WoW Battleground Basics Guide - Alterac Valley

Love it or hate it, Alterac Valley is difficult, chaotic, confusing, and most of all, it's serious business.  The two previous PvP battlegrounds are mere skirmishes.  Alterac Valley is war.  To win AV, you reduce the enemy's reinforcements from 600 to 0, and the team loses one reinforcement every time a player releases their spirit after death.  So, if any battleground needs a survival guide, it's Alterac Valley.

With the previous battleground, Arathi Basin, you're introduced to winning conditions that remind you that "Warcraft" is part of "World of Warcraft."  With Alterac Valley, you'll be relying on all your real time strategy skills every second, even if the only skill you have is knowing how to get a huge number of attackers all hitting the same target.

By Nathan Hawks

To Zerg or Not to Zerg

One thing that sets AV apart is that it has many, many ways to win.  Although most players are single-minded about reaching the enemy camp and killing their commander - which instantly reduces their reinforcements to 0 and results in a win - you'll know you're playing against a good team when this strategy falls flat on its face.  Inexperienced AV teams, and this includes players who know of no other strategy than "zerging," can find themselves attacking huge NPC mobs that never stop coming, with incredibly powerful armor, supported by airstrikes, mounted cavalry, gigantic nature spirits that stomp everything in their path, and so-on.

Now, with that having been said, let me defend the zerg strategy.  Zerging is a term that comes from Blizzard's other strategy franchise, Starcraft.  Of the three playable races in Starcraft, the Zerg can create soldiers very quickly and cheaply, and an early "zerg rush" can lay waste to the enemy's careful planning, no doubt about it.  In WoW battlegrounds, anytime a team sends almost all its players in a simultaneous offensive push, that's called zerging.  Zerging will win a lot of Alterac Valley battles - in fact, it will win more often at AV than the previous two battlegrounds.  A zerg match is a race against the clock, and to an extent, every Alterac Valley battle is a zerg fight.

If you want a quick match, simply rush out the gate the second it opens, climb on your mount, and try to keep up with the rest of your team.  Ignore all their suggestions and orders, and just fight where they're fighting.  That front-line zerg team will make one stop on its way to the enemy boss, and if the offensive team works together well enough, the match will be won in 15 or 20 minutes.

Changing it Up - Secondary Objectives

There are several secondary objectives.  A complete guide to Alterac Valley would be very long, because there are many different quests that result in advantages.  Here, I'll give just an overview.  Once you read this, you'll be able to understand other players who declare they're going after other objectives.  You'll understand what they're trying to do, and that will help you help them, if you feel like taking the road less traveled.

Defending Your Captain

As I said above, the zerg offense will make one stop on their way to the enemy commander.  That stop will be at the enemy captain's bunker, where a serious boss-fight ensues.  Your team will attack that captain because so long as they're alive, the enemy team gets many different advantages including more NPC defenders and patrollers, attack power bonuses, etc.

Once in a great while, a team will split their attackers, taking only enough people to win the boss-fight against the enemy captain, and sending the rest of the team to defend their own captain.  As mentioned, the captains present a major advantage, and it's not easy to kill them.  I've seen Alterac Valley battles where a team completely failed to kill the enemy captain thanks to good defense, and the match was over quickly because they kept sending in more troops to die against that mini-boss.

For you, dear newbie, you can tell what your team is doing by watching where they travel once they get out of the gate.  The offense/defense split, if there is one, will happen about one-third of the way across the map, as you're approaching the Field of Strife.  At this point, Horde offense will stay on the east side of the map, defense will cut toward the west side.  Alliance offense will travel the west side of the map, defense will turn toward the east side.  If you want to play defense, watch for people skirting away from the zergers, and go with them.

The longer you keep your captain alive, the more difficult the battle will be for your enemy.

Towers and Graveyards

There are officers at each tower.  Like the captain, they provide various bonuses to their team until they die.  Once a tower's NPC defenders fail, a tower can be captured; and if the tower isn't reclaimed, it will burn down, and you permanently lose that bonus.  Losing all your towers means the match is going to end soon.  To capture or reclaim a tower, you right-click the flag at the top of the tower, and then wait.  Once one of your towers burns, you can't reclaim it for your team.  Destroyed towers are colored grey on the map.

Graveyards can also be captured in Alterac Valley.  Rather than burning them, control over a graveyard gives players a place to re-spawn after death.  There are many strategies related to graveyards, but know this:  Controlling the maximum number of graveyards is not always a good thing.  After death, you re-spawn at the nearest graveyard controlled by your team.  As the match drags on, it's convenient for your team to re-spawn at the same place, either deep in the defense or deep in the offense.  This means that, for example, the offense does not want control over every single graveyard on the far side of the map.  Rather, they want to take, and keep, the graveyard closest to the enemy boss.  That way, when your offensive teammates die, they'll re-spawn behind enemy lines, meaning shorter travel time to help kill the enemy commander.

NPC Upgrades and NPC Offense

First thing to know:  These objectives are rarely pursued.  Once upon a time, Alterac Valley was much harder to win, no matter what; and so, these NPC-related goals were much more important.  The battle would literally go on for days, or even weeks.  Now that it's easier for a zerg rush to succeed, these NPC-related objectives are a matter of finesse.  They definitely provide advantages, but without a significant team effort, you won't be able to pull them off.

In other words, most people want AV to be over with in less than half an hour; and so, they zerg.  However, two of the five main NPC quests inside Alterac Valley are still somewhat-common.

The main five optional objectives are:

1. Upgrading your NPC army so that all your NPC defenders are tougher to kill;
2. Gathering supplies to gain an NPC infantry and, optionally, ordering them to attack the enemy base;
3. Taming animals to create an NPC mounted cavalry, and optionally sending them on an attack;
4. Creating an NPC air-strike unit that can literally bomb the enemy's lines, and sending them on an attack;
5. Summoning a gigantic nature spirit which will march toward the enemy base, effortlessly slaying almost every enemy in its path.

Upgrading your existing NPCs, and gaining the infantry, are the only two of these I've ever seen happen.  This is because it's easier for a group of players to do these things, and still be an active part of the defense, at the same time.

Armor Upgrades - Loot Enemy Players' Corpses

In Alterac Valley, in addition to taking an enemy player's insignia so that they must resurrect at a graveyard, you can also get loot.  Among this loot will often be scraps of armor, and usually in large stacks.  Every time you get 20 of these, you can take them to your blacksmith - he has a blue "?" above his head.  Once enough players have brought enough armor scraps to the blacksmith, he will upgrade the entire NPC army with better armor.

This can be done several times, and each time the blacksmith announces the upgrade, your friendly NPCs will get a lot tougher.  Just remember it does take a lot of armor scraps for each upgrade, so you need to work together as a defensive team - and whoever gets looting rights on an enemy player must loot the scraps and make it safely back to the blacksmith.

Infantry - Take and Hold the Mine, and Run Supplies

There are two mines in Alterac Valley, one near each base.  At game start, the mines are held by NPC mobs that are hostile to everybody.  A small team can make quick work of these mobs, but one or two players will have a bit of trouble.  One player attacking the mines alone, is basically wasting his or her time.

Once you kill the NPC boss, your team's NPC miners will show up, slaughter any remaining enemies, and begin mining.  At this point, you need a quest, which you get inside your base area.  Every player who has that quest, can go to the mine, grab a stack of 10 ores, and return them to the quest-giver.

Again, one person doing this alone, is wasting their time; it takes a lot of ore, and besides that, you don't stand a chance of safe travel between your base and your mine, by yourself.

Once you bring enough ore to your base, an NPC there will have a new quest available.  That quest is to take attack orders to the infantry commander, who will be somewhere in the Field of Strife.  Get the quest, then turn it in with your infantry commander, and the infantry will begin marching toward the enemy base.

When All Else Fails -  The Endgame

The longer the match goes on, and the lower each side's Reinforcement count dips toward zero, the fewer your options.  Once either team's reinforcements get below 100, it's time to either join the front line, or mess with the enemy's offense.  Keep in mind that every time you die, your team loses a reinforcement.  This can be prevented with resurrection spells, but you have to be out of combat to use them and they cast very slowly.  Once reinforcements are getting low, it's all about the NPC commanders; either killing theirs, or keeping yours alive.

Defenders will have almost as much trouble reaching their own commander, at this point, as the offense is having getting to the enemy commander.  The name of the defensive endgame is to delay the enemy.  Defense is usually outnumbered in a very big way.

Of course, killing players until their team has zero reinforcements, will also result in a win, regardless of whether any of the NPC officers or commanders have been killed on either side.  That means if your team is very, VERY behind, throwing your life away at your commander's doorstep can be a losing strategy.  In these cases, it's the offense that wins the match, not the defense.

So, in a nutshell, when the reinforcement counts for either team are dipping toward zero, especially if it's your team that's about to lose, go to the nearest commander - yours or the enemy's - and be ready for a long, difficult battle.  Stay alive at all costs.  And don't get separated from your teammates.

Good luck.