The New Alterac Valley Strategy

I played a lot of Alterac Valley this weekend, both on my Death Knight and Holy Priest, and almost every fight was very similar. It would seem, on my battlegroup, the new strategy to win is to rush like always to the top of the map and then wait for one or two bunkers to cap before going for the boss. Typically, in the past, you would wait and struggle for all four bunkers to cap before going for the boss.

It would appear to me that we’re all so well geared at this point that we can kind of forego the “traditional” method of winning in Alterac Valley. I don’t even know if people are bothering to wear PvP gear inside the Valley anymore. I know I’m certainly not on my Holy Priest because I love 16k+ Greater Heal crits and I just don’t get those in my crappy Hateful Gladiator gear.

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How Many Honorable Kills Do You Have?

Last night, at the start of another Wintergrasp struggle, I crossed the 25,000 Honorable Kills mark on my Hunter. This achievement was a long time in the making, of course, and I’m what some would consider an above average PvPer… at least in the sense of the time I devote to it and not particularly because of my skill level.

The Poll

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Struggling In Wintergrasp

I was intrigued back when the new queue system for Wintergrasp was announced because I thought it might give the Horde on my server at least a puncher’s chance against our better geared and better organized Alliance enemies. Unfortunately, the exact opposite has taken place and our control of the zone has become an even rarer occurrence than before the queue was implemented.

No One Shows Up

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Your Thoughts On The Isle Of Conquest

It’s been a few days since I wrote my initial impressions of Patch 3.2 and I wanted to discuss the new Battleground, the Isle of Conquest, some more. I personally think this is the best Battleground in the game now. It’s taking me a handful of games to get the hang of it but now that I understand the mechanics it is clearly my favorite Battleground of the five that are available. The Isle of Conquest feels like “Alterac Valley done right” to me.

The control over zones like the Hangar or Docks makes it feel like more of a slugfest than Alterac Valley’s tendency to be a boss rush. I’ve seen some Isle games that have taken forever as control over the various landmarks on the map went back-and-forth. I’ve also seen games where the Hangar was captured, everyone got on the airship and proceeded to parachute behind enemy lines and blow down their front door from the inside (see screenshot above). There’s some variety in the gameplay here that sets it apart, at least in my opinion, with the other Battlegrounds in the game.

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Profit From PvP

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Welcome to the 10th issue of the Alterac Volley Newsletter. We haven’t quite maintained the weekly schedule I intended when I started this whole thing so I apologize for that. I’ll try to do better moving forward.

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The Inevitable Wintergrasp Queue

The inevitable, but depressing, conclusion to the Wintergrasp lag problem has been announced: a queue system.

The actual queueing system itself seems reasonable and fair, at first glance, but I’m not too sure the player limit is going to have any lasting effect on my server. I don’t think I can ever remember a time when the Horde on Greymane-US had over 100 people on our side fighting in the zone. On the other hand, the Alliance regularly have an advantage in numbers over us but they still rarely seem to reach the 100 limit about to be imposed on the zone.

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My Fading Interest In Wintergrasp

My playing time in Wintergrasp has plummeted since the switch from daily quests to weekly quests. It was only within the last day or two that I was able to find the drive to sit down and play back on my more regular schedule than before the quest change.

You Win, Blizzard

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My Take On Wintergrasp Weeklies

By changing the current Wintergrasp dailies into weekly quests Blizzard is attempting to not only cut down lag in the zone but also promote interest in the existing Battlegrounds. I’m all for both of those motives but I think the way they’re handling this is kind of a sad attempt at making things better.

Cutting Down Lag

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