Fans of Chronicle of the Annoying Quest will have to wait for a few weeks for Episode 25. In the meantime, Bakasavant Productions created a scary parody of an anime show, Death Note. Death Quest is simply a WoW version of the second opening for the animated series.

This is one of those machinimas that leaves me scratching my head. Since I’m not a fan of anime, I’m probably missing some key element here. However, given how well the Vic Mignogna WoW commercial parody went over, it seems that a lot of you will enjoy it!

[Via Warcraftmovies.com]

If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com.

Previously on Moviewatch …

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Tags: 2, 4, application, at, car, Death, ea, IT, La, M, Machinima, mail, Movie, Movies, OD, P, Production, r, SEC, W, WoWMoviewatch, youtube

Related posts

• WoW Moviewatch: The Crimson Sisters of the Scarlet Flame (0)
• WoW Moviewatch: Ahn’Qiraj, The Movie (0)
• WoW Moviewatch: WoW-TV (0)
• WoW Moviewatch: Opening of the AQ gates (0)
• WoW Moviewatch: Doodad, The Machinima (0)

We all know by now that Death Knights are the new class being added with Wrath of the Lich King. And, what’s more, they’re the only class being added with the new expansion. Skudo (Altar of Storms) doesn’t like that much, and would rather see Shadow Hunters or Demon Hunters added.

Posts like these are common enough, but Nethaera showed up to add some clarifying candlelight. First, she reiterated that Blizzard isn’t closed to the idea of adding more classes in the future. But what she really seems to strive to get across is that adding a class isn’t easy.

There’s a lot that goes into creating a new archetype for players to operate, play, defeat, vanquish, and exploit for every bit of Warcraft goodness. There’s balance to consider, and the need to make each class play in unique ways. Heck, we all spend enough time arguing now about whether the existing classes are even balanced. Can you imagine what it’s going to be like with a brand new class added?

So these things take time. Assuming that Blizzard’s team pulls off Death Knights well, I’m pretty sure we’ll see more new classes in later expansions. Let’s see how the first new class goes, before we put our eggs in new baskets.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Tags: 2, 2008, 4, Analysis/Opinion, at, Blizzard, Classes, Common, Death, DeathKnight, ea, Expansions, Hunter, IT, Knight, La, M, media, OD, P, r, rate, W, WrathoftheLichKing

Related posts

• Tank Talk: Do you feel lucky, punk? (0)
• Hybrid Theory: Shaman and the Wrath Alpha (0)
• Blood Pact: The Warlock’s way ahead, part 2 (0)
• [1.Local]: The week through the eyes of our readers (0)
• [1.Local]: Readers talk back (0)

I like to have a bit of gold on me at all times. When I see something I want for one of my alts, it’s nice to be able to just buy it without thinking about the ramifications for next week’s farming and raiding. There’s a strategy that I’ve been using for a couple months now that’ll let those that follow it earn upwards of 10,000g a month.

To use this strategy, you need to have access to the following:

• Rare T5/ T6 patterns
• A steady stream of Badge of Justices or Hearts of Darkness
• 5 hours a week set aside for hard core farming
• A second account

Those might look like insane requirements to some, and they’re not wrong. They are a bit steep. However making this amount of gold should not be easy and be able to be done by everyone. But with that said, it’s not too hard to get into a T5 guild these days, and weekly Kara runs plus a few heroics can get you 30 badges a week.

Read on after the break for the complete strategy.

The overall goal of this strategy is to sell two T5 crafted items a week, each for around 1,500 gold. On the other hand, you can sell one T6 item a week for around 3,000 gold. Let’s look at how you do this.

The first thing you want to get your hands on are as many T5 / T6 patterns as you can use. Learn them and be happy, because you’ll be making a ton of these items. These patterns are BoP and are random drops in a T5 / T6 instance. I’m a blacksmith so I’ll be using blacksmithing as an example. The principal T5 items I make are the Red Belt of Battle and the Belt of the Guardian. For T6 items I make the Dawnsteel Bracers and Swiftsteel Bracers.

The mats for the items need to be farmed by you or bought off the AH. If you are good at farming you’ll not have too much of a problem getting them together. On my T6 warrior it takes about 2 1/2 hours to farm the mats for the Red Belt of Battle, my biggest seller. However your mileage may vary.

Of course besides the raw materials you’re going to need the Nether Vortexes or Hearts of Darkness. The Nether Vortexes should be purchased with the badges you get from farming Karazhan, other raids, and heroics. It is pretty easy to get 30 badges a week (which allows you to make one T5 item). Kara will give you 22 badges, and the other 8 can come from clearing Gruul’s Lair (5 badges) and Magtheridon (3 badges). Since the goal is to make two T5 items, you can either buy the additional two Vortexes off the AH or farm out the remaining 30 badges. If each day you run the daily heroic quest, you’ll get at least 35 badges from doing just that.

Once you have the materials you need to sell the items. This can be the hardest part, or the easiest part. It all depends on what the market is like at the time, and what players are wanting. I’ve found that the market is best for selling these items on weeknights during “prime time,” or from about 6 p.m. server until 10 p.m. server. If you’re like me, you have scheduled raids during part of this time. That’s where the second account comes in.

Make a bank character on your second account and get him to a Stormwind or Ironforge. Make a macro that announces your goods to the trade channel, and use the macro once every 10 minutes. You will get a lot of questions of “how much?” and “omg that’s too much you n00b.” Ignore the haters because you will eventually sell it, and you’ll have stacks of gold compared to them.

When it is not prime time, I recommend that you put your crafted goods up on the AH for sale. There are always the odd players that won’t log in until 2 a.m. in the morning, and you want to be able to get to them as well. Additionally if you have two items the best thing to do is to put one up on the AH, and keep the other around to sell via the trade channel.

With all that said you should be able to move two of your products each week for around 1,500g each, netting you a total of 3,000g. Do this each week for a month, and you’ll make 12,000g. For me raiding costs about 2,000g a month, so in the end I’m left with 10,000g sitting on me. Not too bad.

Of course, there are some holes in all this. First, this strategy is dependent on there being a demand for your (theoretically) unlimited supply. You want to be sure that you are not flooding the market and eliminating demand for your products. And at the same time, you want to create an “illusion” of demand if possible. To keep demand high by normal economic forces I recommend that you do not sell more than two items a week. To keep it high artificially, I’ve had a lot of success by saying things in the trade channel like “One more Red Belt of Battle left for the week, get it now or you’ll have to wait.” People don’t want to wait, especially for things they get in a game.

While creating artificial demand might be an underhanded practice in the real world and get you in some trouble depending on how you go about it, this is a game world, and there is nothing wrong with using it as a strategy. What you don’t want to do is take people’s gold without giving them something in return – Blizzard will ban you very fast.

Another possible source of income with these T5 patterns is making them when other people have the mats. I typically charge a combine fee of 300g for a T5 pattern, and 600g for a T6 pattern. If I’m aggressive in my advertising of these patterns, I can get about an additional 1,200g a week from just doing the combines.

Eventually this source of gold is going to dry up. Chances are it’ll stop becoming viable shortly before Wrath of the Lich King. However at that point there are going to be other strategies for making a buck or two in game (namely gathering and selling mats necessary to level up the new inscription profession).

Take all this with a grain of salt if you want to, but it has worked for me. In the past two months I’ve netted over 50,000g, and currently have 28,000g in the bank and another 2,000g floating around in items that I’m selling on the AH (the rest of the money has gone towards buying my many alts epic flying mounts). With a bit of patience and work, you’ll be able to see these kinds of numbers too.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Tags: 000, 10, 2, 2008, 4, Alts, at, att, Blacksmithing, Blizzard, Dark, drop, ea, Economy, Guides, How-tos, Inscription, IT, Items, Knight, La, M, Makingmoney, media, money, Mounts, OD, P, r, Raiding, rate, SEC, Tips, Tricks, W, Warrior, wind

Related posts

• Arcane Brilliance: Leveling your Mage, 60-70 (0)
• Shifting Perspectives: Gearing your bear tank from 70 to Karazhan! (0)
• Arcane Brilliance: Leveling your Mage, 40-60 (0)
• Arcane Brilliance: Leveling your Mage, 1-20 (0)
• Arcane Brilliance: Leveling your Mage, 1-20 (0)

The forums have been quiet lately. Quiet about Alterac Valley, that is. Whereas the changes brought about by Patch 2.3 resulted in an uproar, with reports of entire realms reportedly boycotting the Battleground, Patch 2.4 seems to have delivered a modicum of balance at long last. Prior to the last patch, some people seemed to believe that the new mechanic prevented the Alliance from winning the Battleground unless the Horde played below par. The stink brought about by the supposed imbalance was so huge, in fact, that Blizzard quickly hotfixed Balinda Stonehearth and Vanndar Stormpike to have more life in an effort to “assist in balancing the opposing sides.”

In Patch 2.4, Balinda and Vanndar were restored to their original (lower) health totals and included minor tweaks in order to further balance the ambitious map. The biggest change in the patch, however, was a geographical one. The Horde starting cave — which was reputedly so close to the game objectives that it gave the Horde side an unfair advantage under the new mechanics — was abandoned and a new one created further South. The old cave is still there, oddly, except that now it’s just an empty hollow where people can presumably AFK in peace.

The time is now
If you’ve never played Alterac Valley, there’s never been a better time to start. The Battleground has gone through numerous iterations, but it looks to be in its best version yet. In a recent Breakfast Topic, Amanda asked if AV has been fixed with the new changes. The general consensus seems to be that status quo has been maintained, but at least there’s no longer the perception of a gross imbalance created by the mechanics change in Patch 2.3.

On the other hand, the same geographical ills still plague the map. Frostwolf Graveyard is still on an open plain, the bridge to Dun Baldar is still a bottleneck while Alliance can still leap over the Frostwolf Keep fence, Relief Hut is still unreachable by NPC archers while Aid Station is, and Snowfall Graveyard is still oriented towards an Alliance capture (the natural tendency in the map is to stick to the right).

Perhaps the one good note is that the new Horde starting area further South encourages Horde defense in a way that the previous area never did. With Frostwolf Keep and Graveyard within such close proximity, players gravitate towards them more naturally. It was an unintended side effect that results from a combination of player psychology and game geometry.

Guerrilla tactics
One crucial change to the game was the partial return of group AV. Even without the AddOn Preform AV Enabler, players could now join Alterac Valley as a party of five. This small change allowed small groups of friends or guildmates to participate in AV in small guerrilla units. It’s not quite the original iteration that allowed players to join as a raid of 40 people, but it encourages teamwork to a degree. Given the objectives of the game, it’s easy enough to send one or two parties to defend while the rest goes on offense.

In theory, it becomes like a cooperative unit of eight groups rather than forty raucous ruffians. In theory. In practice, parties of five get thrown into a mix of individual players who still refuse to listen. But it’s a good start, and players are easily accountable for leaving a tower or graveyard that has just been capped. Small teams, even as small as two people, can easily coordinate staying at a tower until it burns down. In fact, in the new Alterac Valley, coordination counts more than blind rushes to the General.

By keeping the pre-made teams to groups of five, queue times are kept short while maintaining the option to work as a coordinated unit. In fact, it becomes even more fun because players can assume the role of specialized teams — tower or graveyard defense, mine capture, or even five stealth-enabled classes working as ninja units going behind enemy lines. It not only adds a small measure of order in a usually chaotic free-for-all Battleground, but it adds flavor to the game. Even Role-Players can enter Alterac Valley as a group with a mission in mind, like some sort of Azerothian Rainbow unit.

Piece by piece
Now that each Marshal or Warmaster contributes to their General’s strength by a stacking 25% effect, it becomes progressively easier to kill the enemy General by taking down towers. It is important to burn down each tower or bunker no longer just for the reinforcement count of 75 but in order to allow your offense to progress at the General at the end of the map. Conversely, it is important to defend towers and bunkers because one lost tower means that your faction’s General is 25% easier to kill.

Alterac Valley is a progressive game. It is no longer a tenable proposition to rush blindly into the General’s den because he will crush your army. The best approach is to take the map piece by piece, advancing only as your side defends. Again, this is now easier to do because of the option to join as a group. Even with the new rules in place, AV yields the highest Honor per hour among the Battlegrounds, particularly with the removal of diminishing returns in Honorable Kills. Staying within the proximity of a battle yields high Honor returns because of the sheer number of players on the field continuously dying and returning to assault or defend.

Small change, big ambitions
The changes that arrived in Patch 2.4 were relatively small, but combined with the cumulative changes that the Battleground has had over the years, Blizzard seems to have arrived at a moderate compromise. Alterac Valley is more balanced now than it has ever been, regardless of what people may say. What it has become is a more involved game where strategy and coordination count for more than speed in getting to the other end of the map.

The map is still too big, of course, as it was designed with an entirely different, ambitious, epic feel. Originally containing numerous NPCs, the map’s inhabitants were pared down to bare essentials, leaving the sprawling geography feeling empty. This little quirk caters to small movement, making it easier for one or two stragglers to bypass a defended area as opposed to a large unit.

Overall, Alterac Valley is a much improved Battleground. It is still prone to prolonged stalemates — more now than prior to the patch — but the game was designed to feel epic. It wasn’t meant to be finished in fifteen minutes as was the norm when AV races were all the rage. With Honorable Kills delivering instant gratification, the Battleground is a great place to rack up Honor points. While AV still has its troubles, there’s more actual PvP in the Battleground now. And that’s just the way it should be.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Tags: 2, 2008, 4, Alliance, Analysis/Opinion, at, att, Bar, Battlegrounds, Blizzard, Classes, design, ea, Fair, Forums, free, friends, fun, health, Horde, IT, La, life, M, map, media, NPCs, OD, P, progressive, PvP, r, rap, rate, role, W

Related posts

• [1.Local]: The week through the eyes of our readers (0)
• The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Gearing for Karazhan, Fury/Arms pt 2 (0)
• Arcane Brilliance: Leveling your Mage, 1-20 (0)
• Arcane Brilliance: Leveling your Mage, 1-20 (0)
• Guildwatch: It’s not stealing, it’s a ninja (0)

Before we begin, let’s get one thing clear: there are no armies in Alterac Valley, only mobs and rabbles and bloodthirsty riffraff who will, under the best circumstances, happen to be in the same vicinity and fight alongside you. Unless Tigole and company decide to bring back group queues to AV, you will often find yourself fighting the war with an over-sized, sometimes uncooperative PUG. In my column last week, I went over the changes made to Alterac Valley and what it meant in terms of gameplay. I had promised for this week to detail some strategy and tactics for the new AV but realized that, after logging countless hours of Alterac Valley since 2.3, in order to actually execute any manner of battle plan, you will need an army. An army the way Sun Tzu sees it; an army with a Commander; an army with will and purpose. Unfortunately, there are no armies in Alterac Valley. There are, however, drifters. Ronin, if you wish. Ronin were the masterless samurai of feudal Japan. In a game of AV, what you will have, essentially, is a band of about forty ronin doing their own thing.

That said, there can be no definitive guide to playing Alterac Valley. There will be epic battles where Horde and Alliance will defend and fight raging, bloody battles on the Field of Strife, on top of towers, or beside their Captains; there will also be mindless races with no defense where all towers burn and Generals and Captains die to a frenzied mob. Both methods can win or lose games. You as a masterless warrior — or Rogue, or Mage, or Shaman (you get the idea) — can choose to play it either way. There are so many variables involved in Alterac Valley that it makes it almost impossible — and unwise — to dictate one particular course of action. While it may not be practical to write a guide for an army’s incursion into the valley, it is a rather simple task to draw up some simple reminders for ronin. Because what do not change from game to game are the map’s terrain and objectives. In every game of AV, there is a General and a Captain to be slain, towers to be burned, graveyards to be captured, and of course, enemies to be defeated on the field of battle. Depending on your faction, there are particular objectives that are easier to access because of the terrain. Terrain, more than anything else, will dictate the flow of your offense.

Flow like water
“Water shapes its course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows; the soldier works out his victory in relation to the foe whom he is facing.”
The landscape of Alterac Valley doesn’t lend itself well to direct conflict. Because of terrain, the roads, and a tendency to move towards the right, the natural flow of each faction’s offense has little overlap in the early stages of the game. The Horde offense, for example, leads directly to Stonehearth Bunker, followed by Stonehearth Graveyard. The Alliance offense flows directly into the Iceblood Tower and Graveyard chokepoint if passing through the Field of Strife, or through Captain Galvangar’s garrison if coming from Snowfall Graveyard. In order for direct combat to ensue, players have to deviate from this natural path. Alliance have the strategic advantage of securing an offense-pushing graveyard because Snowfall is too far West for it to be part of the Horde’s early agenda. The Horde, on the other hand, are able to tag and, defended well, burn down a tower early in the game, giving a 75 Reinforcement advantage.

Sometimes, that advantage is all it takes. All things being equal, if a tower is destroyed or a Captain killed early on, defense will spell the difference in a war of attrition. While the old adage of “the best defense is a good offense” applies here, the roots of a good offense lies in a solid defense to begin the game. It is important to establish your position for a good defense, but in order to do so you must deviate from the natural path. This will often mean that you are unlikely to have much help, but I personally find playing defense to be greatly fulfilling and ultimately rewarding. With Patch 2.3, defense is more key than ever to winning in Alterac Valley. In fact, I’ll be so audacious as to state that if you do not play defense, you will lose (*puts on flame retardant suit*).

“Whoever is first in the field and awaits the coming of the enemy, will be fresh for the fight; whoever is second in the field and has to hasten to battle, will arrive exhausted.”
As a general rule, you need to fortify your position for any defense. It is far more difficult to recapture an objective than to tag it. Any tagged objective such as a Graveyard or Bunker has four minutes before it is captured or destroyed. This gives defenders a very small window in which to act. By the same token, defending a tagged Graveyard or Bunker is easier because you only have to play four solid minutes of defense. Because Towers are destroyed rather than converted, Towers are far more important than Graveyards in order of defensive priority. If a Graveyard and Tower are tagged at virtually the same time, it is a far more prudent thing to try and recapture the Tower. A burned Tower is a loss of 75 reinforcements and contributes directly to losing. A captured Graveyard is a strategic investment that only assists in troop movement and can be recaptured at some point in the future. It is, therefore, important to be in position to defend certain points of interest from the beginning rather than as an afterthought.

Protect thy own
Alliance defense
If you are Alliance, the very first target you should defend is Stonehearth Graveyard. Given the distance of Stonehearth Bunker from the Alliance spawn point, you are unlikely to reach it before the Horde does. Stonehearth Graveyard is almost always where you will encounter the Horde. Your offense will often flow westwards, past Balinda’s garrison; defense is a South Eastern detour. You should prevent the capping of the graveyard at least until your side has secured Snowfall. If you can manage, attempt to recapture Stonehearth Bunker after repelling the first salvo at the graveyard. Defending Captain Balinda Stonehearth should be relatively easy with the proximity of the graveyard. Balinda is far easier to defeat than her Horde counterpart so any help, such as a boost to her attacks like Curse of the Elements on the player tanking her (if any), is good.

Further North, the Horde often run into a brick wall with Stormpike Graveyard. They will have to fight uphill unless they take the East road — and few of them do — which leads to the Alliance spawn point and Irondeep Mine. This is a tactical advantage as there are numerous points from which to snipe or heal as the Horde will be moving through the pass. Because killing opposing players reduce Reinforcements at a 1:1 ratio, the defense of Stormpike Graveyard often results in an Alliance advantage in the long run. Finally, the last bastion of defense is Stormpike Aid Station. Should the Horde break through the bridge, traditionally a source of their consternation, it is best to fight several yards East or in front of the Aid Station. This brings the Horde within range of the Stormpike Bowmen in the bunkers as well as within aggro range of the various NPCs that patrol the Stormpike grounds.

Horde defense
On the Horde side, defense should bolstered at either Captain Galvangar’s garrison or the bottleneck between Iceblood Tower and Iceblood Graveyard, depending on where the Alliance is headed. This potential split in defense is a weakness and safeguards must be made against it. There are clear vantage points from where to see their movement as they will pass through the Field of Strife. If a rush comes from the West, they will head for Galvangar; fight inside Captain Galvangar’s garrison and not in front of it. The Orc Captain has whirlwind and cleave attacks that are devastating to players, so use it to your advantage. Pick off the ranged DPS and healers and let Galvangar handle those in melee range. In defense of Iceblood, pick high vantage points from which to snipe or heal. Should Iceblood Tower get tagged, it is somewhat difficult to recapture because it is flush against the mountainside and the only way to access it is to pass through the flow of Alliance offense. If Iceblood Graveyard is tagged, Iceblood Tower is almost guaranteed to burn. Stonehearth Bunker, in contrast, is easier to assault and, conversely, retake because of its accessibility.

Frostwolf Graveyard is arguably the hardest graveyard on the map to defend because it’s on an open plain. This is why Frostwolf Graveyard is almost always tagged before Stormpike Graveyard — its equivalent — or even Iceblood Graveyard. There is no easy way to defend Frostwolf Graveyard, although most of the Alliance offense will come directly from the North. Smarter players, however, will ride around Eastwards, spreading the assault to all sides. Should the Alliance break through past Frostwolf Graveyard, the only real chokepoint is the uphill passage leading up to the East and West Frostwolf Towers. It doesn’t work as well as the bridge on Dun Baldar simply because the line-of-sight issues prevent any real defense and combat will have to take place on the landing between the two towers. On a positive note, both towers are about 40 yards apart, so it’s possible to help defend one tower while standing atop the other. Most of the Horde NPCs are on the Northern or lower part of Frostwolf Keep, so they will hardly play a part in defense the way Stormpike NPCs do.

Headlong into battle
“Military tactics are like unto water; for water in its natural course runs away from high places and hastens downwards.”
Always seek the higher ground. Whether in offense or defense, terrain plays a large role in tactical advantage. For example, Horde players must avoid rushing Stormpike through the uphill West road as it is tantamount to walking into a trap. Yet game after game, Horde players will ride uphill to Stormpike like lambs to the slaughter. Alliance players sometimes fall into the same trap with the uphill road East of Icewing Bunker. Tactical standpoint aside, the practical reason for this is because the default camera view in WoW looks downwards over your character. Fighting elevated targets requires manually adjusting your camera view, which can prove very difficult — not to mention impractical — in combat.

Snowfall Graveyard, long conceded to the Alliance to expedite games, has taken on a more tactical advantage and it has become more almost necessary for the Horde to capture in order to prevent further assault into South. Use Graveyards such as Snowfall to move quickly throughout the map. Because of the changes to Alterac Valley’s resurrection mechanics, players will be moved to the nearest controlled Graveyard instead of the spawning point. Use suicide runs to try and move as deep into enemy territory (or as far back into your own for defense) and rezz closer to your objectives. Conversely, tagging graveyards removes defenders methodically and speeds up the game considerably. For example, let’s say the Alliance have converted Iceblood and Frostwolf Graveyards and are pushing into Frostwolf Keep; the fastest and most efficient way to break Horde defense is to tag the Frostwolf Relief Hut. This will send all slain Horde players too far North into Stonehearth or Stormpike Graveyards (assuming they have been converted) to come back and defend. Post-TBC, very few players now carry Frostwolf Insignias or Stormpike Insignias, making assaulting bases much easier. That said, any serious PvPer must possess either trinket.

As I mentioned in my previous column, killing opponents has a direct contribution to winning the game. If both sides are even in terms of captured or defended objectives, it becomes imperative to kill in a more efficient manner. Fight in areas where your side has a tactical advantage such as higher ground, proximity to a controlled Graveyard, or a favorable chokepoint. In terms of straightforward engagement, the Field of Strife is still the best area to clash as the flat plain favors neither side. This is where combat superiority, either in sheer numbers or skill, will spell the difference.

I didn’t include old mechanics of the game such as the summoned NPCs or Wing Commanders because they no longer have any strategic value in the new Alterac Valley. With games rarely lasting beyond thirty minutes, the ten minute spawn of Ivus the Forest Lord or Lokholar the Ice Lord is too long to be of any relevance. Because there is little opportunity for nor wisdom in turning in necessary lootable objects, most of the quests in the zone are now obsolete. Even capturing the Coldtooth or Irondeep Mines is inconsequential as their additive bonus of 1 Reinforcement every 45 seconds is too slow to have any impact on the new, faster pace of the game.

The home stretch
Always be aware of your team’s Reinforcement count. In the latter stretches, protecting or destroying towers will be all it takes to finish the game. If, for example, you are Horde and your team has reached an impasse at Stormpike Graveyard (as can and will often happen), it is sometimes wiser to ride through into the North and South Bunkers and burn them down. That deep into the game, it is likely that the Alliance’s Reinforcement count will be somewhere in the vicinity of 150-200, making the destruction of their Bunkers a far more strategic choice than capturing either Stormpike Graveyard or Aid Station. The same goes for an Alliance offense. Towers are key. If burning all Towers does not end the game, it still becomes easier to assault Drek’thar or Vanndar Stormpike because they will no longer have Warmasters or Marshals, respectively.

To optimize Honor gain in Alterac Valley, it is important to win, specially after the changes. Formerly, during the Alterac Valley weekend, there were massive Honor bonuses to each side even during a loss. It was even possible to obtain more Honor than the winning side under the right conditions. This is no longer possible with the new Alterac Valley. The only bonus Honor during the weekend is 83 Honor at the end of the game for the losing side and 249 Honor (83×3) the winning side. The most Honor is still obtained by achieving the map’s objectives, with Towers and Captains giving 62 Honor when destroyed or killed and 41 bonus Honor at the end of the game if intact or alive.

Here’s a DeathknightWoW exclusive tip: the timers for tagged Towers or Bunkers continue to cap even after the game ends. An AddOn such as Deadly Boss Mods will help you see how long each Tower has before burning. Battlegrounds close within 2 minutes after the end of the game; if a Tower has less than 2 minutes to burn, do not leave the Battleground. Stay until it burns. Doing so will net you an additional 62 Honor for each Tower burned in this way. Furthermore, there’s an additional, undocumented, and not — I suspect — “working as intended” bug that occurs when a Tower or Bunker burns. Burning a Tower still counts against the opposing team’s Reinforcement count, even after the game has ended. When it burns, the Tower will subtract 75 Reinforcements from the opposing team’s Reinforcement count. If that reduces the opposing team’s Reinforcement count to 0, you will not only get the 62 Honor from burning the Tower, you will also be awarded 83 Honor for killing the enemy General. It gets even better. If you have successfully defended Towers, you will also get the bonus 41 Honor for each one when the opposing team’s Reinforcements are reduced to 0. In rare occasions where the enemy General is slain before all Towers are burned, it is even possible to be awarded all Honor bonuses twice (see illustration). In very close games with a difference of less than 75 Reinforcements, a tagged Tower can mean snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. Under those conditions, the two minutes you spend waiting for Alterac Valley to close becomes the most Honor-efficient two minutes in the entire game. Happy hunting.

Next week: Warsong Gulch.

Zach Yonzon, who writes the weekly column The Art of War(craft), is under the “tutelage” of Lady Liadrin, learning how to swing the Light in the basement.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Tags: (BGPvP)TheArtofWar(craft), 2, 2007, 4, Alliance, Analysis/Opinion, at, att, attacks, Battlegrounds, camera, car, Counterpart, Dead, Death, DeathKnight, Direct, ea, ERM, Factions, Feud, Fight, Four, games, Guides, help, Horde, IT, Knight, La, lead, M, Mage, map, media, NPCs, OD, P, PvP, Quests, r, rap, rate, reading, Rogue, role, RP, SEC, Shaman, Stab, Tips, Tricks, W, Warrior, wind

Related posts

• Shifting Perspectives: Gearing your bear tank from 70 to Karazhan! (0)
• Patch 2.4.3 patch notes (0)
• Patch 2.4.3 patch notes (0)
• Arcane Brilliance: Leveling your Mage, 1-20 (0)
• Arcane Brilliance: Leveling your Mage, 1-20 (0)

If you don’t often visit the PvP battleground Alterac Valley, then you may not know what I’m talking about. But AV seems to be the best place for people to go and collect honor points while safely sitting AFK in at the battleground’s starting point. Why Alterac? Well, Alterac offers great honor returns for anyone — and most of the honor is given out zone-wide, regardless of whether you’re near the rest of a group when an objective is captured or a boss is killed. It’s just too easy to collect large amounts of honor by just sitting around without doing anything — much to the chagrin of players who are out there fighting and trying to win the battleground.

And while Blizzard has shown themselves quite eager to rid people who are botting or hacking to prevent their AFK flag from coming up when they’re not at their keyboard, there’s not much they’ve been able to do about the people who sit in front of their computers watching television and occasionally hitting the space bar. So what’s Blizzard to do? There are plenty of suggestions on the PvP forums, though I can’t say many of them seem practical. They could remove honor gain from the starting point — but then players would just learn to idle elsewhere. They could alter the battleground’s honor mechanics to give out honor based on a player’s range to the objective giving honor — but this would likely gimp players playing defense by limiting their honor gain (despite the fact that defense makes an important contribution to a match). They could somehow tie honor gains to overall damage or healing done — though such a change probably isn’t a quick fix.

What’s your solution to the AV AFK problem?

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Tags: 2, at, att, Bar, Blizzard, ea, Fight, Forums, IT, La, M, Mage, media, Mounts, P, PvP, r, television, W

Related posts

• [1.Local]: The week through the eyes of our readers (0)
• Arcane Brilliance: Leveling your Mage, 60-70 (0)
• Arcane Brilliance: Leveling your Mage, 20-40 (0)
• Arcane Brilliance: Leveling your Mage, 20-40 (0)
• Arcane Brilliance: Leveling your Mage, 1-20 (0)

Ready Check is a weekly column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, ZA or Sunwell Plateau, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. Even if they are mysteriously conglomerate faces…

Continuing our jaunt through Black Temple, this week’s Ready Check looks at the Reliquary of Souls, also known as the Essence of Souls (RoS or EoS for short). How often is it you get to fight three oversized faces joined together? Savour this opportunity now…

You’ll encounter RoS by making your way through Black Temple, usually after either Teron Gorefiend or Gurtogg Bloodboil, depending on how your guild prefers to do things. Let’s take a look at the fight.

Bad news, initially. With the advent of TBC we thought we’d seen the end of trash gauntlets, but one crops up right before RoS. After clearing a couple of trash packs, you find yourself facing a room of ghosts – once you pull these ghosts, welcome to the gauntlet. Fortunately, it’s fairly short and simple. Small fragments phase in continually, and the ghosts respawn behind you; stay with your tanks, move ahead quickly and thank the powers that be that there’s no Suppression Aura.

You&