World War One, all over again

Ever since 2.3, there have been some major changes to Alterac Valley.
These changes, I think, were supposed to make it more strategical, and try to end the endless zerg rushing of pre-2.3 AV.

The very first iteration of AV was a monstrosity, filled with random NPCs, and even a random rampaging Troll. It has undergone many, many changes, streamlining the battleground into a PvP battleground again.
However, it is one that requires a great deal of execution compared to the Old AVs.

Pre 2.3, you got honor when you killed stuff. Thats it. So everybody bum-rushed everyone else, got tons of honor, and churned out thousands of honor.

Now, things are different. Do you still get honor from killing stuff? Damn right you do. 62 honor for killing the Captain, destroying a tower or bunker. You also snag a hefty 83 honor from killing the end general.
!BUT!
At the end of the game, your team is awarded 41 honor for having intact towers, and a living Captain.
So you lose honor when a Tower is capped from your side. You lose honor when Balinda/Galv get killed.
Furthermore, when one of your towers is capped, you lose 75 reinforcements. And when a captain dies, there goes 100 reinforcements.

In essence, the new AV requires a solid defence now in addition to a powerful offence.
If everyone from your team zergs forward, you lose honor when Alliance kills your stuff. But, if no one goes on offence, then you don't get any honor from killing stuff.

The old Horde adage was "Defence is for pussies". The whole horde mentality was one of simply swarming whatever needed to be done. In AB, for example, nobody would defend Lumbermill, because if alliance capped it, horde would simply zerg it back. I participated in this many, many times while leveling up, and witnessed 5-caps at 29, 39, 49, 59, and 69.
In warsong, traditionally horde would not have anybody on defence, and simply attack the alliance. Any defence the alliance had (which was generally 4-8 people) were simply steamrolled, and we killed the alliance flag carrier on our way back. That was how warsong was played. Alliance would put up defence, horde would annihilate defence, horde would win.
Over and over again.
Pre-70, thats how the game is played. I cannot say this is true everywhere, but on Stormstrike, if horde ever devoted more than 10% of its avaliable resources to defence, we would lose. Guaranteed.

But times, they did a-change.

And now AV is unfriendly to pure offence strategies.

So. You need to have some folk on defence, and they better be some damn solid folk.
Don't misunderstand this. You do not win an AV by having Defence. You delay your opponents victory through defence.
All defence serves to do is slow down and hinder the enemies attack, while your own offence pushes through to ultimate victory. At absolute maximum, half the raid group will be on defence. ABSOLUTE MAX. You need a minimum of 20 people on offence if you expect to be victorious in any kind of timely manner.
So, where do we devide who goes on defence, and who goes on offence?
First off, the people on offence will be fighting a lot of NPC's, while those on defence almost never will, and will almost exclusively be fighting other players.
Thus, people with PvE builds and gear should go on offence right off the bat, and those with PvP builds and gear are better suited to playing on defence.
Second, there are some very nice talents/abilities that lend themselves specifically to a role in AV. Rogues, for example, have been longstanding examples of excellent Tower-cappers. If you can "Ninja" a graveyard or Tower, you are an incredible asset to a team.
Any and all AoE fears are incredibly useful on defence. Priests and warlocks can ruthlessly upset the offence of the opposing team. In the same regard, a Druid's Cyclone ability can be devastating if you cyclone the main tank of the other team.

You get the idea.

So where do we stand, as mages?

If you're in Karazhan gear, play offence. You have better PvE skills, and will be far more useful to an effective offence.
If you're sporting S2 arena gear, you're better off on defence, as you'll be more suited to the heavy PvP combat that comes from playing that side.

And now to specs.

If you're arcane, you are very well suited to playing on Offence. Solid DPS and raid power, coupled with the brief PvP potential from those 3 minute mage abilities, will make you perfectly suited to playing Offence. When your offence runs into the enemies defence, you can pop those powerful abilties to steamroll them, and get right back on to killing Archers/whatever.

Fire spec is kindof a tossup. In general, you're better of on Offence, putting those handy damage abilities to good use. However, abilities like Dragon's Breath are incredibly potent, and can seriously shut down the offence of an enemy. A 3 second AoE stun is ridiculously powerful. Use it wisely, you can make a huge dent in, for example, enemy healers. Dragon's Breath can also be used on offence, and, indeed, Blastwave + Dragon's Breath can often single-handedly break a stalemate. The sheer amount of devastating damage seriously weakens your opponents, allowing your teammates to take them down quickly.
You will often die rather shortly after unleashing Blastwave/Dragon's Breath on a collection of alliance/horde, however.

Frost is an amazing defence build. No if's or but's about it. Slows, roots, what's not to like? You can frustrate any advance easily. The whole makeup of frost is mastery of kiting, and doing massive damage while the enemy is rather strictly controlled. In essence, it is perfect for defence. And if some brilliant people are defending with you, you can be unstoppable.
In old AV, I've witnessed 3 frost mages and a pair of warlocks stall the entire alliance offence for a good 45 minutes. Endless roots and fears kept them at bay for a very long time.

TL;DR version: play to your spec and gear. Prot warrior with 19k hitpoints? Go on offence and help tank stuff. Shadow Priest with 12k hitpoints and 500 resilience? Go on defence, and be the shade that wouldn't die. Resto shaman in Tier 5, with mp5 so high it makes Holy Priests cry? Go on offence, and spam chain heal. Resto druid sporting S3 gear? Stay on defence, you will piss a lot of people off.

And if you find yourself in one of those stalemate AVs, where the whole fight is essentially btoh sides rezzing and killing each other every 30 seconds?
I feel for you.
Attrition battles in the new AV really, really suck.

Azeroth's Biggest Failures

Tonight on Azeroth's 3 Biggest Failures

A guest column by Voxmortis

Heyo, Voxmortis here, you may recognize me from such posts as “why Voxmortis needs to re spec frost” and assorted rantings about how I fail. Damn good reading IMO, you should take it to heart.

Now, being the epic failure that I am, I am gifted with the magical ability to spot and write down even bigger failures than myself. The following 3 transpired over this AV holiday weekend.

#3: The alliance on Stormstrike.

Okay, this is more of a cheer for the horde on stormstrike than anything else. If you didn't notice, or just don't play on the stormstrike realm, some moronic alliance members decided that it would render more honor if they turtled then tried to push us back into mandatory cave defense. Now, this may seem like a good idea to you for the following reasons:

1. It pisses off the horde (and who doesn't want that?!)

2. It renders more honor per battleground

3. LOL! I KILLED A ZMOBIE! LOL! ROFL! I LIKE ANIME AND FAIL HARD BECAUSE I PLAY A GNOME! (totally unbiased here....)

Now, this is why it is a bad idea:

1. Horde has a shitstorm of druids.

Despite wave after wave of alliance defense, successfully pushing us back into the cave, the alliance failed to look at the score sheet to notice that we had 10 druids in this particular battleground. There were a couple feral tanks, a tree or two and a handful of boomkin & feral dps. Guess what alliance? Cat form+stealth+walk north a bit=well-constructed 10 man to take on Vanndar. Now anybody who looks back on the days of 30 folks or more on cave defense KNOWS that thats all you need to take out Vanndar. So guess what? We Won. Eat it gnomes.

#2: A particular hunter who I repeatedly saw in AV

This hunter was a troll. He left his pet on aggressive entering Vann's room. Nuff said? I thought so. It took this rube 4 wipes to realize what was going on and by then, alliance had gotten bored of defense and killed Drek. GG ebay character, GG

#1: Though I regret to do this.... The mages of Anathema

Though I am deeply excited to join Anathema, that I can finally see some endgame content and be able to actually defend my spec as viable (arcane raid DPS ftw!), I look on with trepidation and absolute horror at meeting Anathema's mage community.

Case 1: Their Frost Mage....

He is specced for arena... only no piercing ice... /facepalm

Case 2: One of their fire mages...

She is specced 13/48. Sure, there are ways you could feebly argue its superiority over 10/48/3 as the bread-and-butter fire raid build. But not for this one. Instead of elemental precision, my toasty comrade has chosen ARCANE FORTITUDE and WAND SPEC. Yeah. I know.

Case 3: I havent slept in 21 hours, and have no motivation to go to the armory to remind myself about what I was talking about.

Well thats it for me, this was a rant by Voxmortis. Oh, and next time you see me in the arena? Put fire ward up, and ice block when the big orange burney thing comes towards your head. I'm tired of shitkicking frost mages who don't know what they're doing.

Nukeymcsquishy, AKA Voxmortis,

Signing Off.

AV Weekend (Free Honor)

Alterac Valley holiday weekend has hit, and anyone who has any interest in PvP is there.

There is honor to be had! In vast quantities! For little effort!

And also the somewhat awesome fact that S1 arena gear is going onto the honor system to consider.
Obviously, you, the proud mage, have some choices to make. Do you go with the flow, and dick around in AV, harvesting honor for no real effort?
Or do you step up to the challenge, and go find a commander and solo it?

This is a guide to the Alliance commanders and lieutenants in AV, and how to kill them. If there are any readers on alliance side reading this, a guide on how to kill the horde military folk would be appreciated.

Anyway.

On with the killing!

In the following write-up, when I use the word "Kite", I am referring to (roughly) the following procedure:

1) Slow the target (Any frost slow effects, Blastwave daze, Slow, whatever works for you)
2) If frost, max-rank frostbolts will keep him occupied. When he gets close, run away, continue. Use frost nova whenever it is up, to get range and a free shatter. If not frost, use rank 1 frostbolt whenever the slow timer is up to keep him moving slowly. Again, frost nova whenever it is up and get some range. Use blink if you're having trouble keeping range.
3) Repeat steps 1 and 2 until target falls over, thus awarding you 20 honor.

Lieutenant Spencer
He guards the Stonehearth Graveyard.

This fight is simple, once you get the hand of it. Pull any one of the guards, and all four of them and Spencer will be pulled. Gather them up, and AoE the guards down. Arcane Explosion, Blastwave, Cone of Cold, whatever you have. Once all four guards are down, slow Spencer by any means necessary. Frostbolt, Slow, whatever. Bonus points for using CoC earlier and having him already slowed.
Then, kite him. You must kite him away from the alliance guard tower, otherwise those archers will tear you apart.

Lieutenant Largent
One of the guards of Stonehearth Outpost, along with the gnomish lieutenant.

Approach from either the south or the east. Pull him, and kite. You have more manuevering room from the south end, lots of flat spaces. From the east, you have various hills, which are amazing for kiting when properly used. If you jump down from one, you can instantly gain (effectively) 10-15 yards of kite time in a couple seconds.
Again, do not kite into the archers up the hill. That's just asking to be killed.

Lieutenant Stouthandle
Patrols between Stonehearth Outpost and Stonehearth Bunker.

On his own, Stouthandle is easy. You have lots of room to kite, having both open spaces and hills to use to your advantage. However, as Stouthandle is the type of guy who wanders around on his male sheep, he can jump you while you're kiting a different Lieutenant. If that happens, fire off a polymorph, and make him wander around as a female sheep.
Watch the timer closely, you do not want to have him running lose on you. These guys hit for about 1k damage, don't let them get crazy on yeh.

Lieutenant Greywand
Largent's best buddy, helps guard the Stonehearth Outpost.

Same as Largent, kite and kill.

Lieutenant Lonadin
Rides around on a giant kitty by Stonehearth.

This guy can be tricky, due to his proximity to the archers in the bunker. Kite him back into the area where you killed Spencer. You should have lots of room there by now, having killed off the other lieutenants in that area. Kite as usual once you are in the clear.

Lieutenant Mancuso
Patrols north of Stonehearth Bunker. Stupid name.

The very first alliance bunker you reach houses Commander Randoplh. There is one archer here you need to worry about. He/she's the one standing above the entrance. Before attempting to kite any lieutentants here, KILL THIS ARCHER. It will make your life so much easier. Mancuso is easy to kite once this archer is dead, you have lots of room you can use.

Commaner Randolph
In Stonehearth Bunker.

As I said before, KILL THE ARCHER OVER THE ENTRANCE. It will make things far less painful. Run into the bunker, take a couple steps up the first flight of stairs. Then whirl around and head out the door. Randolph will have aggrod. He will follow you out, and once your in the open air, kite as a lieutenant. If you killed the archer this will be easy.
If you have not, you need to kite him up the hill to where Mancuso is. Lose LoS with the bunker, and use the open area up there. If Mancuso joins in, sheep him. It's harder to do things this way, you'll probably take around 4k damage from the archer kiting up the hill.

Commander Karl Phillips
In Icewing Bunker.

This one is a little more difficult to solo. You must kill every archer in the tower first to give yourself room to kite. There are also a couple of rams and a dwarf with some owls who patrols past here. You don't need to kill them, but it is highly recommended that you do. You do not want multiple adds showing up. One is fine.
If you don't clear the adds, then kite Phillips down the path leading towards Stonehearth. That will avoid any patrolling mobs, and give you some room.

Commander Duffy
Guards the Stormpike Graveyard.

Remember Spencer? Same thing, except with a dwarf. AoE down the guards, then kite Duffy back the way you came. You cannot kite Duffy where he forst spawns, you don't have nearly enough room. Do not try and kite over the bridge, the archers will tear you several new ones. You have to go back the way you came in, and get yourself some valuable kiting room.

Commander Mortimer
Patrols in Dun Baldar.

This one can be very tough to solo, fortunately, the chances you will have to are very slim. All the archers need to be dead, as well as Mountaineer Boombellow and Corporal-whats-is-face. if you need even more room, kill the guards at the Aid Station graveyard as well. 'Course, you'll probably need to keep Mortimer sheeped for that, as you're probably going to aggro him befoire you get to the graveyard. Once these threats are removed, he is easy enough to kite, you just have to be alert here. This is a dwarf town, there are tanks and walls placed at random. There are numerous NPCs that only aggro when you get really close to them, so watch yourself.
Do not kite over any NPC vendor types, and avoid backing yourself into a corner. If you stay alert to your surroundings, this will not be hard.

And there you go. You just garnered a couple hundred honor and some respect while at it. And if there's anything the general WoW community needs, its more respect for mages.

Some random stories:

I had brought Randolph outside, and begun kiting him. A druid came along, popped into Bear, and tried to tank. It took him a couple of seconds before he realized it was hopeless and pointless to try and pull aggro off me... so he morphed kitty and began DPS'ing the crap out of boor Randoplh. I kited in a large circle, so Randolph always had his back turned towards the druid.

Another time, whilst solo'ing Randolph again, a holy priest came by, with every intention of healing me.
20 seconds in later, the priest had done nothing but stand there.
I got a /sigh sent in my direction, then a /s "What am I supposed to do? You aren't taking damage"

"Melee the bugger" says I.

Good times had by all.

I can haz moar daily quests??!?!?1

SWEEPING CHANGES.

Ok, not really, but there are some very large changes in regards to battlegrounds in patch 2.3

Daily quests have been added targeting a random battleground for that day

Hmm... this could go either way. On the one hand, it provides hard-core PvP'ers a way to earn gold doing what they love to do best. Will this also serve to increase reputation with those said factions? Could it be that I won't have to cap the flag in Warsong 1133 times to hit Exalted? Perhaps that title of 'Conqueror' isn't as far away as it used to be...
On the other hand, this means that the gold farmer type people are going to be clogging up my battlegrounds... this, again, is a mix. I could end up in an Arathi with 7 people horde side only there for the cash... or maybe most of alliance side is only there for the cash. Each daily quest seems simple enough “Win the battleground, get 12 gold!”
Either way you look at it, every battleground could be full of the nubs you see running around AV, freaking out when Alliance caps snowfall.
Will I get essentially free kills from a druid in 65 greens? Or will I be hampered when my whole team decides to zerg mines, and /dance because that was the daily quest?
Gonna have to delve into the PTR's to test this one out... Speaking of which, Dr. Boom data is ridiculously hard to get off the PTR’s. We’re talking competition from 6 or 7 other people. AT FOUR IN THE MORNING.

Player's will now be able to cast spells for free for a few seconds after being resurrected, and before a battleground begins.

I cannot believe how awesome that is. Typically, after rezzing, I'd just pop Molten and hop right back into the fray. With this, I could hit every self-buff I have. You get about 5 seconds of free casting. And that pre-BG free spellcast is nothing short of awesome. I think I'll go spam Ritual of Refreshment because I can.

ALTERAC VALLEY

Hoo boy, some major changes here.

1. Additional Warmasters no longer report for duty upon destroying an enemy tower. However, enemy warmasters still despawn on destroying the associated tower. Easier boss pulls ftw?
2. All Warmasters are linked to each other and their respective generals, and can no longer be pulled individually. No more Vanndar only pulls? Aww... *single tear*
3. Honor from capturing towers has been increased. Presumably, this is to counter the following change:
4. No more Commanders and Lieutenants. While the patch notes state this much more delicately, the fact is simple. Mancuso, Randolph, Murp, all those wonderful elite honor farms are hereby removed. Such a pity, considering solo'ing one of those was an excellent way for a young mage to test his kiting skills. This, I think, will prove to be a general decrease in the amount of honor gained from an AV. I dont care what this says:
5. Bonus honor is only given in battle for destroying enemy towers and killing the captain (Read, That Orc Dude / Annoying Blonde Mage). Upon conclusion of the battle, bonus honor is given fro surviving towers and surviving captain. Now would be a good time to mention the new mechanics of AV.
6. Horde and Alliance have a limited number of reinforcements avaliable. This number is reduced by player death, loss of towers, captain deaths. If the reinforcements reach zero, that team loses. If the General dies, reinforcements default to zero. Basically, this is going to turn AV into a prolonged battle of attrition. The constant Zerg rush of the current AV will pretty much die off completely. Alliance could win the whole game by turtling at that damn bridge. A fear-bomb, causing the opposing team to wipe on Drek'Thar could hugely swing the game in Horde's favor.

Look at it this way. With these changes, AV is going to return to the old days, where AV could go on for hours. The difference is, with the reinforcement cap, it will have the same kind of "time limit" that EotS and Arathi have (Warsong, sadly, still lacks this time limit). We're going to get a feel for the new AV in Patch 2.3 here, and report back our findings. Should be interesting to see if the new AV turns into a bottle-necked war of attrition (think First World War) or game that requires some serious coordination and tactics (think a Starcraft 2v2 team match). The way the patch notes are making it look, we're going to get honor based on what we have left at the end. So, the longer the battle goes, the more stuff gets asploded, the less honor we get.

Goodbye Honor Cow.

Additional bonus honor is now awarded upon completion of Arathi Basin, Eye of the Storm and Warsong Gulch.
So does this mean that AV will not be the honor-cow it is now? Will we see Arathi and the rest of them be competitive from an honor/hour perspective? We'll have to give this a run on the PTRs as well. Could be, we're going to look at a lot more PvP gear making the rounds.

Hmm... PvP epix. We need a discussion on that too. Look for it later this week : Welfare Epix.