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OK so I get AB and WSG. I've seen good info on them the basics of what you should do, the basic strats and I've actually played both of them a decent amount.
AV on the other hand is a place I rarely went. It took forever to get in on Stormrage and it just wasn't all that much fun on Terenas. So I never really learned the place. Is there a web resource (or can Lurkers produce one) that will give me a better idea of the place? Currently I get in there and I just follow the biggest pack of players either on offense or on defense. I'll help capture objectives if I'm near them. But I know there are a lot of quests you can pick up (seen a few of the quest givers) and some other stuff that that a noob to AV should generally try to get done.
My goals are pretty simple. I just want to hit honored rep with my hunter to have access to the arrows. If I find I like PvP more with the short queue times that may change, but I'm just looking to not be as lost in there as I generally am. :)
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There is one quest, to recover the banner which is in the harpies-infested cave, which yields the first Stormpike trinket, from the Alliance point of view. Probably similiar from the Frostwolf point of view. This trinket lets you teleport back to your starting area, which can be useful for getting back from the front line to turn in items, or help defend your general.
I heard they moved the questgiver who gives you the quest for winning AV, but I am not sure where he lives now.
Traditionally the way to win AV is to get a sizable force past the other side, while having enough defending to stop them from getting through you. This forward strike force takes out their camp's towers or bunkers; once this is done, you pull the NPCs out of their general's bunker one at a time, kill them, and then once they're all down, you have free reign to go in and kill their general.
Sometimes AVs turn into races - both sides have all their people on strike, they passed each other, so it's a race to see who can kill the other side's general first. I find these kinds of battles dissatisfying, not least because you get no HKs for it, and you need at least 25-ish HKs to qualify for a week's rating.
Graveyard ninja captures are common. One person pulls the NPCs off and kites them, another goes in and captures the graveyard. This prevents the opposition from respawning at that graveyard. However, you can't really keep the graveyard if there're any enemies nearby to recapture it, unless you kill the NPCs and guard the graveyard, and the enemy has about five minutes to recapture it.
The intermediary graveyard between the two sides, Snowfall, is generally more of a distraction than actually useful.
No one seems to bother doing the turn-ins to summon their side's god anymore, or their griffin riders, but if you hear that the other side is summoning their god, it's probably a good idea to find their summoning site - it'll be on their side of the middle field - and interrupt the summoners, ideally kill them off. Since it takes ten players to perform the summon, you probably want a decent number of people with you.
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There are some quests in your base, and one in tower point . There are a few other quests in your tunnel if you go to the actual BG. Each quest is 100 rep, I believe and a decent chunk of XP/gold. Ignore the battle until those quests are done. Ignore the riders and mine quests. Do the gnoll cave one first, it lets you warp back to base to turn in blood/armor/flesh. If you are after rep, it can be a lot of rep right there.
Races are far and away the best way to get rep/honor. Bypass the other sides captain and don't dismount until FW/SP. If you are an ally, consider bypassing FW and heading straight for the last GY. If you are horde, you need to stop and hold the second to last GY.
Because of the way the bases are laid out, the alliance now have a significant advantage. If they get much ahead of you, double back for belinda, then guard your captain. Your captain gives you 125 rep at the end of the battle if he lives, even if you lose. Even if you are losing, often the blood/armor NPC's will still be up. Make sure to warp in and turn those in. The flesh ones are much less likely to live through an assult on the general.
If you do get to the general before the allies, make sure to pull the marshals out one at a time. They have a viscious cleave that can wipe most of a raid if they are not controlled. They can be safely pulled out of the fortress. The general will not leave the fortress, and will regen all his health if you try to take him out. Make sure the tank has a second or two to get aggro before DPS goes in, if possible. A frequent and frusterating experience is for a mage to pull aggro, then blink out of the room, reseting the general.
Don't bother with the gods, one way or another. They take 10 min to start moving, and even longer to get to the end of the base. They don't even attack the general unless the other side makes the mistake of kiting him to them.
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08-26-2006, 12:21 AM
(This post was last modified: 08-26-2006, 12:24 AM by Sir_Die_alot.)
There is also a quest given by a tower guard (forget which one, I think the northmost). Get it early before he dies.
Edit: Also as a hunter you probably want to get exaulted for the ring. It's not that hard anymore with near insta-que. I think you may change your mind about how fun the place is. It feels tailor made for hunters with perfect terrain and objectives to snipe other players and NPCs.
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Quests (outside, near the world instance portal in Alterac)
1) the win AV quest
2) The Banner quest for trinket (this quest is a pure PvE quest that takes place inside AV)
3) The Capture a GY quest
4) the Destroy a tower quest
5) the cap a mine quest
(Inside)
1) Kill one of the brothers quest (This is Tower point guy for Horde and probably Icewing for Alliance). Get this one first thing, because he won't last forever.
2) Coldtooth supplies
3) Irondeep supplies
4) the gather wolves (H) / rams (A) quest (for horde this is east of FW GY and maybe a little south. Outside of town)
5) the gather ram (H) / wolf (A) hides quest (same location)
6) Turn in soldier flesh ( Guse must be rescued to turn these in, I think she collects 25 then can launch air attack) Guse is in Icewing bunker I think
7) Turn in lieutenant flesh ( Jeztor must be rescued, etc...) Jeztor is on the ground in a room near the lumber mill, which is east of the road between SH GY and SP GY
8) Turn in Commander flesh ( Mulverick must be rescued, etc...) Mulverick is in one of the bunkers in the alliance town, I think the North one.
flesh quest people, if rescued, hang out directly across from Drek's room where there are bats hanging and such.
9) Turn in 20 armor scraps (blacksmith)
10) Turn in blood / gallon of blood (cave near blacksmith
2 - 10 here are repeatable and minimal rep, from 1-5 per turn in.
Somewhere is a quest to rescue each of the three air attack people, but I forget where that one comes from.
Each of the air attack people will give a quest to plant a becon in the field of strife when they get enough flesh. The craters are right in the middle of the field of strife. I have only been able to actually get that quest once in AV (with 1 exalted, 2 revered and 1 honored char) since I'm usually not the last one to turn in flesh, so you probably don't have to worry too much about that one.
Conc / Concillian -- Vintage player of many games. Deadly leader of the All Pally Team (or was it Death leader?)
Terenas WoW player... while we waited for Diablo III.
And it came... and it went... and I played Hearthstone longer than Diablo III.
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The Flightmaster quest comes from Jotek, who's right inside Frostwolf Village. He's pretty hard to miss, since he's right next to the path. I don't know where the equivalent quest comes from for the Alliance scum.
If you're playing a class capable of it, I'd give tanking a try. It's surprisingly fun, since you have a variable amount of people whaling away on what you're tanking, with Allies busily running in and dying horrifically while trying to disrupt your attempts:)
Another thing: Horde must defend if you're against an Alliance group that's at all competent. Because AV's geography favors Alliance (Horde have no Bridge of Deathâ¢, the Allies can easily bypass a large percentage of Frostwolf NPCs, and a lot of Dun Baldar's NPCs are right on top of the Aid Station flag), Horde generally can't win a straight-out race against an Alliance group with similar composition (in terms of class balance and gear.) Ten competent defenders can easily delay an Alliance offensive group long enough for a victory, particularly if the Allies skip Iceblood GY (or leave it mostly undefended after tapping it.) If they don't have IBGY, you can trap them at FWGY between IBGY and the Relief Hut. Pay special attention to getting your towers back as often as possible, and make sure that your offense is taking care of the Alliance towers on their rampage up north; this deprives the Allies of Marshals and increases the number of Warmasters you'll have in Drek's room, and I've seen dozens of games decided based on how aggressively towers were attacked and defended.
Allies can probably get away with fewer than ten defenders due to NPCs being all over the place on the Aid Station flag (including multiple elites with obscene HP) and a natural chokepoint on the bridge.
ArrayPaladins were not meant to sit in the back of the raid staring at health bars all day, spamming heals and listening to eight different classes whine about buffs.[/quote]
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Yeah I've been playing one of the defenders that goes to iceblood right away. Alliance wants to kill Galv and you can keep them from doing that or capping the GY pretty will with just 10. There was one game I was in where they never got IB and never even got in to see Drek. I still don't feel I'm all that great playing D, but an MC geared hunter can do a lot to mess up a charge. And since I have an L60 paladin I know that all you do is suck their mana then laugh at them or interrupt them when they cast and laugh at them (the bubble is a holy spell, stop a cast and you have 6 seconds where they can't bubble. Most pallies only have 5K mana in the BGs, even a hunter can suck 800 or so of that in that time they've been interrupted while dishing out a few K damage, that forces them to self heal or risk dying. Even if they clear the sting you took 95 or 120 of their mana depending on if they have the relic). A manaless paladin is the most harmless thing on the battle ground. Wands from manaless casters are more dangerous.
But yeah the AV's where we play D we horde wins. And I do agree that even after you lose iceblood that going straight back to defend Drek isn't the best. You can't defend anything else really but all you want to do is slow them down, and you'll end up pinned at the aid station soon enough but still slowing them down. We lost Iceblood and still kept them off Drekk for another 8 to 10 minutes which was plenty of time to get those little bastard friends pulled away from Van.
The easiest way to get a PuG to play D is to just have a few people say they are going on D. You'll get a few others to follow and then you'll win if you are horde unless you are playing against a team. But a horde PuG that plays D seems to win and I've started taking in some of the AV bandages since I can often sneak off when I'm down to a few hundred HP and getting in a few more multishots or getting another trap down or even one sniped aimed shot before I eventually get killed can help a lot.
But yeah this thread helped. I'm still not the biggest fan of PvP, but at least I don't feel I'm a detriment to AV teams anymore from lack of knowledge. But you guys provided pretty much what I was looking for.
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In my experience Horde have two strong defensive positions:
1) Iceblood GY / Galv
2) Frostwolf Towers / the hill
Alliance have 3 strong defensive positions and they are all crammed together:
1) the bend right before Stormpike GY
2) The bridge
3) The aid station with all the NPCs near it
That could easily be considered 2 with the Aid station and bridge considered 1 point.
The alliance advantage comes from the fact that if Horde doesn't flip SP before Alliance flips IB, horde will usually lose. Generally enough alliance will come back to base after flipping IB that defense at SP can continue indefinitely.
After playing through Exalted with a rogue and warrior, and having played my rogue pretty extensively after exalted too, I have to say that a hunter on D is truly formidable. The Frost trap (not freeze trap) is one of the most powerful tools there is for Defense. Rogues and druids can't stealth past it, and warriors are basically forced to trinket or intercept just to close distance initially, which leaves them few options for closing distance again if they get a nova, crip poison or somethign like that once they get there.
With support from other classes acting like normal PUG AV players, 2-3 hunters can literally stop an offnesive push in it's tracks by alternating between flopping / frost trapping and standing back for PEW PEW action.
Conc / Concillian -- Vintage player of many games. Deadly leader of the All Pally Team (or was it Death leader?)
Terenas WoW player... while we waited for Diablo III.
And it came... and it went... and I played Hearthstone longer than Diablo III.
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Quote:In my experience Horde have two strong defensive positions:
1) Iceblood GY / Galv
2) Frostwolf Towers / the hill
Alliance have 3 strong defensive positions and they are all crammed together:
1) the bend right before Stormpike GY
2) The bridge
3) The aid station with all the NPCs near it
That could easily be considered 2 with the Aid station and bridge considered 1 point.
The alliance advantage comes from the fact that if Horde doesn't flip SP before Alliance flips IB, horde will usually lose. Generally enough alliance will come back to base after flipping IB that defense at SP can continue indefinitely.
After playing through Exalted with a rogue and warrior, and having played my rogue pretty extensively after exalted too, I have to say that a hunter on D is truly formidable. The Frost trap (not freeze trap) is one of the most powerful tools there is for Defense. Rogues and druids can't stealth past it, and warriors are basically forced to trinket or intercept just to close distance initially, which leaves them few options for closing distance again if they get a nova, crip poison or somethign like that once they get there.
With support from other classes acting like normal PUG AV players, 2-3 hunters can literally stop an offnesive push in it's tracks by alternating between flopping / frost trapping and standing back for PEW PEW action.
Oh yeah I frost trap all the time and put up flares on rogue/druid approach paths that the trap won't hit. And yeah the pew pew damage that a few hunters can put out is NUTS. But I still don't feel I'm a good defensive player. Of course that is why I'm playing it more. To get better.
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Quote:Yeah I've been playing one of the defenders that goes to iceblood right away. Alliance wants to kill Galv and you can keep them from doing that or capping the GY pretty will with just 10.
Not if I'm there, you can't... :ph34r:
Darian Redwin - just some dude now
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Most Alliance groups skip Galv and IB. It's very possible to simply run right past that area and slam into Frostwolf, since Horde doesn't have a natural bottleneck point (Horde can run above the SP bottleneck, but that's also running right into the path of the Allies' cave rez point) at FW. 35 attacking Allies can kill, CC, or otherwise ignore 10 Horde defenders long enough to start capping FW GY. Allies that go for IB and Galv, in my experience, have a record of losing one hundred percent of the time, regardless of how many tier2 PvE guildies they have on their side.
ArrayPaladins were not meant to sit in the back of the raid staring at health bars all day, spamming heals and listening to eight different classes whine about buffs.[/quote]
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Quote:Most Alliance groups skip Galv and IB. It's very possible to simply run right past that area and slam into Frostwolf, since Horde doesn't have a natural bottleneck point (Horde can run above the SP bottleneck, but that's also running right into the path of the Allies' cave rez point) at FW. 35 attacking Allies can kill, CC, or otherwise ignore 10 Horde defenders long enough to start capping FW GY. Allies that go for IB and Galv, in my experience, have a record of losing one hundred percent of the time, regardless of how many tier2 PvE guildies they have on their side.
The bottom line is simple. AV is mostly Alliance territory, just like AB and WSG are Horde, although WSG really should be even. 10 Alliance on semi-organized D and it's gg Horde. Bridge and First Aid are veeeery difficult to take for Horde.
-A
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Quote:10 Alliance on semi-organized D and it's gg Horde. Bridge and First Aid are veeeery difficult to take for Horde.
Not really. Not now.
The bridge and the hill are pretty much the same. 2 hunters can eliminate both towers in about 2 minutes. The captain and the flag can wait. With the towers under control, it is not difficult to pull the NPC's to their death, then crush the aid station.
The huge difference is not one of difficulty, but speed. 30 decent allies can stop briefly at FW to cap, then rush straight to the last flag. Most of the horde NPC's will either ignore them or leash back to the front of the base. 30 decent horde players need to carefully pull NPC's while SP caps. Once SP has turned, you can zerg the remainder down. So its about a 5 min difference, which is pretty big when games are averaging about 20 min.
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09-18-2006, 07:22 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-18-2006, 07:23 PM by Ashock.)
Quote:Not really. Not now.
I spend on the average about 5-6 games/day in AV. With a 10 man D, we can hold down the Horde through multiple Drek resets (well, not 10, but 2-3) or 4 WMs running around multiple times (due to horrible Alliance pulling, which is semi-typical)... pretty much almost indefinately. The only thing that might be different between our Battlegroup and yours is that in ours, only 2-3 servers are older, so not too many ppl are running around with big-ass epics.
I suppose ymmv.
-A
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It's not the epics. If it's 30 on 10, if they can't push you most of the way across the bridge, they are idiots. At that point they can open fire on your archers. Once the towers are suppressed (not necessairly capped) it is very easy to start pulling NPC's back to the SP GY. At that point 30 monkeys randomly banging keys can cap the aid station. With the aid station tapped and SP capped, you can take the towers no problem, if you haven't already.
My guess is that you are playing mental defectives who are trying to cap the aid station despite 5-8 elite NPC's with 25k-50k each. All it takes is a little cross healing and somebody interrupting the flag tap every 10 sec?
If they can't push into your base 30v10, there is something wrong with them. It should take 5-10 more min then it would take for the Alliance to do it, but it should be very doable.
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Quote:It's not the epics. If it's 30 on 10, if they can't push you most of the way across the bridge, they are idiots. At that point they can open fire on your archers. Once the towers are suppressed (not necessairly capped) it is very easy to start pulling NPC's back to the SP GY. At that point 30 monkeys randomly banging keys can cap the aid station. With the aid station tapped and SP capped, you can take the towers no problem, if you haven't already.
My guess is that you are playing mental defectives who are trying to cap the aid station despite 5-8 elite NPC's with 25k-50k each. All it takes is a little cross healing and somebody interrupting the flag tap every 10 sec?
If they can't push into your base 30v10, there is something wrong with them. It should take 5-10 more min then it would take for the Alliance to do it, but it should be very doable.
Well, with so many different people to play against, I doubt that *all* of them are mental defects. Don't forget that pushing through a relatively narrow path is pretty difficult even when you are outnumbering the D 3-1. It evens the odds as only a few of the attackers can participate at the same time, but the defenders all can. This has actually been the case in RL military history too. When you outnumber the enemy, you try to spread the field of battle as wide as you can. Here however, they have no choice. Also, when they die, they have a longer trek to get to the end of the bridge than we do to get to the beginning. Now, when we can no longer rez at Aid station, then the Defense is pretty much done, but it takes a long time to get to that point.
-A
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Quote:Well, with so many different people to play against, I doubt that *all* of them are mental defects. Don't forget that pushing through a relatively narrow path is pretty difficult even when you are outnumbering the D 3-1. It evens the odds as only a few of the attackers can participate at the same time, but the defenders all can.
I wouldn't overestimate people, especially people who are pretty new to PvP. Most PvPers I know get exaulted and get out. That leaves relatively few decent players around. And they don't have to all be morons for things not to work out. It can be a mix of morons, good players who don't feel like leading, people going ZOMG need HK, and people who are botting in a corner.
The thing about warcraft is, without any clipping, all the attackers can (and should) be engaged at the same time. If you are facing people who are lining up and waiting their turn on the bridge.... they just might all be mentally defective.
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Quote:The thing about warcraft is, without any clipping, all the attackers can (and should) be engaged at the same time. If you are facing people who are lining up and waiting their turn on the bridge.... they just might all be mentally defective.
I remember my first time defending in AV. The Horde was preparing to charge; they had a dozen or two people mounted up on the far side. They came charging across the bridge while I was on it, and I instinctively turned around and ran - the sight of the charging wolves and kodo was a powerful psychological force. It took a few minutes before I realized "Wait a minute! Those are just sprites I can walk through as easily as I do in the AH!":)
It's interesting how large groups of players have no real ability to "push" a line of defenders back, but that battle lines weave and move anyway, due to natural human tendencies!
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Quote:I wouldn't overestimate people, especially people who are pretty new to PvP. Most PvPers I know get exaulted and get out. That leaves relatively few decent players around. And they don't have to all be morons for things not to work out. It can be a mix of morons, good players who don't feel like leading, people going ZOMG need HK, and people who are botting in a corner.
The thing about warcraft is, without any clipping, all the attackers can (and should) be engaged at the same time. If you are facing people who are lining up and waiting their turn on the bridge.... they just might all be mentally defective.
Well, I'm sure some of them are not rocket scientists. However, how do you explain that Horde usually wins AB and even WSG in the same Battle Group? IMO, at least AB requires more brains than AV. How is it that the same people that win AB and WSG (and I see some of the same names in all 3 BGs, although I've almost completely stopped doing WSG) lose in AV? Serious PVP'ers who are trying to rank up stay in AV almost exlusively as the Honor there far surpasses the other 2, even on Bonus weekends. Yes, there's many new players there, but the bulk I find in AV are lvl 60s these days. Grinding to exalted is nothing these days, so it's not "get to exalted and then out". I think it's the layout. Also, generally Alliance is aweful in the BGs, except here....
-A
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Quote:The bottom line is simple. AV is mostly Alliance territory, just like AB and WSG are Horde, although WSG really should be even. 10 Alliance on semi-organized D and it's gg Horde. Bridge and First Aid are veeeery difficult to take for Horde.
-A
AB favors Alliance. The path from the Arathor base to the Stables flag is shorter than the path from the Defilers base to the Farm flag, and Paladins and their immunity bubbles can hold solo-hold a node longer than any other class in the game.
WSG slightly favors Horde. The Horde base has a little better visibility than the Alliance base. Both bases have sneaky hiding spots involving clipping. Horde can pit stupid Allies in a ditch behind a giant tree south of the Alliance exit portal.
ArrayPaladins were not meant to sit in the back of the raid staring at health bars all day, spamming heals and listening to eight different classes whine about buffs.[/quote]
The original Heavy Metal Cowâ¢. USDA inspected, FDA approved.
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