You know you have ...

... been playing too much WoW when you briefly glance at someone in the real world and distinctly saw a red circle around their feet.

Battle

It's AV weekend and for the first time in a long time I have been involved in a couple of games that have turned into epic battles. Just fantastic!! So enjoyable just to battle it out; honing your class skills against the horde. Hahahahaha. We won the first one and lost the second. Neither boss was killed, it was just a battle of attrition. You cannot value highly enough having a good healer in those battles, so many times I was pulled from the brink of death by timely and generous heals.

It was so nice not having to worry about game strategy; it had all gone to pack when a large part of the team decided to take out Galv first. Groan. It's ok to take out Galv but it has to be timed right. The best timing is after IBT and/or TP have gone down. The Towers are the most important things to take out. It only takes 10 people to take down Galv, sooo ... theoretically ... following the plan .... IBT should have been taken by 10 people, and when it goes down ... work it out.

Anyway I digress into strategy. Any game is a lot of ifs and buts, all you have to do is have sufficient numbers following the plan for it to work. It also requires the Horde to NOT defend, or be slower in the attack. So with the first wonderful epic battle, guess what, the Horde defended. Totally, no attack. Woot. It was just fantastic seeing those snowy fields with close to 80 combatants all in one place. Nothing to worry about but killing and not being killed. This sort of thing certainly stretches the internet connection. In particular a Hunter with Track Humanoids on. I use Mobile broadband and the connection can fluctuate so I was disconnected twice. Oh man, I so did not want to lose those Honour points. Anyway what am I doing here talking to you dear Reader? Cya, off to some snowy fields :)

Relief Hut

As an update to a previous post on Alterac Valley I have come across a finesse for the strategy that seems quite sensible. Take Relief Hut before you take Frostwolf Graveyard if you can. Doing so stops the Horde from resurrecting at the Alliance end game. You don't want them there, they just get in the way of taking down Drek. Ideally they should be resurrecting at Iceblood Graveyard (IBGY). They then have to choose between two long runs, back to the defence or off to the attack. Only true believers will head back to the defence and leave the cowboys to the attack. If they do make the long run back then it will take them a while and we have time to consolidate the defence.

Eye of the Storm Reprise

I have been doing a few of these lately, mainly because the daily PvP has sent me there. It is an interesting place, to say the least. Most people don't get it. They have a pre-occupation with running the flag and fighting in the middle. Forget the flag, it's a distraction, just a piece of fun. Towers are the thing. Towers, and how many your team holds determines the rate at which points are accumulated. The more towers you hold the faster the points are awarded to the team. If you want to run the flag then make sure you have at least three (3) towers before doing so otherwise you are losing players to the defence of, or offense against, the towers.

Sweetest Thing Happened in ...

... Arathi Basin a couple of days ago. I was part of a small group attacking the Lumber Mill. We had come up from the Stables and I did my usual thing. I dismounted just near the top of the hill and ran to just behind the bushes between me and the flag. I started attacking randomly but attracted the attention of an undead rogue. !@!%^$#. As he ran at me I started backing away and firing at him. When I was clear of the bushes and he was close enough I hit him with Concussive Shot. I backed away further and laid down Freezing Trap. I suspected and hoped that once the Rogue has you in his sights he will not let go. On queue he blundered straight into the trap. Woot!! So I ran off and kept attacking the flag defenders. On queue he attacked again 20 seconds later, so I repeated the procedure. Woot!!

During the next 20 seconds I moved closer to the flag and quite randomly put my back to the cliff as I pelted a resto druid. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the rogue come shambling towards me. I thought, this is it, and kept firing at the druid. The rogue came at me and went behind. Hahahahahahahaha. ROFLMAO. He fell off the cliff. I couldn't believe it. I am still giggling about it days later. All those times I have been murdered by rogues are now forgiven.

Gotta Dash ... things happening

"... Well... four things. Well... four things and a lizard." This memorable quote from the Doctor in the Blink episode sums up pretty well my feelings about Alterac Valley. The strategy for taking Alterac keeps time warping, seemingly depending on which shift is on and what day of the week it is. I have seen just about everything lately. I have seen the now obsolete strategy of holding SHGY, yes I know I made a big thing about it but with 2.4 patch it is obsolete. I keep seeing people take IBGY, and man that makes it hard to win. Taking down Galv is a good thing but it has to be timed right. Doing him first when everyone is riding past seems simple enough to do but no. No people. No. Take him out by all means but let the groups who defend Iceblood Tower and Tower Point do it once the towers are gone. Let the Horde have IBGY otherwise they get in the way of taking FWGY and Relief Hut. The latest strategy is about speed. Strategic points must be taken and taken quickly. See previous posting about the details.

Winning Strategy

Over the weekend I finally came across a strategy for Alterac Valley that was a consistent winner. In the chat bar the guy reckoned that he had won the previous 12 battlegrounds using this strategy so I thought there was nothing to lose by trying. It flew in the face of what I thought was a basic requirement but it worked a treat. So here it is:

Group 1, 2: Iceblood Tower
Group 3, 4: Tower Point
Group 5, 6: Frostwolf Graveyard (FWGY)
Group 7, 8: Frostwolf Relief Hut (RH)

That allows 10 players to take and hold each target. In reality you won't get 10 players at each target but you will get enough. For groups 3 - 6 as the target is taken you move forward and start on the East and West Frostwolf Towers, once they fall you take out Drek. When the Iceblood Tower falls groups 1 and 2 take out Galv.

Do not put any energy into Iceblood Graveyard, leave it for the Horde. However FWGY and RH are very important and must be taken. Perhaps we got lucky because there wasn't much resistance from the Horde and whatever there was we overcame it. I think the important things were that a clear strategy was applied and we had no dissenters in the chat bar.

After those two battlegrounds we had a different option put forward, an older classic strategy that included taking IBGY. We went close and neither we nor the Horde got at Drek or Stormpike, however we lost it through attrition by about 80 points.

With this new strategy I came out with zero killing blows and zero deaths but many hundred honour points. In fact I didn't see a lot of action. I was part of a team that had jobs to do, we focussed and we did them.

My advice is put the strategy into a macro and pop it into BG chat before the gates open. Once, maybe twice, then followed up with gentle chat to maintain peoples focus. Best of luck.