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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