What is the point to AV?

[Phanes]

So the last time I PVPd you qued up in Hillsbrad....

I am running AV and I remember battles that used to take hours and people actually summoning like giant boss mobs and such.

It seems pretty stream lined now but I feel a little lost in the rush. Can someone give me a basic break down on the goals for the alliance.

It seems like everyone goes to a graveyard then to a tower then I pretty much lose everyone after that. I usually just head to the horde base and wait for enough people then I rush the general. The problem is he will reset alot and start evading so I am not sure what is happening there.

I do find that running D in bunkers is a lot of fun. Can't wait for the new AOE damage in 3.3 with shammies.

Anyways back on track can someone give me a run down on alliance goals and such.

Thanks

[Fizzler]

I think Blizzard really hosed up AV. Sure it is more exp and honor worthy but it is just not as fun. The same strat over and over. Counterstrike became like that for me. Rush rush camp rush rush camp.

Blizzard could really do something special if they had the game drawn out over an hour. Yes over an hour with meaningful rewards and strategy. I can not remember the last time the Flight Marshals dispatched their aerial attacks let alone the elementals released.

So to answer your question the object is to rush to the end capture all their towers and hold yours and convincing other folks to do the same. Or drain their re-enforcements.

I enjoy defending tower caps as well.

[suicidesspyder]

Alliance: Run capture snowfall gy then goto galv some go in there and down galv. Some move to iceblood tower cap defend, some goto tower point cap defend. Those that killed galv split and help goto east n west frostwolf and rh rest go back and try and retake stonehearth bunker and icewing bunker.

Horde: Opposite of alliance kill belinda retake ibt and tp and cap and defend iwb and shb then to north and south dun towers and relief hut.

[Ualaa]

Alliance...

1. Have someone cap Snowfall, so you can resurrect in the middle of the BG.
2. Do not cap Stonehearth graveyard, as doing so will force any slain horde on O to defense (turtle game).
3. Kill Galv.
a) If there's not much opposition just kill him.
b) If there's a fair amount of defense here, cap Iceblood graveyard first, and start the timers on Iceblood Tower and Tower Point. Once you have the graveyard, hit Galv. Probably won't be a lot of horde here any longer.
4. Leave a group in Iceblood Tower and Tower Point until they burn.
5. Possibly back-cap Stonehearth Bunker and the other one.
6. Rush to Reserve Hut (helps to have a group cap this first).
7. Start the timers on the two towers in Drek.
8. Cap Frostwolf Graveyard after the Reserve Hut has been taken (don't want horde on D to res inside the Frostwolf Keep area).
9. Engage Drek before the horde engage our general.

At each of the towers with a Wing Commander talk to the npc.
Any that reach Dun Baldar alive is bonus honor.

It's generally good to have a group or so rush for Reserve Hut.

Each tower/bunker destroyed removes a Warmaster from the last guy.
Back capping the bunkers delays the horde's attack.
Holding towers until they burn prevents the horde from Back Capping them.
In most games, neither side can successfully take the General until 2-3 (at least 2) towers are down.

In attrition games, where neither side can burn towers/bunkers, or where due to taking graveyards the other side has been forced to turtle, grabbing the mines is a slight advantage.

It's basically a race, with honor for towers/bunkers destroyed, Galv/Belinda slain and the Last guy killed.

[HPAVC]

I had fun in AV was summoning Lok, sadly I would spend so much time asking people to help click he didn't always help out. Most people had no idea what I was spamming about or how to summon lok.

I often through they should have drill seargents NPCs or something at the gates that people could click and they would tell people how the battlegrounds work.

[Gadzooks]

AV used to be an awesome alternative to world pvp - just go in and kill. I remember my guildies would be in one, and the next night, it would be the same battle. It was really complicated at first, with all of the things you could do, now, it's just an HK/Honor grind. It's really a shame, they put a LOT of work into that BG, and now, they don't seem to really care about it at all.

I ran it a LOT in Season one and two on my rogue, you'd still see the bosses spawned, and you still had NPCs to help, you could still loot the opposition for their medallion (made them spawn in their starting area, I think...been a while. I do know it was a BIG deal in Season 1, if you took a Hordie's medallion, they'd come looking for you afterwards) The last time I saw the druids spawned was in Season 2, and that was because one guy was telling everyone they dropped epics.

Even in the first two seasons, you could have some epic battles, there was no timer - I was in one that lasted over two hours, a bunch of us just decided to have some fun and just gank as many horde as possible, the horde seemed to agree, and we just went at it. People came in, would cry and moan about marks, and leave. There was a core of about 20 of us who did'nt care. The nerd rage from the mark grinders was EPIC. The tide of the battle went back and forth so many times we lost count, I don't even remember who won, but we all racked up honor and HKs and had a BLAST. I remember we were even fighting in the caves to the SW of the Alliance base for a while.

Good times.

They could revamp it, add some Wintergrasp/IoTA elements, and bring back the NPCs and objectives, but I just don't see them even entertaining the idea. Cata would be the perfect time to do it, with that part of the world being massively changed, they could change the objective of the BG and rebuild it.

Oh well. At least it's still good as a place to cut your teeth as a BG MBer.

[Phanes]

Thanks for the advice. I don't want to just be another slacking boxer in AV. Already enough hate.

[Lax]

Boxers slack in AV? When I go to AV people ask if I'm going to be in the next one. Then again, I'm horde, and in every battlegroup I play in the horde suck ass.

When horde wins in AV it's usually a slow win, killing enough ally instead of actually killing Vanndar. The typical losing strategy is as follows: rush Balinda immediately for exp, then try to rush to Vanndar, leaving at most 5 people on defense, 5 of the people on offense will whine about nobody backcapping or guarding whatever was capped, 3 people will leave the BG and say horde is useless, and then either alliance will finish their relatively unimpeded journey to killing Drek'thar, or horde all die and end up on defense and then 2-3 people beg the team to let the alliance finish it while the game takes another 30 minutes for one of the teams to win on player kills. Apparently outside of premades, the good horde players just prefer not to go in AV (are there even worthwhile rewards at 80 yet?!).

Anyway, I find that the two most suitable strategies while boxing are:
1. be healers
2. be on offense as support

With my 5x shamans, mass chain heal on offense is king. With my paladins, I can't aoe heal so much, but I can rape people on offense while providing helpful auras to the team.

Sometimes it's fun, sometimes it's not. Sometimes I'll die and have to run half of my people across the zone to meet up with the rest of me. Either way, I go in expecting to lose, but at least I will get some exp and honor.

That said, I found it an enjoyable way to xp through my late 50's.

[izuel]

you gain xp in BGs now?! This is news to me, i assume this is a fairly recent change (within 6 months or so)
Is it worth it for the xp, as i may lvl some toons from 60 to 80 through BG alone, or will this take an unrealistic amount of time?

[Fizzler]

Lax I believe we are in the same battlegroup. I have both Alliance and Horde playing AV and Alliance easily win 95% of the time.

Way back in the day AV was favorable to horde due to spawning closer to the middle of the map. They changed it and Alliance started winning more. To me the biggest issue now is crossing the bridge to Vann has the feeling of being a fish in a barrel. With coordination you can easily overcome the shortcomings but we all know how often that happens.

The Rampage battlegroup has X-Realms which is primarily supported by Alliance so the chance of going up against a 12 minute pre-made is more common in our group. http://xrealms.org/