Warrior PVP Guide: Alterac Valley– Horde AV Guide

AV has always been my favorite Battleground, I learned so much from it that I was able to practice here and take what I’d learned into Arena’s as well as other BG’s. In times memorial Horde had a much closer starting point to the midfield so in TBC before it was changed Horde had an unfair advantage and thus the prevailing MO for an AV was for Horde to Zerg and Alliance to repell and then zerg...

Notice in the end both side still Zerg. Which takes from the BG but it is a necessity.
Keep in mind that in order for this strategy to work you have to have a solid 15 people buying into the method, otherwise EVERYONE does the typical and zergs...15 people is enough to change the battle though on either side.

Some VERY basic GROUND RULES.
1. If you cap it stay with it till it burns. In AV once you capture a spot it makes no sense to run off if it’s just going to be recapped.
2. Both sides have a GY they should NEVER cap...never, eva, eva, eva cap Snowfall GY if your HORDE and Frostwolf if your Ally. For Ally you can cap it once you have the relief hut. But horde NEVER EVER cap snowfall.
3. Don’t waste time turning stuff in. While the idea was novel and while summoning Lok is bad ass, if you spend time doing this you will fail.
4. Realize that AV is about controlling the field and the sooner you can do this the better

I’m going to give a horde view on this first simply because I know it best (ally Alterac Valley Guide to soon follow).

HORDE IN ALTERAC VALLEY
First things first...STOP ZERGING... seriously as of WOTLK trying to Zerg in Alterac Valley is AT BEST a 30/70 success ratio. We no longer have an advantageous starting point, BUT we have the ability to out maneuver because if we recognize this then we can accomplish a victory. Below is a general order of events on how things should work...its very brief with more analysis below.

Order of Events in Alterac Valley
1. AT LEAST 15 people need to head over to our base to defend the relief hut and towers (THIS IS THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT ASPECT OF THE GAME)
2. Everyone else Zerg (it’s a controlled Zerg)
3. 3 people Cap Stoneheart Bunker
4. Cap Stoneheart GY (2 people MUST stay behind to make sure this caps)
5. Cap Icewing Bunker
6. Cap Stormpike GY
7. Cap Stormpike Aid Station
8. Cap DB North and DB South
9. THIS IS THE SECOND MOST IMPORTANT THING. STAY IN DB NORTH AND DB SOUTH TILL THEY CAP.
10. THIS IS THE SECOND MOST IMPORTANT THING. STAY IN DB NORTH AND DB SOUTH TILL THEY CAP. (yes I said it 2x because some people just don’t get it)
11. Wait for towers to cap and Kill VAN

This is the simplest quickest way for horde to win AV. AV is a giant race in a sense. Ally run up one side, horde run up another whoever kills the other side’s leader first wins. If both teams were to head out on a foot race and not stop to cap anything Ally win by nature of the distance and time to travel from their starting point to the Horde side, keeping this in mind a simple foot race is not going to win anything for the Horde.

Alterac Valley Step 1: So how do you win? If you noticed in step 1, the most important step, 15 people went to defend the base. They do this to delay, even if it’s only for a few minutes the capping of the horde towers and basically buy enough time for the horde Zerging force to eliminate the competition and get to the ally towers first.

The longer the 15 hold out on defense the more probably it is that the Horde win in Alterac Valley.

Alterac Valley Step 4 is also very important. As noted on the map by blue squares you can see there are four bottle necks in the AV map. One right below the Iceblood GY, one right above the Stonehearth GY, one near the Ally bridge, and one right inside the horde base.

If ally control the Iceblood GY it’s easy to prevent any horde from moving past this point. That’s ok though if you run right at the GY, so long as the Zerging group has done their job of capturing Stonehearth Gy then when you die you will res at Stonehearth (Purple Oval).

Alterac Valley Steps 3 & 5-7 are pretty much just for bonus honor and you will seldom find an ally coming back to recap these points I believe they may decrease Van’s damage output but you can win AV without capping these items...you just don’t get the same honor.

Alterac Valley Steps 8-10 are very crucial and will determine if you win or lose. You can perform the rest of the steps flawlessly but screwing up step 8, 9&10 will make everything the 15 defenders did completely worthless. Once you assault the Southern and Northern bunkers STAY THERE TILL THEY CAP. You have to remember the 15 defends were there to give you the extra few seconds you needed to gain the edge and win. So if you assault a tower and leave it and the Ally recap it you just blew it. More often than not this is where groups fail. 1-2 guys cap the tower and then EVERYONE leaves and sits out front of Van’s base, meanwhile a rogue or druid has snuck in and is resetting the cap timers, meanwhile the ally have already assaulted your towers and NO ONE is there to recap them because of the bottle neck in the horde base.

So yes points 9 & 10 are the same because as you can see if you do not do this than the ally towers will cap first and they will beging killing Drek first and thus win.
Alterac Valley Step 11 I hope this is pretty self evident on what to do.

Winning as a Horde in AV is really not that difficult once you get passed the idea that you cannot COMPLETELY Zerg it. You’re pretty much guaranteed a victory if you stick to this method.

Even if the ally completely defend because of the nature of the map we still have an advantage even if all 40 of them decide to defend...as we’ll simply cap more towers on the way to them.

Also please pay special attention to the LARGE YELLOW X. This is the Snowfall GY. You DO NOT WANT TO CAP THIS. If you do ALL the ally you kill will res in their original starting point, which allows them to play defense. By not capping this you force them to res at Snowfall and thus leave their base defenseless while you are free to destroy their base AND they are very...very far away from the offensive end so anyone who stayed behind to defend is now out of the game for around 45 seconds or so.

How you fit in as a warrior in Alterac Valley

As most of the fight is hopefully a zerg you need to push hard and hit hard. IF things turn into a fight the same rule of thumb needs to be taken into account on attacking casters first.

Shoot for the back caster or healers, especially the casters, AV is known for it’s AoE festivities. 2 warlocks a mage and a hunter can really dish out massive amounts of AoE damage on a large number of people so the quicker you hit them and nuke them kill them. As people like to group up in AV your intimidating shout (fear bomb) is an awesome tool for disrupting heals and attacks from 5 people.

If you haven’t given it a try I’d suggest running AV as a prot warrior. Reason being is that you survive most of the damage and you can Shockwave large groups of casters giving your team the edge. I was once in an AV as a prot warrior where I literally have 2x the HK’s as ANYONE in the entire BG...and thus the most honor, AND I’d only died twice.

The Ally Alterac Valley Guide will follow soon in another post.