Alterac Valley 2.4

The screaming match over Alterac Valley began the day it opened. Alliance and Horde screaming across the forums, IRC channels and blogs about how this battleground is proof of Blizzards love of the opposing faction. While the Horde has long decried the issues of the Alliance bridge and placement of the NPC's in their base, Alliance has pretty much cried about everything relating to the Horde. And as always, Blizzard made changes. Just to refresh everyone, here is the list of Alterac Valley related changes made in 2.4.

• Captain Balinda Stonehearth can no longer be interrupted, silenced, or have her spells slowed. In addition, her water elemental cannot be banished, and does increased damage.


• Vanndar Stormpike and Captain Balinda Stonehearth have had their health totals reduced to match the health totals of Drek'thar and Captain Galvangar.


• Warmasters/marshals in Alterac Valley now increase each other's maximum health and damage by 25%. This is a stacking effect.


• Horde players will now start the battle closer to Drek'Thar and Frostwolf Keep.


• There is now a Join as Party option.

Now, accepting the premise that Alterac Valley is essentially a race to kill the enemy general, these changes can only be seen as a nerf to the Horde. Balinda and her pet were both buffed, thus slowing the Horde down. Van and Bal both had their hit points reduced but only to the levels Galv and Drek were previously, so this only balances the four main targets. Or does it? Consider the fact that Galv has no pet helping him, while Balinda does. Sure, the water elemental isn't that tough but it's still more than Galv has.
The Horde starting location was moved back as well. We now start considerably further back, which had the Alliance salivating in anticipation of this change. Their infamous zerg race to Drek was about to get that much better. But then 2.4 hit, but I'll get to that.
Lastly, the warmasters/marshalls now increase each others health and damage by 25%...each!!! This is a huge nerf to the Horde who often ( at least in my battlegroup ) had to start on Van with at least one marshall still up to hope to snatch a win from the Alliances ever growing domination of Alterac Valley.

And then 2.4 hit and something happened. Being moved back forced the Horde to play a better defense. And that has made all the difference. Since the inclusion of reinforcements, I have come to believe that the focus of AV has complete changed for the Horde. I believe that Blizzard quietly changed their viewpoint as to each factions role in AV and has made changes to broadcast this new philosophy. We Horde should listen to the signs as it points the way to our chance to completely dominate Alterac Valley. At least until the Alliance howls on the official forums become so loud it wakes the dead ( but that just may mean more rerolls to Undead so I'm all for it. )

The last two patches have brought changes that essentially slow down the Horde in the "race" the the General but have left us a way to win as well: reinforcements. By mounting a strong defense, the Horde can dwindle the Alliances reinforcements down very quickly. many players are skeptical of this. They are afraid of getting into long drawn out battles that essentially decrease their honor per hour gain. that being said, using an addon called Honor Kills Counter, I have logged my AV's since 2.4 and taken notes on the strategies used by the Horde in each battle.

In four out of my last five AV's, the Horde has played a strong defense. Some call this the "turtle." The Horde won all four in which they "turtled." However, this turtle did NOT mean we mounted no offense. In fact, by focusing most of our players on defense, were able to stop the Alliance advance and thus allow our offense time to get to Van and kill him. The longest of these AV's lasted just 26 mins. Our single victory without a Van kill lasted 31 minutes. The difference in honor was 50. We got 50 less honor not killing Van, than we would had we killed him. Compare that to the 250 less honor we received for a loss and ask yourself, is it better to extend the match 5 - 10 minutes if it means a chance at 200 more honor?

A long time saying among players is: The Alliance is built for PvE and the Horde is built for PvP. If this is true, then the genius behind Alterac Valley 2.4 is that it pits each side against it's weakness and caters to its strength. With the NPC positioning in the bases, Alliance can skip over much of the PvE that the Horde inevitably faces in each match.

Consider this:

Thus the highest form of generalship is to balk the enemy's plans, the next best is to prevent the junction of the enemy's forces, the next in order is to attack the enemy's army in the field, and the worst policy of all is to besiege walled cities.

-Sun Tzu, the Art of War

The Blizzard built defenses of Frostwolf have huge, gaping holes in them that allow the Alliance to move quickly to their objectives. This design has led to the Alliance tactic of the quick rush to the end and many a Horde defeat. By plugging up those holes with players, we can force the Alliance to engage us or engage our NPC's. Either way, we can slow them down or better yet stop their advance completely. This follows the highest form of generalship.

The Alliance will often send one force to defeat Galv while a smaller ( unusually stealthed ) force moves to take our Relief Hut and Frostwolf Towers , East and West. After the defeat of Galv, the larger force moves to join up with the smaller force. To prevent this "junction of forces" the Horde must "attack the enemy's army in the field" or more to the point, use the IB chokepoint to halt the larger forces advance. Hold them there. Force them to split their forces further through respawns at Winterax. Now their larger force becomes two smaller weaker forces, both of which will be easier to defeat.

The bridge is without a doubt the best chokepoint in the game. It is defended by the archers from the North Tower and thus, can be held by relatively few Alliance players for several precious minutes. When the Horde gets stuck at the bridge, we are besieging the Alliances "walled cities." Players must get across that bridge and to the Aid Station flag at all costs. By taking Stormpike before the Aid Station, the Horde is allowing the Alliance to turtle behind its defenses and that becomes a much harder nut to crack. But, by forcing them to respawn at Stormpike, or better yet, their cave, with our forces within their base, the bridge is turned from an obstacle to an asset. Thus, their walled city becomes ours.

If the Horde can play to it's strength, PvP, and field a strong defense, while it's offense smartly turns the Alliances strengths into our own, the Horde should be able to dominate Alterac Valley.

Note - This article was written by a player with a Horde main character and with a decidedly Pro-Horde bias. Alliance players will just have to be a little understanding about that.