When was alterac valley released

Arch Druid Renferal Primalist Thurloga. The Generals, Vanndar Stormpike and Drek'thar , stay inside their faction fortresses at the far north and south ends of the map. When a General is killed, the match is over.

Generals are tough, raid-level bosses; and typically require coordinated tanking and DPS to take down.

If a General is drawn out of his fortress, his health will reset to full. Generals are guarded by several Marshals Alliance or Warmasters Horde , and they can not be pulled separately.

Each general starts with four, but each one is linked to one of the four towers and dies when the tower is destroyed. They are fairly tough bosses that can be taken down by a skilled 5-man group.

In addition, both factions have a number of non-elite NPCs that assist their side. These NPCs spawn at all graveyards and towers, and a small number of road patrols. When a graveyard is captured by a faction, the NPC guards for the graveyard spawn immediately. In Patch 1. On some servers, this has led to a strategy that is known as "the race" or "the zerg". In this strategy, both sides bypass the main enemy group and rush the graveyard nearest the enemy base, quickly clear the two bunkers in the base, pull the Marshals, and then pull the General.

Each side may also kill the opposing captain and claim a mine or easy Graveyard on the way, but the goal is still to rush the General without directly engaging players of the opposing faction. This leads to a faster-paced game which can be easily won or easily lost, providing more honor per hour than protracted games with the same win rate.

The safest route is to leave some defenders to at least slow the opposing team's attack, but to still maintain an overpowering offense; to give up some ground, but not too much.

The way some do it is to run most of a faction as fast as possible to the enemy base and then some of the team will use their recall to go on the defense team and slow the progress of the enemy. This provides enough time to let one side win while the other is held up by the defense. If you've just visited Alterac Valley AV a few times, and quickly want to know what's going on, here's a short and simple overview. The goal in AV is to reduce the opposing faction's reinforcement count to 0.

The most direct way to do this is to kill the enemy general, which will immediately drain all reinforcement points from the enemy and end the round. The two generals are raid-level bosses that can be found in their fortresses at the two ends of the map — Vanndar Stormpike "Vann" for the Alliance north, Drek'Thar "Drek" for the Horde south.

About 15 players need to work together in order to bring one of the generals down. A rather elaborate system of NPCs, fortifications and graveyards fills the map between the generals. Both sides can do quests to improve themselves and their NPCs, and spend quite some time capturing mines etc. It is far more efficient considering reputation and honor gain to just rush the enemy buildings and burn them ASAP, and then kill the enemy general.

A "Rush" game is the most effective way of battling in Alterac Valley, because of the swiftness of the fight, but it is however also one of the hardest to master.

In offensive games, a strong emphasis is put on offense. Usually at least 30 people will take part in the attack, and at most 10 will try to delay the enemy. The defense needs to be aware that they do fight a losing battle, nevertheless it's usually the quality of the defense which decides the final outcome of the battle. The name given to a defensive game. A "turtle" can happen either because the team planned it, or because all of their forward graveyards were lost and their entire team resurrects on defense.

If planned then the typical Horde strategy is to send defenders to Iceblood Tower and the small one-way chokepoint that provides access to Iceblood Graveyard which prevents any Alliance players from racing to the Frostwolf Relief Hut. If unplanned the horde tend to fall back to hold the towers at Frostwolf Relief Hut. The key to the defensive game is keeping your casualties to a minimum, allowing you to win the game by reinforcements.

Defensive games take a long time and give minimal bonus honor in the event of a loss, making them an unpopular and usually last resort strategy. Three graveyards are usually taken — Stonehearth, Stormpike and the Aid Station. Stonehearth GY is usually skipped by the players that rush to Dun Baldar, as Stormpike is important for those that want to stay on the offense. Although it seems there's a narrow passage through which all Horde forces must pass to reach Stormpike, advanced players will know that there are several approaches to the graveyard flag.

Horde can go up the mountain to the right when approaching the choke then circle around near the mine or come down the cliffs above the graveyard. Horde can also come under the Dun Baldar bridge. The Alliance defense usually focuses on Stormpike, and it is not an unknown occurrence that Horde completely fails to take it.

If Stormpike GY has been taken, the Ally forces will defend the bridge next, which is a choke-point that supposedly cannot be bypassed. However, there are reports that some horde have discovered a way to climb the cliffs to the south of Dun Baldar and enter the base that way. The main choke point for defense is the opening in the fence between the Frostwolf towers. A secondary choke point happens at the fence area between Iceblood and Tower Point. When Alliance tries to defend Iceblood GY, they'll position themselves between the flag and the fence.

If Tower Point is destroyed or the Relief Hut has been captured, it is clearly a "turtle game" if the Horde continues to choke at this secondary point. Those on defense that want the extra PVP honor will fallback to the main choke point and avoid turtle games. Advanced defensive players will first position themselves in Iceblood Garrison and will fallback to the main choke point once Galvangar is down.

Before the Horde entrance was moved south, it was common for the Horde to rush an offensive game with little to no defense and often, win the race. The movement of the entrance gave the Alliance an extra 10—20 seconds to maneuver uninterrupted on the field. At the same time, the offensive Horde players that went straight to Balinda have barely entered the field of strife and have another 10 seconds till they reach Stonehearth Outpost. Obviously, Horde will lose their Captain's buff faster than the Alliance if there is no defense at Iceblood.

Offensive players that go straight to the Aid station are also at a disadvantage compared to Alliance that go straight to the Relief Hut. The Horde players have to traverse the narrow road with higher chance of being interrupted by the Alliance than the Alliance do while they run through the open area of Frostwolf fields.

The Alliance can travel much straighter and more efficient route from the Frostwolf field to the Relief Hut, while the Horde has to run to Stormpike Graveyard, on one side of the map, and then across the map again to get to the Aid Station. It is not uncommon to see players encourage no defense at all on the Horde side, which will make it quick for the Alliance to gain bonus honor.

Those that encourage this say it is to avoid turtle games, but a turtle game can be easily avoided when the defense falls back early to the main choke-point where all Horde players on defense can easily pick up honor kills. Others that encourage no defense also claim that it is good game if all towers have been destroyed. Claiming that the honor gained is worth the loss to the offensive race. However, you may notice that the people who made the claim rush the Aid Station and will wait there while all towers get destroyed, there by gaining easy honor for doing very little.

That is also a sure way to lose, as with no defense in the Horde base is a guarantees the Frostwolf towers to be quickly lost, which means a quicker win for Alliance. One can easily suspect that the people that encourage the no defense on Horde plays are there to help the Alliance win. If you see players encourage no defense, ask them "if the raid will run into no Alliance defenses when raid crosses the Dun Baldar Bridge.

If you do an all-out offensive start like this, be sure to have the extras immediately recall to base to defend main choke once Balinda is down. The Alliance often does not defend Stonehearth and so the Alliance caps Snowfall at about the same time as the Horde caps Stonehearth. A danger of this strategy is that if the Horde assault Snowfall before the Alliance has capped it, the Alliance have only Stormpike to resurrect in. When the Horde assault Snowfall while they also hold Stonehearth the Alliance is often forced into a turtle at Stormpike.

The best way to counter this is by camping Balinda the next round or try to predict if the Horde will do it and just camp Balinda until either the Horde get tired of being ganked at Balinda's or they will give up Snowfall Graveyard.

If either one of these happen you can contiune without holding Balinda. However holding Balinda gives you honor to the alliance at level 80 and another honor per each blue tower at the end of battle. Season of Mastery will feature faster leveling, new raid mechanics, the removal of world buffs in raids, and many other changes.

Holidays occur during most weekends, starting on Thursday night at midnight and continuing until Tuesday morning. Comments Comment by OrcishMage This guide helped answer a good bit of my questions. Thank you to the author and the website for hosting it!

Comment by greatbambino Hi, I'm searching several websites looking for the benefits of the Battleground Holidays, but I can't find numbers anywhere. Does anyone know exactly how much bonus honor and reputation are gained from the these events, and what triggers them?

I didn't pay enough attention, but I thought I received something like bonus honor in WSG for losing during that holiday weekend. I lost an AB today and did not receive any bonus honor. The mighty Korrak the Bloodrager and his troll companions no longer camped Snowfall Graveyard. Alliance summon Ivus and Horde summon Lokholar were still possible, but not the problem they had been in past iterations of the battleground.

Most of the NPCs that, like the side quests and other features that caused the games to last longer, added tons of flavor, were gone. But in terms of balance, Alterac Valley had never been stronger. Blizzard announced that it will be implementing some major changes to Alterac Valley, Massively OP reports. These changes, the company says, "address some of the more prominent pain points and unfortunate behaviors" without "cracking open the substance of the battleground. The patch will also remove the number in the name of the battleground on the "Join Battleground" screen.

This makes it harder for players to organize illicit man premade teams. Alliance and Horde start in their keeps, and when the match starts, they will stealth or storm there way to the opposing fortress, grab the enemy flag, and take it back to their own base.

WoW Classic is continually getting great content, including the addition of two old school world raid bosses. Nov 20, Stephen McCaugherty 0 comments Leave a Reply Cancel reply.