The Battle for Isle of Conquest - Daily Battleground 12/14/09

Today my daily battleground was Isle of Conquest. I did it on Wranngar and we won the 3rd one I was in.

This is the newest battleground but I am getting familiar with it. This is a pretty nice battleground and well set up. There are objectives, the Quarry and Refinery, that you can capture to increase your resources and other nodes, Docks, Hangar, Workshop, you can secure to make siege equipment and get other objectives like the Airship.

We won the 3rd battle I was in by killing the Horde General. We took down the west gate to get inside their keep then went up and took the General down. He is pretty easy, especially compared to Drek'Thar in Alterac Valley. In one of the battles I got inside the Horde keep by using a launcher to launch myself over the wall. I had never done that before and got an achievement for it.

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Alterac Valley 12/13/09

I fought in 15 battles in Alterac Valley on Wranngar tonight, 10 wins and 5 losses.

Remember me saying that there are certain times to fight in certain battlegrounds and certain times not to? Well we started off really well, we got 9 of the 10 wins in a row. Then we had 2 losses, a win and 3 losses. You could see the quality of the people change. We went from most of the group following some kind of plan to people wanting to farm kills. The funny part about that, and I mean funny in a sickeningly stupid way, is that they ended up getting farmed. They wanted kills because they didn't have any. If you have really low kills what does that mean? No experience. What does no experience equal? The Horde farming you... I am assuming school is out for the holidays because it has been bad in all the battlegrounds lately at certain times.

We did have some good battles in the first 9 though, we had a few where the Horde wanted to turtle and we pounded them all the way back to Frostwolf Keep then took that away from them so they were rezzing in their cave, then killed their General. Good times.

In all but one of the losses we ended up with the Horde forcing us back into Dun Baldar. We never ended up rezzing in the cave though and they won those on reinforcements. Lack of experienced players and starting off outnumbered 2 to 1 was the problem there. In the other one they just killed our General for the win before we could kill theirs. I got over 800 kills tonight so I am right on track for my achievement, 100000 Honorable Kills. I have less than 5,000 to go.

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Eye of the Storm - Daily Battleground 12/13/09

Today my daily battleground was Eye of the Storm. I fought in 7 battles, all losses, on Wranngar before I gave up. The quality of players was the worst I have ever seen. I am not talking gear, I am talking experience.

In over half the battles more than half our team came off the rock and went straight to the flag. That tells me they have no experience in EoS. What's worse, they don't listen either so they are not going to get any better. It is sad, it is not a hard battleground to win in, it just takes a little common sense which, unfortunately, these people do not have.

How hard is it to understand that towers win in EoS, not the flag. Flagtards have ruined that battleground. If you take, defend, and hold 3 towers you will win. You don't even need to touch the flag if you hold 3 towers throughout the entire battle. Apparently we can not do that. What the Alliance does is leave nodes unguarded so they can try to get the flag. Or they will leave one person on a node and tell them to call incoming and not come when they do...

There was one person whining up a storm in there today because she said the Horde were dominating that battleground with pre-mades. Where she was getting that I don't know, because all the battles I was in with her we were not against pre-mades, almost everyone was playing like it was their first time in EoS. I was pointing out what we were doing wrong that was making us lose but she refused to listen to it, it was "the Horde pre-mades"... It wasn't leaving nodes completely unguarded, it wasn't 9 people going after the flag when we only had one node, it wasn't people fighting on the roads, which accomplishes nothing, it was "the Horde pre-mades" that was causing us to lose. All 7 of the losses ended in Horde 4 caps with us rezzing on the rock, I never saw anything like it. That was the mentality in there today. I finally gave up because it was obvious we were not going to win one with those people. I might try again early tomorrow and see if that group is any better.

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

Strand of the Ancients was my daily battleground today, I fought in 2 on Wranngar, one win and one loss. It seems like the last few times I have done this one it has taken 2 to get it done.

In the first battle we were just outclassed I guess, the Horde made it all the way through the yellow gate, took down the door to the Titan Relic and captured the portal. When it was our turn, we got the yellow gate down and that was about it. As usual the Horde were traveling in packs, the only way they can kill anything it seems, and the Alliance were running around all spread out making easy targets. There is nothing new there and if you think about it, it is surprising we win anything with that approach.

In the second battle we did a lot better. It seems the first battle is the warm up battle and in the second one we get down to business. We stormed the green gate, moved on to the red gate and so on to the yellow gate. We had that down with 3 vehicles still up and took the door to the Titan Relic down with no problem. We captured the portal and were done. Then it was the Hordes turn. They never even got the yellow gate down by the time the timer ran out, we stopped them before they got to it.

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

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The Battle for Alterac Valley 12/12/09

I fought in 45 battles for Alterac Valley on Wranngar today. Not all at once, I fought in some early and then a lot later on. We had 26 wins and 19 losses. The Alliance wasn't doing too bad today.

We had some really good battles, quite a few face to face with the Horde. The Horde are Blitzing a lot now, they won a lot of battles that way. They also won a few on reinforcements and so did we. That's where the face to face battles come in. I got around 1600 kills today.

We tried to Blitz a few times but the Alliance just can't pull it off lately. The main reason for that is no teamwork. We just can't get enough people to go straight to Drek from the cave. Heck, we can't even get some of the people to come out of the cave, we have to report them AFK and have them removed. But the major stumbling block is Glav, people can't ride past him. You have to do the Blitz in 6 minutes or less, so if people stop for Galv we don't have enough time. Not to mention they trickle out of Galv then start getting towers. It is really sad the Alliance can't work together. I am glad I got my Blitz out of the way last year. For awhile there we were doing the Blitz at least once a day but not anymore.

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Wintergrasp 12/12/09

I only fought in one battle for Wintergrasp on Wranngar today, a loss. It was the same sad story as the other day. There were only 6 of us outside the keep, everyone else was sitting inside waiting for us to carry them I guess.

I headed right to the southeastern tower and started killing Warsong Champions to get my rank. By the time I got my rank it was all over. I said in chat, several times, get out of the keep, get some siege vehicles, and start taking down towers. No one listened. They just sat in the keep and waited for the Horde to take it down around them which they did. I don't know what's wrong with people, why we get a group like this once in awhile... I was so disgusted with that I didn't bother going into another one. I will try again tomorrow.

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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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