Strand of the Ancients - Daily Battleground 12/6/09

It is the holiday weekend (Call to Arms) in Strand of the Ancients this weekend and it was also my daily battleground today. We did well in the one battle I fought in on Wranngar, we won it easily. We have won the last few battles I have been in with ease in SoA.

Round 1 started with the Alliance inside, at the graveyard, so we were on Defense. The Horde started outside on offense, they had the task of breaking their way in through the gates and trying to capture the relic. They started off with an all out assault on the green gate and got that down pretty quick, then they moved on to the purple gate. As they attacked that they also did a surprise attack on the blue gate, kind of an insurance policy I guess, or maybe just some people doing their own thing, I don't know. The majority of them went through the green gate to the purple gate and on to the yellow gate though, which leads to the courtyard where the last gate, behind which is the relic, is but no farther. They got the yellow gate down but we massed in the courtyard and they couldn't get to the last gate. We held them off until the timer ran out, end of round 1.

Round 2 started with us on the boats out to sea. We were on offense. I am not sure exactly how long it takes the boats to get to shore but it is enough time for defense to get set up, maybe a minute. We attacked the blue gate, got that down, plowed through the red gate and made our way to the yellow gate. We took the yellow gate down, still had a few siege vehicles going, and took down the last gate exposing the relic. We captured the relic and ended round 2 as the victors.

That completed my daily battleground which pays 19g86s and 1241 bonus honor.

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The Battle for Alterac Valley - /Sigh... 12/6/09

I fought in 10 battles in Alterac Valley on Wranngar tonight, 5 wins and 5 losses. Even though we won 50% of our battles the Alliance was playing pretty poorly tonight.

First off I would like to mention we had a lot of AFK, but that goes without saying. Another problem was starting off with anywhere from 20 to 30 Alliance against 40 Horde. The Horde always start at 40 players and we are lucky if we have over 35 at the start. Tonight we were starting really low. When you start off with 20 players it can take up to 10 minutes to even out the sides, that can, and usually does, decide the battle. Whether or not we were staring with less players, the playing was just bad. There were a lot of people in there just farming kills. I am in there for the kills, I have 100 marks, the maximum, and 75,000 honor, the maximum, but I still like to win, especially because I blog about it. Some people just want to farm kills though and don't care about winning.

In a couple of the battles, one win and one loss, we had a noobfest going on at SHGY as happens all too often when we take it early in the battle. Everyone feels they have to defend SHGY and no one advances. The only plus side of that, in the battle we won, was it kept the Horde from capping Icewing Bunker and anything in our base which gave us time to get Iceblood Tower, Tower Point, the East and West Frostwolf Towers and the Relief Hut. I don't even know if we killed Galv in that battle.

We ended up 5 manning Drek in that battle. We had a Druid (healer), a Warrior (tank), me in cat form (dps), a Shaman (dps) and a Paladin (dps) and we took him down. We killed the Frostwolves first, that took a while and a bunch of deaths, then we took Drek on all by himself. That was all the people we could get to leave the noobfest at SHGY and come to FWK. Sad but true. I couldn't believe we got him down with just 5 of us.

The other battles we just as sad, no teamwork, even in the ones we won it was a small group that carried the whole battle, while everyone else was AFK or farming kills.

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The Battle for Wintergrasp - 12/6/09

I only fought in one battle for Wintergrasp today on Wranngar and we won it. There must have been a lot of Horde there in that battle because the Tenacity wasn't too bad, they only had slightly above normal health and damage. These pictures show the damage to the keep, I was talking about in my earlier post, after the battle.

I started out in the keep and went to the Sunken Ring workshop to help capture that, then I headed off to one of the towers to kill the Warsong Guards there and get to rank 1 so I could build and pilot a catapult. I killed a couple guards on the bridge on the way over there to get me started. Once I had my rank I helped capture the Eastern workshop and built a catapult. I took that to the southeastern tower and helped destroy that. By the time I was done there the southern tower was down so I headed for the southwestern tower and, once again, my catapult was destroyed by Horde before I got there. I guess they had taken back the workshops by then because I rezzed behind the keep. I helped defend from there on out and the southwestern tower never did get destroyed but the Horde were unable to capture the keep so we won anyway. I guess that is the hard way lol.

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The Battle for Alterac Valley - 12/5/09

The battle for Alterac Valley raged on again today with both sides taking some victories and some losses. I fought in a record, for me anyway, 36 battles on Wranngar today, 24 wins and 12 losses. We weren't doing too bad in there today.


We had a few Blitz's and so did the Horde so a bunch of the battles didn't last too long at all, they were over in 6 minutes or less. Not all the battles were over that fast though, some lasted a half hour or more while the majority were over in 20 minutes or less.

There are 2 strats that seem to still be working well for the Alliance, rush Drek and forget about the towers, we usually still get Galv, and the tried and proven start at Glav and work your way south. For the Alliance Alterac Valley runs north to south with the Alliance starting in the North and the Horde starting in the south. We work our way south to the Horde base while the Horde works their way to our base in the north.

The rush Drek strat only works when everyone follows the plan, that does not happen too often. By everyone I mean better than 75% of the team. Each tower adds 25% health to Drek and represents a Warmaster in with him along with the 2 elite Frostwolves there. So when you rush Drek, with 4 towers up, you are taking him on at 200% health with 4, pretty mean, Warmasters and 2 Frostwolves, not an easy task.

When you start at Galv then get IBT, TP, hopefully IBGY and FWGY, the east and west Frostwolf towers and the relief hut Drek is down to 100% health and all alone with the exception of the 2 Frostwolves which never go away. A much easier task to take him down. The way to win with this strat is to put enough people in the towers to actually defend them, something the Alliance has a real problem doing.

In a turtle, if we can get at least 2 towers down before the Horde decide they want to turtle, it is a good idea to take SHGY and hold it. That way we can better defend Stonehearth and Icewing Bunkers. From there we have been able to push them all the way back to Frostwolf Keep lately with a good group. A lot of kills in those battles. Once we get them back to Frostwolf Keep we try to get that away from them and have been successful a lot of times which resulted in us also getting the keep towers and killing Drek for maximum honor. So SHGY can still be a strategic point but in a much different way than it was a couple years ago.

The main problem the Alliance has is not working together. The Horde travel in large groups and prey on single and pairs of Alliance. When it comes to a straight up 40 on 40 fight, or as close as you can get with all the AFK, we really have no problem overcoming them and pushing them righ back into their cave.

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Wintergrasp - The Battle Rages On - 12/5/09

I only got to fight in one battle for Wintergrasp tonight on Wranngar. We were defending the keep and we held onto it for a victory in Wintergrasp.

As soon as the battle started I headed down to one of the Horde's eastern towers and killed the guards there so I could reach rank 1. At that rank I was able to build and pilot a catapult which I took to the southeastern tower and helped destroy. Then I headed to the southern tower to help with that but it was destroyed by the time I got there, the catapults are not known for speed. I headed to the southwestern tower from there but was attacked by Horde on the way and had my catapult destroyed. I didn't need to make another one though as the southwestern tower fell shortly after that. At that point the battle was pretty much over. I helped kill Horde at one of the workshops then moved on and helped defend the keep until the battle was over. I should be able to get the quests again tomorrow and get some more Stone Keeper's Shards.

The thing that's cool about this battleground is you can actually see the towers and keep falling to ruin as they are assaulted. I can't wait to see what the next expansion brings for battleground activity.

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Eye of the Storm - Daily Battleground 12/5/09

Eye of the Storm was my daily battleground today. I only fought in one battle on Wranngar and I got into it late. I only had to fight in one, we won that one.

We were losing by over 1,000 points when I got there but we had 3 towers capped so the 3 cap must have been recent. I went to MT, one of the towers we were holding, and helped defend that until the end of the battle. This was an EoS done right, towers are the way to win EoS, not the flag. We were running the flag though, but we had 3 towers. We ended up winning by a little over 1,000 points so it was still a close battle.

To win in EoS it is best to start off with a 3 cap and ignore the flag until you have those 3. I personally like to take MT, DR and FRR at the start. Most the Horde seem to go to BET, so FRR is usually lightly guarded. As long as you don't have a group of Flagtards this is easy to accomplish. Don't let the Horde con you into fighting in the road at FRR, they like to fight right when you come off the bridge but that's not clocking the tower over, get right up on the tower and fight. You need to have more at DR if you are hitting FRR at the start because the Horde are going to hit DR. If you are doing MT, DR and BET then you need to have more at MT as that is what they will hit.

This is a pretty easy battleground to win in as long as you don't get stuck with a group of Flagtards. You know you have a group of Flagtards when you come off the rock and more than half your team goes straight to the flag. It is pretty much all over then, collect your mark and what little honor you get and try again.

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