like "No duh" and "No kidding". Everyone knows it apparently but no one does it. Every group I am in is 60% or more Flagtards. A Flagtard is someone who can only see the flag. They can't see that we don't even have a node to bring it to, they are focused solely on that flag. When you have 60% or more of your team in the middle of the battleground trying to get the flag, you are losing all your nodes because you have no one to defend them. That is pretty much how every battle goes. When you come off the rock and see 3/4 of your team heading for the flag you've lost already. Another case of people having no clue what needs to be done.

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More Alterac Valley - 2/20/10

I fought in 30 more battles in Alterac Valley on Brieanna tonight, 9 wins and 21 losses. I have about given up on AV, good groups are few and far between. I will have to find another battleground to fight in, one where we win more if one exists. Constantly losing is getting old. This is a battleground we used to dominate and now we can hardly win.

The main problem with Alliance in this battlegroup is lack of teamwork and total lack of understanding what needs to be done. I mean it is hard to even believe these people are trying. You can't get more than 2 people into a tower, even when the Horde are turtling and everyone is screaming to cap the towers, they will scream to do it, but they won't stay in them and defend them even though they know the Horde are going to send in 6 to 8 people to take it back...

We had a bunch more failed Blitz's tonight, people calling out for a Blitz without checking to see if we have a good tank or heals, then finding out when we are all there that we do not. In the case where we do have a good tank and heals the tank usually runs in and attacks Drek when there are only a few people there instead of waiting until everyone that is coming gets there. That results in the tank dying pretty quick. People just don't think. I hate to think what kind of people these are in real life if they can not think out something as simple as AV. I do realize there are a lot of kids that play Alliance but not all of them are kids.

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Alterac Valley - 2/19/10

The Alliance is doing terrible in Alterac Valley. I don't know what the problem is in this battleground the Alliance used to dominate but we can't seem to win anything in there anymore. I fought in 30 battles on Brieanna, 10 wins and 20 losses.

People will not work together in there. I was in so many failed Zerg's and Blitz's I lost count. In battle after battle people would agree to a Blitz then, after the gates opened, someone would start spamming a different plan. The majority of the Alliance players are not too bright to begin with and that is all it takes to create mass confusion. Now you have two people trying to out spam each other with two different plans and everything just falls apart. In a zerg, when we actually start with 40 players assuming QQ pre-mades doesn't screw up the queues, we are lucky to get 10 people that actually make it to Drek. That number goes down considerably with the less players we have. That's another thing too, these zerg happy idiots will still call out for a zerg even if we only have 15 players. Out of 15 players you are lucky if 4 make it to Drek.

Galv is another major factor in losses. It does not matter if there are 30 Horde players standing right in front of Galv, the Alliance will just ride right in there and get slaughtered. They do it time and time again even though they are told his room is packed full of Horde. You see, Galv is a Tard magnet and they really can't help themselves.

Needless to say most battles end up with us turtled in Dun Baldar for the long slow loss. I really want to transfer to another server in a different battlegroup.

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The Battle for Alterac Valley 2/18/10

I fought in a lot of battles for Alterac Valley in the past couple days, the Alliance are not doing too well in there at all. I fought these on Brieanna who is doing well in there since she turned 80, piling up some nice damage in every battle.

A lot of the battlegrounds started off very unbalanced and I recently found out why this is happening. It is because of QQ premades. They load up all the queue's then don't accept it when one pops. That leaves the queues lacking in numbers when they pop. I am going to put in a ticket to Blizzard about this, this practice needs to be stopped because it is screwing up the queuing system and causing a lot of losses for the Alliance. That would go a long way towards explaining why the Alliance is always lacking in numbers and not the Horde, QQ is only Alliance.

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Alterac Valley - 2/16/10

I am not going to go into detail, suffice to say I was unfortunate enough to fight in 6 very unbalanced battles, all of which we lost. The battle closest to being even at the start started off 28 Alliance to 40 Horde. The worst one, numbers wise, was 18 Alliance to 40 Horde. As far as I'm concerned this is an epic fail on Blizzards part. I put in a ticket on this and was told that the battle will not start until the battleground is full on both sides... Being someone who is actually in the battleground and fighting, not sitting at a desk making excuses, I can see that this is not true. My findings come from experience, not the Blizzard manual.

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The Battle for Alterac Valley - 2/15/10

The battle for Alterac Valley rages on and the Alliance is doing a lot better than they were. A lot better doesn't mean they are doing good, just better than they have been. I fought in 15 battles on Brieanna tonight, 8 wins and 7 losses.

We started off most battles outnumbered by no more than 5 which is a vast improvement over the numbers we had been starting with lately. Too bad it was the last night of the holiday weekend, if we weren't sucking so bad in there all weekend I would have my next piece in the bank, waiting for me to hit 80, by now. The majority of the losses I got were in the earlier battles I fought in. I hit a point where all the people who had no clue left and we got a good group on. We were setting a plan and following it, working together as a team which is rare. The results were a 100% turn around from what we had earlier, we were capping towers, killing Galv and driving the Horde back into their keep, then into their cave, then killing Drek. There was one player, Dotsalot, that was spamming his battle plan. He was persistent and it paid off.

I have said many times in the past in my other blogs that there are good times and bad times (of the day) to fight in certain battlegrounds and that is what I had tonight, I started off during the bad time and worked my way into the good time. Unfortunately when I get to play is when I get to play so I have to take what I can get. During the week anyway.

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More Alterac Valley - /fail 2/14/10

I fought in a bunch of battles on Brieanna tonight and all I can say is the Alliance is sucking worse than usual. I fought in 12 battles, 2 wins and 10 losses. These people aren't even trying.

It's not that we were up against good Horde players, we weren't, it is just the people in there had no drive to win. And a lot of them didn't have any experience either. In the past few days I have seen more than one person get their first honorable kill if that tells you anything. On the rare occasion we win, a lot of people are getting their first Alterac Valley win achievement. This is a battleground you can start fighting in at level 51, this is the 71-79 bracket. Why are these people all of a sudden deciding to fight in there now? They probably heard it was holiday weekend and decided to get some extra honor, only problem is when you have too many inexperienced people all you are going to do is fail. We had a lot of uneven battles too, numbers wise. Half of them we started out with less than 30 players to the Hordes 40.

We are still having a problem with people going to Galv at the start and wiping. Same people, same results, you would think they would learn but they don't. In a few of the battles I got people to skip Galv and get IBGY instead. Then cap IBT and TP, then go and get Galv. That worked out pretty well, we got 2 towers and a GY anyway. I really don't think people know how to play in there and if what they are doing over and over again is any indication, they are not learning.

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