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.

I’m not sure there’s really a way to get around this. Alterac Valley, and to a degree Isle of Conquest as well, have enough PvE elements in them to promote this kind of rush-and-kill mentality. I think in the end Isle will avoid the same fate that AV is suffering because of the barricaded keep mechanic it has.

Related posts:

1. Fixing Alterac Valley
2. Your Thoughts On The Isle Of Conquest
3. I’ve Retired From The Hunter Pew Pew

The Poll

I was wondering how many Honorable Kills you guys have. I’ve seen someone on my server who recently went over the 100,000 mark but I’d have to imagine that’s quite a rarity. Let me know your personal best number of Honorable Kills on any one of your characters using the form below.

Related posts:

1. Season 5 Has Arrived
2. Sixty Thousand And My Retirement
3. Forty Thousand

No One Shows Up

For the last few weeks it seems like every time I get into a Wintergrasp battle we have five or six stacks of the Tenacity buff. The Horde’s participation in Wintergrasp has taken a nosedive on my server and I can only assume the reason is the queue system. Before, when people had to be rallied on the Trade channel to join, we seemed to have more players showing up and smaller Tenacity buffs. Now we’re constantly outnumbered.

Tenacity Imbalance

And, even with the huge Tenacity “advantage,” we’re still getting manhandled by Alliance opposition. Tenacity is a great buff when you’re in a one-on-one or maybe two-on-one fight but when you’re outnumbered two or three to one in the zone, and literally surround by dozens of crowd controlling enemies, all the Tenacity buff does it delay the inevitable death of your character by a few more seconds. I think Blizzard should strongly consider adjusting Tenacity so that it decreases/eliminates the effect that movement impairing spells has on the players with the buff.

The Poll

I’m salty and whiny about the Wintergrasp experience as of late but how do you feel? Answer the handy poll below so I can get an idea of just how out of touch I am with the rest of the player base.

Related posts:

1. The Inevitable Wintergrasp Queue
2. Pre-Game Wintergrasp Strategy
3. My Take On Wintergrasp Weeklies

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.

The Poll

So for me, the Isle of Conquest is a big success for Blizzard so far. But I’m curious about what you guys think about the Isle of Conquest. Do you think it’s fun or a total disaster? Or do you hate PvP in all of its forms and wish it would all just go away so you could raid?

Related posts:

1. Fixing Alterac Valley
2. The Numbers Don’t Lie
3. Season 5 Has Arrived

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.

This week I want to talk about turning your PvP habit into a gold making venture. A lot of players, full of gear and boredom from raiding, have turned to PvP as a way to keep the WoW spark alive in their lives. I have two characters who are both constantly flirting with the 75,000 Honor cap each week as they do Battleground and Wintergrasp quests. So I thought I’d tell everyone what I do with all of that Honor since if you don’t spend it on something it will eventually just go to waste.

There are two items, both of them gems, that you can buy with Honor Points and Stone Keeper’s Shards. They both are pretty hot sellers on my server currently and a great way to stay away from the Honor cap and find a use for stockpiled amounts of Shards.

Scarlet Ruby

I’m not sure how many players other than Jewelcrafters know this, but in the same room of NPC vendors that have all of the PvP gear for sale, is a Jewelcrafting vendor as well. And, for 10,000 Honor, they will sell you a Scarlet Ruby. On my server, I can turn a Ruby around in under 24 hours for anywhere between 50 and 75 gold each.

This is a great way to constantly stay below the Honor cap if you have nothing to spend the points on. My Priest has full Hateful Gladiator sets for Shadow and Holy so every point of Honor he earns goes right into Scarlet Rubies.

Kharmaa’s Grace

The quartermaster in Wintergrasp will sell you a single Kharmaa’s Grace for only 20 Stone Keeper’s Shards. This is, at the moment, the gem with the highest Resilience stat in the game so it’s a very good seller. Kharmaa’s Grace, like the Scarlet Ruby, also sells for between 50 and 75 gold on my server at the moment.

The easiest way to get Stone Keeper’s Shards is to finish the Wintergrasp quests each week. You can also get them by running Heroics when your side is in control of Wintergrasp but the Horde on Greymane-US is so miserable at Wintergrasp that this scenario is rare for me.

Weekly PvP Profit

Thanks to our old friend Wintergrasp there is ample opportunity each week to rack up large amounts of Honor and Shards. Between my two characters, with Wintergrasp weekly quests alone, I can generate 100 Shards and about 50,000 Honor. That’s a nice supply of gems each week for me to sell.

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Related posts:

1. Fixing Alterac Valley
2. My Take On Wintergrasp Weeklies
3. Fifty Thousand

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.

The added bonus, at least, is that this random queue justifies making the daily quests in Wintergrasp into weeklies because it would be difficult for many people on high population servers to find time to not only queue for Wintergrasp but actually make it inside to complete a daily quest anyway.

So the end result of this new system, as far as it concerns me, is that nothing will change. I hope it finally alleviates the issues people on other servers are experiencing though.

Related posts:

1. My Take On Wintergrasp Weeklies
2. My Fading Interest In Wintergrasp
3. Pre-Game Wintergrasp Strategy

You Win, Blizzard

So, I guess what I’m saying is that Blizzard’s desire to control the lag in Wintergrasp by driving down participation is working like a charm for them as far as I’m concerned. I now find an aspect of their game much, much less enjoyable than before and now take part in it less. Hopefully that means the people still having a good time in Wintergrasp can enjoy it with less leg and one less active participant.

The Good Old Days

Before the quest change I used to time my lunch breaks around the next Wintergrasp battle. This was a great excuse to take a break from work and still get something out of my time playing my character. Since the change, I am lucky if I get in a Wintergrasp battle more than once a week on each of my two level 80 characters. There’s just not much incentive anymore.

A Comeback

I really want them to change the quests back to dailies. I have no hard proof to back this up but on Greymane-US it feels like Wintergrasp participation is way down across the board. The battles no longer feel quite as epic or important as they once did and I feel like this is a direct result of the change. I hope that the numbers on other servers are similar to my own and that Blizzard reconsiders this “solution” to lag in Wintergrasp.

Related posts:

1. My Take On Wintergrasp Weeklies
2. Pre-Game Wintergrasp Strategy
3. Daily Quest Guide: Wintergrasp

Cutting Down Lag

Some players complain about the lag inside Wintergrasp constantly. I personally only have problems near the end of a battle when the interior courtyard is overflowing with players and even that isn’t a problem 100% of the time. So I think this incessant whining that Wintergrasp is too laggy to play is less a universal truth and more an issue with people having poor ISPs. The problem is that those people are the ones that cry the loudest.

Promoting Battlegrounds

There’s also been mention from Blizzard employees that they hope this change in quests will shift more focus back on the existing Battlegrounds. Since Wintergrasp is such an easy means of earning honor every day there isn’t much use for any of the Battlegrounds any more. If people don’t need to visit the zone each day for the quests they’ll naturally be earning less honor throughout the week and will have to seek it elsewhere via Battlegrounds. I actually think this part of their argument is reasonably valid and might work out in their favor.

My Unrequested Opinion

The hope with these changes is that fewer people will continue their regular daily schedule of entering Wintergrasp and that the player count will bottom out so that the lag in the zone lessens. Whether or not this will come true is yet to be known. My hunch is that the faction-wide buff, the access to the Vault of Archavon and the sheer fun factor of Wintergrasp is going to keep player participation (and therefore the lag) the same as ever.

Related posts:

1. Pre-Game Wintergrasp Strategy
2. Fixing Alterac Valley
3. Daily Quest Guide: Wintergrasp

The Affliction Tree

Most Warlocks end up using the Affliction Talent Tree first because it’s a great help during the lower levels of play. Anyone who loves the Corruption or Curse of Agony spells can enjoy a lot of help from this tree. It will allow them to cast faster, cause more damage (10% on Corruption & Agony), and even help with a little critical strike every now and again.

Other areas of importance will surround Drain Soul, Drain Life, Life Tap, and even your Fear or Howl of Terror casts. Even the Nightfall help is great for your Shadow Bolt. Having this will alleviate your Glyph of Corruption and allow you to utilize another tool you might find more helpful. If you reach the end of the tree you will see the Haunt spell that deals damage and increases other Affliction spells. Plus you’ll gain health back for the total amount of damage done.

The Demonology Tree

After listening to the few Warlocks that run around World of Warcraft, I think many of them are a little naive when it comes to the Demonology Tree. As you work your way towards the bottom of the tree you will want to have the Metamorphosis spell. This transforms your Warlock into a Demon that gains 600% of your total armor, and has spells that are virtually untouchable.

You will also find yourself able to summon a Felguard which is a great tanking minion and much better than the Voidwalker. In all the Demonology Tree helps both you and your pet, but takes away from the speed and possible damage of Affliction spells. However, you will find out that your death totals will decrease in a big way. We recommend those with more experience to build this tree up.

The Destruction Tree

If you love fire spells, then take a stab at the Destruction Tree. It can make your Immolate, Searing Pain and other spells decrease threat, gain more damage, and add additional abilities throughout the game. Those who enjoy Imps can gain a substantial amount of extra strength once you hit the hit 40 points on this talent tree. It’s called Empowered Imp and it increases his or her damage by 5% and it can also increase your crit hit ratings.

When you have maxed out this tree with various points, be sure to grab the last ability which will need 50 points in your tree. It’s the Chaos Bolt and you will need it against certain PvP players. See, it pierces through any absorbing shield and that in itself is worth having. Adding the 600-800 damage it usually hurls is essential for battlegrounds and arenas.

Mixing it Up

Since you’re going to be able to reach the end points of each tree with some talents left over, you need to figure out the best mix for you. For instance, those who max the Demonology tree will want to work on some Affliction areas as well. Getting your Shadow Bolt and Corruption times and totals to the best points will help during battle. There are many more scenarios, but you probably get the idea. Now it’s time to put them into action.

More info on Warlock talent builds.

Related posts:

1. Top 5 Glyphs For Warlocks
2. Warlock Pets
3. Warlock Macros

There seems to be a growing interest in Wintergrasp and its dailies lately. Now that a few of them have had their annoying kinks worked out I thought it was time to put together a nice and concise guide for all of the dailies in the zone.

There are a handful of dailies available in the zone each day. You can get them from your factions NPCs in the zone. If your side is in control, you can find the NPCs inside the Keep. If your side isn’t in control, you can find them at your faction’s spawning point (the western side for the Horde, and the eastern side for the Alliance).

I’ve broken the dailies down into two groups: Gathering Quests and Battle Quests. The gathering quests can easily be completed when there is no battle ongoing. The battle quests require the zone fight to be in progress to complete.

Gathering Quests

There is one randomly chosen gathering-style quest in Wintergrasp each day. Each one requires you to travel to a specific area in the zone, fight a certain type of revenant and return with a set number of an item they drop. Along the way you’ll pick up a nice share of Crystallized items that you can use later or sell on the Auction House.

You can only finish these dailies easily when the fight inside the zone isn’t happening. The elements and revenants you need to kill only spawn when there is no fight underway. Also, I typically avoid doing these dailies when my faction doesn’t have control of the zone but, depending on the particular quest for that day, you might be able to get away with completing it regardless of who is in control.

Bones and Arrows (Horde) / Bones and Arrows (Alliance)
On the western edge of the map, just south of the Horde spawn point, is a huge area running all along the side of Wintergrasp with Shadow Revenants that drop the Quivers of Dragonbone Arrows you need to complete this quest. Opposing players you kill in this area will drop the Quivers as well but your best bet is to get over here quickly, get your ten Quivers from the mobs and get out. This quest favors the Horde slightly because it is right next to their spawn point.

Fueling the Demolishers (Horde) / Fueling the Demolishers (Alliance)
To complete this daily you’ll need to head to the far southeastern corner of Wintergrasp to the area on your map that looks like a smoldering volcano. The Eternal Embers you need drop from the mobs in the area. If your faction doesn’t control Wintergrasp when you’re attempting to do this daily I suggest you either move fast or hold off to avoid confrontation with opposing players. This is a hotly contested area. This is my favorite of the gathering dailies because of the sheer amount of Crystallized Fire you can get killing the Flame Revenants and elementals in this area.

Jinxing the Walls (Horde) / Warding the Warriors (Alliance)
This is probably the easiest of the gathering dailies. The water elementals can be found in the large lake encompassing the middle of Wintergrap (hence the name, Lake Wintergrasp, I suppose). If you stick to the water area around your factions spawn point you can have the Armor pickup you need to complete this quest in no time.

Healing with Roses (Horde) / A Rare Herb (Alliance)
In the far southwestern corner of Wintergrasp, in a area of your map colored in green, is the location of the elementals you need to kill to gather the ten Herb Pouches you need. If you kill any players of the opposing faction in this area they drop the Pouches as well. I find this daily to be nearly impossible to complete when my faction doesn’t control Wintergrasp. The area you’re fighting in is so remote and tightly spaced that being outnumbered by other players is likely.

Battle Quests

The battle quests, with one exception, can only be completed while the fight for Wintergrasp is ongoing. This means that if you wish to complete these every day you’ll need to time your play around when the next battle in the zone is going to occur. Luckily, by simply checking the world map in-game you can now see a timer that counts down to the next battle on your server. I would say that you could complete all of these battle dailies during one fight as long as the battle lasts more than 15 minutes.

Slay them all! (Horde) / No Mercy for the Merciless (Alliance)
This quest used to required twenty kills of opposing players but that number has been dropped all the way down to ten with the release of the 3.1 patch. In addition, this quest can now be completed at any time because killing opposing faction NPCs now credits you with a kill. If you have this daily and a Wintergrasp battle is ongoing you should be able to complete this quest with absolutely no effort. Simply join a raid in the zone and you’ll have it finished in minutes. If you’re in Wintergrap without a battle happening you can finish this one by simply traveling up and down the roads in the zone and killing NPCs.

Defend the Siege (Horde) / Defend the Siege (Alliance)
When your side is on offense these dailies become available to you. There is another daily, that I’ll describe next, that is for when your side of on defense. You can only accept one of these per day and it’s dictated by who controls the zone when you visit the quest giver. To complete this particular daily, you have to either be in or near a vehicle as it takes down a structure of the keep. If you find yourself near a huddle of vehicles attacking and taking down a wall you can wrap this daily up in seconds.

Stop the Siege (Horde) / Stop the Siege (Alliance)
This is the counterpart to the Defend the Siege quests. On defense it’s relatively easy to track down opposing players in vehicles. If you do enough damage to one and it is destroyed you’ll get credit for the kill. Do that three times before the fight is over and you’ll have this daily all wrapped up. This one is easier, to me, than the previous one because it’s based on your side being on offense. In a defensive situation, you might find yourself spread out on the map and not always near the other faction’s vehicles.

Toppling the Towers (Horde) / Southern Sabotage (Alliance)
In the southern half of Wintergrasp are three towers controlled by the faction on offense. To complete this daily you must be around one of those towers as they are destroyed. This can be easily accomplished if your faction is organized enough to control the southern workshops. Then it is just a short drive to a tower to blow it up with your vehicles. Unfortunately, on my server, the Horde isn’t quite that put together yet so I usually get stuck with this in my quest log for days on end.

Victory in Wintergrasp (Horde) / Victory in Wintergrasp (Alliance)
All you have you have to do is win a battle for Wintergrap. It’s that simple. Well, it’s that simple depending on how good the rest of the players on your faction are. I like this daily the least of them all because it relies the most on other people.

The Rewards

The gathering and battle quests in Wintergrasp each give you just over 13 gold at level 80 and three Stone Keeper’s Shards. Even though there’s only one gathering quest a day you can still get some nice loot doing those as well. In addition, the amount of Honor a person can round up every day in Wintergrasp is crazy. If you add it all up I think it’s worth getting into a Wintergrasp battle at least once a day if you can find the time.

Related posts:

1. Daily Quest Guide: Blue Sky Logging Grounds
2. Daily Quest Guide: Venture Bay
3. Pre-Game Wintergrasp Strategy

But on early Friday morning, when the server population was very low someone started a PUG and I decided to join. After a long wait we finally had 40 people and we were ready to give it our best shot. Here is the order we went in and our technique in each of the Alliance cities:

#1 – Death to the King!
It was decided that we would start in Ironforge. Traditionally, this has been the hardest of the four achievements to get on Greymane-US since getting to King Magni Bronzebeard takes a lot of coordination and travel for the group. Also, he’s the most “bunkered” of the four in my opinion and the area surrounding his chamber is usually crawling with players.

Getting to Ironforge is an interesting process. Our technique was to have one Warlock build and two other players travel to Booty Bay and then take the teleportation thing to Gnomeregan. Once they were inside Gnomeregan they built one of those Warlock portals and summoned everyone else. We were outside of Ironforge in no time.

Our theory about an early morning raid having a good chance at success was spot on for this part of the achievement. We met very, very little resistance in Ironforge other than the expected attention we got from NPCs. We tore down Magni in relatively short order and as soon as he was down we mounted up and headed for the tram right around the corner.

#2 – Storming Stormwind
Once everyone was on the tram we took it straight to Stormwind City for our date with King Varian Wyrnn. We waited inside the tram station for our group to gather back up again and when we were ready it was simply a matter of rushing the portal and taking the quick run to the king’s chamber.

Again, we met with very little opposition aside from NPCs and we had him down in no time. As soon as he dropped a few mages popped portals to Orgrimmar and we left the Eastern Kingdoms halfway done with our run at For The Horde! And the last two kills would turn out to be even easier than the first two.

#3 – Immortal No More
Once we all hit Orgrimmar we ran to the flight master and took the flight to Zoram’gar Outpost on the western side of Ashenvale. A quick run north to the small Alliance town of Auberdine was next. When we all got there we waited on the dock for the boat to Darnassus.

Once we hit Darnassus it was just a matter of running through all of the guards at the dock, into the portal and then heading right to the room where Tyrande Whisperwind is. We took her down so fast, in fact, that some people got to the party late and didn’t get credit for the achievement. This ended up being the only mishap we had during the whole adventure.

We headed back to the dock and got on the boat going back to Auberdine.

#4 – Putting Out the Light
The last achievement had us on a trip to the ghost town known as the Exodar. Back in Auberdine, we grouped up again and took the boat to Azuremyst Isle. Once we got inside the Exodar no one was really sure where to go but we eventually found Prophet Velen and took him down to finish the achievement.

The Reward

Once you complete For the Horde! you immediately receive a piece of in-game mail with your bear mount. Afterwards, you could see about two dozen Horde players running around Dalaran on their new mounts. It was a pretty cool sight and I was glad I decided to get involved with the group.

Quick Tip

If you’re interested in trying to complete For The Horde! I can’t recommend enough the time of day we did it at. On my server, the population on the Alliance side was so low before noon that through four city raids I only racked up a total of 20 honorable kills (and I’m pretty sure four of those are the NPCs in each city we killed). We basically steamrolled the Alliance cities in about an hour, including travel time, with little opposition. It couldn’t have gone any better.

Related posts:

1. Video: Bleeding Bloodhoof
2. Achievement Guide: Critter Gitter
3. Pre-Game Wintergrasp Strategy

The Deeps

Over the course of the last few months I’ve started to turn into something of a Recount addict. I’m to the point now that I’m about topped off in gear I have access to so to keep running Recount at this point is more a self-serving practice than anything else. Do any of you have a strange Recount addiction as well?

As you can see from the self-centered image on this post, my DPS during the 25 and 10 man varieties of the Vault of Archavon has been pretty good when compared to other players in the Raid.

The Loots

I’ve never had much loot luck in VoA, as a matter of fact, but I still anxiously wait to run it again every week. In the last month I’m not even sure if I’ve seen any Hunter loot drop at all but I keep coming back for more. It’s a slow, but easy, way for me to farm Emblems of Valor as well as I inch closer and closer to getting my Valorous Cryptstalker Spaulders that I want so badly.

Related posts:

1. Visiting The Obsidian Sanctum
2. Why People Think Wrath Is Easy

I always play on the Horde side of things but I’m posting a video of an Alliance achievement today. I was lucky enough to hop on my bank alt, Daugherty, in Thunder Bluff just as a giant swarm of dazed and confused Alliance players arrived to take their run at the Bleeding Bloodhoof achievement.

So sit back and enjoy the four and a half minute movie of Alliance players running in the wrong direction, heading too far up the giant totem pole and finally succeeding in another successful city raid on Greymane against zero Horde resistance.

To be fair, it’s pretty easy to get to Cairne Bloodhoof if you know where to go. It’s about a 15 second run from the elevator. By the time the Horde players got together enough people to fight off the attack it would probably be too late anyway.

Related posts:

1. Pre-Game Wintergrasp Strategy
2. The Future Is Video
3. An Overachieving Weekend with the Lunar Festival

As a means of quickly leveling your character, these quests are a great way to rack up easy experience every day in a matter of minutes. On top of the 20,000 experience you get for each quest you’ll also receive just under 6 gold and 10 Venture Coins (more on those later).

It’s important to keep in mind that as soon as you accept one of these quests you become flagged for PvP. Now typically this isn’t an issue since this area, on my server at least, is generally devoid of any real life. But from time to time you’ll run into actual players so it’s important to remember to keep your guard up.

The Quests

Keep Them at Bay! (Alliance) / Keep Them at Bay (Horde)
This quest can easily be done while you’re completing the rest on the list. Venture Bay is crawling with NPCs of each faction so you can quite easily kill the requisite ten you need without any problem. You also get credit for any players you kill in this area while on the quest.

Smoke ‘Em Out (Alliance) / Smoke ‘Em Out (Horde)
There are Venture Company workers scattered throughout all of Venture Bay but the easiest way to wrap up this quest quickly is to find a building with them inside and rush in. Run around grabbing threat on all of them and try to corral them into one big group. When that’s done take the Smoke Bomb and throw it down at your feet. You might have to repeat this process two or three times to finish the quest so make sure you’re at full health each time to avoid dying.

Down With Captain Zorna! (Alliance) / Crush Captain Brightwater! (Horde)
There are three ships in the harbor at Venture Bay. The ship on the far left, when facing the lighthouse, contains the Alliance captain and the ship on the far right has the captain for the Horde. All you have to do is get on that ship and kill the opposing faction’s captain. These captains are elites, with 30,000 health, and there’s sometimes a patrolling mob or two in the area you’ll have to deal with as well. I’ve found that during this quest is when you are most likely to get jumped by any enemies in the area. It’s easy to lose track of your surroundings when trying to down the elite and that’s a prime opportunity for some wise-ass rogue to backstab you and make life miserable.

Riding the Red Rocket (Alliance) / Riding the Red Rocket (Horde)
This is, without a doubt, my least favorite of the Venture Bay quests. I did this one maybe two or three times before swearing it off for good. You can only complete this quest when your faction controls the lighthouse. To control the lighthouse, you must fight your way to it and capture a flag in a style similar to the PvP quest in Hellfire Peninsula where you had to capture the three flags in the zone for a faction-wide buff.

Once you’re in control, you have to work your way into the middle ship in the harbor and get fuel to take back to the small dock behind the lighthouse. When you have the fuel it’s got a movement and damage debuff that makes you walk like a snail all the way back to the lighthouse. Then, when you put the fuel in the rocket, you have to steer it into the opposing factions lumber boat. It’s all very brutal to do. Here’s a YouTube video I found to better explain:

The Rewards

Ah yes, the loot. There are 19 items you can buy with your Venture Coins and most of them, at least for my Hunter, were either stopgap upgrades that lasted a brief time or were totally useless. I think I have over 300 coins sitting uselessly in my Currency tab right now. The vendor for these coins is only available to you when your faction controls the lighthouse.

The real point of doing these dailies is the experience. With a level range of 73 or 74 anyone in a hurry to get to 80 should probably make at least three of these four quests a regular stop. They’re quick to finish and, if you’re into PvP, occasionally a good time when other players are in the area with you.

Related posts:

1. Daily Quest Guide: The Way to His Heart…
2. Daily Quest Guide: Knights of the Ebon Blade
3. Daily Quest Guide: The Sons of Hodir

With 15 or 20 minutes to go before any Wintergrasp battle, during peak population times, the Alliance will launch attacks on a faction leader. Typically they choose Thrall since he’s in a city with the most Horde players are at any given time. This causes the Horde population, if they fall for the trick, to split up their PvP players between those waiting in Dalaran for Wintergrasp to start and those teleporting to Orgrimmar to fight off the attack on Thrall.

Once the cunning ruse in underway, the devious stuff really starts. This is when the Alliance jumps on their level 80 Horde alts and go to the Horde’s Wintergrasp portal spawning location at Sunreaver’s Sanctuary in Dalaran. After they’ve joined one of the Raid groups and the counter gets closer and closer to zero they spawn city portals to Thunderbluff, Undercity or Orgrimmar. The hope being that people will errantly click on those portals instead of the ones to Wintergrasp and slow down the Horde attack.

Sneaky stuff. I will say that I haven’t seen either of these tactics used every time I’ve gotten in on the Wintergrasp battle but I’ve seen one, or both, used often enough to feel like it’s a legit and coordinated Alliance strategy on our server right now. Has anyone else seen something similar on their own server?

Related posts:

1. 3.0.8 Changes to Lake Wintergrasp
2. Strand Of The Ancients Strategy
3. Pre-Raiding Hunter Trinkets

There are a few tips and tricks that I’ve picked up from fellow players during my time in this battleground that I thought I’d pass along to you. I’ve broken them down into offensive and defensive strategies to make it easier to read.

Offense

• Before the match even starts you need to pick one of the first gates (either Blue or Green) and agree as a team to attack it together. It’s important that everyone is on the same page and rushes one gate together. This is the quickest way to break down a wall and reach the second tier of doors.
• Any player not in a vehicle is responsible for defending the vehicles from attack. This means taking out the cannons (if you’re ranged) and stopping the defense from blowing up the vehicles before they reach the gates.
• Also, if you don’t have a vehicle, try and pick up the Massive Seaforium Charge and use it at the gate you all agreed to rush. Every little bit helps.
• Grab the first graveyard as soon as you can after the first gate is down. This keeps the offense flowing and prevents the game from slowing down as people are forced to respawn all the way back at the beach.
• Keep coordinating which gate to attack as you climb your way to the top of the map. Once you’ve reach Yellow it’s an all out push to break it down and get to the Relic.

Defense

• Low DPS classes should man the gate cannons as fast as they can before the match starts.
• Always attack vehicles before players. It’s important to delay the destruction of the gates as much as possible.
• Every player not on a cannon before the match begins should be in position to take out the tanks and enemy players right after they get off the boat. This slows down the offense and helps create some confusion.
• When it becomes clear which gate the offense is attacking first it is time to push your defense to that side of the map. Have players on the next tier of cannons ready for the inevitable gate destruction and push onward.
• When either of the Red or Purple gates is broken down every one in the group not on the broken gates cannons has to rush to defend the Yellow gate. At this point you’re just fighting against the clock to either successfully defend the Relic or keep their capture time high enough to give you a chance to win the whole match.
• Even when the late gate standing is Yellow you should keep working the cannons from the Red/Purple gates on up until they are destroyed. These are a great way to keep attacking vehicles damaged and easy to finish off as they reach the final fighting area.

Related posts:

1. 3.0.8 Changes to Lake Wintergrasp

When Wrath came out, the daily quests Concerted Efforts (for the Alliance) and For Great Honor (for the Horde) were modified so that the Alterac Volley token requirements was swapped out with a Strand of the Ancients token. This simple act has totally destroyed participation in Alterac Volley on my battlegroup. Queue times right now are nearly 40 minutes long at any given time with never more than one or two games ongoing.

The Solution Seems Obvious…

They need to add the Alterac Valley token requirement back into those daily quests to promote activity in this battleground again. Bornakk made a blue post on the official forum stating that is their intention. Why they ever removed it to begin with is a mystery to me. You would have thought it would have been clear from the start what would happen to Alterac Valley.

… But It Isn’t.

A lot of the follow up posts seem to think it’s a bad idea. They argue that honor is undervalued and that the only smart things to play in PvP are Strand of the Ancients and Wintergrasp. I think the general sentiment is that even with a change to the daily quest requirement people will still keep pounding Strand and Wintergrasp for their honor and I bet they are 100% correct.

It was pretty trivial for me after I hit 80 to rack up enough honor for all of the high-level, honor only PvP items I wanted. All I did was devote some time to Wintergrasp and before I realized it I had more than enough honor to buy what I had my eyes on. Even if they modify the PvP daily quests you’ll still see people flooding into Strand and Wintergrasp because the amount of time you put in, and the honor you get out, is too great. The real solution to fixing the PvP honor economy is to modify Strand and Wintergrasp but if they did that there would be riots.

Related posts:

1. Welcome to Alterac Volley
2. Season 5 Has Arrived

Something I’ve never seen anywhere is a personal Battleground standings widget so I whipped one together for myself. If you’re reading this through an RSS reader, you’ll have to visit the site and check it out in the top-right corner of the site’s header.

The depressing part about this whole project was that it publicly displays just how bad my record in Battlegrounds has been since they started tracking our wins and losses. I’m five games under .500 since the 3.0 patch was introduced.

It’s pretty clear where myself and my Battlegroup, Shadowburn, struggle the most and the answer is Eye of the Storm. EotS is the most vile Battleground in the game as far as I’m concerned. It takes the fun mechanic of Arathi Basin and defiles it with the lame Capture the Flag aspect of Warsong Gulch. I hate it so much.

Once my Death Knight reaches 80 and becomes my full-time PvP character I’ll swap out the standings widget to display his wins and losses. For now, with nine level to go before he hits 80, I’ll stick with Nance’s terrible stats instead.

• Wintergrasp PvP vehicles have had their health increased.
• Wintergrasp Tower cannons have had their health increased.
• The Wintergrasp Fortress Exterior walls have had their health increased.
• The Fortress Keep door now has had its health decreased.
• The Orb is now instantly clickable.

I think there are more good changes than bad changes in that list. My only major pet peeve with Wintergrasp, a zone I’ve had nothing but a good time in since Wrath launched, was the weakness of the defense. I think the bump in health for the exterior walls and, more importantly, the tower cannons, is going to do a lot to balance out the sides on offense and defense. In my battlegroup, the defense always seems to be on the losing end of things.

My only problem with these changes is the switch to making the Orb instantly clickable behind a weaker door. That move seems to contradict their apparent wish to help the defense out. I’ve been in several games where they only reason the defense was able to squeak out a win was thanks to the timer on capturing the Orb. It’ll be interesting to see how these changes affect the control of Wintergrasp on my server when 3.0.8 goes live.

Related posts:

1. Licking Your Wounds Too Fast

Mandatory Arena Play

The major armor sets that are worth a damn all require arena ratings this time around. You can buy entire sets of Savage Gladiator gear for honor only but realize two things: the price is about 5x as high if you go the “honor only” route and, quite frankly, the gear sucks.

Anyone looking to be competitive in PvP is going to need to form an Arena team and earn their Hateful Gladiator and/or Deadly Gladiator sets with a combination of honor, Arena points and Arena Ratings.

Casual PvP

I’m a casual PvP player in the sense that I only participate in battlegrounds. The main reason for this is that I’ve never had an equally leveled friend to form an Arena team with. The other reason is that a hunter in the Arena is basically a useless force meant only to boost the Ratings of other teams using the “right” classes.

With Season 5, the final nail in my casual PvP coffin appears to have been driven. While some of the higher tiered gear can be bought with honor alone the major pieces are just out of reach for a player in my position. That’s unfortunate but it’s just a fact of life I have to deal with as someone who abhors the idea of Arenas.

It’s Not All Doom and Gloom Though

Of course, even as a BG only player there are still pieces of PvP gear I can buy. Yesterday, after the maintenance was over, I hopped on and picked up the Hateful Gladiator’s Sabatons of Triumph and the Hateful Gladiator’s Cloak of Victory as both seemed like quality upgrades over the crafted gear I was wearing in those slots. I was honor capped at 75,000 and I still ended up having to blow through most of my extra badges to get enough honor to buy both of those pieces.

Moving Forward

There are a few more pieces of honor only gear I might pick up if I don’t start seeing some better luck in Heroic drops but for now I have no motivation to continue playing BGs. That’s really a shame because it was one of my favorite activities when I was at the level 70 cap.

It looks like I’ll be sitting this season out for now. Maybe when season six rolls round they’ll either change this mandatory Arena policy or the current gear that requires Arena participation will be lowered to honor only. We’ll all have to wait and see.

Related posts:

1. Welcome to Alterac Volley