Alterac Valley has long been a battlefield for contention, not just between Drek'Thar and Vanndar Stormpike. There have always been complaints that the battleground has favored one side or another. Blizzard has modified the battleground several times to balance it out, and thus far they have been unsuccessful.
The following changes were made to
- Captain Balinda Stonehearth Stonehearth can no longer be interrupted, silenced, or have her spells slowed. In addition, her water elemental cannot be banished, and does increased damage.
- Vanndar Stormpike and Captain Balinda Stonehearth have had their health totals reduced to match the health totals of Drek'Thar and Captain Galvangar.
- Warmasters/marshals in
- Horde players will now start the battle closer to Drek'Thar and Frostwolf Keep.
- There is now a Join as Party option.
Dimitrios of Duskwood believes that the changes for patch 2.4 have made the battleground much less one-sided, and has brought the fun back to the game. The forum thread has varying degrees of agreement. Arual of Azgalor appreciated the changes as she felt it brought PvP back into the game, rather than a rush to the generals.
Some posters pointed out weaknesses at the Stormpike Bridge and holes in the wall near the Frostwolf base as proof that AV continues to favor the Alliance side. The generals and captains have been balanced, but the obstacles in the battleground still appears to some to be unbalanced.
What's your take on the newest incarnation of AV?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
3-27-2008 @ 8:11AM
Twotoe said...
At least on our server, the general's stacking damage and health has slowed the alliance zerg, though they still try :)
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3-27-2008 @ 11:34AM
Naix said...
Time to start the Horde boycott. Maybe if we QQ hard enough we can get Blizzard to balance the map again.
3-27-2008 @ 12:58PM
Twotoe said...
the only thing i would ask blizzard at this point is to build a bigger fence, easy, right.....?
3-27-2008 @ 8:12AM
Chais said...
It still does favor allies. Your bowmen do 8943560 dps and we hit like 80 mobs before we even get to AS. Horde has like 1 guard you actually have to fight, the rest u can just run past. so to fix this problem they move the horde starting place back and buff balinda.Blizzard is REAL
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3-27-2008 @ 8:37AM
scott veirs said...
I love to cross the alliance bridge and sit there healing while I get hit by 6 archers hitting me for 600-800 each shot...fun stuff. I do love to MC people off the side of the Alliance bridge, thats a plus lol!
Does horde have this?
LOL Everyone said it was one sided towards Alliance before...now they pushed Horde back even more. Woowoo!
BTW I am Horde and always enjoyed fighting a long game down to 20-0 reinforcements and winning. Now instead we lose with 150-0.
I'm no expert on how AV works, I just know what I see.
3-27-2008 @ 8:22AM
Longshot099 said...
The changes have totally thrown the alliance for a ride in my battlegroup. Prior to 2.4, with the Horde refusing to play defense, I would have been lucky to win 10% of my AV games. Post 2.4 is a totally different story. The alliance strategy of "ZERG TO RELIEF HUT" is no longer as effective. All Horde has to do is let them run by and then go back and recap Iceblood/Tower Point and their chances of killing Drek are nil. I think I would 80-90% of my games last nite, it was a nice change of pace! I am afraid now tho that with the alliance no longer dominating AV, they will stop playing, and i'll lose my instant queues =/.
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3-27-2008 @ 8:22AM
ScytheNoire said...
Still unbalanced and favoring Alliance. Going to take a complete rebuild for this to be balanced and not having Alliance winning 90% of the time on Ruin (not a made up number, actually winning rate for Alliance on Ruin).
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3-27-2008 @ 10:19AM
idburns said...
Waaah...you guys own every other BG in Ruin.
3-27-2008 @ 1:59PM
heartless_ said...
burns, maybe that is because on a balanced and fair battleground MAP the better players win? I've always found it funny how lopsided AV gets after changes to one side or the other, but Horde has ALWAYS dominated the other battlegrounds with 2 wins for every loss.
3-27-2008 @ 8:21PM
imparush said...
you get angry over they make it balanced in AV, because horde easy gives up in AV and lose.
4-10-2008 @ 10:41PM
deadboy said...
yeah horde wins 90% of all the bg's in vindication as well and up until 2.4 we lost 90% of the av's. so what this tells me is that av is stacked for the alliance and that the horde is a far superior fighting force than the alliance because all the other maps are evenly balanced and we dominate. post 2.4 now thw allie actually have to stop and fight and face the horde instead of zerging past us..we now win 90% of ALL bg's on vindication. my conclusion..alliance sux and horde rules.
3-27-2008 @ 8:26AM
Nikolai said...
I have to agree with ScytheNoire about Ruin (EU) battlegroup, Alliance have been winning 90% of the AV games for months now.
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3-27-2008 @ 9:04AM
Tyramon said...
I think the problem of Ruin battlegroup is something more about the people than the bg itself... I've seen many times people not defending bunkers or just zerging to SP(being killed halfway everytime), without any strategy, lacking even the capacity to listen... As far as I've seen the patch is changing something, so I prefer to wait before judging(and since the patch it's been 100% Horde wins, at least the ones I played... Alliance needs to change strategy now)
3-27-2008 @ 8:33AM
Dotixi said...
Maybe if the Horde would stop giving up when they start losing the Alliance wouldn't win 90% of the time...I play both Horde and Alliance so I know for a fact that this is true.
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3-27-2008 @ 8:42AM
scott veirs said...
I agree from the Horde side if someone says "we lost this one" 5 minutes into the same and others decide to just farm or smell their armpits, we ARE going to lose. Never stop fighting, unless you are at 5 reinforcements and they are at 100.
Watching reinforcements I have seen is a good way to judge a game, but not until there is a 100 point difference do you quit. I have seen it turn around. PREMADES! FTW! Solid premade defense is a good way to turtle a game and get the most honor out of it lol.
3-27-2008 @ 8:38AM
ant said...
On the Bloodlust Battlegroup, you still have the same old race to the relief hut, but now you see less instances in which Alliance tries to zerg Galv first. In the AVs I've ran since patch day, both sides cap along the way to the relief hut and whichever side can get a tank and healers ready and start on Drek/Vann first wins. 4/5 times Horde pugs win over Alliance pugs in this Battlegroup.
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3-27-2008 @ 10:27AM
Nasgoul said...
I can echo this from the bloodlust battlegroup. It really surprises me that all these people are saying that the Allys win so much of the time. I seriously have not won an AV in months on Bloodlust. I am a fairly serious pvper.. going into s4 at the honor cap.. but almost none of the honro came from av.. hope the patch helps.. but i havent played it enought to really comment on the changes... but it is strange all the horde are talking about losing
3-27-2008 @ 11:10AM
aggregate said...
Yes, bloodlust is heavily tilted towards Horde. Before 2.4 I think I won 1/10 or so AV's. I had heard that Horde were trying to get "revenge" for unbalanced AV in vanilla WoW. Not sure how true that is.
Those who say AV is unbalanced to Ally is just wrong.
3-27-2008 @ 8:38AM
VSUReaper said...
AV is still not fixed. While it was even'd up a little, I still see the major gaping holes in the battleground. The biggest is the setup of the NPC defenders. Alliance can ride past everyone and really only need to fight 5 people: the 4 npc's guarding the RH flag and one random guard they literally run over. There is also the issue of how they can get into the base. They dont have to go thru the front gate as there are several ways for them to get past the fence.
On the northern end of the map, the horde still have to fight thier way past the random pats that will follow you for 3/4 of the map, cross a bridge where arrows from the NPC guards that are hitting you for ~800 dmg in pvp gear. Then once you clear all the archers in the north and south base, you have to sneak past the turn in people that are supposedly lvl 65, but have the hit points of an instance boss (if not more!) And when you have 4 or more of them beating on you, only a prot paladin, feral bear, warrior in def stance, or a BM pet that is stacked with HP can stand up to them, and even then, they are going to be healed continuously.
I play a disc priest, and I usually have to shield before I cross the bridge and mount up, stop in-between the two bases next to the siege engine, re-shield and PS and try to get off a few heals, then continue to fight thru until I reach the AS, only then to fight 4 more mobs that will often resist my Psychic scream. The whole time of course, the NPC archers are hitting me with their super arrows. The amount of DPS that they pump out is ridiculous.
The only thing that Blizz fixed was the fact that Horde could reach Belinda’s base at the same time they did. Now both teams hit the field of strife at the same time.
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3-27-2008 @ 10:03AM
Brian Carnell said...
"Alliance can ride past everyone and really only need to fight 5 people: the 4 npc's guarding the RH flag and one random guard they literally run over. There is also the issue of how they can get into the base. They dont have to go thru the front gate as there are several ways for them to get past the fence."
Absolutely. I play as Alliance and, if anything, the AV is easier now. As long as you have players who know what they're doing, it's a straight up 50% of players ride to RH, 50% do Galv and cap IBT/TP, and then you're done.
The choke point disparity that you raise is a serious problem that makes it much easier for Ally to do an effective RH rush.