Trueshot Aura

I love to PVP: it's what I do when I'm bored with grinding, and it always brings the game back to life for me. For those of you who either don't PvP, don't usually run offense in Alterac Valley (AV), aren't to level 50 yet, or some combination of the above, please don't let the following deter you. This hideously long post is for you. I wrote this a while ago for a friend who was just getting into Alterac Valley in the 50s bracket. Alterac Valley is a fantastic source of honor, and while it's when you start running it, the PVP rewards are totally worth investing the time it takes to get the hang of AV. Now we all know that this will be out of date soon, but now is definitely the time to get into AV, while you can still get tons of honor and it's still a known quantity to all.

Background for those who've never done AV: The goal of Alterac Valley is to kill the other faction's general while defending your own. The Alliance is defending Vanndar Stormpike and trying like hell to kill Drek'Thar. This is a simple goal, yes? Not so fast there, Ally. Once you get in there, people will be yelling all sorts of stuff. Turn in your insignias, turn in your crystals, we need rams, protect the druids, etc., etc.. AV is complicated (unnecessarily, most times) by a myriad of side quests, which give your faction additional bonuses and NPCs to fight alongside you. When you start off, defense is where you belong. This will give you a chance to see how it works before you're thrown to the wolves. (Ha ha, pun--get it? Frostwolf? OK, OK, I know it was bad) Defense is primarily about holding off the Horde. You do not want them getting in and killing Vanndar Stormpike, (Vann or just Van in BG speak). This should always be the ultimate goal. OTOH, defense should be much more concerned with these side quests than the offense. The defense is responsible for taming rams (so you can get mounted NPCs to fight on your side), keeping the towers controlled (gives Vann more elite commanders to defend him), and turning in the items gotten from looting dead hordies to the appropriate questgivers. Really, though, running defense is mainly about holding off the Horde as long as possible. You will likely not be able to keep the Horde out of your main camp, but you can sure slow them down and make their life difficult. Defense usually gets an unholy number of kills, too. Mmm....honor...

The goal of the offense is just as simple: the destruction of the enemy general. The plan simpler, but still complicated in its own right (just sort of differently complicated). I'll explain in a second here. Yes, there are still side quests for the offense, but far fewer (taking/destroying towers, freeing the wing commanders, and returning the loot from the horde/wolves you kill to the respective questgivers at your own keep), but they're not so critical. The real complication is that the opposing team's General is hard! All the things that work for your defense work for the Horde's defense as well. It's really easy to screw up on the offense side, and the consequences are rather more severe than screwing up on the defense. The enemy general is not only a boss, he has some hardcore elites protecting him! Most of your force should always be on offense.

Offense is all fun and NPC kills until you get close to the other faction's keep. Once you're there, here come the problemscomplications. First off, you MUST take and hold Frostwolf Graveyard (FWGY in raid-speak). Once that caps, move forward to destroy the East and West Frostwolf towers. If you don't take out these towers, you're fighting additional elites when you're trying to kill Drek'Thar, so make sure they're on fire before you even think about Frostwolf Keep. Once you've assaulted the towers, you need to hold them until they're destroyed. Leaving them undefended (or underdefended) makes them that much easier for the Horde to reclaim, and you'll have to fight up to the top and wait for it to cap all over again.

Once the towers are destroyed and crackling merrily behind you, the new target is the Frostwolf Relief Hut (FWRH, but usually called just RH). Again, don't even think about going into the Frostwolf Keep until this is captured. I'll reiterate, because it's critical: no one goes into the keep for any reason. Once you start to pull the commanders out into the courtyard, there will be casualties. If someone pulls one or more elites before the Frostwolf Aid Station caps, the people who die have a loooong way to run back and the elites will (I say again) tear the offense apart. Once the RH is yours, HOLD ONTO IT. You really, really need that graveyard. You should keep an eye out for hordies who are trying to take back the RH. Usually these can be taken care of by people who've just rezzed, as the flag is between the GY and the Keep, but if the Horde manages to challenge (or worse take) the relief hut, your offense has to run a long way back to the keep, and this is really bad news.

Okay. So the towers are down, the RH and its GY are yours, and The Keep lies at your feet. Don't get too hasty. Seriously, stay the hell out of the keep, even now. The elites in there are serious baddies, and can two-shot you if you're not a tank. If some idiot aggros more than one at a time, they will tear your offense apart. The raid leader should be making things easier here by raid-marking the baddies (for your attackers/DPSers) and your main tanks (for your healers). If more than one commander runs out (and this will probably happen), don't panic. Keep killing the one with the raid mark, and then you'll only have one to worry about. In addition to the elite commanders, Drek has two elite wolves in there with him. Kill them, too, of course.

Once you've eliminated all the NPCs except Drek, form your offense up, and everyone run in together. Usually your raid leader or assistant will yell "ALL IN" when it's time for the final fight. Two caveats: If you've killed all the elites, the relief hut (and super-close graveyard) is yours, and you've moved on to fighting Drek, and then some idiot pulls aggro and leads Drek outside the hut, he completely resets to full everything. That is BAD. If you get aggro and you're not a tank, either ditch aggro or die in the hut. DON'T try to run out. Additionally, if your offense wipes (probably because you didn't all run in together or the Horde challenged the RH), he resets and you get to start over again. Otherwise, from here it's pretty simple (really!): kill the shit out of him. Don't get distracted by hordies in the keep. As long as they're not in the RH taking the flag, forget them. Nail Drek until he keels over and you win.

I know all of this sounds absolutely insane (it probably is), but once you're there, your raid leader and other members of the offense are very clear on the important stuff, so don't panic if you get in there and forget everything I wrote out here. If you remember to:

wait 'til the relief hut caps before pulling elites from the keep,

hold the relief hut,

stay out of the keep until the commanders and wolves are dead, and

all go in to fight Drek'Thar together, you'll win in no time.

The biggest problems the Alliance seems to have on my server (Farstriders)lately are:

People who run into the keep after some hordie defender even though everyone's yelling at them NOT TO GO IN, and they end up aggroing everything in there. Worse, they end up aggroing Drek after all his commanders have already been taken out, and thus resetting all those elites we just killed.

People who, once we're in the keep, get Drek on them and run out of the hut with Drek right behind them, thus resetting him. This happened three times in one battleground the other night (we won anyway because we seriously had the best defense I've ever seen).

ETA: Printable Map! Wish I'd had this when I started AV.