Alterac Valley tactical overview

Balance in AV is a contentious issue, though rarely is it treated seriously and in a civil manner. This article is intended as a means to compile and weigh the various arguments related to strategic issues withing the valley. Before commenting please consider the arguments already put forth. It's assumed readers have a passing understanding of AV, see Alterac Valley, Alterac Valley Mobs and Alterac Valley Buildings for more information.

Bases

Dun Baldar

• Alliance advantage: The bridge serves as an excellent defense and is covered by the Northern bunker. Flags within each bunker are covered by archers. Npcs are easily aggroed within the base.
• Horde advantage: Horde attackers can avoid npcs and are less visible moving around the north of the north bunker. Once horde assaults a bunker, it serves as an excellent fire base for the horde, a fact that is, bizarrely, not so for the alliance. Flags in bunkers can be capped without being hit by archers, albeit not easily.

Frostwolf keep

• Horde advantage: When actively defended, horde can utilise their village npcs early, and thus often in a defence of their bases, usually be luring foolish alliance into aggroing them. Serves as a useful fire base for horde defenders.
• Alliance advantage: Can bypass virtually all additional npcs on the way to RH. The center tower provides cover from Frostwolf archers. Flags in towers are not covered by npcs.

Graveyards

Aid station

• Alliance advantage: Proximity to npcs is an issue for the horde. Susceptible to bowfire from the Dun Baldur South bunker whilst attempting to cap.

Stormpike Graveyard

• Horde advantage: Horde has a sheltered advance underneath the Bridge, from the mine entrance, and from above, via the road that runs up to the alliance starting area. The high mountains are only accessible further south down the road; thus the snipers perch just south of the flag, as well as the majority of the walls that surround the graveyard, have no direct, safe or quick route on foot to engage in melee with the horde, giving horde ranged units a significant advantage.
• Alliance advantage: The main advance is narrow, which corrals the horde and makes them susceptible to AoE attacks. If it is taken the next spawn point (Starting cave usually) is a very short run, aiding in recapture.

Snowfall Graveyard

• Horde advantage: When this graveyard was, and if in the future it is again, contested by both sides at the beginning of games, Horde seem to begin closer to it, managing to finish capping it before Alliance arrives.

Iceblood Graveyard

• Horde advantage: Good Choke point for the Horde, with nearby npcs/tower and useful high ground to overwatch the entire area.
• Alliance advantage: Warriors can charge up from below, onto spawners. Susceptible to ninja even if it is an active graveyard, as most Horde respawing there will not automatically check the flag.

Frostwolf Graveyard

It is a flat, fairly open area with no natural advantage for either force. Both sides have seen this as biased against them, but ultimatey it is a level playing ground in a confrontation, barring the owner's understandably closer spawn point.

Notably the open area is beneficial for ride-by npc kiting, and its proximity to the nearby mine can give some npc support via kiting.

Relief Hut

• Alliance advantage: Not covered by archer fire, safe area to the south of the keep from npcs, not near any extra npcs.

NPCS

Vanndar Stormpike/Marshalls vs Drek'Thar/Warmasters

• Horde advantage: In Dun Baldar, Vann and the Marshals line the back wall. In Frostwolf Keep, Drek stands in the center, his Warmasters arrayed around him. This gives the Horde an advantage in both attack and defense: When defending Drek, they have a safe area behind the aggro of the npcs to retreat/rest, whilst alliance can find no such shelter. When attacking Vandarr its easier to pull the Marshals, as they have longer to close on their assailants.

Captains Balinda vs Galvangar

• Horde advantage: Balinda is a fairly weak caster npc, with non intuitive attack combos, and easily countered attacks, whereas Galvangar is a strong melee type character, who uses a periodical intimidating shout and has a cleave attack.
• Alliance advantage: Galvangar can be disarmed, greatly reducing his damage.

Towers/Bunkers

Commanders, who stand near their respective flags, are kiteable.

Alliance Advantage:Tower flags are not covered by archers.

Horde Advantage: Towers are slightly harder to climb.

Iceblood Tower

A group of ranged charatcers encamped on the tower can effectively control the roads leading to Iceblood Garrison and Iceblood Graveyard.

Misc. terrain

• High road: Road running south from the Alliance entrance cave to where it branches to join with the lower road, and where it continues into the Alliance lumber mill. Can be used by horde to attack SP from above, and for alliace to bypass horde forces whilst travelling south.

Theories on real/perceived imbalance

Race Games

Quite simply, Alterac valley was not designed as a PvE battle to be decided in under 20 minutes, and the removal of superfluous npcs (patch 1.11) does not address the placement of the remaining npcs, the terrain or how good the opposing defences are with a skeleton defence, or quite often, no player defenders at all. These were designed to compliment the other npcs, and a lively PvP battle.

Another factor to be considered the level of thought put into by players, that don't want to be in the battleground for over half an hour, and the level of organisation in an average PuG. Presumably, AV being a PvP arena after all, there is a counter available to either side for whatever is put in their way. Change however comes slowly in a disorganised mob, so better tactics are slow to filter through. For instance, from this author's view (Alliance), I can see no real reason why Horde players would not attack SP from above and behind, pretty much exclusively, from what is referred to as the high road. Its not intuitive however, but then it may change in time.

At this time Alliance does have an advantage; issues such as the placement of npcs in the two bases, which used to be balanced by other issues in a fuller game, and the terrain itself when used in race games, cater to the lowest common denominator of the two forces.

This is simply a reflection on the playerbase, and how they have chosen to play, rather than issues of balance inherent in the map, which is after all, objectively, being abused to gain as much honor as possible.

Culture

Groups of players that believe they can win, will usually win; players that believe they will probably lose anyway, will not try as hard, and thus generally lose. If your opponent has a force of 40 who have some level of trust and organisation, and you a force of 30 and 10 AFKers, bots, stealthers, fishermen and grinders, you are already at a disadvantage.

What begins as a being decided by a combination of skill, gear and organisation, becomes a self fulfilling prophecy after a time, as a loss will often result in another loss, a win in a win, as a pool of players become entrenched as either winners or loses in each battlegroup. Thus a supposed bias will emerge, while a neighboring battlegroup can have an alternate view on bias.

It should be noted in support of this, that the current prevailing attitude of patch 1.11 onwards is similar to a pre patch 1.10 (for some servers at any rate) situation that saw one side not caring whether they won or lost. It would seem that Blizzards actions can have a resounding impact on player contribution within this battleground.

Limited experience

As AV has moved from its tradional long encounters to a cynical exercise in milking the system, players are not exactly endeared to the map(not that the previous versions were universally popular, or free of players focused exclusively on the rewards), a common sentiment being to get out of there as soon as rep/marks/honor permits. Short games where essentially the same stategdy is played out ad nauseum, also leads to a narrow range of experience. How much can a player know of the tactics an enemy uses on attack, if they themselves never defend? How quickly can counters be discovered when players are encouraged not to search them out?

This leads to a playerbase that is largely inwards looking and ignorant when determining what their opponent faces; delivering an entrenched and narrow-minded view of AV.

Overall Problems Post 2.0

Essentially, Alterac Valley has become just another PvE raid instance where a PuG can walk in and easily win. Side quests and other things that potentially make the fight more interesting are overlooked because they are simply unnecessary. A group can leave 15 people on defense, send 25 in on offense and easily win the match. There is no need to upgrade the armor of the NPC units, send cavalry attacks, or summon the raid boss. Battles have gone from the multi-hour strategy matches they once were, to footraces to the opposing base. Its simply a matter of which group of 40 people can reach the opposing base first and kill the leader, which, in itself, is painfully easy. The game requires many changes if it is to return to its former glory.

Battleground:Alterac Valley