Alterac Valley Basic Strat

WoW Classic Cataclysm Classic Discussion
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So I have been plagued with enough arguments about AV especially in the middle of the bg. I’m sure you’ve seen it. I cant speak for Ally I don’t play them but Horde seems to have a massive disconnect on the basic Strat. I’m talking the first go to fastest win play. Which in my experience is the 3 cap node and pull while the 4th is capping. Also known as the “Rush” play. Ally does this all the time very fast while we argue and I would think it proves my point but somehow this argument still exists for this ancient bg.

It is simple is it not? For Horde you fast cap, SHB, IWB, North, and South as well as their corresponding gy’s (to prevent ally rez and back cap) as fast as possible leave a few to D each node so it doesn’t get back capped. If you cap all those before the Ally its an easy pull when the 3rd node caps and the 4th is still capping to give you the time if its close. Same deal for Ally just IBT, TB, East, and West.

That’s the fastest way and assuming you didn’t get back capped. Of course D is a part of AV I’m not arguing don’t defend at all but screaming Turtle from the beginning is a good way to be stuck in AV for 40min while the reinforcements dwindle down. Plus, you can still lose they can still out wipe you, less likely with a turtle but none the less it is possible.

So now let’s talk how Defense comes into play, in the best way known to my experience. First off, if you get killed early and cant get passed the blockade or are a stealthy. Back capping is for you! Those back caps can buy a lot of time. When should most of the team go to D in order to win? If you get stopped or back capped. You can counter by back capping to reset timers. As well as wipe them if they pulled. If they have more nodes than you and you cant get back capped before the nodes fully cap, that’s when I have found a turtle successful. Because at that point hopefully the reinforcements are low enough but you know you aren’t gonna win the “rush” race. So turtle and wipe them to win. However that doesn’t always work sometimes you cant wipe them, they have a flow, its already too late, or, etc…so, that is a counter play in my opinion, turtling. Defense is a part of AV for sure but that race is indeed the fastest and most common way to win an AV. With or without Bal/Galv.

As for Bal/ Galv yes they can help but again horde argues a lot over that too. In my experience for the rush game, the fastest most common win. They don’t matter, they do matter if the game drags on and say for example horde chose not to kill bal and Ally did kill galv then the odds are tilted in ally favor at that point. However if the initial rush is successful neither of these two seem to matter for the overall fast victory but a solid group needs to agree to go there in early game if you didn’t and find yourself in late game, its to late to go back and kill them. It’s more of a safety net imo and a choice of if you want the net should the initial assault fail.

So like I get all the opposing arguments but they all play together and are situational can we not all agree that the rush is the most common winning play. You either won by it or lost to it most of the time did you not?

So why is this still an argument and why does it cost me so many good AV games? Over arguing the basic strat of a bg that is well over 15 years old. Like I’m down to lose an honest game, but an entire game of bickering and misinformation is getting really old. How is this just not common passed down knowledge by now and can we make it be?

This strat is based off my experience and wrote from the top of my head, but I can back it with wowwiki or wowhead go to the bg on there read the strat it’ll tell you the same thing. The rush play.

Now lets go have some good competitive AV games again! That bg was insane back in the day, I’d love that level of competition in AV again!

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For me, the lesson of AV is that…people are people, and with a group of 40 it’ll be a different mix every time. Some players get a thrill out of persuading the group to try something. Often, players get restless and just want a change. Nobody likes to be pinced for 20 minutes but I love a good grind, personally. Play enough and you reach the average.

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Rogues and Druids rush Dun Baldar and don’t f*****g leave those towers until capped.

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I agree and understand wym. I just feel the give up/disconnect vibe is a lot more present now than when I first played so many years ago. Perhaps its a bit the nostalgia but remember learning AV quickly in my noob dayz due to the vets and if I was new now, I’d be very confused with the arguments I see regularly.

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Best AV strategy: alt-tab

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AV is for exp so I do all my pvp fun in all other BGs. Mid-week WSG is always a blast.

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Love this, thanks for taking the time to share

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Stall enemy aid station cap can win alone game… Or sneak recap of aid station…easy trick

Map favour ally now. Wàs horde before. Never been good map but its fun

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How does it favor alliance?

Everyone keeps saying this but they never say why.

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ally reach horde aid flag faster and easier
map favour horde hugely before…now its like slight ally favour

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I think the main difference is while leveling because the biggest factors for me are the ease at which alliance has capping FW village compared to DB. At max level most of these reasons are invalidated because you dont need to wait for all 4 towers to cap before reliably killing the general and player power compared to the npcs is much greater.

Overall the travel times from cave to opposite end of the map seem similar, but there are other factors.

DB simply has more npcs to deal with near the objectives and requires more bodies pull/kite/kill them before a flag can be captured. As a result, going for balinda is always a loss because then there aren’t enough people heading north. Alliance on the other hand can very easily get away with only sending a handful of people straight south thus allowing them to expend resources on galv for more exp/honor without impacting their push.

South bunker in particular requires two people because of the NPC that aggroes the first person to walk by. He doesnt have much hp, but that’s still 20ish seconds of killing him by a solo capper. The horde equivalent npc is much earlier in fw village and will leash by the time you get to the top of the tower. Towers are also much easier to cap by a single person. DBN and SHB are easy to solo cap, DBS has a pixel perfect spot you can stand to solo cap (only after dealing with corporal whatshisface), and IWB cannot be solo capped unless you have a long duration CC for the archer directly across from the flag.

Entry into fw village is also easier. The DB archers begin shooting about 60% of the way across the bridge and continue as you approach. DBN being relatively close to the bridge isn’t really and issue, but in my experience being the first to cross the bridge means I need to pop a health potion or risk dying to archers alone. Alliance just doesnt take that many arrow shots since part of their approach is blocked by the building and the climb up the hill and into the final area is short so they very rarely take any meaningful damage.

Lastly, defense. Due to the reasons above, alliance playing defense in DB is generally more valuable. A lone or duo defender in the DB bunkers or at aid station will have a very large impact if horde doesnt send the necessary 10+ bodies straight north. Kill the very low hp attacker and they cannot capture the flag in time to make the game competitive. Any delay whatsoever in capping the DB bunkers will heavily favor alliance. Horde can also play defense and it often does work out. However, my experience has shown that it really only changes things if alliance fail to send more than 2 or 3 bodies south. Interestingly, defending too well also has unintended consequences. If 5 or so horde stay back and defend, killing the early rushers they send does delay initial capture. However, those people tend to res at aid station and cause nightmares for the horde attacking force and end up resetting the map. Alliance defending too well generally dont have that same effect.

The most reliable way for horde to win is to play a heavy defense and force the turtle. Then they can just hold that really strong chokepoint at IWB while waiting for the bunkers to be destroyed before pushing DB. At that point alliance can either run around to try and escape the turtle or just play defense, but if this situation happens, horde wins. The problem is that it is very slow. It’s more efficient to just zug and hope alliance messes up.

TL;DR: alliance has advantages due to safer map layout and fewer npcs to deal with while leveling. This advantage goes away at max level when player power spikes and you dont need to cap all 4 towers before pulling.

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Horde: Destroy one tower; bury Van
Alliance: Destroy every tower; wipe on Drek; sit on noobhill

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You are doing it wrong, horde the best strat is to send 10 people to the south mine, 10 to the north mine. Then you need to zug the boss with 4 towers up.

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Let me ask you this? are you trying to ensure a win, or were you using AV weekend + JJ to level and want to maximize xp?

you “rush” strat sounds like the leveling “rush” because the last bosses will clap a leveling gear 79 tank if all four marshals are up. at 80 with full ulduar gear with the right comp and a liberal use of CDs the rush strat is cap nothing and pull with all 4 marshals up.
In practice you rarely see this play because you need all 40 players to commit to a single strat, that will leave you in a position that’s almost impossible to come back from if it fails.

If your goal is to maximize XP then you have a problem like the 2 prisoners dilemma, what would be best for both teams would be for both sides to agree to screw defense, and make it a race to cap towers. and teams pull as soon as they’re at a point where the last tower will go down before they finish fighting the final boss. fast game fast xp both teams move on win or lose, but…
If one team cheats on that deal and back caps the other teams base then they get the bonus of the win and prevent the other team from getting xp for the back capped node, so then teams need to defend and the whole process is slowed down.

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After 15 yrs why is this still a topic nothing has changed in AV you wasted more time posting this than it was worth it wont chage it hasnt changed move on.

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Because horde nubs don’t know how to jump the wall by db south.

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Yeah i supported this saying turtling is a good way to spend 40min in AV. However that doesn’t mean its not a win. Then yes at max level back in the day I have won an AV by killing Vann and only capping 2 towers. I was in a group with guildies that was back in the Cata days and we were very active during cata. I was just spelling it out as 3-4 towers so it would apply to more than max level.

However I will agree a Turtle is more often a win for the horde if they commit but it is one that takes forever. So if you refer to my previous statement “you either won by it or lost to it most of the time” that statement doesn’t hold true for turtling, but it does for the rush play, yes?

I think your defense first argument totally works however in your description it implies the enemy team went defense too. In that case Defense is the only way out of it, you MUST reset the timers or you just lost to the clock. So I agree this play is successful I just think it is seen less often than the rush play, therefore is not the most common and/or the fastest winning play. Although it can be a winning play and imo its a situational strat that needs to be taken into consideration if you are really trying for the dub and the initial assault failed.

Then as for XP vs high level as another pointed out above:

XP grind on AV imo isn’t great after about 64 especially in classic, it really plateaus, which is where I been all weekend. Personally I do better grindin quests than queuing for back to back AVs at that point great xp still yes, but not as great as the same time and effort put into quests, personally. So, I made this post taking all my AV into consideration retail and classic, then tried to gear it so it could apply for both. Even at max level the rush play is still applied it is just countered more often as you pointed out because everyone isn’t just running the fast xp grind. However even with the xp grind how to apply that strat was argued about in the bg…which as you pointed out is a silent agreement to do the “rush play.” So that’s my point here. The rush play is applied or countered in everyone’s response to my post.

So I believe I have proven my point everyone has referenced the play and used it or countered it in their strat, so that would support it is “the fastest most common winning play, you either won by it or lost to it” hence why all the strats have this play taken into consideration. right?

So i think regardless of XP, or Honor, 58 or 80. This applies, the rush play, fastest xp for lowbies, fastest win for all, unless it gets countered but regardless of the level this is the initial play that you are either countering or applying are you not?

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My experience is Horde doesn’t want to do kill Balinda ever, even though she gives like a 20% hp buff to the alliance frequently? I think also 10% damage after a point? Meanwhile, Alliance kill our captain at the start every game.

There are additional mechanics beyond the rush strat which improve your chances/hurt their chances, but the biggest issue is that it’s 40 people from cross-server who very well may not be or want to be coordinated.

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While leveling you are looking to get the quickest games. In the 71-to79 bracket, for horde to win you send your lower levels to SHB and IWB, pallys and everyone else go north with aura mastery. If you kill balinda you’re griefing.
Do not stop at SPGY, the first couple people across the bridge go straight to Aid station. IF YOU ARE IN FRONT LEASH THE MOBS BY AID STATION TO THE NORTH BUNKER, you can jump off onto the balcony and they will reset. this gives the second person across the bridge enough time to grab the aid station. Everyone else north should be inside bunkers or defending aid station.
If you have a blood dk tank with Brutal gear he can pull van with one marshal still alive (with decent heals) as long as he doesnt die to the marshals whirlwind.
This can net you a win in under 9 minutes. The AV weekend before we had JJ, on my blood dk I had a game where my xp/hr was just over 1mil with heirlooms on, WITHOUT KILLING BAL.

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Another few months and it will be constant 4m games of rush to boss and ignore everything else for the true Rush strat.

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Yeah, for me that’s what makes it fun. There’s a bit of rock-paper-scissors to it since small changes in what the other team does can make/break your own ‘strategy’ and good luck having any coherent strategy at all.

I’ve seen players run past a tower/bunker that only had two defenders leaving it completely open to backcap yet no one attacks. Other times you can have 5 defenders and lose to a focused backcap.

But as for the OP’s point, it seems to miss that even your own intended strategy is limited by tanks/healers. In the 80 bracket, you can clear with 4 up with the right tank, which frankly kind of sucks imo after the initial amusement wears off.

In the other brackets, what you have for tanks/heals will limit how early you should even try, esp. if you don’t have the GY.

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