The OverAchiever: Master of Alterac Valley
Alterac Valley Veteran
Win 100 games. I don't know about you, but I personally don't enjoy Alterac Valley enough to slog through the number of games required to win 100 times. That's probably because of my Battlegroup, where I find myself losing more than I win. Like all veteran Achievements, this really is just a matter of time, and the only real problem is finding yourself on the losing faction -- which tends to be a trend in many Battlegroups unlike other maps, which are largely symmetrical. Alterac Valley is asymmetrical, so a Battlegroup with a faction that knows how to take advantage of the asymmetry will tend to win most of the time. I'll peg this one at hard, and I think some of you will agree.
Difficulty: Hard
Alterac Grave Robber
This is ridiculously easy because it doesn't require you to actually capture or convert the flag, just tag it. During the course of one game, there'll be many opportunities for you to do so. Snowfall Graveyard, the uncontrolled graveyard at the start of the game, is an excellent target that can be taken over and over.
Difficulty: Easy
Tower Defense
Retake 50 Towers. This isn't quite as easy as taking graveyards, as smart opponents will always leave defenders at a tower to protect the flag until the tower is destroyed. Most of the time, you'll need some assistance, who in turn will also try to retake the tower. Tower defense also works with a four minute timer, so there isn't a lot of room to keep trying if you die to the tower's defenders. Fortunately, it also happens that many players are idiots who tend to leave towers undefended or just leave one person to do the job. With these two extremes in mind, it shouldn't be too hard to accomplish over time.
Difficulty: Moderate
Loyal Defender
Kill 50 players in your General's room. Since this is counted over time, this isn't too hard to do. Simply defend every now and then, preferably with some help, and you're guaranteed to rack up some Honorable Kills by your General's side. In all likelihood, your General will be doing the killing for you, too. This Achievement can be unlocked with a few games, whether you win or lose.
Difficulty: Easy
Everything Counts
Win while controlling both mines. This is another easy task as many players tend to ignore the mines. Over the course of 100 games, you're certain to get this Achievement. You can make it easier by capturing one or two mines yourself, or mentioning it casually in Battleground chat where some players will take the cue and do the job for you.
Difficulty: Easy
The Alterac Blitz
Win in 6 minutes. Now this is hard. The only way to win in six minutes is to rush the General, complete with all his lieutenants. This means you will have adds, as well as a General who has higher health and hits harder than usual. You will also not have control of the nearest Graveyard, which means that players who die during this rush will spawn all the way back at the starting point. This means you will have one and only one shot of doing this every game, and you're unlikely to do it with a PUG. You will need a well-geared tank, dedicated healers, and enough crazy DPS to burn the General down before he or his lackeys start wiping you. Throw in the monkeywrench of enemy players trying to be Loyal Defenders, and you've got your work cut out for you.
Difficulty: Hard
The Sickly Gazelle
Kill someone in the Field of Strife before they dismount. Ah, yes, one of my favorite Achievements ever. This Achievement was put in the game to prevent players from trying to escape combat while staying mounted in Alterac Valley. Yet many players still stubbornly stay mounted, making things a lot easier. Note that you do not need to make the killing blow in order to get this, so hanging out at the Field of Strife will eventually lead to this Achievement.
Difficulty: Easy
Frostwolf Perfection / Stormpike Perfection
Win without losing your towers or captain. Here's another difficult one, albeit quite doable with a PUG. The idea is to simply play solid defense. As long as you luck out on a group that's dedicated to keeping all your resources alive, it usually will translate to a win. I won't go so far as to say that you'll get this eventually in 100 games, but with a concerted effort, it's certainly within reach. Because towers can be retaken, the only resource you'll need to protect with more tenacity is your captain.
Difficulty: Hard
Alterac Valley All-Star
In one game, assault and defend a graveyard and tower, and kill someone in the Field of Strife. This is a really fun Achievement where a lot of things can go awry. While it's conceivably easier to assault a graveyard and tower (simply take the first ones you get to), it's a little trickier to get them back. Having a teleporting trinket will help you here, so hope some enemies ninja the towers or graveyards near your base. One of the more conscious efforts on this list of Achievements.
Difficulty: Hard
Frostwolf Howler / Stormpike Battle Charger
Obtain an Alterac Valley mount. This is a retroactive Achievement, so players who already had the mount before 3.0 get this automatically. Otherwise, these can be purchased with 50 Alterac Valley Marks of Honor, which you'll pick up along the way to 100 wins. Since there's nothing else you can do with the marks at the moment, it's pretty much a no-brainer. Besides, both mounts look pretty pimp.
Difficulty: Easy
Hero of the Frostwolf Clan / Hero of the Stormpike Guard
Get exalted with the Frostwolf Clan or Stormpike Guard. Compared to either Arathi Basin or Warsong Gulch, Alterac Valley reputation is ridiculously easy. Many old school players will get this retroactively, but newer players have nothing to worry about. Killing the enemy General alone is worth 389 Reputation, Captains give 125 Reputation, destroying a tower is worth 64 Reputation, and killing players is worth 1 Reputation each.
There are also numerous repeatable quests such as turn-ins of hides or armor scraps, as well as guards who grant 5 Reputation until you hit Revered. To top it all off, bonus Reputation is awarded at the end of a match for certain conditions such as having a Captain still up (125 Reputation) or towers destroyed (25 Reputation each). So while other Battleground reputations are a pain to grind, Alterac Valley reputation rises whether you win or lose, making every game relatively worthwhile.
Difficulty: Easy
To the Looter Go the Spoils
Loot an Autographed Picture of Foror & Tigule. This is probably this meta-Achievement's equivalent of Be Mine!, as it's completely random. The gray item is also the zone's rarest drop, making looting it purely a matter of luck. The idea is to loot everything including enemy players and hope for the best. Note that the Achievement calls for it to be actually looted, so even though the item isn't soulbound, it cannot be traded or bought off the Auction House to get the Achievement. Good luck!
Difficulty: Hard
The Master of Alterac Valley is part of the Battlemaster meta-Achievement, and requires a bit of dedication to do in comparison to some other Battleground metas. The difficulty also lies in the fact that it's harder to form a premade for Alterac Valley considering it's a 40-man Battleground. That said, the Honor gain from Alterac Valley is pretty considerable, making this Battleground grind often worth it.
Filed under: PvP, Battlegrounds, Achievements, The Overachiever
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Gumbo Feb 28th 2009 8:07AM
The main problem is that on some battlegroups (such as mine -- EU Blackout), the population imbalance simply makes getting many of the achievements (or even winning at all) near-impossible, thanks to vastly fewer players bothering with AV after the marks were no longer needed for gear.
To put it in other words? Try playing AV as a Hordie on EU-Blackout, and almost every game will consist of 15-25 Horde vs. 38-40 Alliance.
Kemikalkadet Feb 28th 2009 8:16AM
I feel your pain. I'm on EU blackout too and horde never has a chance to win making a lot of the achievements impossible. The
Kemikalkadet Feb 28th 2009 8:17AM
ok comments system ate half my reply..
... The sub-60 bracket on blackout, horde always wins.. i'm glad i got a few achievements while i was levelling up my warrior as they're a total pain at 80.
Helloimbob Feb 28th 2009 8:18AM
Exactly the same problem on EU-Blackout, and since this is happening I reckon even less of us Hordies are gonna be playing AV now because it is impossible to win...
DaPwner Feb 28th 2009 8:19AM
You don't have cross-realm battlegrounds?
Gumbo Feb 28th 2009 8:34AM
Kemikalkadet and Helloimbob: Yep, things are curiously biased towards Horde in 50-60 AV, but while it used to be the case that we still put up a half-assed attempt in 60+, these days it just seems like they're all giving up entirely and there literally aren't enough players to compete.
Why they can't just add a Tenacity buff to AV is a mystery to me; that'd solve the imbalance problems easily.
DaPwner: We do -- that's what Blackout is, it's a battlegroup that contains my server (Azjol-Nerub) and several others. The problem being that amongst all the servers in the Blackout group, the Horde just don't seem to want to bother with 60+ AV anymore. :(
Todd Feb 28th 2009 3:01PM
On many, alright most, servers AV is a broken battleground. 5 to 40 horde, and the game persists, definitely isn't fair or balanced.
Though, there is ONE gleam of hope. People can at least get [Loyal Defender] done early. Good luck with any of the others done with this BG being askew.
kala Feb 28th 2009 5:00PM
You EU-Blackout guys just be glad that you are not in EU-Ruin battlegroup.
...brb, gettin' tissues...
Kanuris Feb 28th 2009 9:25PM
Hordeside EU Cyclone hopping on the population balance QQ train.
The issue is made worse by a clear domino effect. You play a few games of AV. Typical it starts with 10 - 20 Horde vs 40 Alliance. You get sick of AV. You decide to play other BG's because AV never has the total 40 vs 40. End result, less people willing to play AV, adding to the current shortage.
The issue i have, and most on my server have, is that the game never ever starts on a fair 40 vs 40. Our issue is not terrain imbalances, or idiots in a non-premade but just the lack of fairness in team sizes! We'd all rather wait and get a full game!
Bossy Feb 28th 2009 8:26AM
AV will be promoted again in patch 3.1
And it's about time. I think they excluded the AV marks (as opposed to the other BG), because they feared people would still be stuck in the BG and Wintergrasp would just lie there.
Fear that the so called mass battles wouldn't take place. It was a time when people still thought Warhammer failed because of too many scenarios and no open world PvP. Of course that was stupid to think back then. That game lagged in about 126423 other places to fail.
That fear for Lake Winter was cleary NOT correct. On every server Lake Wintergrasp is being played with 100/100 (at least) at prime time. So several BIG fights each day on every server assures the massive success of LW as a PvP campaign.
Now that that is clear and with the new 3.1 patch, they'll even add a new Raid boss in LW, the road is clear to include AV back in the normal badge BG's awards.
As it should be, because AV stays a good mobile big battle IF the players would only defend in their bases.
I love it and indeed patch 3.1 will put it back on the map again. With premades, Horde should always win this, because the defending Horde can roll up all the Alliance in the long run.
AV is a good alternative to LW, but the last few weeks LW is becoming a fluid battle also. Now that we know the tactics advancing to the attackers towers can win the battle too. Making LW AND AV very good BIG battles in Wow.
A third could be added somewhere in the future, but TOO many PvP sites will not work either.
So keep up the balance Blizz. I LOVE wow PvP settings and now that balance and resilience at 800+ is coming back to the classes....
WOW !
10/10
Gumbo Feb 28th 2009 8:38AM
Bossy, I very much hope you're right. I have many fond memories of AV, back when it was a densely-populated BG. I know it's not everyone's favourite and many people simply go there to farm honour, but some of us miss the tense battles of the pre-Wrath days.
All they need to do is add a desirable reward which requires AV tokens, and the players will come flooding back in.
elstor Feb 28th 2009 8:57AM
Sadly, 3.1 isn't adding a new WG raid boss. New raid bosses will be added each arena season, to keep the PvP gear between raiders and Arena'ers the same.
seanfury Feb 28th 2009 9:13AM
The worst thing is that, on my Battlegroup, Horde always have stacks of Tenacity in Wintergrasp, but always doubles Alliance in Alterac Valley. Wtf?
Gimia Feb 28th 2009 11:58AM
Your server may be outnumbered by the alliance during Wintergrasp because it's possible that either the alliance have lots of lower lvls there as well or not as many horde participate in the fight.
For BGs on the other hand isn't your server alone. When on the armory you can usually look yourself up and it will show what server you're on and what "battlegroup" your server is with. Other servers with the same battlegroup join the same queues as yourself for the BGs and do them together as well.
naylz Feb 28th 2009 12:08PM
Wintergrasp = Your Server
AV = Your Battlegroup
see the difference?
seanfury Feb 28th 2009 12:33PM
Oh duh. I'm not stupid, I swear -_-
Zarfay Feb 28th 2009 4:09PM
Only hard part about the veteran on my server is we have 1.5 hours queues when the games itself would take 20 mins on a bad day... Often we just zerg van and win it in less than 6 mins.
Kanuris Feb 28th 2009 9:36PM
The downside of being on the winning side that always wins. Huge queues.
Dreyden May 17th 2009 11:52PM
Note: I'm posting AFTER 3.1 hit. Way after, actually, I was just looking at what comments you guys had for All-star.
Alliance on Ruin - US battlegroup used to absolutely destroy AV. We outnumbered the horde 10-40 in literally every single one. They didn't even make premades [that I know of] it was pitifully easy. On the weekend the horde would come, let us win, get their one mark, and then leave it be. People could farm 30k+ honor on one AV weekend.
After 3.1...
We lose. Almost every time. The alliance-side PvP on my server is... awful. Someone could be in a 2 on 1 situation and a group of 5 would pass them by. Seriously. It's also a World PvP server. The horde destroyed us in everything but AV, where we destroyed them with numbers, and now they win everything. QQ -_-