Server Laaaggggggggggggg 12/12/09

The lag in Alterac Valley is so bad tonight it is taking more than 2 minutes after you release before you move on to the spirit guide. Once there it can take 5 minutes or more before they notice you and rez you. It is the worst lag I have ever seen in AV and I have seen some pretty bad lag in the 2 1/2 years I have been fighting in there on Wranngar and Gomorra. When the battle is over you just stand there, you can't move and you can't leave. It says the battleground will close in 2 minutes, if only...

I am hoping the server will crash so they will reset it but it hasn't happened yet. This is not just going on in AV, it is going on in the dungeons and realm server. Being the trooper and AV addict I am I will keep plugging away.

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Stormpike Perfection - 12/11/09

I finally got the achievement Stormpike Perfection on Wranngar. This is an achievement from Alterac Valley. This was actually the second time in the past month we did it but I didn't get the achievement the first time. I put a ticket in and talked to a GM who said "It might have been your add-on's". He said he would send in a report and have it investigated. I never heard anything else about it, about what I have come to expect from Blizzard service. Anyway we did it again tonight and I got it. I had the same add-on's running as last time.

To get this achievement you have to Win Alterac Valley without losing a tower or captain. You must also control all of the Horde's towers. I didn't even notice we had all our towers, Bal was still alive and we had all the Horde towers, it was a surprise when it came up and said I got it. I am glad that is out of the way, I think that is the hardest achievement to get in AV.

I fought in 19 battles tonight, 21 wins and 7 losses. The night didn't start out well, we lost most of those 7 at the start and won towards the end. I get a kick out of the quitters in AV, if it doesn't look like it is going to be a fast win, people start dropping out... They get a 15 minute debuff and half the time we go on to win in less time than that, it makes me laugh.

We had some good battles tonight and I got a lot of kills. Not the 1,000+ I have been shooting for daily but around 800. I had some really good days this week though so it will still average over 7,000 for the week. As of this post I have 92,657 HK's, I still need 7,343 to get my title, another week. I am shooting for the achievement 100000 Honorable Kills which gives you the title "of the Alliance" for Alliance or "of the Horde" if you are Horde.

We tried to do The Alterac Blitz a few times tonight, an achievement I got on 11/02/08, but failed because, once again, not everyone went to Drek. It is a big mistake going by Galv when you are trying to do the Blitz, Glav is a tard magnet. Some people CAN NOT go past Galv. Once they see Iceblood Garrison they have to stop and kill Galv. That's what happened in the Blitz's we tried tonight. Take the people that stop for Galv, add the AFK to that, and you're looking at half your team gone.

We had a couple turtles, on both the Alliance and Horde sides. We had some nice face to face battles, I love those, the kills just come pouring in. We also got wiped out of Frostwolf Keep a couple times because someone capped SHGY at the wrong time and flooded us with Horde when they rezzed at their cave... That is another mistake the Alliance is doomed to repeat time and again I guess. I had a great time in there tonight though, AV is my favorite battleground and I would rather fight a losing battle in there than a winning battle in another battleground. Of course I don't need honor or marks so that is easy to say lol. For some reason the marks are staying in the mail for 30 days since patch 3.3.0. When you reach the cap on marks they mail them to you. Usually they would be good for 24 hours then disappear out of the mail. I liked that, I never had to worry about it. Now my mailbox fills up every day and I have to go in and delete the e-mails one at a time...

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Battle for Eye of the Storm - Daily Battleground - 12/11/09

Eye of the Storm was my daily battleground today and I fought in 2 on Wranngar to get it done.

I knew we were going to lose the first battle about 10 seconds into it. Over half our team came off the rock and went to the flag. Two of us went to FRR, one went to DR and the rest went to MT. We lost DR straight off, didn't get FRR because the Horde had 8 people there and then we were down to one node. We got BET for a little bit and I thought we were going after FRR from there, because a large group was heading that way from BET, but everyone went for the flag again. It went back and forth like that until we were all rezzing on the rock and it was over. Once again, too many Flagtards ruined the battle.

In the second battle we were in we did a lot better. We got MT, DR, BET and had FRR clocking for a few seconds then lost it. We did manage to hang onto DR and BET while losing and retaking MT. That kept the Horde busy and we were able to run the flag some. We ended up winning that one by over 600 points.

That completed my daily which I handed in for 19g86s, 1241 bonus honor and 25 Arena points.

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The Battle for Arathi Basin - 12/11/09

I fought in one battle for Arathi Basin on Wranngar tonight, a loss. I did it for something to do while I was in queue for AV.

We had a good start which is usual for the Alliance, then it went downhill. We started off with the Stables, Lumber Mill, Blacksmith and Gold Mine, 4 nodes. Then we lost the GM followed by ST. From there everyone left the BS to go to the Farm, which we got for a minute, but lost the BS. I was on defense at the LM, the only node we held throughout the whole battle. There were 2 to 3 of us there. At least always 2.

The problem the Alliance has in all it's battlegrounds that I can see is lack of defense. The Alliance doesn't know how to defend something once they have it, the have to leave it undefended or under defended and go off to try and get more. That usually ends up in a fail, a loss. After watching it for years now I have come to the conclusion that they will never learn.

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The Battle for Strand of the Ancients - Daily Battleground 12/10/09

I fought in 2 battles for Strand of the Ancients on Wranngar today, one win and one loss.

The first battle I was in we lost. It was pretty close but we just couldn't do it, the Horde were a little better than we were in that one. In the second battle we were a little better than they were. Both battles were close. Those are the best battles, where you really have to work for the win. When you just run over them, or they run over you, it is not as much fun, where's the challenge in that?

In the battle we lost we made it all the way through the yellow gate into the courtyard but couldn't get to the last gate that the Titan Relic is behind. The Horde held us off and the timer ran out.

In the battle we won, we attacked the blue gate, and worked our way forward from there until we were at the yellow gate. We got through there, into the courtyard, and got the gate to the Titan Relic down. Then it was just a matter of capturing the Titan Portal. When the Horde attempted it we basically did what they did in the battle we lost. They made it through the yellow gate but couldn't get through the gate the Titan Relic is behind.

I handed in my completed daily for 19g86s, 1241 bonus honor and 25 arena points. I like the idea of getting arena points for the daily, it will help them add up faster.

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The battle for Alterac Valley - A sad day for the Alliance 12/10/09

I fought in 36 battles for Alterac Valley on Wranngar today, 13 wins and 23 losses. The Alliance didn't have it together today, that for sure. It must have been a school holiday in Australia or something, because the average mentality seemed to be around the 9 year old mark in there.

We tried to Blitz 6 times and succeeded twice. The main reason for this failure was not having everyone follow the plan. If you are going to attempt the Blitz, it would be a good idea to go to the left of Balinda and then go through the Iceblood area bewteen IBT and IBGY, DO NOT go anywhere near Galv. Galv is a tard magnet, some people CAN NOT ride past Galv without stopping and killing him. Nothing breaks your group apart faster than 1/3 of your team stopping at Galv because they can't follow the simple plan, "Ride straight to Drek, do not stop for anything, do not stop for Galv". When you get there minus half your team, don't forget the AFK, and you have to take down Drek at 200% health plus 4 Warmasters plus 2 elite Frostwolves you're screwed. The funny part, in a sickening kind of way, is the people who QQ the hardest because we failed the Blitz are the people that stopped at Galv or never even made it that far. We get a lot of people that go straight to DB out of the cave to "defend". There are no Horde there and nothing to "defend" against but they insist they are "defending".

The Horde were Blitzing all over the place, we had a lot of short battles. Evidently they don't have a problem working together.

We had a lot of turtles due to poor playing. Idiots taking SHGY at the worst possible time, people fighting in the middle, people not defending towers. You will hear people calling out for more in a tower all the time, then see people ride right by that tower ignoring them. Then they QQ when that tower gets taken. Horde do not do anything alone, they will bring at least 6 people to take a tower back, they even take 3 people to take a mine back... Horde are cowards and they travel in packs, If you see one Horde they will turn around and run away from you. 9 times out of 10 they will only attack a single Alliance player if there are at least 2 of them.

Anyway this is a lesson in how not to win in AV. I miss the old days when people actually knew what they were doing in AV. At certain times of the day you seem to get the veterans in there but it just didn't happen today.

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The Battle for Wintergrasp 12/10/09

I only fought in one battle for Wintergrasp on Wranngar today, it was a loss.

We were defending the keep if you can call it that. Me and one other person were the only ones actually outside the keep, everyone else was inside the keep calling out progress reports. I killed some Warsong Champions and got my rank then tried to take over the eastern Workshop, so I could build a catapult to take out the southeastern tower, but got killed twice. By the time I got done rezzing on the other side of the battlefield and made my way back twice it was over. Not sure why no one else left the keep but it was a stupid move that cost us the battle. A prime example of what you don't achieve when people don't work together.

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Battleground Summary 12/9/09

I'm still having a lot of trouble getting into battlegrounds lately. I fought in a bunch of battles on Wranngar today but due to lack of time I am going to summarize them all into this one post. I am writing this post during a rolling restart which will hopefully fix some of the battleground queue problems.

I fought in 22 battles for Alterac Valley today, 15 wins and 7 losses. We had some good teams in some of them and some really good battles when the Horde decided to turtle. It seems like when the Alliance decides to turtle it goes the other way and we get driven back into Dun Baldar for the loss. We had a couple losses directly related to someone capping SHGY at the wrong time and a lot of AFK which is nothing new. It was taking me anywhere from 10 minutes (towards the end of the night) to 4 hours (at the start) to get into AV. We were greatly outnumbered at the start in most the battles I was in.

I fought in some Eye of the Storm battles while I was waiting in queue for Alterac Valley. I ended the day with 5 wins and 3 losses. We had too many groups of Flagtards in my opinion. EoS has really gone downhill. At one time it was a battleground the Alliance owned but now, with the Flagtards, it is one we seem hardly able to win anymore. You know you're going to lose when more than half your team comes off the rock and goes directly to the flag...

Isle of Conquest was my daily battleground today. I queued for it as soon as I got it and it took 3 hours to get in. When I finally did get in we started off 21x40. We were outnumbered 2 to 1. Needless to say we lost that one. I queued for another but after 40 minutes I took myself out of the queue so I could queue for AV and EoS. You can only queue for 2 BG's at one time.

I fought in one Arathi Basin today, a loss. We are having the same problem in there as we have been lately. People not defending anything, people trying for a 5 cap when we can't even hold 3. Not being satisfied with the 3 nodes we have, which is all you need to win, and deserting them to try and get another. The list goes on and on. This is another battleground the Alliance used to do real well in and now it is like Holiday weekend every day in there.

I fought in 3 battles for Wintergrasp today. We won all 3. In the first battle we were taking Wintergrasp Keep, which we accomplished, and the last 2 we were defending Wintergrasp Keep which we did. I am starting to build up marks and Stone Keeper's Shards. I might spend my shards on Reins of the Black War Mammoth, not sure yet.

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Arena Points Awarded for Daily Battlegrounds

Blizzard is now awarding arena points for completing the daily battleground quest in patch 3.3.0. For completing the daily battleground quest you get the usual 19g86s, 1241 bonus honor and, now, 25 arena points. Personally I like the idea, it will make my arena points add up faster. Of course you will still have to have an arena ranking to spend them though, so you will still have to do arena. What do you think of this new development?

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Warsong Gulch - Daily Battleground 12/8/09

Warsong Gulch was my daily battleground today. I hate WSG, the Alliance consistently do bad in there. If you want to see Alliance playing at it's worst go fight in WSG. If it is the daily again tomorrow I will skip it. I ended up fighting in 4 battles on Wranngar, 3 complete and total losses and one win which we won on a technicality.

The first 3 battles we lost 0/3. We didn't cap the Horde flag once and the Horde capped ours 3 times. The reason for this was everyone fighting in the middle. They didn't care about protecting the flag carrier, the didn't care about getting the Horde flag, they didn't care about getting our flag back, all they did was fight in the middle. This is one battle ground where it is Alliance holiday weekend every day for sure, you get the worst of the worst in WSG...

Finally in the last battle I was in, I wouldn't do an extra WSG for all the honor in the world, we won on a technicality. We capped the Horde flag once and they capped ours once. When the timer ran out we won. I can only assume it was due to returns or something, I'm not really sure how it works as I only fight in WSG when I absolutely have to.

Anyway that got my daily done and got me 19g86s, 1241 bonus honor and, something new with the new patch 3.3.0, 25 Arena Points.

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The Battle for Alterac Valley - The Battle Limps On 12/8/09

It took me 4 hours in queue before I got into my first AV on Wranngar tonight. That's why I fought in AB a few times. We didn't have a great night in there tonight, we started one battle 13x40. Yeah, we were a little outnumbered. Needless to say we lost that one.

We lost a couple more by being outnumbered and then having some idiot take SHGY when we were finally making progress and capping FW Keep. That resulted in us getting wiped out of FW Keep and ending up back at SHGY, good thing we had that... It was not really poorer play than usual, we just didn't have the numbers to overcome the stupidity. Towards the end of the night it started to even out, as much as it ever does anyway.

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The Battle for Arathi Basin - 12/8/09

I fought in 3 battles for Arathi Basin tonight, all losses. This is another battleground the Alliance used to do good in and now couldn't win if their lives depended on it.

The main problem with the Alliance in AB, and the problem we were having today, is stupidity. Yeah, the same problem the Alliance has in a lot of battlegrounds. We had a 3 cap going on quite a few times in these battles and that's all it would have taken to win, but would the Alliance defend those 3 nodes? No. They had to leave and try to get another which would cause the node they left completely unguarded to be taken by the Horde. They did this time and again, not learning from their mistake of a couple minutes ago.

Someone would call incoming to ST and everyone would leave the GM and LM to go there... Needless to say the Horde was in possession of the GM and LM shortly after. I am not sure why we do so bad in there now, we used to do really well. Now it is like holiday weekend in there every day.

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The Battle for Wintergrasp - 12/8/09

After the server started again today the battlegrounds were all messed up. I don't think there was an actual problem with them themselves, there just weren't many people on I think. Anyway the first Wintergrasp I fought in only had 14 Alliance players in it. The Horde still had 11 Tenacity though, so much for fair...

The Horde were in control of Wintergrasp Keep and we were unable to take it back from them in the first battle I was in, we just didn't have enough people and the Horde were too overpowered with the Tenacity. We fought it out and ran out the timer.

In the second battle, a couple hours later, we had more people and were able to take it away from them. It really wasn't hard. We still had all 3 of our southern towers up when it was over. We ended up taking it by busting all the way into the keep. I handed in a 4 quests total, getting me over 53 gold and 40 Stone Keeper's Shards.

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The Battle for Alterac Valley - Daily Battleground 12/7/09

I fought in 16 battles for Alterac Valley on Wranngar today, 11 wins and 5 losses. Some of the battles we did really good in, some we didn't do so well in. It turned out it was my daily battleground today, when the daily's rolled over, and we won the first one I was in after I picked it up.

We had a little bit of teamwork in some of the battles, but not nearly enough to call it Alliance working together. About the only real teamwork I see is people banding together and reporting the AFKers AFK. A lot of people seem to be getting really sick of all the AFK in battle after battle, and you see more people saying report the AFK. The AFK are getting a little desperate now, they are trying to find new area's to hide in. The problem with that is, no matter where they go, they show up on the map as a dot. I have been fighting in there so long I know all of them by name now and I just point them out.

We had a few good battles where the Horde decided they wanted to turtle. I used to hate it when they did that because it meant being stuck in DB and a loss. The Alliance has adapted though and now a Horde turtle usually means we beat them all the way back to Frostwolf and then take that away from them. I get a lot of kills out of these battles. This is where we are fighting the Horde face to face and the better team wins. Not 5 or 6 Horde ganking one or two Alliance, that the Horde can do and usually come out victorious, but when it is even numbers and you have to actually fight with some skill they are lacking. We won a few battles on reinforcements this way.

The strat that was working for us was hit Galv, which the Horde have been camping at so this may lead to a turtle, then IBT, IBGY, TP, while the second group moves on down to FWGY, WFWT, EFWT and the Relief Hut. Then kill Drek when the towers are down. Of course if someone takes SHGY during that then the Horde rez in their cave then come in and wipe out everyone at FW Keep. This is why it is very important to look at the map before you cap SHGY. Look and think, where are the Horde going to go if I take this? If the answer is their cave, don't do it.

I had a AFK leech attach itself to me, seems to be the new thing, put yourself on following someone, so I took him to see Jotek. Jotek is an elite member of the Frostwolf clan that stands just outside the hut Wing Commander Vipore is being held prisoner in. I was in stealth mode so all Jotek saw was the leech. Apparently he hates AFK as much as I do, problem solved.

As usual the problem with taking SHGY early in the battle is you get a noobfest going no there where everyone seems to think they need to defend it. You can not pry them away from there. They will let IWB and SHB burn but they will defend that GY... They will let the Horde pour into DB and take it over but SHGY is safe. The thing with SHGY is, it is useless to us for the most part, I don't know what the fascination is. In earlier versions of Alterac Valley it did play a part, but now the only part it plays is a turtle and loss if someone takes it too early.

All in all the Alliance had a pretty good day in AV. We had some wins, a few losses, and quite a few good battles. I am looking forward to getting back in there tomorrow and fighting some more. Hopefully it will be the daily battleground again. I am over 89,000 lifetime kills now, just a little over 10,000 to go to get my title.

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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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