| Arondar | #5187 Monday January 2, 2006 at 10:31 | |
< hi > |
Read at your own risk...from the Horde perspective but still an awesome post. Wanted to link it here so I don't lose it again. http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-wa...p=1&tmp=1#post765415 This is my first draft write-up for a guide to AV and understanding the chaos. Its not meant to tell you basic things like how to access the battlemasters or what turning in tauren hooves is for, this is to explain how AV is not just a mindless meat grinder zerg fest. I hope to add more Micro tactics and Advanced tactics as I gather them as well as coords and patrol paths of the lieutenants and anything else that is helpful. The poor man's guide to Alterac Valley The Join As Group button is gone, this means AV will always be a pug from now on. With a pug most highly cordinated plans simply are beyond them. Using postive encouragement, discussion and respect the zerglings can be united into a cohesive force. Realized that not everyone is there to win, find the one's who are and make the most of who you do have working hard. Most of all realize that AV games are long usually lasting anywhere from 2 to 8 hours; it takes time to accomplish objectives and make games. The rewards are worth it though, a win nets 3-4k bonus honor not counting all the PvP honor points you'll get while keeping the average player who wants to pvp safe from honor farming guilds in AB/WSG and gank squads in world PvP. I play horde and thus I have unavoidable biases. Alliance all seem to agree that horde have a terrian advantage but theorycrafting over the map, it should appear to the keen eye of a strategist that alliance have a map advantage. I know from experience that it makes for a very boring game running between all the towers to defend against one rogue stealthing past useless NPCs and swaying the flag through the back wall. Further more the alliance triangle arrangement of bunkers is obviously a stronger setup than the horde dangling string of towers. Furthermore assaulting the final bases; alliance say FW keep is hard. Do they know that FW towers can be bypassed? Do they know that assaulting one alliance bunker is comparable to lower FW keep? They just say we lost therefore the map must be biased! Examine the map as a theorycrafter and explain why horde have any advantage all. There are numerous flaws in the horde setup and the way horde defenses work, but that just adds to the flavor of the horde faction. We're sloppy, dirty, ugly and ruthless. The alliance setup is sturdy, planned and cunning. Bottem line is, alliance advance through the map easier but have a harder time holding their gains. Horde have a harder time advancing but an easier time holding their front. Here's the kicker; the entire progression horde take going up the map teaches them how to take and hold GYs, assault bunkers and control spawns. Alliance don't encounter this strategy till they hit FW keep. Alliance have a straight forward progression and once they gain the upper hand they must shift strategies to what the horde have been practicing all along. For alliance, the difficulty they face holding their gains is directionly proportion to the ease they had taking them in the first place. Do you realize you're now defending what the horde were trying to defend 30 minutes ago and lost? If the horde lost it with NPC support you sure as heck can lose it too; this is why games swing wildly at the end when horde appear to be losing. Enough theorycrafting, how does it work irl? The truth is the map is evenly balanced. You might say alliance returning tamed rams is longer run than returning tamed wolves; but alliance have a shorter run to ID mine than horde have to CTmine. Do the distances matter? Maybe. Are they marginal differences? Yes. Any differences that can be identified are put there intentially to give each side a distictive play experience. There is no weakness either side has that doesn't also have a strength to make up for it. The winner will the side that can protect their weaknesses while exploiting their enemies weaknesses and blunting their enemies strengths. Understanding class roles Warrior/Priest, each are half of a class, like the friggin wonder twins. Healy powers activate, form of a ginsu shredder! Hunters --> yah shoot stuff, alot. plz don't spend more than 10 seconds chasing anyone, if you do you'll probably die. Best roll is stay with the group, hunters are the best group pvp partners to have along side you. Rogues- the hardest working class and most needed, they die alot, get little thanks ninja'ing PvE mines for the good of all. The rogue is a fantastic support class, like tiger sharks in the water, they're our guard dogs rdy to rip off legs if enemies get too close. Rogues should not be going on suicide assassination runs to 1shot resting clothies. 1 clothie at 10%health vs 1 rogue dead from 100% health is not a decent trade off and your chance of success is slim. Fighting rogues should be swarming the front lines to pin down over aggressive enemies and protecting our rear clothies from other rogues. Ninja'ing mines is the best support in the game, however most rogues will decline this job instead farming HKs. Ask them nicely, sometimes they're willing, other times they flip you the bird and do what ever they want. Druids- can ninja objectives with rogues, heal or dps. usually not a lot of them so fit them in any of the 3 roles. druids tend to be insanely over aggressive in 1.8.x and thus they tend to die alot, often pointlessly. Read my advice to hunters, no long chases, you'll just die. Mages- tend to die alot due to over aggressive chasing and suicide AE spam runs. Realize once you leave your ranks you are free HK. Best to stay with the group and provide phat nuke and AoE support, you're the hammer to their thumb! Warlocks- have AV on farm status, easily the most dangerous class in this BG. Any warlock of just moderate skill will get in the top 25% of the kill board. Why? They have tons of tools, counters, nukes, AoE, DoTs and HP. Don't chase them if they retreat, they'll just make you look stupid. They can solo ninja any GY cept SF of course. Send pet to gather guards, AoE fear, passive pet and cap flag. Warlock is the dueler class, realize if you find yourself in some random 1v1 with a warlock you'll probably lose, even 2v1 you stand a fair chance of meeting your spirit healer again. shaman = noobsauce, its rare to find a truly leet shamy played to his full potential. I've only once seen a shamy near the top of the kill board and it was was like 150 killing blows o.O with the second name having around 57 killing blows. Their short range nukes and slow AoE don't really add up. They're great healers and shock troops for assaulting bunkers. paladins- why do these guys shield and heal to full when surrounded by 15 horde just to die 3 seconds after their shield drops? The palli class suffers from hound dog syndrome OMGZ LOW LIFEZ , MUST CHASE, KILLING BLOW!!!1! ---> spirit healer. Great shock troops, they break lines and lead charges! Horde should just ignore them when they do this but they don't more often than not. They make flag caps EZmode. Group Organization is pretty simple. Put the priests with the warriors; these two classes are like butter and toast. They need each other to work their best. Warriors should not suicide charge in, your dps isn't that great while in ghost form ~_^ and priests should not stand at the very back of the group casting heals, they should follow closely and keep mobile. If the priest goes too far the warrior can't come back to save you. The priest should stay near to fear bomb if their warrior gets mobbed, swp, mindflay or nuke to help finish off the warriors target. Hunters are still going to try and tag the priests first, warriors need to be aware of their priest at all times and either follow them in retreat or rage face on the priest killer. Put druids, shamans, paladins in the warrior group too to fill up on healers. priests tend to stay away from AV for good reason. They get targeted first, die often and spend a lot of time chatting with the spirit healer. Put the rogues together and they might be so inclined to ninja a mine. Rogues work well in pairs, their stuns compliment each other nicely. A group of rogues who've played together before will get into a stun rotation routine, its like a death squad from which there is no escape. Thats really all the grouping that needs to be done, be nice and put friends who want to play together in the same group if they ask. They'll work good as a team if they're already aquainted. If you don't they might just leave the main raid and form their own group anyway. Better to have everyone together. |
|
| Arondar | #5188 Wednesday January 4, 2006 at 10:47 | |
|
< hi > |
The games starts, dun dun dun... If your not a warrior don't expect heals. Don't chase for excessively long times. If you scatter you're enemy in defeat and then scatter yourselves to chase them down, your gains equal ZERO. Undead cannibalize is an incombat regen that nets about 65% of their total health in 8 seconds. First thing that is going to happen is, everyone runs out to the FoS and zergs for a bit. This is important, even if you think its not, trust me it is. If you're raid leader and I don't mean leader of a 40 man guild run all on vent, I mean some average smuck trying to sort out the chaos and farm some honor points, your not a leader at all. Think of your self as a zergling herder! No one will listen, ppl will argue and whine, nothing will be precise or coordinated. The worst thing you can do is start whining over raid chat, No one listens, I know how to win, follow orders! Boo friggin hoo, if you do this your a bad leader, suck it! Go back to playing WC3. Your dealing with ppl now, not peons, treat them as such. In any game there's going to be 2 afk botting rep mooches, 18 ppl who just want to farm honor points, 10 ppl who are first timers and confused by the choas and 10 ppl who really want to win. Those ppl who want to win are the leaders and you need to recognize them quick. Get those ppl all on the same page and you'll win, they lead and the farmers and dummies will follow. Get everyone to call out battle info; like how many ppl are attacking Galv, 15 alliance heading for IBgy. No one person can see it all, control it all and manage it all. Herd the zerg! Its not really possible to coordinate ppl by group; at any given moment half a group will be dead and rezzing. Traveling to an objective is a problem, roving bands of honor farmers will see your ninja squad and give chase. You have to play it by ear, give broad calls in raid chat and hope ppl understand and attempt the objective. Like- fresh rezzes hit Balinda, everyone already at SH hit the gy. Zerg towards SH tower plz. Balinda is being guarded by 15 alliance, hit the GY instead. There is no one way to win AV, there is no one best strategy. All you can do is understand the situation and what objectives make it easier to win. The game is decided in the FoS and the opening zerg is crucial. SH bunker is the tip of the sword in the alliance defense, if this bunker goes down, alliance can now lose. Galv is the key stone to bringing down the horde defense. If your side loses their main defense you better take your oppenents in return. Capping GYs or other objectives are just distractions, losing SH or Galv are the death blows. Once Galv dies the alliance have an easy path to IB tower, IB gy, TP and so on back through to FW. Horder towers are easy to cap, get two mages inside that little room with the flag and there is no way horde can get it back. Also a single rogue can ninja them through the back wall with out ever having to engage the guards. Once SH bunker is down, Balinda and SHgy will soon follow, protecting one will only lead to the loss of the other. You will lose both eventually if horde offense is maintianed. Alliance bunkers are hard to cap, have more guards and can easily be taken back because there is no way for horde to guard the flag. Neither side has a terrain advantage contrary to popular belief. For every advantage one side enjoys the other side has one too. Balinda is a push-over but alliance bunkers are difficult to cap, Galv is a tough dirty pole arm using face rager but horde towers are easy to cap. SH is a triangle of defense and very tough to penetrate, Galv is a face rager. Alliance can get into FW keep and use the water fall to ninja the RHgy, Galv rages face. Horde have to assault double DB bunkers after running over a bridge with no cover, while alliance have a longer path but there is cover and more spread out NPCs with a GY just outside FW keep. IBgy and Galv are equally vulnerable targets, similiar to how alliance fair once SH bunker drops, Galv rage face. Galv is everything to the horde, he's their greatest advantage and the balance to every tactical advantage alliance have. Further more alliance say that IBgy is a horrible meat grinder of a choke point. There are two slightly different approachs to this GY; both covered by NPCs. While the two approachs are close together both force alliance to turn a blind corner each one has slightly different advantages. The approach farther from the tower allows alliance to group up with out being hit by the IB tower even though they still have to deal with NPCs guarding the area. Neither are ideally where you'd like to stage an assault from but it's just how it is. The primary misconeption alliance have about IB gy is that its the initial objective they should capture. Going through IB gy appeas to be the most direct route to FW keep. The quest reward book isn't called "Peeling the Onion" for nothing. Reality check; taking and holding IBgy in your initial assault is no more possible than horde taking SHgy first. Sure it may happen, they may even hold it for a time, but its very difficult to do and will probably just be returned to control of the original owner. Hitting IBgy first is running into the meat grinder without dismantling any horde defense beforehand so yes, you are supposed to fail doing this approach. Try pulling NPCs, killing lieutenants first and other ways of softening defenses first. Alliance assault towers differently than horde. Alliance can charge in small groups, kill all the guards at each lvl until they get to the top where they can camp the flag for 5 minutes. Horde have to run up little tiny ramps one at a time to defend, often times they lag out, simply fall off the ramp and have to start again. When you get 5 alliance at the top of these towers it's already lost. Stopping outside to kill the archers first is more difficult, the archers are tightly grouped and chances being they will focus fire on one person. Charging into melee 4 guards and 2 wolves affordes more subtely and protection from the outside. Horde assault bunkers by first killing the archers on the ledge, then pulling the bottom lvl NPCs outside and either disposing of them or kiting them to horde NPC guards. From there they run up to the mid lvl, deal with more guards. If they're lucky they can pull the mid lvl guards to the ground lvl and dispose of them. There are guards at the top and middle lvl that will often aggro together so there's no break in the fighting between lvls. Once all the NPCs are clear the flag can be swayed. Alliance pretty much have a free run on a wide stair case up to the top where they can get to the flag from two directions and defend it. If alliance of equal numbers come to defend they'll probably win back the tower. The second wave of horde who just freshly rezzed should be returning right about then and be able to keep the tower. Horde depend on two waves of assault to take bunkers usually. Stopping rezzers from returning is just as important as clearing the bunker. For alliance assaulting Galv, the best way to do it is quickly and quietly. Each time Galv kills someone he announces something the whole BG can hear. Each time you attack Galv and run back outside he announces something to the whole BG. So don't be a pud, run in, get pole armed to the face and run away like a chicken $!@% coward. Horde know you're there now and will be sending all fresh rezzes to check on him. Assemble your ppl to the west of the tower, run in quickly and don't leave once the battle has started. There will be one report when the battle begins and with any lucky it will be overlooked by the horde. If there's horde in there deal with them as the battle begins, if there's too many horde to put down quickly just abort, try IB tower instead. SFgy is an enigma. For alliance SFgy means a shorter run at Galv but your rezzes are now split making SH an easier target for horde. SF means nothing to horde and should not be taken until after SHgy is taken at the very earliest. If horde take SF they are at a serious disadvantage. Horde rezzing in SF will have to run the trolls, run past Balinda's bunker, or run the long way around to rejoin the front lines. Having horde spawn at IBgy means fresh rezzes can easily defend Galv and the towers. Rezzing at SF to defend Galv is a run in the wrong direction and a longer one. For alliance SF can mean their way out of SP once they get locked in at the bridge. If alliance are pushed back to the Aid station, running out, capping SF and taking back the GYs from south to north is a viable strategy to turn the game around. Horde simply hold SF to keep alliance from doing that. The most conservative solution for alliance in early game when the FoS is still contested would be to not cap SF and ninja murder Galv with a quiet 10 man team while the horde zerg moves on SH tower. If your lucky the horde will cap SF for you and scatter themselves into nothing. Holloween weekend was double honor bonus in AV and I spent 3 days losing 24/7 to alliance doing this exact tactic. It works and its deadly to the horde. Those 3 days are where I learned most of my AV knowledge, by losing alot, repeatidly! I got to see exactly how the horde defense crumbled after Galv died and what the horde could recover from. I learned by losing, not by winning. We win about 50/50, more often when I'm there. Both sides play well and we have a lot of fun! The blizz web site has basic info on the various NPC events that can be triggered by doing NPC quests. When either faction starts venturing into enemy territory during the opening zerg, the committed players should find the lieutenants and kill them either via mob tactics or kite them back to your NPCs. Its a thankless job, do it if you want to win. The next time the zerg surges forward they'll get farther and father each time if the lieutenants are dead. While the honor farmers rush into the fray and die, pull the NPCs and kite them to your guards. Zerging is cover for the real heros working to prepare their assault and weaken the enemy's defenses. Mines get reavers and veterans, easy to obtain with 60 supplies from a mine. Wolf/Ram riders, take skins from Wolves and Rams as well as taming the creatures to ride in the first place. Good for sub 60s to do, they're like the other guys except more powerful. Both these troop types will follow a preprogrammed path until they get to the enemies base. If you're have trouble at one of the objectives inbetween they'll rush it and break the lines for you. Best way to deal with them is kiting. Wing Commanders are held hostage in the various towers and need to be protected as they walk back to your main base. Once there you turn in enemy loot to make them fly. They're are immensely powerful when mixed with your own PC assault. One note on these guys, the hostage in FW keep is right by the door, an alliance can simply run into his hut, die, run back and rez in the tent, heal up and escort him out. Horde better watch for this. Once they're set loose they can die and if they die on their way back, they're dead for good. |
|
| Arondar | #5189 Wednesday January 4, 2006 at 16:15 | |
|
< hi > |
Ivus VS Ice lord- we actaully got a showdown going in the FoS once, I didn't get to see exactly how the battle ended but both they were going toe to toe and died at the same time. Ivus is a big druid basically, he'll come out and trample everyone; its pretty straight forward. He'll even climb the horde towers, its crazy to see! Ice lord starts out as a little elemental using generic earth ele graphics; he's pretty dull looking. Ice lord gains strength from killing! Is that cool or what? Chain NPCs onto him and he'll grow. If there's none around SH anymore he'll move (eventually) to the mill area just past IW tower. Someone needs to follow him and get him more NPCs to eat. They way to deal with them is to kite them into your main bases and let the NPCs mob them to death. A word on kiting and NPC chaining. Its the way to take objectives and counter line busting NPC assaults. You need a few ppl who are good at this and willing to work for little glory. If your horde your entire assault rests on your ability to kite NPCs to their doom. When assaulting DB bunkers you absolutely need a hunter willing to do this, once he gets them, the NPCs need to be tagged and chained to the horde SPgy guards. Provide healing support along the way because if who ever has the NPCs tagged dies, the NPCs will go into evade, run back to their spawn points and reset to full health. Because hunters love to FD they are only good for the initial pull. Warlocks are the best NPC chainers, they have lots of HP, DoTs to keep the NPCs tagged and AoE fear which scatters them but keeps the warlock on the hate list once the fear breaks. Mostly importanly they don't FD and drop aggro like sissies and can stay alive longest without healing support. I've nvr seen Alliance kiting guards out of Horde towers, just not needed as there's so few guards anyway, and once they get inside the tower, the closed space protects them from defending horde and other NPCs. I've don't actaully know how many guards are in each tower honestly, there just feels like alot more in the alliance bunkers. If they are equal in numbers, horde tower guards are distributed equally on all 3 lvls while alliance bunkers have more guards on the ground floor and less on the top floor. How to kite and NPC chaining 101: I'd have nvr thought this needed a how to set of instructions but after playing AV last night and seeing Ivus stroll up to IBgy with zero attempts and endless yelling over gen chat KITE IVUS TO DRAK! Seems that ppl know of the word kite and assosiate it with a solution to Ivus, but the actual practice is a mystery. You know how when you attack an NPC mob they want to hit you back and stuff? NPC mobs in AV work the same way. The kicker is your NPCs don't like their NPCs and will attack once you reach their aggro range. The trick is staying alive long enough to lead their mobs to your mobs and passing the aggro along. If you die the mobs will go into evade and reset. Its best to have multiple ppl on the aggro list, that way if #1 dies, #2 can keep going like a relay race; refreshing your attacks is also nessicary for long pulls. So to do this you hit the NPC and then run to your NPCs for protection. Got it? ok. At this point... Ppl should not be arguing over which GY to take, where to zerg or anything like that because anyone speaking up should understand that battle is fluid and ever changing, staying focused on one objective will only tell your enemy what to reinforce. Raid chat will be fairly silent, you will be advancing over the FoS and racking up the kills while not dying too much; ideally. In reality some dumb$!@% will be calling out over general chat, liek omgz, hlep me neeja SF! No one's listening to orders! My faction suxxorz! The ppl who want to win will ignore them, the HK farmers will follow where your leaders go because that's where the action is and the dummies will follow the farmers cause they're the biggest crowd. Report the afk botters. Advanced tactics for the zerg- promise punch and pie. Remind the farmers why they should do certian things, like bringing down that tower is worth 150 rep. I've offered a reward of 5g to who ever could kite the druid NPCs that summon Ivus over to horde guards and kill them. This works if your well known in AV and ppl look to you for leadership already. Spawn control- remember GYs can sway to either faction, towers don't come back. I've sacrificed FWgy after losing Galv just to get SHtower down and then turned the whole map around and won the game. GYs mean nothing in the long term and are often a means of dividing your enemy. GYs are your supply line. You can't assault if your supply line is cut. This is why holding your Towers around the FoS are important, without them your supply line is lengthened and thus harder to protect. I've entered games mid battle, seen the alliance inside FW keep taking down the FW towers. Rallied some horde to take IB, SH and SF in that order. Then we were able to take FWgy back and push the alliance all the way back to SP in about 10 minutes. A massive push on SPgy and we were on the bridge. Conversely I've seen horde on the bridge pulling NPCs from the north SP tower and lose the 3 GYs around the FoS and ended back up at the starting cave. Horde will not take take SF unless they're dumb or they have SH too. When you take one GY you are displacing your enemy to another location. Example, when alliance have IB and FW, simply taking FWgy back will put the alliance who die at IB, which is just up the road. They're going to rez and ride back down and assalt again. For horde to advance they're going to have to push alliance back to IBgy, take the GY and the keep pushing; not easy. Taking SH -> IB -> FWgy will cause the alliance at FW to spawn at SF. This is a very good situation if horde reinforce SH fast enough. These are examples for either side to understand. They are used to displace your enemy and dividing them making offense more about tactics than brute force. After horde take SHgy what else they control too should decide what they focus on next. if they have SHgy and nothing else, back track and get SH tower down. Horde won't be holding the GY for long, use the time to take out the tower. if SH bunker and Balinda are down, turning towards IW tower is the obvious choice. However if you're facing heavy resistance from fresh spawns at SFgy, you'll likely have to sway the GY to get the tower. If you can get IW tower leave SF untill you get to SPgy; then only take SF if your getting heavy attempts on Galv, IBgy or what ever horde has left. likely horde will have SH gy and bunker; this is the most complicated situation. Holding the GY for very long will be nearly impossible. Belinda's guards will be respawning, alliance will be rezzing at SF or SP and IW tower is in your face. Solution 1- take SF, this will put the alliance spawns at SPgy and a long run back. You will almost certianly kill belinda now and get IW tower but then face a long grinding march up the road to SP which can take hours. Solution 2- take IW tower, this will make it easier to hold the GY and once the GY is secure you have other options. Solution 3- Kill belinda, less difficult that 2, but still helps secure the GY Solution 4- take SPgy, this may cause panic and reinforcements to break off from the SH area. Following this with a SF cap would be completely devestating to alliance. Horde pretty much have the area to them selves and could abuse belinda at their leasure, very difficult to do obviously. Alliance should sacrifice the shorter rush distance to Galv and not take SF. Their options for taking the FoS are; 1) kill Galv, everything else will follow easily as long as you hold SH tower. Rush Galv with groups 1-6 and leave 7-8 behind to guard SHgy and bunker. A game with less that 40 ppl is going to make this substantialy harder. 2) take IB Tower, difficult to do but makes IBgy and Galv easy targets. Sneak around the back of Galvs bunker and get 5ppl inside while the rest stay close at ground lvl and keep horde out. 3) take IBgy, easy to sway the GY difficult to hold it. When you sway the IBgy alliance should then try and get IB tower down, horde will be scattered everywhere and towers are a quick and easy cap. If you don't get IBtower down you will lose the GY eventually, its only a matter of time, use your opportunity wisely and don't just sit there with thumb in arse waiting to omgwtfpwn horde by doing nothing. Attacking Galv at this time would be very possible also if you have enough ppl. Galv is a tough SoB and it takes 8-10 to bring him down quickly and efficiently. Getting the tower down should be easier and it makes future attempts on Galv much easier. 4) An alternative tactic would would be to cap TP (with our without IBgy first) and simply ignore everything at IB. Following up with a cap on FWgy and a quick assault into lower FW keep is a must. Once lower FW keep is clear the towers can be bypassed in the usual way and the refuge hut taken. I've seen this work first hand and once the alliance cap the hut gy, they can assault the towers and the boss at their leasure. Its nearly impossible to remove alliance from the refuge hut gy. Alliance has 3, horde has 4 objectives that can be assaulted to distract and take other objectives. IW bunker provides a backup leg in the triangle of defense once SH tower goes down. Galv is off on the side by himself, it falls mainly to the PCs to protect him and once he dies the horde defense is broken. This is balanced by Galv being a face rager! Horde must attack any objective over the FoS in pairs, Belinda and SH Balinda, SHgy and Balinda, SF and IW tower, SF and Balinda. A single focused attack on any objective will fail. Alliance can rush Galv and if horde defense is too relaxed; horde lose. Alliance can distract horde and control their spawns by swaying IBgy. |
|
| Arondar | #5190 Wednesday January 4, 2006 at 16:15 | |
|
< hi > |
The FoS has been decided... Alliance have killed Galv and held SH tower, the rest of the IB area will fall easily now. The next step is FW keep; this is a long and ugly assault. FW and IB gys will have to be guarded at all times. If you lose one you'll lose the other which is further complicated by horde spawning in the middle of it. Don't cry, you have paladins. Assaulting FW keep is a staged affair. First you pull NPCs out of the ground area to the GY area and dispose of them. When it's clear or semi clear, rush your force up to the next bunker, kill the NPCs. Remember the don't chase PCs rule? It really applies here as the horde are going to bait you up into the cave straight ahead, into the bunker before your rdy or to the door on the right of the bunker where a bunch of NPCs wait for your sweet elf honies to fall into their laps. Chasers make you lose! Once alliance get the mid lvl bunker under control they can walk up the ledge around the wall and under the east tower to sneak up the water fall and make ninja runs on the Refuge Hut gy as well as cause all sorts of havoc on the horde defenders closed up in this little tiny area behind the towers. Thats right I said bypass the horde defense towers and ninja the gy right from under their noses. It happens easily. Suck it horde! Once alliance take the Refuge Hut gy it's going to make holding FW and IB gys very hard. Alliance can't waste any time assaulting the final boss. At least 10 ppl should stay outside and guard FWgy while FW keep is being cleared and assaulted. Break off more ppl as needed to defend FW and IB. It doesn't take many ppl to clear FW keep vs just NPCs. Horde are your real problems. If you think assaulting FW keep is hard, the horde go through mini versions of this with every bunker; lots of NPCs, archers everywhere, fast respawn times, enemy PCs mixing in with the NPCs. I'm not gonna say EZmode --> Galv is the balance. or... SH is now a horde only zone. Alliance will get pushed back to SPgy and eventually lose it. They can stall the horde at this point indeffinantly but until the Alliance can kill Galv they will not win. Horde options to win AV before morning are get NPCs to break their lines. Ice lord is a good choice but he'll only take you as far as SPgy before being kited away. v_v Reavers and wolf riders may get you SPgy but not always; they can however carry you into Dun Balder bunkers . If you have air support that will help most over the long run, you'll still have to do a fair amount of work yourselves. Getting SPgy can be a gruelling affair, there's a little path going north just before you turn west to face the bridge. Rangers can go up there and take shots at the fresh rezzers to wear them down before they hit the lines again. Aside from letting horde have the SPgy (which they often do), NPCs are they only way horde can take the gy. Now horde have to cross the bridge; alliance if the horde are storming your bridge run south over the cliff and through the ram area and hit the FoS gys, taking those will cut their lines and push them out of SP. Ideally a hunter, warr, priest, mage and warlock will get together and clear kite the north tower. The hunter does the initial pull, the mage and warlock tag all the mobs and lead them to the SPgy and the warr/priest dispose of them. Horde will hardly advance past this stage if a hunter doesn't step up and do the pulling, even though *gasp* they might get hit in *double gasp* melee. Warlocks are the best NPC chaining class, find one willing to work the tower guards and die for no glory. If no one steps up horde will literaly just zerg the bridge for hours. Once the NPCs are out, the arches probably respawned and will need to be killed again. The north bunker is usually first. Horde like to run around to the north side of the bunker jump up a crack between the ground and the bunker's outer wall. Its possible to jump from a ledge into the bunker, not many are going to be able to do this though; its a tricky. Most will walk around the bunker on the north side using it as cover and enter the bunker by the front door where they can start capping the flag. This is mostly a brute force manuver, horde will have as much trouble as ever protecting the flag for 5 minutes but they do have one advantage from rangers still on the ledge outside can hit the near side of the bunker's top floor. Repeat the NPC pulling tactics and bunker rush for the south tower.. Usually not as difficult because alliance stop trying at this point. Once SPgy is owned by horde, alliance will start rezzing in the starting cave, this allows them to put heavy pressure on the defenders of SPgy. It will need to be guarded by tough and dedicated pvpers. Horde can't spare many ppl to defend and assault at the same time, there's just too much inside SP keep. Once the SP towers are down its a straight forward zerg on the first aid station and down goes the dwarf boss. How to Recover Recovering from losing the FoS is possible because your enemy will be focusing their numbers further down the map. Your faction should collectively understand the objectives and spawn control by now. Which essentially boils down to taking all towers, the GYs in reverse order and then finally shutting your enemy out of the GY nearest your base. The further they get the easier it will be, the hard part is splitting your force 2 or even 3 ways, one to hold the home base, one to roam, and one to take objectives quickly. If your team loses its main defense its going to make advancing very difficult. Be prepared to lose everything and go for the recovery. If your lucky you can trade objectives simultaneously at best and maintain equal footing in the FoS area. At worst hold them off and hope they get sloppy. After the recovery Everything around the FoS is gone, its been a long battle and your basically back to square one. You're going to need PC support more than ever now. That means ppl staying behind to guard GYs from ninja steals, rogues gathering supplies from the mines. The game will come down to who is more dedicated to winning, doing unglorious duties as well as playing smart, not getting frustrated and suiciding charging their enemy. |
|
| Arondar | #5191 Wednesday January 4, 2006 at 16:15 | |
|
< hi > |
Micro Tactics The basic GY ninja steal, one person rides by and catches aggro from the npc guards, a second person follows closely in and sways the flag. How to stop? Snare, stun, mez the rider letting the guards catch up and daze the enemy off his mount where he will be harshly dealt with. PvP 1v1 with the second ninja. You might not win, there might be a third rogue; better to avoid and stall them untill the NPC guards get back. Learn what spells and abilities break caps and which don't. example; warlock corruption won't stop the flag opening channel but curse of agony will. Mage blizzard won't break the channel, but AE will. The periodic dmg buffs bestowed by Balinda and Galv stack with the AV battle standard buff and together they add a lot of DPS. AoE push, get mages and warlocks to cast their targeted AoE spells at a distance, they're gonna need melee support because they'll usually get rushed by all the melee classes. Rogues need to get out there and stun lock those attackers so the AoE can stay up. Healing is not as important as getting attackers off your AoEers, Warlocks can switch health for mana, and generally will last longer doing the AoE push but the mage will do more dmg. Lots of AoE non stop as long as possible. Alliance have been very successfull in chaining the SF trolls onto horde NPCs around IB bunker and Galv even. Korrack will not attack Galv or the Ice Lord btw. If the trolls are getting chained onto your NPCs stop the AoE attacks and do not hit their totems. The NPCs in the horde starting tunnel will not attack Ivus. Ninja mine captures- if your not a stealther, death run to the boss room and die. Ghost run back and rez on the wall, you can 3 man the 3 bosses easily if you have a mage, rogue, priest or even succubus with you for CC. 5 stealthers can do this with out dying obviously. A warlock can solo cap a mine! Death run to the bosses. A lucky seduce pull on the far mob will cause only the middle boss to aggro leaving the near mob doing nothing. Then its a simple matter of warlock vs elite lvl 60 npc, engineering would make this even easier, use pots, buffs, what ever you got; its do-able. Would probably work for a mage too using a lucky sheep pull but I'm not a mage and nvr seen it done by one. Take a friend if there's any trouble. The awesomeness of warlock kiting. Summon VW, send VW way off to hit some NPC, give him a few seconds to gather aggro, tell VW to return to you. DS the VW, Shield sac, when his health gets low, dismiss or just let him die and those mobs he gathered will then turn their attentions on you. Start running, the warlock has nice head start; have Nifty Stop watch or Swiftness pot rdy. Allow the NPCs to catch up once and DoT them while running to keep their attention then speed away. Only a hunter can do this as well but they only have one DoT to keep aggro, they can't dismiss or get their pet back as easily and warlocks are just better at staying alive. I can grab Ivus out of the FoS and make it to FWgy before something like 4 mount paladins chase me down and chain stun me. A DC before they dismount is the best way to keep your lead a few seconds longer. Net gun, sticky glue, CoEx would work well too. Or better yet, have Kite suppport so when they kill you Ivus keeps going. When fighting any of the bosses, don't run out of the bunker, they will evade and reset. your team will be very pissed, if you get aggro die like man! AV food can be used outside of AV, the potions and bandages can not however. The raid leader should promote everyone in the raid so that anyone can invite new arrivals if you're busy. Addon's such as BGhelper will do this automatically for you. Kneez strats: attempt to make it past IB, healthstone, SS, and world enlarger from gnome eng if you have one make this easier. just run right through while mounted, hang a left at the T before Tower point. go past the mines and hang on the wall east of FWgy. get two more people to go with you. summon at least 15 to 20 people to you. and storm and hold FWgy until it is your and the alliance npc's spawn on it. talk the rest of the raid into dying at IB and they will now spawn at FWgy, now that you have just skipped IB make the push into the keep. problem with this is that you typically have no one behind you and you stand a change of also splitting up the horde and they will do the same. this one is good early in the game and is best when you have all of your original GY's still in your control. another good way to do this is with an Ivus summon. you can get half the raid to push IB and half the raid to take FW causing a whole lot of confusion for the horde. add ram riders to this equation and you should be fairly safe keeping your home GY's secure. but my favorite strat and kind of a last attempt at winning. is to summon the entire raid to the relief hut right under their noses. this is a little more difficult and requires some balls and a little bit of planned dying. there is a spot on the east wall of the FW keep where a mound of snow almost tops the wall. mounted, you can jump the wall and end up on the otherside without any interference from NPC's, once you jump over hug the wall and head farther south till you get to the edge of the mine. if you get into the corner of the mine and the wall, pull a few NPCs to you and let them kill you. after you are dead, dont rez at the spirit healer, run back to your body (this requires no players seeing your corpse and taking your insignia if they do you have to go to the spirit healer to rez) if by chance you make it without the insignia being taken then make it all the way up to the relief hut. inbetween the two towers and the releif hut there is a bridge over a ravine. hit the ravine and go on the other side of the wall. make it back to the mine while staying on the top level and you will be able to rez there. it is best to do this as a group and make sure they know what they are doing before you attempt this. once you are all rezzed outside the wall then start summoning the raid party to you and take the relief hut. you have just made the most ground you can possibly make in the game in one long stride. again, this is a cool way to make a lot of ground but really leaves you back open to ninjas on your own base. we effectively did this one time on my server, but did it too late if you ask me, it was a last ditch attempt. alliance and horde were both at each others bases attacking as fast as they could. you could hear in chat.. they have bunker 1 we need to hurry... ok we have both there towers and they still havent taken bunker two keep going... then finally we lost relief hut GY and were sent to the tunnel. i think everyone gave up at that instant. this strat can backfire drastically on you but it makes for an INTENSE AV game. Conclussion AV is fun and has many epic quality rewards as well as being an easy way to rank up in the pvp honor system. Most ppl get turned off to AV when they fall into the chaos of the zerg and get tunnel visioned on the force right in front of them. If you loved WC3, Starcraft and other games like that but want to be involved at all lvls of RTS, AV is the game for you! |
|
| Rowlland | #5192 Tuesday September 19, 2006 at 20:24 | |
|
Member |
man thats straight outta "The art of War" props, thats some good medicine for all the solo heroes that make up the alliance, but LO is filled with some awesome players so what ev. 
--
When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace. |
|
| Lanthar | #5193 Friday December 29, 2006 at 22:38 | |
|
Healadin |
A lot of good points, but I think you have mistaken the role of Paladins. A well geared healadin can spam flash of light near the back of the group and keep just about everyone alive with only one or two other paladins. Add cleanse into that, which removes almost all the Warlock DoTs and fear, and your offense works a lot better. IF someone notices us? That's when we bubble and just sit and wait for someone to get the attacker off us. And if by the end of the bubble they're still there, you hammer of justice them and run toward the rest of your troops, hoping to get their attention. Still not working? Stay within the rest of your offense group, right in the middle where they can *hopefully now* see your attacker, pop on concentration aura, and spam flash of light on yourself. If by then no one has come over to wtfpwn your attacker's face, you're gonna lose the AV anyway. @FW Phase 1 (warmasters): Two main tanks run in with a pally on each of them (Blessing of Light please X-P). One, two max warmasters are pulled (unless they pulling tanks are nubfaces) and each tanks one. Keep them healed, spot heal those who get charged, others DD them down. Rinse, repeat. @FW Phase 2 (Drek): Wolves will be taken down too quick for anyone to care. IMPORTANT: Do NOT loot the wolves. Keep 1 healadin on each of the tanks and set up the priests at 10, 2, and 6 o'clock (6 o'clock being the entrance). Holy priests spam healing burst AoE thingy (dunno name, but it causes no aggro) and pallies keep their targets up. Everyone else, DD Drek in the face. This is what I've seen work everytime I've been in an AV except once. Any questions? Contact me in game (Lanthar or Kraws). |
|
| Kaug | #240343 Tuesday January 23, 2007 at 10:46 | |
The wrong way to do situps |
My favorite line from the whole post... quote:
When fighting any of the bosses, don't run out of the bunker, they will evade and reset. your team will be very pissed, if you get aggro die like man! --
Childhood Photo :P  |
|
| Iristhyr | #240484 Tuesday January 23, 2007 at 16:59 | |
ex LOL Smite extrodinair |
quote: Originally posted by Lanthar: Holy priests spam healing burst AoE thingy (dunno name, but it causes no aggro) and pallies keep their targets up. Everyone else, DD Drek in the face. "Holy Nova" Good idea in principle, but holy nova has a short range: 10 yrds or 12 tallented and doesn't heal for that much. Your priest was pretty well geared if you were getting 500 heals with 750 crits (pre BC) but even then, you'd be hard pressed to get much more than 12-14 casts off. With your strat you have atleast 2 pallys there so just give them salv and wisdome and let them heal like they're supposed to. If the pull agro, the either had forsight and were wearing 5/8 transendence (50% on hit to autofade for 4 sec) or can fade normally. If they aren't wearing the gear and fade's on cooldown, use your BoP. If that's not enough mitigation then both your tank and dps suck, you should wipe, summon some more people to get it done and do it right. --
"Aggro," losely translated, it means "the priest dies."  |
|
| Dalamaris | #253151 Thursday April 19, 2007 at 17:34 | |
Lazur Chickenz! |
Some interesting points but with my experience it seems AV is all just a zerging match. Which of course the alliance is good at. Which is usually why AV is the only BG alliance can win. Ok here how a typical game now will go. Most of alliance will zerg SF. Most ally wont bother with defending SHgy (or the tower for that matter) because the horde would just rez at IBgy and really put a stopper on ally offense. Someone ninjas the SH tower back after horde have Shgy anyways. Also taking SF is crucial for ally offense. Sure you can kill galv without it but you need it for IBgy. If all don't have SF the horde bottle them up at SH even when the SHgy is defended the horde manage to take it. If horde ninja Sf and no one gets it back alliance is screwed. Its really hard to push past that bottle neck at SH. SPgy and DB towers are easy as hell to defend with a minimal amount of ppl. The bridge is an excelent choke as is the little pass to get to the SPgy flag. For horde. Defending galv is crucial. If you can get enough ppl to defend galv long enough to ninja SF (usally 8-10 will do just fine) the ally offense is basically done for if you have SHgy when you ninja SF. Also there is the occasional stupid ally group and they get stuck on galv with only like 5 ppl defending with 30 ppl rushing. Anyways the horde have a great choke point where the path in FW keep opens up to the towers. hunters place traps here (ally for assualting, to keep horde out, and horde to keep ally out). Also this should be the focus of your AOE'ers. Excelent choke point but the only 1 in the horde base where the alliance has 2 (if you include the pass just before the SPgy flag). Think they took out that back entrance to the horde base (the waterfall thing) I've tried it once and you can' get up now. This is just my 5 cents. |
|
| Chan | #253219 Friday April 20, 2007 at 10:11 | |
|
UNOS |
AV strats lol, heres a strat KILL HORDE (they arent real people anyway) --
ARENA POINTS PLS NOMNOMNOMNOM |
|