User:Ashrock

Original Thread (Suggestions & Additions Wanted) http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-realm-icecrown&t=20327

Battle Grounds Map (Created by Neobane) http://cfb.upallnightgaming.com/guides/alterac_valley/images/AV_Locations.jpg

AV isn't about collecting kill points, but achieving objectives. If you want pvp honor go play CTF in Warsong Gulch. What this means is also that you don't have to stand toe to toe and fight. If the enemy are standing in line calling down AEs, ride through or around it and hit the objective - usually the graveyard. You have mounts, use them.

When BG starts get the raid setup as fast as possible and hit the enemy's forward graveyard. Don't bother handing in items for faction reward at the beginning because speed really is of the essence - you can do that easier and with less risk to the bigger picture. - Danica 60 Paladin

Table of Contents

1. Objectives 2. General Class Roles (Suggestions) a. Tank Classes (Warrior Paladin Shaman) b. Paladin c. Rogues d. Hunters e. Priest/Druids f. Mage/Warlock 3. Battle Grounds Quests a.Taking over a Mine b.Master Ryson's All Seeing Eye c.Calvary Charge d.Air Strikes e.Pitfalls of the Battlegrounds Quests 4. Raid Leader Tips 5. Player Tips (You're Not the Leader) 6. General Player Tips 7. Killing Lokholar/Ivus (Elementals) 8. Alterac Valley FAQ- Looking for more here

Contributors Scheherezade (Large Portion) Danica (Large Portion) Haruka Krewl Wolfwalker Badaf Polantinte Neobane

Looting Etiquette Stadard need before greed looting rules should be followed by players not neccessarily set my the raid leader. It would be considered a kindness and courtesy to let though who can use an item and are there roll on it, in a 40 man group there will often be many who can use an item. Try to be courteous if possible.

"Setting group loot seems to work the easiest really due to the chaotic nature of AV battlegrounds. Feel free to roll on items, but please be polite and hit pass on those you can't/won't use. This only affects items dropped by npcs, and not players." - [i]Suggested by Danica[/i]



1. Battle Ground Objectives


 * 1, highest priority, most important, top of the list, if you do nothing else do this - KNOW YOUR OBJECTIVE!!!!!!

So, what's your objective? [i]It is [b]NOT[/b] to kill the enemy.[/i] Why not? Because they are inifinite!!! Every one you kill just respawns < 30 sec later and is back in your face. It is NOT to complete the side quests, and a significant investment in that arena is only designed to force the game to last longer, and plan for it.

OK, so we know what's NOT the objective, but [b]what IS the objective?[/b] Simple, take the enemy flag, kill the enemy general. Everything else simply prolongs the game.

[i]It's like playing chess. The objective is not to take a pawn, or a rook, or queen a pawn, or anything else but taking the king. Everything else is a tactic or strategy to accomplish the objective, but so many players get hung up on a tactic like it's the only way to do something, and that becomes their downfall.[/i]

[i][b]2. General Class Battleground Roles[/b][/i]

[b]Warrior/Paladin/Shaman[/b] Get on the line and charge. Use fear, disrupt, stomp, everything you can to break their line and create disarray. Don't call for healing and be thankful if you get any, because you won't. When you die, run back and do it again. NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER retreat. If you are on the Alliance and running north for any reason at all, you are not doing the right thing. Not even to turn in stuff, because you can do that when you die, which will be often. You don't get penalized for dying, and running away from the enemy encourages them to advance, surrendering valuable real estate. Don't die stupid, make your death count by killing at least 3:1 before you go, but die before retreat.

[b]Shaman[/b] Shamans shouldn't really be constituted in the "tank" class, as just charging the front lines is one of the most ineffective tactics we can use.

While there is something to say for rushing the lines, (as i'll do it because my build can handle it, and from my experience I can get away with running into the midst of an alliance raid party, burning down a mage/priest and pulling 10+ alliance off the front lines to burn out my diminishing returns in a zerg) it's very build dependent as to what your option are.

Elemental shamans will act as more front/midline casters, and should focus on burning down alliance frontline casters with chain lightning, and interrupting AoE's with ES. GW'ing up and throwing down earthbind/nova's into the center of the alliance line is a fun aspect too.

Enhancement shamans focus less on nuking, and more on isolating casters, or just beating on anything in range.

[b]Paladin[/b] - Contributed by Krewl Given Champion upgrades on both sides Paladins cant take unmaned GY by them selves because the gaurds will start resapwning after they kill the first 2 or 3 but they can hold them off long enogth for someone else to grab the flag.

Paladins can waste hordes mana/arrows/dps like a champ! with self cleanse, heal, and the sheilds... unlike NPC mobs, horde palyers dont alywas stop attacking when you have sheild up in a massive attack.

Paladins can heal like a champ if they have the right gear. They can keep people alive much longer then they should be against outnumbered odds and wont be targeted so quick when the horde catch on whos doing the healing. Cleanse saves peoples lives since a lot of the instant cast spells people spam are dot's.

Problem is its hard to target people not directly in your group, even if they are in a raid.

Save stun for thoses kamakazi Arcane explosion mages or hitting the warriors riht before they use intimdateing shout on a group. Dont use it on every single runner at low health cause most the time theyll die anyway by the suporting hunters/mages.

Again, save sheild till you have to use it as well. Consecration does as much damge over its duration as some other aoe spells do in their first 2 ticks. Its better used to support other aoe storms or the start of a charge.

Be the first one in to make them waste mana/attention on you before you sheild/heal ect, then fall back and support your team.

[b]Rogues[/b] You are the guerilla warfare experts, USE IT. Get a group of rogues together, all of you rogues, and start working behind their lines. You see a priest gathering resources or killing rams? Gank him. Graveyard with nothing guarding it but NPC's? Take it. Named NPC roaming you can kill? Drop it. The 5 of you need to be the biggest pains in the behind imaginable, because with you back there, the enemy can not consolidate a front without worrying what you're doing, and it takes 12 people to chase down and find 5 rogues who vanish at the sight of an enemy.

[b]Hunters[/b] If they are wearing cloth, they die. Period. (As in you should kill cloth wearers b/c your arrows destroy them quickly.) You lay traps every time the button comes up, you are right behind the warrior/pallies, supporting the charge. You see a group of enemy together, you volley them and you hold your ground. If you retreat, you are not doing your job. Your main job is the runners. That foolish rogue thinks he can sneak past your lines to get an objective? Think again, 1:1 at range, no hunter worth his salt can fail to drop a rogue, and there is absolutely no reason for > 1 hunter to need to deal with 1 rogue behind the lines. Also, height is where you belong. Find some hill, ledge, bunker, be above them and able to duck behind something quick. You're a sniper, act like one.

Probably the best hunter roll is to viper every thing with a mana bar and leave them alive. Unfortunatly it is nearly impossible to keep your fellow raid/group members from killing these in combat out/ of mana casters unless you are very organized. Mages in particular need to GY zerg in order to provide constant firepower.

[b]Priest/Druid[/b] Heal where you can, especially the tanks, but if an ally is retreating towards you to get healing, ignore them and let them die...they're worthless to the side and don't waste your mana on them. The enemy tries to rush the line? Fear, root, disrupt, whatever it takes. Druids especially, root anyone/thing you see running through/past your lines. Lock it down and it gets dog piled.

[b]Mage/warlock[/b] These are the line breakers. Stand among your tanks and drop aoe's on their front. Run in, freeze nuke then arcane. 3 Mages in a group, all doing this together, can obliterate an entire line of people in seconds...seen it done, it's vicious. You see someone rushing through the line, or sneaking around? Sheep'em...sheeped rogues don't sneak. Don't invest a lot of energy/mana on single targets, your strength is to discourage the enemy from standing in a clump...you see a clump? It is your moral imperative to nuke them, and nukes are much better when stacked 3-4 deep. Join your hunters and communicate, rush in with a freeze nuke and mage/hunter/warlock saturation bomb the area. Glorious site to see. As with hunters, height is your friend. Nothing is more bloody annoying than an aoe when you can't find, or worse can't get too, the caster.

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[i][b]3. Battlegrounds Quests[/b][/i] Full Listing: http://cfb.upallnightgaming.com/guides/alterac_valley/quests.htm [i]  "But what about the side quests?"[/i]

Get a group of < 60's (there are always some) and have them clearing the mines and gathering rams. Why < 60's? Because there's exps to be gotten from the quests and they can use it. They're back there to keep things going but do not drain the front line's resources. The absolute worst thing that can happen is someone asking for volunteers to do the side quests and half the raid runs off to do them.

[b]Taking over a mine[/b] Go in, kill all the NPC's, your side's NPC's will begin to spawn once you've killed the big boss at the end. At this point, you own the mine. Then you get the quest for the supply crates and start shuttling them. It takes about 100 crates, or 10 runs, for the first upgrade.

[i]Stealth Run It[/i] There isn't anybody that detects stealth, but the boss will see you if you get close, due to his level and elite status. The only person you have to kill is the boss. Just get a few rogues and some druids, he's a hard boss, so you might want to get more than 5 in your group to help out, depending upon your abilities. Just stealth in to the main boss, he'll be a named 58 elite. Sap his two gaurds, and get to work on him. Druids will tank, but rogues, try not to draw aggro off of them because you aren't tanks, no matter how much you think you are. Druids will also heal when needed, of course. Once he's dead, some allied elite NPC's of about the same level of the other mobs will spawn wherever there are enemies, and start killing. Just help them out a little bit, and the mine belongs to you.

[b]Master Ryson's All Seeing Eye quest[/b] This quest starts in the syndicate held cave to the east of the field of strife. You have to go to the winterax cave on the other side of the map (west of the field) and recover the eye. Once you get the eye you'll get a nice green glow showing you're holding it. The first faction to get the eye to the syndicate will get their favor, and after that anyone who talks to the npc there can get a detection ability that shows all units on the mini-map. Right now this is pretty useless in my opinion since it also shows friendly npc units as red dots in addition to the enemy npcs and pcs. There's just way too many dots.

In addition you get a new quest to plant a beacon in the enemy's camp (presumably to show enemy units on the main map). It seems rather infeasible to do considering you not only have to sneak in, but also defend the beacon for a while after placing it.

[b]Calvary Charge[/b][i] - Contributed by Haruka [/i] Players need to accomplish an equal number of both quests that the stable master & wolf(ram) rider give. That means taming/harnesses. Once theres finally enough of both the group of wolf(ram) riders will head on out to a certain spot and roam back and forth there. They will move to the offensive when one of two things happen:

1) The Wolf Commander dies 2) Someone with high enough Frostwolf(Stormpike) faction tells them to attack. They'll act like reavers(commando's) once they are on the offensive.

Both ram riders and commandos can be told by someone with high enough reputation (revered) to attack enemy territory.

[b]Air Strike[/b] After rescuing and escorting a wing commander back to base you can then hand in one type of medal specific for that wing commander. He will give you a beacon you can place in the field of strife that will call a gryphon to patrol the area and give air support. Each wing commander you rescue will add another gryphon to the patrol. Once you've rescued all three wing commanders only will you be able to get a whistle to call in airstrikes on a target of your choice.

[b]Pitfalls of the Battlegrounds Quests[/b] As a raid leader, if I assign 5 people to do this and see 10, the additional 5 are booted from the raid and get no benefit. Eventually, they'll leave disgusted and the 300 other queued Alliance people who are dying to get in will love getting to actually do their job.

[i][b]4. Raid Leader Tips:[/b][/i]

[i]Graveyards are key.[/i] He who holds the graveyard holds the ground around it. The more graveyards you hold, the more of the map you control.

[i]The Pincer Movement[/i] Take two groups and hit a target from both sides. That bridge horde keep whining about? You don't have to put everyone on one side of it - go around with a couple of groups and hit the npcs. Same goes for taking some strategic graveyards. "Group" here doesn't mean 5 people - it can also mean several 5 man groups.