The New Av

[betteblu]

I am not understanding the new AV. Could someone explaine it to me (and others prolly)?

[Ilianis]

quite simple really, you have 600 reinforcements.
For capture towers of the enemy, they lose some of those reinforcements, also killing generals, like Balinda, or Galv, will lower their reinforcements. and also, killing Vandaar, or Drek wins.

[Mordwin]

Defend your towers and captains, kill the other sides... avoid taking too many loses doing so... and if you can kill the end bosses, then you win regardless (as before). Oh, and the mines add reinforcements to the side that controls them.

The towers are much more important now, the captains still die pretty quickly on both sides, but there can be some good fights around the towers now... as they are about 50 reinforcements each, not insignificant. Oh, and towers means marshalls/warmasters... so losing a tower means 1 less of those that have to deal with... and they can't be pulled seperately any more iirc, so less is good.

And towers retained/destroyed are significant contributors to bonus honour... so again, you want to take out the enemies whilst holding onto yours.

In general... less PvM, more PvP :)

[mesonm]

Another reason for taking towers...

From the patch notes:

"However, destroying an enemy tower still eliminates the associated opposing Warmaster."

Thus, the more towers you kill, the less you have to fight.

[Mincemaker]

A few things:

Warmaster/Marshals are now all linked to the General, and therefore, it is now impossible to individually pull and eliminate them one at a time.

Second, you earn 41 honor per tower and captain that still stands by the end of the battle, thus making Defense very valuable.

Mines add up reinforcement points per minute. Be sure to capture them.

Destruction of enemy towers/bunkers kills their respective warmasters/marshals. Thus capture and defense of towers/bunkers are top offensive priorities.

Every time a bunker/tower is destroyed, you earn 62 honor.

Also, destruction of towers reduces reinforcement points by alot. Same with captain death. You lose 1 reinforcement points per death. Be sure to defend for a flawless 1k honor per game victory.

[xDarkDrifterx]

I beleive they updated this:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/pvp/battlegrounds/info-alteracvalley.html

**Reinforcements

Each team will have a starting reinforcement count. Reinforcements can be lost in significant amounts if a tower is destroyed or if Captain Galvangar or Balinda Stonehearth is killed (This is why IMO each team should be turtling [with some players not all] that first base, and why the alliance [who seem to fail to read] keep running into a turtle at Galv - it will always be this way now). For each team member death, an additional reinforcement will be lost. On the death of General Drek'Thar or Vanndar Stormpike, all reinforcements are lost and the team is defeated. At any point in time, if a team is reduced to zero reinforcements, the opposing team will win the battle. Defending your own teammates, towers, and key NPCs will be an important aspect of maintaining team resources and achieving victory in Alterac Valley.

**Warmasters

Warmasters can be the boon or the bane of any team. They are an important element for the defense of your general or the defeat of the opposing general. Warlords and their general will be more closely linked in the next patch. Pulling one is a guarantee the other will come as well. Each team begins with four Warmasters. Destroying a tower will eliminate the associated Warmaster. Destroying the enemy tower will not add a Warmaster to your own side. All Warmasters are linked to each other and their respective Generals and cannot be pulled individually.

**Bonus Honor

Players will only be awarded bonus honor during the battle for destroying enemy towers and slaying the enemy Captain. Once the battle is concluded, bonus honor will be awarded for intact towers, a surviving Captain, and for victory in battle. The bonus honor will reward players for taking more active roles in Alterac Valley toward defending or attacking key locations and NPCs.

__________

This is how I understand it:

It's not just a race to the end anymore. It's about resources, and Defence, and pvping, as you need to have more reinforcements and resources held to gain more honor at the end. Basically if the Alliance went straight to Drek while the Horde gathered resources and grabbed more nodes than the Alliance (even just a couple GY's or towers) the Alliance would "win" b/c they killed Drek but the Horde would get more honor. We now have to play smarter not harder and faster.

You want to have more reinforcenments then the opposing faction at the end. And the final person, does not need to be killed for your side to win now (turtle prevention).

[Baboon]

Nice post xDarkDrifterx

How long are matches taking? The original AV was kinda epic, but it took way too long to end a match. The one we had before this one was extremely fast, but you never really fought the opposite faction. I hope this one is still pretty fast and not taking 1.5 hours.

[xDarkDrifterx]

How long are matches taking?

I've been running into 25mins - 1hour matches personally.

[Mincemaker]

Not too bad for 1k honor if everything on your side is flawlessly defended while you crush theirs.

[rottentomato]

typically you get about 500 honor for the hour matches...the chance to get 1k honor lies in capping all the towers as fast as possible and not losing your own...somewhere around 30 minutes...

we've still have a few 15 minute van runs where you slaughter your way down to him...those are always fun still

[Mincemaker]

typically you get about 500 honor for the hour matches...the chance to get 1k honor lies in capping all the towers as fast as possible and not losing your own...somewhere around 30 minutes...

we've still have a few 15 minute van runs where you slaughter your way down to him...those are always fun still

Well, I see alot of these rushes, though we actively defend bunkers now. Once, there's a group of 10 actually defending. All we lost were Iceblood and Galv. By the end of the fight, we walked away with 800+ honor after thirty minutes. Brilliant.

[rottentomato]

Well, I see alot of these rushes, though we actively defend bunkers now. Once, there's a group of 10 actually defending. All we lost were Iceblood and Galv. By the end of the fight, we walked away with 800+ honor after thirty minutes. Brilliant.

the rushes dont give the same honor as before, but it calculates out to be slightly better if you can make it through the turtle on the other team and win within 15... bal down/van down you end up with 400 honor in 15 minutes... i still like the two games ive played since the change where we had a great team and ended up with 900 honor in 25 minutes twice. cant complain about that.

the old days of 600-700 honor a run in 15 minutes are long behind tho :(

[Schue]

I have noticed alot of healers are focusing on healing since you lose reinforcements per death.

[Mincemaker]

the rushes dont give the same honor as before, but it calculates out to be slightly better if you can make it through the turtle on the other team and win within 15... bal down/van down you end up with 400 honor in 15 minutes... i still like the two games ive played since the change where we had a great team and ended up with 900 honor in 25 minutes twice. cant complain about that.

the old days of 600-700 honor a run in 15 minutes are long behind tho :(

Therefore, it is agreed, fun has returned. We get to actually do some real fighting now.

[rottentomato]

Therefore, it is agreed, fun has returned. We get to actually do some real fighting now.

not completely...played 5 games today, 4 of which we lost by a landslide and spent 30-40 minutes each game... only got 600 honor between the 4...the last one we won, took 35 minutes, got 700 honor + bonus honor for daily.

2hs 35 minutes, jut over 1k honor...

played three AB games... 25 minutes each... 400 honor per game

1hr 25 min 1200 honor...

the fun is where i get my better gear and dont feel like its a worthless game.
nothing worse than sitting through a whole game to find out the people on offense didnt do anything, and defense failed to hold a large zerg after holding for a substantial amount of time trying to give the offense a chance.

[Geboran]

Quite interesting.

Have many of you seen coordinated efforts to try to upgrade units and summon bosses for their respective side, as was done in AV past? It doesn't sound like people are trying to spend that kind of time in AV...

Anyone know if there is any kind of bonus honor for summoning such bosses for your side?

[xDarkDrifterx]

So far what I've experienced in the AV shows me (For Alliance):

That we should just do it like we always have EXCEPT leave groups of people on D at each tower / GY and wait for caps before downing Drek.

Don't send the whole group to IB GY before Galv - it seems we always loose the game when people suggest this. Send 10 or so, then the rest go Galv as normal so that you'll either get IBGY shortly after Galv or hold most of the Horde off till Galv is down then you all take it as normal and move up.

Anyone else have any thoughts, experiences, or views that they want to share on strategies?

[mesonm]

And the final person, does not need to be killed for your side to win now (turtle prevention).

Agreed. However, it CAN be a race, as killing their General DOES end the match.

Thus, the best strategies often include a combination of both O and D.

I like the new AV...15 mins per game, and mostly 400ish honor per game.

[xDarkDrifterx]

I find it funny that the alliance now often does not kill Galv and then he ends up being alive at the end b/c many ppl say rush to RH . . .blah blah . . . I don't understand that with 40 people (lets say 35) that you can't send roughly 25 to IBGY and the other 10 to Galv (once he's dead they move and take the tower then meet up with IBGY peeps) and push forward.

What strategies are you seeing that work?

[Imraath]

What strategies are you seeing that work?Take Stonehearth Graveyard with a large group and while it caps, take Icewing bunker. Defend this point on the map with the bulk of your forces. Get your defense group 10(ish) players to zerg around taking out the alliance groups that are attempting Galv and Stonehearth. Every single kill lessens the force you have to defend against and they'll be behind your defensive line at Icewing. Once the last of the alliance are mopped up, zerg forward, leaving your initial 10 behind for defense.

It's absolutely astounding how badly the new AV has been implemented.

[Zanthis]

Efficient honor farming in AV. This is based on 2 propositions;
1) You are in AV to farm honor to buy gear, therefore arguments of what it most "fun" are irrelevant in this post.

2)You are playing in a PuG. I have seen a few attempts at premade AVs, but most of the time, it is a pug. Being a pug, complex strategies involving sending different teams to simultaneously achieve objectives isn't possible since most of your raid is only capable of following the zerg and attacking what ever is red.


That being said, AV is still a race to kill the end boss. As has been stated, if you defend your towers and kill the enemies, you can get upwards of 800 honor but these games can take an hour or more.

On the other hand, if you race and ignore the other team, and don't defend your towers, you end up with a game that yields 334 honor for the winner and 271(iirc) for the loser. This is with both commanders killed and all 8 towers burned. These games take about 10 or 12 minutes. Simple math shows that if you average 300 honor per game and can do 5 games in an hour, that’s 1500 honor per hour. much better than 800 for a perfect siege game.

More importantly, the leader rush game is much easier to achieve. In most AVs the teams are evenly matched, the horde and alliance have the same numbers of geared and experienced experts as well as poorly geared, underleved noobs. This means about a 50/50 win loss ratio (looking at the number of quantity 3 and 1 AV tokens in my mail box confirms this). This also means that games where one side completely decimates the other are very, very rare.

Some people argue that you need to split your forces between defense and offense. I disagree. Defense does nothing to end the game, and very little to increase the honor output of the game.

If both sides have defenders, then both sides are being slowed down and your honor per unit time is reduced. If one side had defenders and the other doesn't, the offensive side will significantly outnumber the defensive one, and usually crush them.

The "new" AV isn't any different than the "Old" AV except for the reinforcments which really only serve to help mitigate turtles. The most efficient strategy is still a 40 man race to the end boss, burning towers and killing Bal/Galv along the way.

[Clavina]

As a decent geared prot war I love the new AV, I played a game last night out of boredom which quickly turned into 4-5 games. Being able to tank the general and 2 of the marshals meant a string of quick, easy wins..

edit: also had some fun flag carrying in wsg :D

[luxmeansbux]

I've been in a lot of 13-20 minute battlegrounds for anywhere from 350-500 honor. The thing is, now that there's no individual pulling of the wargs and other hangers-on in Drek's room, the final zerg starts before any graveyards have been capped. Any deaths result in rezzing all the way back on defense.

[Mincemaker]

Which is why it is considered very unwise to keep zerging before your first GY was captured. However, it is a good way to reinforce defense in the earlier stages after destroying your enemy's first line of defense at the initial stage of the Zerg.

[Wintrow]

Is taking out Balinda/Galvadar necessary to be able to take on the generals? I mean, what if you run past him? They seem to be quite the hermits...

[Amiral]

Is taking out Balinda/Galvadar necessary to be able to take on the generals? I mean, what if you run past him? They seem to be quite the hermits...

They give extra honor if killed, and otherwise they continiously buff their side with 20% extra HP.

[Imraath]

Is taking out Balinda/Galvadar necessary to be able to take on the generals? I mean, what if you run past him? They seem to be quite the hermits...If you get Balinda in a strong wind, she should drop pretty quickly.

[Geboran]

For Alliance, if they actually coordinate their offense, they can win quickly as stated already.

I've noticed that if they designate groups something like the following, things go "well"; however, if they don't, the Horde tactics posted where they "own" Stonehearth and Icewing Bunker ALWAYS results in the Alliance being forced into a "turtle" match where the Horde overwhelms them. The terrain in this area favors the Horde Offense.

(NOTE: One group equals 5 or more)

1. One group to cap/hold Iceblood Tower.
2. One group to cap/hold Tower Point.
3. Two groups to kill Galvanger / move to Iceblood Graveyard (cap)(brings some Horde from Offense to defense, buying additional time) / move to Frostwolf Graveyard (re-cap/defend).
4. Four groups immediately to Frostwolf Graveyard (cap/defend) / Relief Hut (cap/defend) / West & East Towers (cap/defend).
5. Once west & east towers cap, kill Drek.

Any Alliance that come in "late" will be caught in the "turtle" effect, so they should do what they can to "slow" Horde progression at Dun Baldur. They won't be able to keep/maintain the Stormpike Graveyard and should be saving as many reinforcements as they can until the Alliance can complete the caps and kill Drek.

[xDarkDrifterx]

Is taking out Balinda/Galvadar necessary to be able to take on the generals?

No they're just extra honor really.

__________

I see people arguing up and down about Galv on the alli side, to the point that they leave him there, not killing him and even try to take drek without killing him. Ive been in many where he wasn't even killed. Yes, he's not a necessaity, but extra honor is a good thing so get him after IBGY caps or shortly after (if 10 ppl aren't killing him while IBGY and IBTower cap).

I would like to say this to all the Alli's that say "leave Galv alone" have you ever wondered how the horde are able to kill Balinda near the start and keep on going and win . . . .? Killing that first elite isn't and shouldn't be an issue . . .

Defence is key now at all towers and gy's IMO

[Amiral]

Hum, played some AVs after a break recently, and the best tactic for win is still rush it, just have a couple of hijackers on the trail to make sure towers are capped/defend them.

Alliance just steamroll/zerg like they used to, but now some people defend, and while the horde is busy killing Balinda/taking IW/SH, alliance will be past the IB choke, so it's a rush once again... at least that's how the games still played on some battlegroups. And since alliance got an easier time capping FW RH, they get the game mostly.

But then again, my battlegroup is really slow to adjust (horde won more games before the AV change then after... huh?)