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31-05-2005, 21:00 #1Approved 9liver
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Unofficial Alterac Valley FAQ (Engels)
Unofficial Alterac Valley FAQ |
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Structures
2.1 Towers/Bunkers
2.2 Graveyards
2.3 Garrison
3. Important NPCs
4. Reputation
5. Quests
5.1 Non-repeatable Quests
5.11 Harpy Cave
5.12 Capture a mine/tower/graveyard
5.2 Collection quests and looting
5.21 Body Parts
5.22 Storm Crystals
5.23 Armour Scraps
5.24 Insignias
5.3 Repeatable Quests
5.31 Irondeep Supplies
5.32 Cavalry
5.33 The All Seeing Eye
5.34 Korrak the bloodravager
5.35 Goblin Shredder
5.36 Pilots
5.37 Brotherly Love
6. Winning
7. Hints & Tips
8. Bugs
1. Introduction
Originally I started a thread to share some of what I've found with the rest of my guild (TLW/Turalyon) but then I decided it‘d be nice to clean it up and turn it into a proper FAQ. This is a work in progress so there’s many gaps and I’d appreciate people helping me to fill them in.
You can get a pretty good idea of what AV is about by reading the official site, however it does leave most quests out and some things have actually had design changes since they wrote that article (for example towers are no longer captured, they are destroyed).
Thanks to Nigthrunner for filling in some blanks.
The FAQ is long, you might just want to view the hints and tips. Writing in Word then pasting into WoW forum destroyed my formatting, hopefully it doesnt look too bad! I'll try to update in future.
2. Structures
2.1 Towers/Bunkers
Each side starts with 4 bunkers(alliance) or towers(horde) which is full archers who will shoot any enemy nearby with some melee npcs patrolling around too. Simply put these guys hurt so if you're to push into enemy territory you need to remove this obstacle. Originally you captured the bunker and it turned to your side, now you just destroy it preventing any more npcs from spawning and setting it on fire for good measure. To do this go inside and pull down the flag, you must remain in the area for a short while and remove any enemies still around or they'll put the flag back up.
2.2 Graveyards
Similarly each side starts with graveyards, but not graveyards like you're used to. These graveyards have ghostly npcs inside who automatically rez all allies nearby every 30 seconds with no rez sickness and full hp/mana. In fact the corpse run you're used to normally is rather pointless as the enemy most likely will destroy your corpse preventing you from rezzing anywhere else than a graveyard. You capture a graveyard in the same way as a tower, rip down its flag, but this is often much harder than a tower because in addition to the npc guards around the flag you'll have waves of enemy players spawning VERY fast. Oh and note it takes a while to pull down a flag, you need to 'channel' so you cant do anything else while pulling it down, and you can be interrupted.
2.3 Garrison
This is the large building on your front battle line just behind the field of strife. It can never be destroyed or captured. What makes it important is that it houses an important npc (see below for further details).
3. Important NPCs
Throughout the valley both sides have important npcs, starting with lieutenants who're basically just strong elite guards moving up to the leader who's a raid level boss. These npcs will NOT respawn like normal guards will so it is important you try to kill the enemies AND keep yours alive (they will normally yell when under attack). Killing lieutenants stops a small guard patrol from respawning. There is one captain who will periodically give a rallying battle cry which buffs all allies (30% dmg 15% hp or some such buff, very useful) he lives in the garrison close to the field of strife so is a good early target but he is not defenceless (those thinking tanking gear would be totally useless in pvp were wrong). Quest npcs do not seem to respawn so if the enemy kills the guy you want to hand [Armour Scraps] to then you're out of luck.
4. Reputation
While reputation is often viewed as something only certain crafters and those wanting an elite mount would want blizzard are including it in pvp. Stormpike Guard is the new alliance side (interestingly they choose not to use Wildhammer dwarves even though they're next door to alterac) and certain quests can only be completed if you have high enough reputation with them. There's also vendors who'll sell you nothing if you're neutral, but friendly gives you the ability to buy 20x2000hp runecloth for 90s. 500hp potions for 5s and 600-700(?) mana for 5s. And a "faction" tabard which looks DAMN cool! For 1g. Thankfully you shouldn’t need to 'farm' reputation in the normal way (morrowgrain anyone?) but instead almost everything you do in alterac valley has a small reputation boost.
In addition the 4 races of your side each have an npc in the valley who offer a repeatable turn-in quest to boost reputation with their race (yey no more morrowgrain), see the collection quests below for details.
5. Quests
There's a surprising amount of quests and probably some I've not found or completed, I'll start with non-repeatable ones.
5.11 There is a quest to find a flag inside a harpy cave (gnoll for horde I think), this is simple as they're non elite and soloable. Flag goes into your inventory not on your back like in Warsong Gulch so just hand it in later for some reputation and a crappy trinket. Presumably this is the beginnings of a chain of quests to do with reputation, since I never got friendly rep I don’t know where it leads.
5.12 There are 3 separate quests to capture a tower, graveyard, mine. You must be the one who tears down the flag or kills the Kobold/Trogg in the mine and it doesn’t seem to share completion among your raid/group. They're just for reputation, no real rush to complete.
5.2 Collection Quests (repeatable) and Looting
Simply put you cannot win in alterac valley unless you loot corpses, really it is that important that you loot what you kill and that includes enemy players. Note this works both ways, if you repeatedly suicide charge you may just be helping the enemy. You will receive a variety of items in addition to small amount of cash, some of the items are grey with no sell price (such as [Broken I.W.I.N Button]). A lot of items disappear upon zoning out of alterac valley.
5.21 When you kill a member of a certain race they will drop part of their body, which can be turned in for reputation with one of the 4 main alliance/horde races.
[Troll blood] gives Night Elf rep (quest npc near blacksmith)
[Tauren hooves] give Gnome rep (quest npc near blacksmith)
[Orc teeth] give Dwarf rep (get the quest from notice board in main base courtyard)
[Undead hearts] give Human rep (quest npc wanders around near lumber mill)
Afaik the reverse is true for horde.
5.22 They will also drop [Storm Crystals], these are turned into a druid behind the north base tower and with enough of them you summon your sides uber elite raid boss. To summon him you'll escort the druids to the middle of the map and defend them while they chant, then they'll summon an object 10 people must right click and channel on for several seconds before finally the boss is summoned. This boss is very important, he's not invincible but whichever side gets him first will have an advantage, it is almost impossible to storm the enemy main base and win without this guy. Upon spawning he'll normally just stand in the middle ganking anyone who comes past, after a while he'll shout and start moving to the enemy base. I'm told the horde one dropped us a krol blade when we killed him but I never saw it. This seems to be repeatable in the same instance if your boss dies before you win.
Just in case it's not clear this is one of the most important 'quests' in the valley and it is directly related to how much you kill and die. If you die to much the enemy will get their boss first, kill enough and you'll get yours.
5.23 Enemies will also drop [Armour Scraps] which you turn in to upgrade your sides npcs and get a 30 min armour boost buff (stays after death). You need a hell of a lot to upgrade your troops and you can upgrade them several times.
5.24 Enemies will also drop some insignias, three types captain/lieutenant/soldier iirc, but I've been unable to find out what to do with them.
5.3 Repeatable Quests
5.31 Irondeep Supplies is a quest to collect boxes from inside a mine, similar to the noob ones you've probably done before. Different from the noob ones the mobs here are elite however you can kill the head Trogg/Kobold of the mine and capture it for alliance/horde thus making it rather easier to collect supplies. If you repeat the quest a LOT then your side will be able to launch reinforcement npcs into the war however it must be noted you need sufficiently high reputation/rank with Stormpike in order to launch the strike, so far I have found no-one with such high rep on the test server so doing this quest was pointless. Also the quest is boring, I can only assume it's intended to be something for miners to do in-between gathering thorium (for shredder), but the mine doesn’t have much thorium either so go figure.
5.32 There's a quest to launch a cavalry raid, inside your base should be a stable, one npc will give you a quest to use an taming item on rams/wolves (alliance/horde) then bring the tamed animal back to base. After repeating that about 16 times the stables will be full and the quest npc will go quiet until the stables are empty again. A second npc will complain that you've got all these rams but no harness, apparently dwarves are too posh for bare back riding, but not to worry if you go kill enemy wolves he'll be able to make some. Note you don’t need skinning just loot wolves normally, also you can gather a lot before returning to base (this is advised as you'll need about 16). Once both these quests have been done enough a large group of mounted dwarves will ride out from your base and patrol your territory. Sometimes they will move into enemy territory towards their base but other times they do not, this may be related to the death of the captain of the group. Unlike Irondeep Supplies you don’t need high reputation to launch the cavalry.
5.33 On the west side of the middle of the valley are a lot of hostile trolls (to both alliance and horde) who deep within their cave hold "Ryson’s all seeing eye". The trolls are elite so you need 5-10 people to go inside and retrieve the eye, which is the easy bit. Whoever picks up the eye will start glowing a very intense green and will easily be visible to anyone around, their job is now to run to the east side of the valley and find the Syndicate in a small semi hidden cave behind some gnolls. They must do this avoiding being killed by the enemy players, if they kill him and pick up the eye then they can complete the quest instead of you! That is the hard part.
Assuming you do complete the quest the syndicate will join your side, though that doesn’t mean they're going to fight for you. Talk to the head syndicate guy and he'll give you a 30 min buff that acts as humanoid tracking like hunters have, this buff stays after death. This doesn’t seem worth the effort until you find the OTHER thing the buff does which is boost your stealth detection by a lot, I cannot express how useful this really is. Briefly- while not godlike like some suggest rogues definitely shine in pvp, with this buff you can see most rogues before they use their opener styles on you and prevent that from happening if you're quick, this seriously hurts rogues damage and/or ability to stunlock.
What's more the syndicate will give you another quest after joining your side which is to place a beacon in the enemy base so you can "see all activity in their base from the syndicate cave". I haven’t completed this so I'm unsure of it's usefulness, it's another quest that's only really possible if you're already winning.
5.34 Korrak the bloodravager (or some such name) is a big ass troll who respawns fairly often in the middle of the valley (called the "field of strife") and there's a quest to destroy him (for both sides). Should be possible with a good group, easier in a raid, be careful enemies don’t 'tag' him first or you'll just help them by killing him. Quest has reputation reward but also a fairly good blue polearm/crossbow/wand choice and a 'teleport to base' stone with 20 charges.
After you complete that quest the npc will tell you korrak is in fact back, and to burn his body and remove his heart next time. This part is repeatable giving you another rune of recall with 20 charges but not a blue weapon.
The following 3 quests may or may not be repeatable (I'd have to finish them to find out and they're tricky).
5.35Connected to the all seeing eye quest. Upon completion, you can talk to the gnome and for a large amount of bars you will receive a zigzaw harvester that you can control. The harvester is a lvl 60 elite with quick 200dmg attacks and a 700-800 cone of fire spell forwards. Supposedly immune to speed decreasing spells? Played correctly (and healed!) it can be quite useful in attacking graveyards or other. Rarely seen. Item has 45 minutes cooldown, and the harvester may be controlled until death.
I've not seen any iron deposits inside alterac, and even if there was one to get such a huge amount of ore will take a long time so unlike other quests it looks like you prepare for this one in advance.
5.36 There are three pilots who were shot down and captured by the other side, each one is in a different enemy tower and you must find and escort these guys home so they can launch an air strike. In practice because the last pilot is so deep in enemy territory it seems you must be winning before you start escorting him, I am not sure if he respawns if your escort attempt fails. If you complete the quest you must get a homing beacon from a new npc in base and plant it in the middle of the field of strife then protect it for a minute (no wonder the pilots got shot down if they cant navigate directly south down a small valley). A flier then spawns in the middle and ganks people running through the field of strife, not sure if like the uber elite boss he attacks the enemy base after a set time (he dies easier than the uber elite boss). Also note you can only plant one beacon every 30 minutes even if your beacon gets destroyed before the minute is up however other people can still plant beacons.
5.37 There are two brothers, one undead one human, who wander inside their own territory behind the 2nd tower but far in front of their bases. They
want you to kill the other brother. I've not completed this but it should be possible with an organised raid to kill him easily if you're already winning.
6. Winning
I've tried to describe all the things I can think of about alterac valley but the final and most important thing is a bit more difficult. While it would be easy to say "kill the enemy boss in his keep" it's not that easy to actually perform. Teamwork is required and a rather high level of organisation, you must keep a large number of people on the front battle line while also having several groups doing the above mentioned quests.
I've seen 40 horde fail to win against 30 alliance because the alliance had rogue strike teams capping graveyards while mages pinned the main horde force on a bridge where two bunkers could shoot down at. I saw a similar 40 vs. 40 situation in another battleground where horde won because they ran in mostly ignoring defending players in order to take out the npc bunkers THEN kill the players as their uber elite summoned boss started patrolling through our base.
Ultimately tactics are going to be something developed over time, playing for a few hours in a random test server group is hardly the best example of organisation.
7. Hints & Tips
Organise, don’t just start a raid group try to have balanced groups and send some to do quests.
Do not expect others to do things you are not willing to (“why has no-one started raid group?” “why doesn’t someone capture rams?”).
Protect your npcs.
Don’t bother with the mines unless you are certain somebody in your raid can launch the attack the supplies give.
You will suffer defeats and setbacks, work with your team to overcome these problems instead of blaming your team for them!
Regularly hand in all the loot you have gathered.
Both Horde and Alliance have advantages in the valley they can choose to use, I shall just list those that come to mind as factual as I can and not go into the balance aspect of it (though I would say balance is pretty even).
There is a bridge outside of alliance main base, a Blizzard and perhaps other AE can completely cover this bridge stopping any stealthed characters from crossing and pinning the horde outside of your base. It is in alliance interests to keep horde from crossing this bridge, horde may consider simply charging through any AE to take out the bunkers.
Horde base is the opposite, although there is a main route like alliance base there is also a small mound next to it that can be used as a ramp for alliance to jump the fence
Horde garrison is close to a horde tower, while defending the important npc inside the garrison you may be able to pull alliance into the range of the tower.
Paladins and Shamans both have good abilities, most whine on forums originates due to poorly played characters (many test server people are trying out a class they never played before). While it seems an obvious tip I must point out knowing your class and ALL its abilities is key with these two classes.
Shamans are good in stand offs where they can plant totems, sometimes out of range of enemy fire but within range to buff their group, it is harder to use totems when the battle line moves rapidly.
Paladins make excellent graveyard cappers
8. Bugs
There are a lot of bugs in the current test server version of alterac valley, this is to be expected. I will not list them all here but some bugs you can help avoid.
The boss npcs have a lot of hp, the last thing you want is for them to go into evade mode and heal up all the damage you did. If you pve regularly you should know the sort of terrain to avoid pulling mobs over, this includes- stairs, cliffs, hills, objects such as crates. It is often better for you to die than to escape up a cliff and stick him in evade mode.
When the Trogg/Kobold leader returns to take over the mine he’ll yell, often the player reaction is “let’s go help our npc defend the mine!” but due to a bug it is best you do not. You see if an npc kills the Trogg/Kobold the mine will stay Trogg/Kobold controlled! Better for your npcs to die to make sure you get credit for the mine capture. (or just don’t bother, see Irondeep Supplies quest info above)
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Post van Vorbis op de EU testrealmforumsno votes
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31-05-2005, 22:06 #2Approved 9liver
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Ohja, heb je hints, tips of ultrageheime tactieken?
Zwier ze er hier maar bij
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01-06-2005, 10:39 #3Member
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thx, weet aan wat ik me kan verwachten binnenkort
WoW Guild DoG On Terenas Realm, contact us for infono votes
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01-06-2005, 10:56 #4Crew Member
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goede faq, verdient zeker een plaats hier ^^
verklaart ook veel dingen, die ik nog niet tegengekomen was. (dat van die piloten kende ik nog niet.)
Ik zou graag tips geven, maar de battlegrounds sucken enorm op dees moment.
(alez ja, de spelers sucken) -_-
der is altijd wel nen idioot die de leiding neemt, en er zelf niets van afweet. constant zitten roepen en bevelen geven, en zelf doet em nix...
Zo hadden we eens een enorme voorsprong op horde. 30:10 en NOG hebben we verloren.Last edited by Preske; 01-06-2005 at 10:58.
QUOTE by Killer Queen : Thanks.. Das, Gij zijt misschien gedocumenteerd, maar ik maak dat goed door ervaring.
People say I have a big ego, but really my ego is tiny in comparison with my enormous talented geniusno votes
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01-06-2005, 11:02 #5Crew Member
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5.24 Enemies will also drop some insignias, three types captain/lieutenant/soldier iirc, but I've been unable to find out what to do with them. = ze hebben mijn insignia eens afgenomen, en er kwam op dat ik niet kon rezzen, da tik naar de dichtsbijzijnde graveyard moest oO.
en die insignias zelf ziet ge niet in uw inventoryQUOTE by Killer Queen : Thanks.. Das, Gij zijt misschien gedocumenteerd, maar ik maak dat goed door ervaring.
People say I have a big ego, but really my ego is tiny in comparison with my enormous talented geniusno votes
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01-06-2005, 13:28 #6Approved 9liver
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Hij bedoelt de insignia's die droppen.
BTW: Als je horde speelt op testrealm 2, ik ben Alianadra (troll mage).
Mijn main is wel alliance, en alliance side hebk al uitvoerig met druid getest, maar je komt meer te weten over je vijand als je zelf even horde speelt
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