f13.net

(This is more or less a continuation of the pvp woes from the thread on Is the PvE Game Dying? - wanted to spin it off into its own thread).

Had a horrible AV today.  Most of the horde was defending IB gy and Galv.  Seriously, they had maybe 12 on O.

Of course, they waltzed through SH and IW since alliance cannot defend there without the bg becoming a huge cockblock (with probably the same result only having it take longer).

So they ended up blocked at SPgy/the bridge by our D, which was just about the size of their O.

Meanwhile the reinforcements score is 200-500 roughly.  They won by attrition, 0-300 reinforcements.  They only got those two towers.  We, of course, got none, which means they won with about 250 honor, we got 40 or some amount from killing Galv (I think that's where it was from).  In about 45 minutes.

Games like that make me not want to queue up.  The horde advantage can lead to terrible results for the losers, whereas even if the horde loses, they still get 200 points for those towers alliance won't and probably can't defend, due to the geographical differences.

Either of the first two incarnations of AV is preferable to the mess it's become since 2.3.  Most games I've played, thankfully, do not end up like this one, but if horde plays this game, I will no longer queue for AV at all.  It's really sapped any desire I had to play AV today, that's for sure. 

I appreciate your ire, but I've seen a lot of AV rage since 2.3. What is it about people that they can't just skip the freakin' zone that weekend? If it's seriously as broken for Alliance as everyone from here to AFKgamer has been crying about, don't play in it. Not like the non-Arena titles mean shit anyway. Since you're just there to accrue HPs for gear, skip the AV week and move to another zone.

Unless even losing in AV BG during a holiday weekend is still better than having a good shot of winning in EotS, AB, and WSG? I've avoided BGs since BC.

I complain because I used to have fun just roaming around AV ganking people. I did AVs for fun and it's not fun anymore. EoS and AB can be fun, but I miss the big map and long games of the old AVs.

For the majority of alliance who are screaming it's because they get less honor per hour in EoS or AB and they want to buy their toys already. Of course AB/EoS honor is still better than squat honor per hour from the new AV.

The horde scream because they have long queue times. Since their queue times are entirely self inflicted I hereby offer them a tissue.

Because honor rewards are balanced for honor gains from old AV. It takes freakin' forever to get honor from the other BG's, and god help you if your daily is AV or it's AV weekend.

And just speaking for myself -- I like AV more than Capture the Flag or King of the Hill -- I'm still trying to decide what I think of EoTS.

I've been fine with any variant of AV (except the 12 hour ones -- Jesus, if you're going to do that find a graceful way for people to leave if they've played long enough and still get tokens/honor) except this one. The entire feel of it just inspires total defeat -- I remember when WSG was going 90-10 (mostly Horde premades scouting then rolling PuGs) prior to the battlegroups, and the whining wasn't half as bad as AV is now.

Shit, if it's more depressing than spending WSG getting GY farmed, there's something wrong.

I hate arena battles.  That's not the sort of pvp I enjoy.  I don't like dueling, either.  I prefer to play in large scale war-type battles.  (I loved RvR in DAOC). 

AV has been the closest thing to that.  I have 2 70s and a 66, all of whom are exalted in the AV rep, yet barely honored if that with the other BG factions.  I don't particularly enjoy capture the flag games (although it's a blast on my 29 shaman).

I enjoyed the first incarnation of AV more than the second, but enjoyed the second more than this one.

The issue with AV being fux0red these days, for me is that I really used to enjoy the zone, and as a bonus I got a bunch of honor. I even used to run it when I had no more use for the honor points because I enjoyed the zone and the larger numbers of people combined with the PVP/PVE race aspect of it. Once the queues were shortened, it was a nice thing to be able to just hop on and go for it, no LFG, no stress and morons in the same manner as you get with instances, and the ability to just jump off if need be (as opposed to instance runs).

Arenas are ok, but 10 a week is all that really works for me. Duelling is crap.

I think Alliance have stopped for the most part. Horde side on my battlegroup, Shadowburn, has had 10-20 minute queues for AV for the past few weeks, it's insane. I'm frequently able to get a full EotS game in before an AV queue pops. Before 2.3 I had near-instant queues up until 1-2am Pacific (3-4am server) where is slowed down to 3-5 minutes.

Funnily enough, WarcraftRealms (http://www.warcraftrealms.com/bg_list.php?id=0&lb=7) has AV as the only BG the Alliance are even with the Horde. AB/EotS are about 1.5:1 Horde to Alliance Victories and WSG sits just under 1.25:1. I'd imagine it's an issue of a small and non-representative sample, but I also have guildies complain up-and-down about losing while I hardly lose in PuG vs. PuG games, so I'm not so sure.

That data includes pre-2.3 data.  Too bad you can't enter a date into it to filter out pre-2.3.

Yes, the Alliance winning 70% of matches and the battleground being a pure PvE rush was certainly more entertaining than, you know, actual PvP.  :roll:

The Horde queue times on Stormstrike battlegroup are up to 2 hours and 20 minutes. Over the last 2 weeks the Alliance have basically abandoned AV unless they absolutely must have the marks for a piece of gear. My HonorFu addon is showing Horde as 24-1 over the last 2 weeks in matches I have been in. Those wins have almost all been (H)500+ honor to (A)0-20 honor. I have been in some matches where 18 Alliance members are AFK (No Kills, No Deaths, No Damage Done, No Healing Done - usually the morning matches)

Stormstrike BG is apparently one of the few battlegroup's where the Horde plays defense with the idea of actually holding all of the Towers/GY for maximum honor. It seems that in other battlegroup's both sides still employ the "race" strategy, ceding the towers/GY to each other with the idea of a quick match with a couple hundred honor to each side. This strategy has kept win/loss ratios pretty even in other battlegroups, and kept the queue times shorter.

There is an interesting psychology at work in Stormstrike battlegroup among the Horde players in AV. The Horde players take the attitude of "No Mercy, Crush The Alliance, Don't give them anything". You hear this frequently during the matches and, apart from a few souls arguing that race tactics get more honor per hour and shorter queues, on the forums as well. The Horde is Stormstrike is so disgusted with the Alliance over AV that when they finally do get into an AV, they want to pound the Alliance as hard as possible, ideally in the most humiliating and honorless fashion. This, of course, leads to Allaince queueing less and longer queue times.

What is the solution? IMHO if the Alliance started winning some matches in AV, crushing the Horde and denying us honor as we do them, some things would happen:

1. More Alliance would queue.
2. Less Horde would queue.
3. Queue times would shorten, meaning more honor per hour.

I played Alliance for a couple of years, and remember crushing the Horde over and over and over. I remember the absolute hell of farming 30 AV marks as a Horde player, where that meant 27 losses and 1 win.

I have read the lengthy and well-documented posts by Alliance players about all of their disadvantages, and call it all horseshit. They can win matches if they change their tactics and play effectively.

EDIT: Quote was messed up.

So we have lengthy and well documented vs your L2PLAY AV?

Let me know which of these is horseshit and why.

Balinda is easier to kill than Galv.

Groups killing Galv are easier to wipe than groups killing Balinda.

Horde gets to SH Bunker before alliance gets to IB Tower.

Horde get to SH Bunker before alliance can get to SH Bunker to defend it.

Horde gets to SH GY before alliance gets to IB GY.

SF GY is not equal to SH GY since one takes 5 minutes to flip and the other takes 4 minutes.

So we have lengthy and well documented vs your L2PLAY AV?

Let me know which of these is horseshit and why.

Balinda is easier to kill than Galv.
Then defend her...L2P

Groups killing Galv are easier to wipe than groups killing Balinda.
Take SF first, send enough to kill him and defend against horde interference...L2P

Horde gets to SH Bunker before alliance gets to IB Tower.
So? Defend SH Bunker, cap SF then get IBT...L2P

Horde get to SH Bunker before alliance can get to SH Bunker to defend it.
Reference above. If you really want to keep SH Bunker, 5 or so is all it takes.....L2P

Horde gets to SH GY before alliance gets to IB GY.
So what? Alliance gets to SH GY before Horde does...defend it...L2P

SF GY is not equal to SH GY since one takes 5 minutes to flip and the other takes 4 minutes.
Defend SH AND Cap SF...L2P

Everything above can be summed up as: defend what you have, cap SF before advancing. Whats so hard about that?

Your claims about geography and physical distances and the amount of seconds it takes one player to ride a kodo with maximum speed buffs across the map may all be true, but using them as an excuse is all horseshit. Strategy wins games.

How many people does it take to defend Balinda? How many does it take to defend Galv?


Sit at SFGY for 5 minutes before attacking Galv? While horde is sitting at some other GY for 4 minutes?


Horde cap SH Bunker before we get to SH Bunker. Assuming all 40 of each team go straight to SH Bunker horde still get to burn it down since it's easier to keep someone off the flag than it is to flip the flag.


And then alliance loses SH Bunker.


Because then alliance loses SH Bunker and has less reinforcements, so it loses the turtle.

And your defend defend defend leads nowhere but to a turtle.

Wow you're an idiot. Do you think Alliance didn't try that already? You know what happens? One way or another you lose either Balinda or SH because you can't defend both. You can't split your forces and simply hope for the best because Balinda can't defend herself worth a shit, and the Horde are capping a tower before you can even ride up to say hello.

Then guess what, you lose every single time even if you manage to hold on to your stuff from that point. You've lost a reinforcement item and the attrition takes over. The main thing fucking over Alliance now isn't the exploits, which you don't seem to understand. It's the COMBINATION of early exploits with the fucked up reinforcement system that lets the Horde win almost every match.

The reinforcements system is killing this BG. That's the point. Defensive Strategies are useless when there's a ticking clock waiting to kill you no matter what you try.

Gimme a break.  Horde win AB 2 to 1.  Of course, it's due to the overwhelming maturity and ability of horde players, not the geography or racials, right?

I'm an idiot?

AHHH It's the exploits!! Oh Noes!

The people crying about this look for every reason there is to justify why they lose a match. Adapt to the new rules. You can win games. It does happen.

EDIT:

I'm just sick of the fucking QQ from Alliance. When Horde was getting our asses kicked did we pick up our toys and run home? Did we boycott battlegrounds?

Yes.  Are you really this stupid?  Alliance queues were as bad as horde queues are now, and horde got plenty of honor for getting their asses kicked.  The same morons who play on alliance play on horde, if you truly think theres more skill or strategy horde side you are clearly deluded.  Horde wins most AVs because the terrain greatly favors them, alliance used to win most avs in the past because quick loses amounted to a lot more honor than turtles for horde so the smart ones stopped trying to win.

Yes, and Yes, plus those who didn't got to /afk.  The queues you're experienceing now are of simlilar length to what I experienced as Alliance prior to BC, when a whole lotta people rerolled as Horde.   Expect it to get worse as more people contintinue to reroll Horde due to getting sick of losing in BGs all the time  (Hey, I did it as well.) AND the fact that it's getting rougher to recruit folks for PvE on Alliance side of things.  If PVP's where it's all at, they'd rather play the winning side.

The Horde who are winning matches are not stupid or deluded. They read the new rules and changed their strategy! The Alliance did not. Who is stupid?

Alliance still want to race, Horde wants to defend (in Stormstrike - where all the fuss is taking place).

Even if the Alliance loses SHB and Balinda but keeps SF, while losing the game, they get 185 Bonus Honor, plus honor from kills.

So turtle up and engage in PvP if you want to get honor. Stop bitching about exploits and terrain.

Alliance seem to more than hold their own in EOTS and AB. You think people will re-roll to win in AV?

He's entirely right about this.  Which is the problem.  Look, if the Alliance had a good strategy and executed it well, of course they'd win more!  However that's just not practical.

Alterac Valley consists of 40 random people thrown together on each side.  The Horde has a simple strategy to win.  A small number of people stay behind and defend Galvangar and the Iceblood area, while the majority of their force charges forward and attacks.  Nothing to it.  Very little thinking involved.  Even then, it is sometimes difficult to get the few people they need to defend to actually do it.  Think about that - it can be hard to get roughly 1/4 of the force to stay behind and defend.

Alliance, on the other hand, has a strategy that would require considerable coordination, reconnaisance, dedicated defenders on mobile reinforcement duty, dedicated defenders to hold off the enemy until mobile reinforcements GET there, and stealthy blitzkrieg style offense in order to make any gains.  Do you really think 40 random people are gonna pull off even 1/10th of the coordination it would require to make a strategy like that effective?  Fuck no, if the Horde has trouble sometimes getting 10 people to defend, the Alliance sure isn't going to manage to coordinate a strategy to defend Stonehearth Bunker, Graveyard, and Balinda while simultaneously taking Snowfall in order to press the attack.

Besides which, in the end, even if the Alliance CAN win, the terrain and especially the captains' respective abilities clearly favor the Horde, when they obviously shouldn't.  It should be relatively even for both sides, even if it is different.  Currently, the Alliance's best strategy is still inferior to the Horde's best strategy, and that's a problem.

In the AV's that i've been in as alliance and won, there were few AFKers and people were working efficiently as a team reguardless of the strat.

thanks that was a nice way to wrap up a topic that has been making me scratch my head.  My days of combing the wow pvp/realm/class forums are pretty much done, i read patch notes but at the tender age of 35 I have migrated to the pastures known as Casual, so your post saved me some research.

Had a long post from the horde perspective  will still post some of it:

My perspective is from Horde side on the Blackrock server

When AV came out 60 hour AVs were not unheard of and things seemed fairly equal as to who won how many.
~~patches and changes~~~
Premades storming through AV, it really just depended on a toss of the dice if you were pugging it, as most BGs are now Pugwise.
~~~more stuff~~~
Rape at the hands of the Alliance, you need 40 AV tokens for your new Epic Noodler of Wang Extension? That will be 40 AVs please.  This went on for quite along time
~~~stuff~~~
Now it is the Alliance's  turn to play Catcher and the Horde demolish them in every AV i have been in since 2.3.


When Horde were losing AVs on a consistent basis the boards were on fire with charts, diagrams, "truths", etc. explaining in excrutiating detail how things were skewed in favor of the Alliance.  Now the boards are en fuego once again, with similar charts, diagrams and spreedsheets "proving" that the horde have it easy.

Now I would be the first to state that something is very wrong.  And right off the bat, yeah belinda is very easy to kill, rumor has it pre-water pet a rogue could solo her.  What i have seen post 2.3 is again all horde wins with bonus honors of (from memory here)  627:60,  520:0, 580:45, 611:80   and so on.  So I can certainly see why peeps in alliance are saying "fuck this"  and the horde is crying about our 1 to 2 hour que times.  However, "fuck this" is exactly what the horde were saying just a few months ago, the difference of course being that they still made some honor.

The player bass is simply to large in my opinion to give any credence to things like "alliance give up too easily", horde are older and have strategery and Tactics!! etc. etc.

I guess the question that still stands for me is what need to change to give peeps an equal footing?  We have access to all the same classes, does it really need to come down to BGs having a line down the middle with a mirror image on each side?  And the Racial argument, I thought at this point people were pretty much in agreement that yeah there are some nicer ones (WoTF for example, Bring Back 15 seconds kthxbye) but overall it is not an omfg advantage.

Well, for one -- before the reinforcements change but after the anti-AFK change (before the AFKers started gettng work arounds) the win/losses were roughly equal -- AFK was killing Horde.

I tend to agree that Horde was always screwed on tokens, but that their biggest problem was that once honor became the real issue that Horde were simply better off with a quick loss than a longer win -- the honor gains were the same. With their queue times and that simple fact, AFKing Horde size was rampant.

Alliance's edge, by the time battlegroups came around, was mostly (but not all) the fact that winning or losing didn't really matter much from the Horde perspective. Once people were forced to play, it was close enough to even for jazz.

What needs to change now? Balinda needs to be seriously buffed. The Horde cave needs to be moved, and the distances checked. Snowfall GY needs to be moved to a 4 minute timer. Then I'd sit back and see how that worked -- I suspect that the Horde will STILL have an advantage in a turtle (the IB GY/Tower/Galv trio is far more defensible than SH Bunker/Balinda/SH GY).

I'd probably also fix the damn Horde base so the Alliance has to fight their way through it, rather than avoiding most of them -- more to stop the bitching than anything else.

The problem really boils down to reinforcements right now -- Horde reachs their first attack objectives as Alliance hits those same objectives to defend, giving the horde an instant advantage. To make it worse, it's a lot easier to take those trio of objectives than to take their respective (Horde-side) counterparts -- and the game can now be won by taking those objectives and just waiting.

Are you kidding? horde are using the same exact strat they've always used! they used it for months at a time even when it led to countless loses and now that it actually works you want to pretend its some sort of strategic genius?  horde have changed ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in the way they played.

This interesting on a meta-level because it's like watching a collective thought process to determine the optimum strategy. Of course its horribly flawed,  because LCD strats trump Victory strats over a broad population.

the incredibly obvious (and only) solution is simply to make each side an exact mirror of the other.

(duh)

I'd have done that long since. Take all four maps, change the artwork for the starting positions (yes, that'd take some effort -- but not too much, I think) so that it looks properly proper (why the hell can't I type the English I know damn well?), than have a 50/50 chance of starting from either side (with correct artwork).

You'd quickly be able to tell which maps are skewed which way, and how badly. You could even correct for that and probably work out if there's a serious gear or racial ability problem, and it'd certainly be easier to test their gear and group matching system against if you could eliminate the map proper as a variable.

The end result would simply be the same charts, diagrams and "truths", just without the map being part of the topic.

People on the grind path hate change. And yet MMOs are nothing if they aren't change.

I suspect Blizzard thinks things are mostly fine. They're achieving faction parity by allowing Horde to win as much as Alliance used to in AV :wink:

The AV's where Alliance wins, usually involve the initial Alliance zerg, rushing straight to IB, and holding it until it caps.  Once they hold IBGY, galv, IB Tower, and Tower point fall over.  Sometimes they even flip SH bunker back.  The horde zerg atrophies (because of the few defenders left at SPGY) and soon they are all spawning at FW or worse, the cave.  After the opening 4 minutes SH flips Horde, and IB flips Alliance.  The race starts again.  FW and First Aid suck to defend for the horde, and more often than not (if Alliance took IBGY with a big force) Alliance wins if SPGY stalls long enough.

If the Horde group that takes SHGY mills about and waits for Icewing to cap before pushing SPGY, they usually plow on through to SPFA.  If they rush/trickle up to SPGY before SHGY flips, and IB is in contention, they get pushed pretty far back, and usually can't recover.

When the Alliance holds IBGY, they can win.  When they cap and run straight to FW (but don't defend till it flips), same thing.  Their zerg atrophies and they get thrown all the way back behind the Horde zerg, and because of the narrow pass of SH > SP it's easy to choke.

It could simply be that Horde are more likely to mill and clump around the SH area, because people are killing Belinda, chasing Alliance who run by, fighting in Icewing.  More of a blob pushes on once SH flips, than the Alliance blob down at Ice Blood.

Anyhow, if the Alliance blob takes and holds Ice Blood, I'm looking at a loss usually.  If they cap and run, and we can flip it back, Horde wins.  I win often as Horde in the Nightfall battlegroup, and I lose often as Horde in the Rampage battlegroup.  It's about even for me, as Alliance in the Whirlwind battlegroup.

There's no big strategy needed.  Just depends on the blob.  Whoever rushes from SH/IB with the most people once it is flipped usually wins.  I think because both sides are still employing "The Race" tactics, it's working out better for the Horde at the moment.  Alliance tends to overextend, kind of ignore IB, and try to rush straight to FW (or worse, FA).  If you have a more timid blob, once that gels together better (or chases less bubbles and bears off into the hills) you have a better shot at winning.

Just like the other incarnations, the blob will adapt it's strategy, painfully slow, but still adapt.

I do hate, as Horde mainly, that I have to fight the entire town of Dun Baldur.  Lana Thunderbrew is a god of stamina, she's a fucking non-elite vendor, and the main tank for Stormpike.  I wanna just run past it all and have it leash back by the time I get outside of the General's barracks.  I'd like for there to be a fence to jump too, maybe even a conveniently placed ramp for me to leap from to ignore the front gate defenses.  I do like hamstringing/fearing/crippling poisoning people right before they hit that ramp at Frostwolf, so they miss the jump and slam into the wood.

When did f13 inherit generic fuckwits from the WoW boards?

I blame Title 9 and Affirmative Action.  :grin:

AV is certainly debatable but I've never really felt that AB or EotS was unbalanced due to the map, especially because the idea is to take and hold points and there's no predetermined direction in which to advance.

I would agree. Those BGs simply come down to gear and coordination.

AB can lean ever so slightly to the horde due to the bridge placements relative to node flags around the BS and whatnot. But yes, it is mostly about who sucks more.

EOTS is a 100% mirror... but AB isn't, a competent horde team will always beat a competent alliance team by holding the iron triangle [smith, farm, mill] easily as they can get to the smith slightly faster, and keeping a roaming defense among these 3 nodes is very easy (just sit at the crossroads, the defenders at LM can basically call any attack in advance). But yeah, in 95% of all games [pug vs pug] this doesn't come into play, it's more about which side keeps sufficient defense, keeps pressure on enemy nodes, and calls incoming in advance [ie. not 1 second before the node is turned].

Alliance can't really do the opposite with smith-mine-stables, as mine can't call incomings until it's too late, and roaming defense between these 3 nodes is impractical unless they have slowfall. (which only two classes do, and they require reagents)


-- Z.

The thing with AB is that it looks like the blacksmith is the most important node, but it's actually the Lumbermill that decides matters.

All else being equal, if Alliance goes for the BS they lose. If Alliance goes Stables->Lumbermill->Farm (and ignores Blacksmith/Mine completely), they win.

It's a good job most of the Alliance are inept in BGs and keep going for the BS 90% of the time/defend the wrong graveyards in AV/go for flags instead of towers in EotS/etc etc.

Yes, yes they did. Hprde never queued for AV until Blizz made losing give almost as much honor as winning. And the endless qq'ing about the bridge in AV was legendary.

For someone who claims to have played so long and alliance too you sure have a selective memory.

I used to love AB but... I just can't do it as Alliance. I mean, sometimes I go in. And I try to herd the cats, I really do. But the natural disadvantage that the map puts Alliance at combined with the general terribleness of Alliance PUGs is too much to overcome.

Man, I hate AB on alliance, and I never really liked it THAT much when I was on horde. But even the "premades" (we called them plow groups on Garona) I have been in on alliance are full of terribads who try to "mix it up" by sending different groups to different nodes every time and shit instead of just keeping a system and executing.

Could be worse, could be Eye of the Suck

EoTS is the worst.

I'm honestly back to WSG most days. I fucking own at it, I win all my games, so I keep doing it.

How about this one? We managed to capture the three towers in EOTS initially and ignored the middle.  We gained a huge lead at first, but being uncontested in the middle, the Horde was able to quickly get flag captures uncontested.  We eventually lost the third node and fell back to 2/2, and were unable to regain the third tower, while the center continued to be Horde dominated.  They had 11 Flag captures that match, while we only had two (the two that I made).  Even after all that it was still a close game, with the flag caps accounting for more than half the points the Horde had.

You have to take advantage of the changing battlefield conditions.  If you own the middle, cap the damn flag and get that bonus, then have someone run the flag back.  One person on our team thought it was best to hold on the flag to "encourage" everyone to focus on towers.  Meanwhile we held the center on multiple occasions while it kept roughly at 2/2, with a small Alliance advantage.  Horde managed to sweep our territories since THEY focused on doing it and were doing a better job of mobilizing, eventually killed the flag carrier (after capping both or negating Alliance side areas while we were still in Fel Reaver Ruins) and started farming the flag again.

So, yeah.  Don't hold the flag "for the team", you dumb shit (the guy, not anyone here).

So, post 2.3 I've been in two kinds of AV as alliance. 
1) Rush relief hut, work backwards after it caps until the horde push van and then pip Drek to end it.
2) Slow capping drive working south methodically.

The second one has only won once, because somehow that group of horde was worse than we were.
The first typically wins, as it respawns the jokers in the middle into a place they can help the side win (Drek's front porch).  When fewer than 15 push RH from the start it falls apart, but one way or the other that match will be over in 10-15 minutes.

Controlling where you rez is the key to herding the cats in AV, and to that end, picking up the graveyards in the middle is detrimental to success.  By taking RH first you secure your opportunity to win (or establish the fact of a quick loss) instead of concentrating on trying to pick up bonus honor on the way down.  If a few of the enemy are on the ball (e.g. about 8 of them are paying attention) they will send all your spread out forces back to the Aid Station.  That goes for either side, really.  If it wasn't so easy to cap the early bunker-tower-graveyard trio horde taking Aid Station would dominate more easily given the advantage of defending across the span.

AV will never really be about killing other players so long as killing the general ends the match.  If they really wanted it to be about killing other players your side would get bonus honor for each kill, e.g. the reinforcement pool is the total amount of honor you have at risk in the match and driving down the opponent's reinforcement pool is how you earn your bonus honor (be it from capping resource points (PvE focus) or just outright killing them en mass (PvP focus)). 

First, I hate the asshole who holds the flag "for the team" while doing jack shit but sitting on a pillar.

Second, don't fucking yell at me when I'm grabbing flags BY MYSELF while everyone else is going for towers. One man returning flags successfully is so motherfucking efficient it should make you explode.

Third, EVERY strategy people come up with is god damn retarded. You either know what to do and adapt or you fucking lose. End.

By the way, I figured out the definition of the term "Welfare Epics".

I'm using my old warrior at 69 in the 60-69 BGs to farm honor for S1 gear (Blacksmithing already raised for my weapon) as soon as I hit 70.

I'll be the most epicced out fresh 70 ever. I don't even play that much, but having a full S1 epics/DT warrior about five minutes after I hit 70 is fairly sweet.

Welfare epics is a retarded fucking term invented by morons who feel their grind is the only "real, hardcore" grind, and thus only they actually DESERVE the best shit in the game.

Anyone using it seriously I generally consider a fucking retard, and their subsequent comments tend to bear that out.

Still, I admit it's nice -- my main is only 65 and I have enough honor saved (but not enough EoTS tokens -- I really haven't gotten into that one) to purchase a lot of S1 stuff. I just haven't done it because there's no point until I either cap honor or hit 70.

But fuck, I worked for that. I've been doing PvP since before battlegroups, and I don't AFK (I'd have more tokens, but I used to do turnins.), and even with my casual-ass PvPing, I have some 12 thousand or so kills, and a something like 200+ tokens sitting in the bank. And so far, all I've used it for was to buy a ring.

This sounds like something you hear on the WoW boards. I mean really...whats up with the personal attacks? Fuckwit? Idiot? Stupid? Do you walk around barking out insults to everyone who disagrees with you? If not then why the hell do you do it while your at your keyboard?

Actually the first use of the phrase was by the devs themselves when they were hyping the changes in series 3.

Little hint for future reference around here. Don't Sirbruce the hell out of someone else's post in bold followed by L2P if you don't want to get called an idiot. Also, grow some thicker skin, Numbnuts, it's a debate about PvP. You should expect the general frothing you wouldn't see in other normal threads.

I stand by my assertation that whichever numbnuts said it was a total fucking retard, Dev or not. It's certainly been appropriated by retards.

Frankly, it makes pretty good sense -- if Arena gear is constantly inflating (which it is, if somewhat slowly) and PvP is heavily gear dependent, you've got to give people a leg up on it in the form of making older gear available through other channels.

I believe the original phrase was coined in reference to earning epics by losing every arena match.

I don't think the devs coined the term, as I had heard it long before Tigole made his "welfare epics" comment at blizzcon.

I just think it was not such a commonly used term before then.

And obviously the dev was using it in a sarcasting manner.

Personally, to 'fix' AV, I'd throw all the NPC's back in, just like AV 1.0, bump the number of reinforcements up to 2500 and have each NPC death kill a reinforcement, lieutenant deaths kill something like 25 or 50, captain about 150 and towers 100 or so each.  Forget having the generals give an instant win, hell, take the generals out for all it matters - just make it about reducing reinforcements to zero.  Then make supply runs from the mines able to replenish reinforcements at a maximum rate (no more spawn than X) so that even with a focused effort to replenish reinforcements as fast as possible, any competent enemy offense would be able to whittle down reinforcements faster than you can replace them.  And make Balinda as tough as Galvangar, give her a fireball or something that casts at roughly the same speed Galv melees at, and an Arcane Explosion that does as much damage as Galv's whirlwind.

As for rewards, like Lightstalker said - tie them directly to reinforcements.  Make 5 reinforcements = 1 honor, so that an AV where nobody uses the mines, the winning side gets exactly 500 honor (plus HK's) and the losing side gets somewhat less.  Furthermore, tie reinforcements directly to Marks of Honor?  Why?  Cause these games would be longer, maybe lasting an hour or two depending on how determined the defenders are with their mine and replenishing reinforcements.  So, about every 1000 reinforcements - or on an individual basis, every 200 bonus honor you get, you get an AV mark of honor.  No need to wait until the battle is over.  And also give one extra at the end of the battle to the winning side only.  People who can't be in there for a full game would still get both honor and marks.

This would make the whole battle about pvp again (ironically, considering it means putting in all those NPC's again), for the most part, with the majority of the fighting taking place in and around the Field of Strife.  People wouldn't be able to rush into enemy territory because of the NPC's, so they'd have to form a front line which you can then fight at.  The reinforcements idea at its core is brilliant - they just have to do it right to make it work with this battleground.  The terrain was designed for way more than 40 people on each side, that's why you need the NPC's to make it a proper battle.

Let me try that again. Did someone make a deal to not actually defend? Because on my BG seems like horde is just rushing for no reason and have lost every game today. However there are like 12 AVs going at once, up from 2.

There was a blue post a while ago (can't find it) suggesting that the Horde throw the Alliance a bone, in the form of not going for a flawless victory every time, so that the Alliance can get some honor out of matches they lose.  Maybe people on your server read that and thought it was a good idea.

As I understand it, the current situation is like this:

On 9 or 10 of the Battlegroups, the Horde does not force a turtle -- they basically cede Iceblood/Galv and allow Alliance to ride past SH, and allow it to become a race. Both sides end up with roughly the same amount of honor (although I think Horde actually manages a bit more, even on a loss) and the Alliance tends to win regularly, and the games are over in 15 minutes. Queue times are small and multiple games are running.

On two or three of the 12, the Horde routinely forces a turtle and the Alliance tends to lose. The games take 40 minutes (Horde holds SH, bottles the Alliance along the SH/SP road, and easily defends IB/Galv), the end honor is something like 580 to 20, and the queue times have shot up to an hour+ as Alliance has stopped queuing.

It's a matter of Horde choice, not Alliance tactics. I've been in a couple of the 580-20 games, and there is literally no real way past the Horde at SH. What few get by aren't enough to take Galv, IB Tower or IB from even a pair of Horde defenders. And when you die, you rez back at SP -- and trying to get past the Horde zerg at SH isn't possible in any real numbers.

All it really takes is 10 Horde defenders. Their offensive Zerg snags SH bunker and then pushes on SH GY and three people peel off to kill Balinda. They're rezzing and running from IB, so their dead hit SH quickly. The 10 Horde defenders easily hold at Galv or the tower, and Alliance dead are rezzing at SH (or SP, depending on how the SH fight is going) for the first several minutes (assuming no Horde bothers reflipping SF). The Horde simply get to the IB chokepoint instantly, while Alliance has to run past the Horde Zerg at SH.

Horde's early field advantage is just insurmountable, if they choose to press it.

I had the term used about me and my druid when i would drag it to MC a few years back, so yeah it has been kicking around for awhile.  How it applied to my druid was even though i was a shit healer (read ninja afk) everyone knew i would walk out of their with epics because i was the only druid in the raid.

Ok, Alliance is  :uhrr:.

I just played Alterac Valley today due to Holiday.  After the organized team left (2-1 record), it was a crap shoot for 8 games as Alliance got stream rolled by Horde. I keep playing because I didn't get my Daily until after the org group left (we started at 2 am).

God damn.  God damn.

You get almost 100 honor from just being in the zone when it finishes on a holiday weekend.

Blizz made a big post (copied at www.mmo-champion.com) that says exactly how much honor you get per objective on regular and holiday for all the BGs.

Well, I made the mistake of reading the WoW forums to see what everyone thinks over there.

First off, I made the mistake of believing anyone "thought".

I cannot count the number of self-proclaimed military geniuses who cannot seem to grasp the notion that a "chokepoint" or a "bottleneck" works both ways. That, in fact, whether it's an advantage or a disadvantage depends entirely on who needs to pass through it.

It appears most battlegroups have settled on a race (maximum honor for both sides, minimum queue time -- basically no defense on either side). Those that haven't are seeing the worst results -- huge queue times horde side, minimal honor Alliance side.

I'm a bit glad my main is on Ruin, which is a "Race" battlegroup -- a friend of mine is on one of the non-race Battlegroups, and it's a clusterfuck. He's horde, and his queue times were unbelievable. Judging from the comments from his fellow Hordies, it's not going to change for Alliance anytime soon -- but most of them can't seem to understand why Alliance won't queue up for a 600-0 honor smashing.

I have a 90-95% winrate at PUG EoTS right now. No bullshit. It's by far the best map to be a general in and the reason is the way capping works. In AB the enemy needs 10 seconds on a flag and you lose a node. Nodes are also very difficult to take if defended because all they have to do is stop you from having 10 seconds on the flag. EoTS is not like this at all, it's all about concentration of forces, feints, taking the right bases, and generally funneling the enemy. I start off by telling alliance to go straight for BT and FR and we usually take 1 because a bunch of horde will go for the flag and the usual zerg mentality of PUGs will underman one of the nodes. From there we have 3 nodes and are likely to win. If horde send out a small force, reinforce that node. If horde send out a large force, hit the node they just left. If horde go for the flag keep hitting their node, if they don't go for the flag then you get free caps. If we only have 2 nodes I'll send troops into one of their nodes then when that is reinforced I will send everyone to the other node. The stragglers at the first node will hold up horde (gotta kill everyone amirite? cant leave the other 10 people to fight off the last 3 ally) while all the ressers and any flag idiots or defenders you can get to go there will overpower the other node. Never hold, always be hitting something, PUGs don't listen if there's something to fight nearby so making sure you're always sticking guys in their face means the opposition can't organise. I also ALWAYS say "ignore the flag" even though it is worth getting because I know at least one person will ignore me and go for it. :P

If one group is semi-organized and the other is not the side with the organisation will always win. In AB you have ninjas and ineffective flag defence fucking it all up. That's why I currently love EoTS.


All the good alliance have left AV on the affected battlegroups. What you're seeing is the AFKers, those who need marks (read: shittily geared players), and the PVP purists... and everyone is disallusioned. Anyone with any competancy and PVP experience has 100 AV marks on their geared characters, is sick of having to carry AFKers and idiots in a BG the horde have an advantage in, and can earn more honor in premade EoTS/AB/WSG. Personally I wouldn't touch AV with a barge-pole when we were winning it if not for the honor carrot. Now we lose it all the time and don't get honor. Count me out.

Nightfall has happily reverted to a pre patch state in AV.

IE: Everyone ignore the other side outside of tower recapping to be an asshole and both teams come out with 300+ honour every 15-25 minutes.


Fastest way to piss off half a dozen horde? Retake SH Bunker.

Fastest way to piss of two dozen alliance? Retake SH Graveyard.

 :heart:

Well, Ruin just changed as of a couple days ago. Horde absolutely do not step foot into AV without a premade. It's actually kind of amazing to see every single game premade vs. pug. As such, I've stopped going into AV, and so has most of everyone else. Queue times have jumped massively and are continuing to rise.

Problem is, horde ALWAYS wins EOTS/WSG/AB. So I find myself wondering why the hell I log in, being that I don't raid (and have no intention to, since the gear is good for raiding and nothing else so it's basically a huge fucking waste of time).

Reroll horde on The Venture Co.  All the cool kids are doing it!

I wouldn't spend time leveling another character in this game if someone paid me.

If horde start to constantly win in your BG their queue times will go straight to hell. It's hard to get a premade into AV once you have two hour queue times.

In Stormstrike (horde have long queues, alliance have insta queues) it's easy for the alliance to get a premade into AV since it's so easy to re-queue if not everyone makes it in.

Then you get these happy threads from the horde after they queue for two hours and get a zero bonus honor game.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=3547603847&sid=1

Isn't Stormstrike the battlegroup that the horde were crowing about how they were getting 600 honor and allowing the alliance no honor?

Oh the irony.

The best part is the guy who started the thread is on the first screen shot saying "send them home with no honor".