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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