it's time for today's Battlegrounds primer -- Alterac Valley.
This huge, 40-player-per-side Battleground was an ambitious project by Blizzard intended to give players a sense of epic battles. In it's original iteration, Alterac Valley had more NPCs roaming the battlefield, including a massive troll in the Field of Strife who has since packed his bags "for greener pastures". Those greener pastures turned out to be Zul'drak in Northrend, as Korrak the Bloodrager shows up in the Ampitheater of Anguish as the penultimate boss. It's a sweet nod to old school players, and his yells never fail to tickle my old, nostalgic bones.

The old Alterac Valley didn't have the resource mechanic, which I'll explain shortly. Instead, the only way to end it was to kill the enemy General, which sometimes took quite a while. Back in the day, it wasn't uncommon to have Alterac Valley, or AV, games that lasted for hours and hours or even more than a day. There were numerous quests which included turning in race-specific enemy player drops which could be turned in for reputation with a particular Horde or Alliance faction.

It was also one of the game's highlights to summon elemental lords into the battle -- an Ice Elemental named Rokholar for the Horde and a Forest Elemental named Ivus for the Alliance. Those elementals can still be summoned in the current version of Alterac Valley, but rarely make an appearance in today's fast and furious environment. The game has changed quite a lot since its inception, so we'll go through the AV basics right after the jump but make sure to read the Battlegrounds primer along with beginners' looks at Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin.



ALTERAC VALLEY


What is Alterac Valley?

Alterac Valley is a 40-man per side Battleground situated in the Alterac Mountains. It is a vertically-oriented map that has been criticized as being imbalanced in some areas as favoring one or the other faction. It certainly is the most asymmetrical Battleground map, and until Patch 2.4 had the Horde starting closer to the middle of the map than the Alliance. The game can be won in two ways: killing the enemy General and whittling down enemy reinforcements to 0. Each side begins with 600 reinforcements, which can be reduced by achieving various Battleground objectives.

The various reinforcement-affecting objectives are as follows:
Killing the enemy Captain takes away 100 reinforcements. Captain Balinda Stonehearth is the Alliance Captain, while Captain Galvangar serves the Horde.
Burning down an enemy bunker or tower takes away 75 reinforcements. There are four towers per side, for a total of 300 reinforcements. Additionally, burning down a bunker or tower eliminates an Alliance Marshal or Horde Warmaster respectively. These elite NPCs serve as the Generals' bodyguards and increase the Generals' total health by 25% each (for a total of 100% additional health if all four are up).
Killing an enemy player reduces enemy reinforcements on a 1:1 basis.
Capturing a mine will grant 1 reinforcement every 45 seconds.
There are other Battleground objectives which do not directly affect the win conditions but have strategic value. The most important of these are the Graveyards, which can be captured thus giving teams more places from which to resurrect. Ideally, the graveyard captures is a forward motion, allowing teams to continue their push towards the enemy base.

There are also Wing Commanders held in enemy territory who grant 25 bonus Honor for each one who makes it safely back to the base. Though most games will never see it, Wing Commanders provide some strategic value when the Call of Air quests are completed. Enemy players and NPCs drop items which are turned in to a Wing Commander who has made it back to base; if enough of these have been turned in, gryphons or wyverns will take to the skies and bombard enemy players from above.

The most important and obvious Battleground objective are the enemy Generals who are holed up in their respective keeps. Drek'thar is the Frostwolf General who commands the Horde forces while Vanndar Stormpike is the Stormpike General who leads the Alliance. Killing the enemy General will reduce enemy reinforcements to 0, winning the game.

What's the deal with Alterac Valley, anyway?

Back in the day when orcs were savage, bloodthirsty, demon blood-drinkers (nowadays they're just savage and bloodthirsty), the Frostwolf clan was exiled to Alterac for not having a taste for bloody marys from hell. They are led by the blind Shaman Drek'thar, who taught Thrall the ways of Shamanism and helped found Orgrimmar. So the next time you young Alliance punks barge into Frostwolf Keep, keep in mind that you're dealing with a major badass from World of Warcraft lore.

Alright, so that's the story of those orcs. On the flip side, we've got these artifact-loving dwarves who send an expedition out into the mountains to learn more about their heritage, i.e. digging for old Titan artifacts. As we all know, if there's anything that dwarves love as much as beer, it's rummaging for old stuff. This dwarven expedition is led by Vanndar Stormpike, who is by all appearances a Mountain King. Obviously, the orcs don't appreciate all that digging into their sacred land and appear to hate booze every bit as much as demon blood. So there you have it -- enough good, juicy conflict of interest to start a war.

The physical entrance to Alterac Valley is located in the foot of the Alterac Mountains, north of Hillsbrad Foothills. While you won't actually need to queue up there anymore, there are quest givers in these areas who give reputation and item rewards. Most notably, the reputation-based trinket which allows players to teleport to Frostwolf Keep or Dun Baldar can only be obtained from Warmaster Laggrond and Lieutenant Haggerdin, respectively.

Did you mention something about reputation?

Alterac Valley is the third and last Battleground to have PvP reputation associated with it. As with Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin, performing quests and achieving Battleground objectives in Alterac Valley grant reputation with the Frostwolf Clan and the Stormpike Guard. While Blizzard is of the opinion that Battleground reputation is an outmoded concept, I'm an old school player who actually enjoyed it. Before the change to their costs, most Alterac Valley items could be purchased only after achieving a certain reputation with the associated faction.

It's easier these days as players no longer have to worry about reputation and simply have to accumulate honor and Alterac Valley Marks of Honor. The items are pretty good epics for their level, as well, so are pretty good rewards after some games while leveling. Alliance players can get the Hero of the Stormpike Guard Achievement and Horde players can get Hero of the Frostwolf Clan. Players who manage to get exalted with all three old school Battlegrounds reputations can get the Justicar or Conqueror titles for their trouble, so the reputation grinds aren't a total loss.

Aside from cool titles and Achievements, what else is there for me?

If you're into large scale battles that won't lag you out, Alterac Valley is one of the most fun large scale PvP environments in the game. Alright, so maybe it's only one of three large scale PvP environments (the other two being the Isle of Conquest and the non-instanced Wintergrasp), but the snowy landscape of Alterac is usually where a lot of players get their first taste of PvP with an entire raid. It's a lot of fun, even back in the day when matches stretched out for so long that it was entirely possible to log out of the Battleground (and the game) and come back hours later and enter the very same match.

If fun isn't enough of an incentive for you -- and some people don't find the imbalanced map as fun -- there's quite a bunch of honor to be gained. At one point, Alterac Valley was the most profitable Battleground in those terms, eclipsing all others in terms of honor gained per hour. Changes to all Battlegrounds have evened things out some more so that all of them grant relatively equal amounts of honor. That said, Alterac Valley has an edge in that various objectives award bonus honor, such as killing Captains, burning down towers and bunkers, and rescuing Wing Commanders.

Honor gains aside, leveling players can also obtain relatively cheap items beginning at Level 55. Hunters (and other classes who can use ranged weapons) can actually purchase items as soon as they enter the Battleground at Level 51, as stacks of Ice Threaded Arrows and Bullets can be purchased for a mere 60 Silver and 1 honor. Other classes can pick up rare (blue) items such as belts and cloaks at Level 55 and epic (purple) weapons such as the Unstoppable Force or The Lobotomizer at Level 60. While no longer as great investments in the new, faster leveling environment of WoW, they're fairly decent items and should last players a while. Of course, there are also the cool Alterac Valley mounts that were once available only at exalted reputation, the Frostwolf Howler and Stormpike Battle Charger.

I'm convinced. Let's go!

Great! The minimum level for Alterac Valley is 51, which is a bit of a jump from Arathi Basin's minimum of 20, so leveling players will take a while before setting foot in the cold landscape.There are four level brackets for this Battleground after a change was applied in Patch 3.2.2:

51-60
61-69
70-79
80

Unlike most Battlegrounds where players on the lower end of the level spectrum can sometimes be dead weight, the large scale of Alterac Valley as well as other Battleground objectives allow lower level players to contribute to the battle in significant ways. Burning down or defending towers and bunkers, capturing graveyards and mines, and even turning in items looted from the field of battle to relevant quest givers can be done by players of any level inside Alterac Valley and provide advantages to varying degrees.

While it's still advisable to be of a higher level in order to perform better against opponents in combat, players can enjoy the Battleground because of its size and geographical features. Ranged classes, in particular, can easily find spots from which to snipe enemies with little fear of getting hit back.

Alright, this is a bit more complex than WSG or AB... help me out?

Don't worry about floundering around for a bit during your first few games. The map is large and can be a bit confusing for new players. Take the time to familiarize yourself with the landscape, particularly the locations and names of key points such as graveyards and bunkers/towers. Don't worry too much if you lose your way going to a place, and it's generally a good idea to follow the crowd for the first few games just to get into the flow of things.

To make matters a little more difficult, most players already familiar with the Battleground will abbreviate all objectives so it will take some getting used to. I'll list common abbreviations used in Alterac Valley below just so new players can get an idea of what to expect in Battleground chat:

Horde Locations and NPCs

Relief Hut - RH or Relief
East Tower or West Tower - sometimes called East, West only
Frostwolf Graveyard - FWGY
Tower Point - TP
Iceblood Tower - IBT or IB (sometimes confused with Icewing Bunker)
Iceblood Graveyard - IBGY or Iceblood
Captain Galvangar - Galv
Drek'thar - Drek
Rokholar the Ice Lord - Rok (rarely summoned)
Alliance Locations and Captain
Stormpike Aid Station - Aid or Aid Station
North Bunker - Sometimes called North or NB
South Bunker - Sometimes called South or SB
Stormpike Graveyard - SPGY
Icewing Bunker - IWB
Stonehearth Graveyard - SHGY
Stonehearth Bunker - SHB
Captain Balinda Stonehearth - Bal
Vanndar Stormpike - Vann
Ivus the Frost Lord - Ivus (rarely summoned)

Other abbreviations

Snowfall Graveyard - SFGY or SF
Field of Strife - FoS (hardly used as it's not a specific objective)
Starting points - The Cave (which spawned the term AFKavers)

It might seem a bit daunting to have to learn so many terms, specially after the simple Warsong and Arathi maps, but it gets easy after a few games. There are many specific strategies to win Alterac Valley, so we won't get into the specific ones but there are just some important things to remember while inside the Battleground. We can worry about specific strategies later.

Towers and bunkers are more important than Graveyards
This might be a controversial statement to make, but I say this because these structures can be destroyed permanently and directly affects the reinforcement count. A tower or bunker has a flag inside it which can be tagged through a 10-second channeled action. Once tagged, it will burn after two minutes. While some strategies involve yielding towers to the enemy to facilitate forward movement, it's never a bad idea to try and recapture towers to impede enemy progress.

Defend what you tag
Corollary to bunkers and towers being important, players should never leave what they tag. Just as with Arathi Basin, where it's a bad move to leave a flag unguarded, graveyards or bunkers and towers should be defended until they are captured or destroyed. Can you imagine how much of a setback it is to have a bunker with thirty or so seconds left on its timer get reclaimed by the enemy? Careless defense of tagged objectives often spells the difference in close matches.

Be useful
This might seem like a no-brainer, but there are unscrupulous and lazy players who tend to just 'soak' honor by entering Alterac Valley and not participating actively in the battle. In fact, this behavior led Blizzard to introduce the debuff that prevents players from gaining Honor while its on. Report players who exhibit suspicious behavior by being in odd areas of the map where there seems to be no activity by clicking on their 'dot' in the map and selecting 'Report Player AFK'. There are many ways for players to be useful in Alterac Valley, from defending nodes to capturing them, as well as good old-fashioned killing enemies.

On to Eye of the Storm!

Alterac Valley is most players' first taste of epic PvP encounters. While it takes a coordinated, concentrated effort to win efficiently in the Battleground, it's quite alright for beginners to feel their way around the map as there are many opportunities to be useful. So queue up, get some quests while you're at it -- those quests provide decent XP -- and cause a bit of mayhem! Next week, we'll take a look at the 15-player Eye of the Storm.