Alterac Valley - Again

A while ago I swore off battlegrounds because QQ Premades were screwing up the queues so bad you couldn't get an evenly matched BG. Most the Alterac Valley's I was in would start off with 10 Alliance against 40 Horde. Out of the 10 Alliance 6 would be AFK so you were basically starting off outnumbered 10 to 1. The reason for that is QQ Premades loading up the battleground queues then not accepting when the queue popped. I started doing dungeons after that and liked those. It has been about a year since I was in a battleground and I didn't think I was missing it at all.

Last night I went into Alterac Valley (40x40) on Brieanna just to see how the battlegrounds were now (I was bored). It wasn't too bad actually, I had a great time and did another one after that. In my first battleground in a year I came in 4th in damage and 5th in killing blows, I guess I didn't forget too much in the year I was away.

I am going to do a few more to get the honor I need to upgrade one of my rings, my last piece of 333 gear. Once I have that I probably won't bother with any more BG's, but it was nice to get in there again for a little while.

Wranngar - 75,000 Lifetime Kills

I passed the 75,000 lifetime kills mark on Wranngar tonight, that puts me over three quarters of the way to the achievement 100000 Honorable Kills and my title, "of the Alliance". I have been doing between 10 and 30 battlegrounds a day lately. That is giving me between 700 and 1,500 kills a day. I will have my title this year I'm sure. That is the last achievement you get for quantity of kills. After that I will work on getting all the rest of the PvP and battleground achievements done.

The Battle for Alterac Valley 11/24/09

I fought in 26 battles tonight in Alterac Valley on Wranngar. We had 16 wins and 10 losses. The Alliance was doing Ok in there tonight for the most part. Alterac Valley was also my daily battleground today.

We had one battle we won on reinforcements, we were just slaughtering the Horde. We drove them back from SHGY all the way to the Frostwolf Relief Hut then we took that away from them too, they were rezzing in their cave :). That was a great battle, I ended up getting 276 honorable kills out of that one. I got a lot of honor tonight too. We did a few Blitz's and a few almost Blitz's where we won fast but didn't do it in under 6 minutes. The Horde did a few Blitz's as well. Lately they seem to be trying to Blitz a lot. Over 3/4 of the battles I was in I would say they tried the Blitz. They were not successful on all of them, obviously, but we did have some pretty short battles we lost.

In one of the battles I was in we had an alleged Warrior 'Tank' tanking Drek. They said I was taunting Drek off of them. What I used was Demoralizing Roar which reduces his armor but no real threat. It gives the lightning bolt over his head when I do it and they thought I was taunting him off them. The problem was they were just a crap tank that couldn't hold him. He kept getting away from them and killing the healers. If Demoralizing Roar can pull a mob off you when you're tanking you should just stick to defending towers or DPS and leave the tanking to someone who can hold him. And if I was pulling him off he would have been on me, not the healers. Just some sorry excuse for a player trying to blame someone else for their incompetence.

The Battle for Wintergrasp 11/24/09

I fought in 3 Wintergrasp battles tonight on Wranngar, 2 wins and 1 loss.

In one of the wins we were defending and in the loss we were also defending. In the last battle I fought in the Horde were defending the keep and we won that one. The secret when the Horde are defending the keep seems to be to get their southern towers down as fast as possible. Once you have those 3 towers down it is pretty much wrapped up from what I can see. All that's left after that is clean up. Of course the Horde are trying to destroy the southern towers when we are defending the keep so we have to defend those as best we can as well.

The Battle for Alterac Valley 11/23/09

The battle for Alterac Valley wasn't going well at all tonight. I fought in 15 battles on Wranngar, 5 wins and 10 losses, Ouch!

The Alliance just couldn't seem to get it together tonight. We had the usual problems, AFK, not working together as a team, people taking SHGY early in the game and, the usual, not having enough people in a tower to hold it when the Horde came to back-cap it.

I have changed my opinion on SHGY. Sometimes it seems to work when it gets capped by the Alliance. The times that seem to work out Ok are when we have all our towers capped or when we have IBT and TP capped and the Frostwolf towers almost capped. You still run the risk of all the Horde rezzing in their cave and piling into Frostwolf Keep but if you have a lot of people there it is not too bad, gets you a lot of kills :). It seems to be a good idea too when we are winning on reinforcements. When we have SHGY it seems like everyone wants to stay there and defend it, that's why taking it early in the battle hardly ever works out. But if we have our towers capped and the Horde ran us out of Frostwolf Keep then it helps us keep them from capping IWB and SHB. It also keeps everyone close to Dun Baldar so we can get our bunkers back. It is a risky situation and you have to play it by ear.

Unfortunately we did have a few times where it was held right from the start of the battle and cost us the win. No one ever stays to guard Iceblood Graveyard or Snowfall Graveyard and sometimes that is Ok as long as we're not holding SHGY. If we are not holding SHGY the Horde don't seem too interested in those GY's. People will guard Frostwolf Graveyard but usually half heartedly. As long as not too many Horde show up we can keep it. FWGY can be an important one to keep as it keeps the Horde from rezzing and running right back into FW Keep if they decide to defend the Keep.

Anyway I did get some good honor tonight and a lot of kills, I think I ended up with over 1,400 kills for the night. I am on track to get my 100,000 lifetime kills and my "of the Alliance" title this year.

The Battle for the Isle of Conquest 11/23/09

I decided to spend some time fighting in the Isle of Conquest tonight to get more familiar with it. I haven't done a lot of battles in there yet, I have previously only fought in there when it was my daily, and want to learn more about it. I went in on Wranngar and we won the first 2 battles I was in and lost the last one. As in any battleground there were a lot of AFK in there. That problem just isn't going to go away or get any better I guess.

We won the 2 battles by breaching the Horde keep and killing the Horde General. I don't even know his name off hand but I will get that along with some screen shots of him. I was in on both of those kills. In the battle we lost the Horde breached our keep and killed our General. I was manning one of the cannons at the top of one of the towers in our keep for awhile tonight, that was a lot of fun. You use the cannons to lay down a wall of fire and also launch rockets at the siege equipment the Horde are bringing in to breach our keep.

The Battle for Wintergrasp 11/23/09

I fought in 2 Wintergrasp battles tonight on Wranngar, one win and one loss. In the one we won I got in at the start, actually a few minutes before the start, so I was there when it all started. We barely won that one but in the end we did.

In the second battle I was in, the one we lost, I got there about 1 minute before it ended. I really didn't have time to do much besides run around the courtyard and kill a couple people before it was all over. I didn't bother to stay around and kill Horde afterwards, that is only fun when you win.

I am really not familiar enough with Wintergrasp yet to start giving any kind of opinion on it but I have been doing all of them I can so I can learn more about it.

The Battle for Alterac Valley 11/22/09

The battle still rages on in Alterac Valley. I fought in 15 battles on Wranngar tonight, 9 wins and 6 losses. It is hard to believe the Alliance are still making the same mistakes after all this time but they are.

We had a couple losses because of someone taking SHGY which usually results in a turtle if they do it early in the battle. Another thing the Alliance does time and again is start a cap on something then walk away from it while it is clocking. Everything in Alterac Valley takes 4 minutes to cap. The main places they do this is Iceblood Graveyard, Snowfall Graveyard, and the East and West Frostwolf Towers. The Towers are the stupidest part, they will click on the flag, anyone can do that, then they jump down to stand on the hill. A single Rogue or Druid in stealth mode can go up into the Tower and back-cap it without any opposition and they do it time and time again. The Horde know this, it is about the only place a single Horde will go and back-cap something. This happens time and again and people still do it. On the average we usually cap those 2 Towers 3 or 4 times before they burn... Another mistake they make all the time is leaving 1, or at most 2, people to guard IBT and TP. The Horde always bring at least 3 if not 4 or 5 people to back-cap either of those towers but people still do it every battle...

In spite of all the problems and stupidity we did have some good battles tonight. We won a few more battles on reinforcements, I am wondering if this will end when the holiday weekend is over. The only reason I can think of is the Horde have their share of weekend warriors and AFK although the Alliance does seem to be playing better in some of the battles I have been in. We still have the stupidity of taking and holding SHGY and the problem with people leaving towers undefended/underdefended while they are capping, I don't think that will ever end.

I fought in a Wintergrasp battle tonight, the Horde really suck in there. We were defending again and we had no problem holding the Keep while destroying all their towers.

My daily battleground was WSG today. I wasn't going to do it but then decided to give it a shot and see how we were doing in there. To say we were doing poorly would be a gross understatement. Everyone was interested in fighting in the middle. There was no flag carrier support and there was no attempt made to get our flag back. I hate WSG and dropped the quest after that one loss. I may never go in there again. It was almost like they were farming HK's in there which is just stupid, if you are going to farm HK's you go to Alterac Valley.

The Battle for Alterac Valley 11/21/09

The battle for Alterac Valley rages on. It is still the Holiday weekend in Alterac Valley and there are a lot of battles being fought there. I fought in 31 battles on Wranngar today, 17 wins and 14 losses. It was also my daily battleground again today.

For the most part the Alliance were doing Ok in there. Both the Alliance and Horde were doing a lot of Blitzing. We did at least 6 today and the Horde probably did that many too in the battles I was in. The biggest problem the Alliance is still having is not being able to work together as a team, that is what causes most of our losses. A high percentage of the rest are people taking and holding SHGY. The rest are just poor playing and AFK. There were a lot of AFK in all the battles I was in. People are reporting them more now though, I think it is because they are removed after a minute of being flagged inactive. Now when I report to the team someone is AFK I also add, "lets get them out of here so we can get someone in here who will fight", that seems to motivate people to report them.

We had some really good battles that we won on resources. The Alliance have been winning more battles on resources than I have ever seen them win before. Usually we only win when we kill Drek. The Alliance has been playing a little better than usual lately too and that has a lot to do with it. I am almost going to be sorry to see this holiday weekend end, and that is not something you will hear me say often. I got a lot of kills this weekend and have passed the 70,000 lifetime honorable kills mark. I got a lot of honor too and upgraded a lot of my gear.

I fought in 2 Wintergrasp battles too, both of them wins. The first one I fought in the Horde were defending Winterguard Keep and we took it away from them. In the second battle I fought in we were defending the Keep and held onto it throughout the battle for another victory. I need 5 more marks to get another piece of gear I have my eye on, maybe I will get it tomorrow.

Battle In Alterac Valley 11/20/09

The daily battleground today was Alterac Valley. I did it on Wranngar and we won the second one I was in. I ended up fighting in 20 AV's, 10 wins and 10 losses. The new big thing now seems to be The Alterac Blitz. The only problem with that is the people saying "STRAIGHT TO DREK, DON'T STOP FOR ANYTHING" aren't bothering to check and see if we have a tank that can tank Drek at 200% health plus 4 Warmasters and 2 Frostwolves, and healers that can keep him alive, so half the time we get there and can't do anything. That was the case a few times today. We didn't necessarily lose those battles, we just didn't Blitz.

We had the usual problems of fighting in a battleground on it's holiday weekend, the weekend warriors and twice the AFK. People are starting to take an interest in reporting the AFK again it seems, maybe it is because they are AFK'd right out of the battleground after a minute.

We did have a couple wins on reinforcements and those were nice. Those were long battles with a lot of fighting and a lot of kills :). We pushed the Horde back from SPGY to SHGY then took SHGY in one reinforcement battle. I don't usually recommend taking SHGY but in this battle it was Ok because we were winning on reinforcements anyway. I got a lot of kills in that battle and another one. In the reinforcement battles we had to pile 8-10 people into IBT and TP to keep them. The Horde never go to take a tower back with just a couple, they always group up so they figure they will have anyone there outnumbered by at least 2 to 1. We surprised them a few times :). They don't even go to take a mine back unless there are at least 3 of them because they figure it was taken by 1 Alliance. I only got about 700 kills tonight in the battles I was in but I had a lot of fun.

I fought in 2 Wintergrasp battles. I should say I was in 2 Wintergrasp battles, I was in the first one from the start, a win, and got into the second one seconds before we lost. A mark is a mark though.

Isle of Conquest - Daily Battleground 11/11/09

When I grabbed my daily battleground on Wranngar today it was Isle of Conquest. I have done this one a half dozen times now and have a pretty good grasp of the routine. We lost the first one I was in, we had a lot of AFK in that one. The second one I was in went a lot better, I think we only had 3 AFK and the rest of the team seemed to know what they were doing. We ended up killing their General for the win. It was a close battle though, the Horde were in our keep attacking our General when we killed theirs. Anyway that got my daily done and I handed it in for 19g86s and 1241 bonus honor.

I fought in 4 Alterac Valleys after that, 2 wins and 2 losses. The first 3 battles were pretty good, we were pretty even right up to the end. The 4th battle was a turtle on our part which we, of course, lost. We killed Drek in the 2 battles we won and the Horde killed Vann in one of the battles we lost and won the other one on reinforcements. The Horde win a lot of their battles on reinforcements because AV is set up to their advantage when it comes to reinforcements. As usual we had a lot of AFK in all 4 of the battles I was in. At least now it looks like Blizzard removes the AFK from the battleground after they are AFK for a certain amount of time making way for someone who could be fighting. But sometimes the person that comes in just stays in the cave and goes AFK, it is a losing battle and one Blizzard has failed horribly to correct. A lot of people have been asking about the TuringTest AFK Reporter when I announce the AFK and want to know where to get it. Only 5 people having it in each battle would take care of the AFK problem.

I fought in 3 Eye of the Storm tonight too. 2 wins and 1 loss. For a change the loss didn't seem to be Flagtard related, we were just outclassed. In one of the two wins I got into a mostly pre-made, 13 of the 15 were a pre-made. Needless to say we won that one easily with a 4 cap. I did notice in the one we lost that only me and one other person went to FRR. There were only 4 people there and one more person with us would have been able to take it. We did have 5 people at MT and another 4 or 5 at DR which is a waste at the beginning of the battle as the Horde are usually trying to cap BET and FRR. Usually if they are going to try and cap something on our side at the start it will be DR so that is where a couple extra people would be helpful. Rarely do they come for MT. All in all, even with the one loss, it was a pretty good night for the Alliance in the EoS battles I was in.

Battlegrounds 11/08/09

I did some battlegrounds on Wranngar today. It didn't take me long to remember why I stopped doing battlegrounds... The daily battleground today was Call to Arms: Isle of Conquest. It took us 6 battles to get a win, it was some pretty poor playing and a lot of AFK. It is obvious Blizzard is doing nothing about the AFK problem as it is worse now that it ever was. If they are trying to do something about it they are failing horribly.

Isle of Conquest was a new battleground to me, not even sure when it showed up but it was today's daily. It seems to be similar to Wintergrasp where you have a keep you try to defend while trying to get into the other sides keep. There are bases and a workshop to fight over too. More bases gives you more reinforcements. One difference is there is a General in the keep you can kill to win the game before the reinforcements run out, so that is another way to win it. Not that we were doing much winning, we lost 5 and won 1. And even the one we won was really close, as a matter of fact we were losing on reinforcements when we killed the Horde's General. Anyway I finally got it done and collected 19g86s and 1241 bonus honor.

I fought in one Alterac Valley today too, it was a win. I had nothing to do with that though, I got in at the end of it and was on my way to Frostwolf Keep when we won it, I didn't even see the enemy.

I fought in 2 Eye of the Storm battles and they were just sad. A lot of Flagtards in those 2 battles. When you only have one tower, which you are in the process of losing, you don't need to have 12 of the 15 people on your team at the flag. Also when the battle starts you don't need to have 3/4 of your team run to the flag. Towers win over the flag every time but a lot of people are just too stupid to realize that. The flag is to EoS what Glav is to AV, something to distract the stupid. Nothing has changed in EoS...