Alterac Valley PvP Battleground Guide

Alterac Valley is a massive, 40 vs 40 PvP Battleground, where your goal is to eliminate the other faction's leader: Vanndar Stormpike for H players, and Drek'Thar for A players.

In order to accomplish this goal, players will need to work on sub-objectives, such as destroying the other faction's Towers and Bunkers, which will cause the enemy leader to become much weaker, or capturing enemy Graveyards, which will stop enemies from being able to resurrect there, while allowing your team to resurrect there instead.

There are also other side objectives, such as killing the enemy Captains and turning in Blood, Medals, Armor and Flesh, Mounts (Wolves / Rams), and Supplies, in order to make your troops stronger, or spawn a raid boss for your team.

You can enter Alterac Valley through its physical entrance in Alterac Mountains, (39, 42) for A Alliance players or (62, 59) for H Horde players. You can also queue for Alterac Valley through the Battlemasters present in all major cities.

There are two main reasons to do this battleground:

• To farm gear through H The Battle for Alterac or A The Battle of Alterac, which rewards a powerful blue item, and also in the long term through the unique reputation rewards, such as Don Julio's Band.
• Honor farming, which, when done correctly, is one of the best solo Honor farms in the game.

First and foremost, from an efficiency standpoint, it is always preferable to lose quickly, and thus be able to gain some Honor and enter another Battleground, rather than have extremely prolonged games. This is doubly true in Alterac Valley, as games can be extremely long when some conditions are met.

The main condition that will cause your games to last forever, is having too many defenders relative to attackers. This will cause both sides to enter a stalemate, and should be avoided at all costs, if you have efficient Honor farming in mind.

Similarly, most sub-objectives are not worth pursuing from a Honor farming standpoint, as they have marginal impact on your ability to win Alterac Valley (Cavalry, Air Strikes, and Mine Supplies), or take too long (Ivus and Lokholar).

This means that your main priority should be assaulting Towers, Bunkers and offensive Graveyards, followed by taking down the enemy faction boss. You should also have a small team of defenders (preferably stealth classes) whose only goal is to retake those important map objectives once most enemies move on, gaining your faction valuable time to attack their own objectives.

For the H Horde, winning Alterac Valley efficiently is all about overwhelming speed and brute forcing your way through. In an all-out attacking scenario, you will have the advantage due to Shamans and stronger PvP racials, and the Alliance base is also relatively quicker to crack open, as long as the defenders are not coordinated around the bridge area.

A common, and undesirable (from an efficiency point of view) scenario for both factions is having the Horde slowly push down (or enter a stalemate with) the bulk of the Alliance raid in the path between Icewing Bunker and Stormpike Graveyard.

This will usually happen if Horde players deny every Graveyard in the map to the south of Stormpike to the Alliance, and will lead to very long games. Thus, for efficiency's sake, you should always let the Alliance have Snowfall Graveyard, which is far enough away from the important point in the battle to ensure a timely Horde victory.

If you do happen to get bogged down in a 40 vs 40 fight with all Alliance players defending, your best bet is to slowly gather the Stormpike Soldier's Blood required to summon Lokholar the Ice Lord, who will enable your team to push through the Alliance's defences, assuming that your 40 attackers are competent enough. Do not let it get kited into the enemy's General room and you should win, but it will take a while.

This means that Horde's ideal strategy is to assign a maximum of 2 groups of stealth defenders for ninja-capping, and everyone else should focus on attacking every Bunker and Graveyard from Stonehearth and above as quickly as possible. Have at least two players in every captured Bunker and Graveyard to avoid stealth retakes and your overwhelming numbers should allow you to breeze through Alterac Valley quickly, unless the Alliance has over committed to defense.

For the A Alliance, winning Alterac Valley is a delicate balancing act. The most defensible area in the whole map is the bridge choke point at the entrance of your main base, and a balanced small team of defenders with 10 to 15 players can hold out against double their numbers of Horde players trying to come through the bridge.

On the other hand, if both teams commit all of their players to attacking, Horde will generally come out ahead, as the Alliance side of the map and base are relatively easier to clear than Horde's, and Horde also tends to have higher DPS due to Shamans.

Also of note is that you can easily get completely bottled into your side of the map as Alliance if you did not have enough attackers to begin with, as there is only one path to get back into the Horde side of the map once you start resurrecting at the northernmost (Stormpike) Graveyard, and Horde players will have their whole group camping that path.

This means that Alliance's ideal strategy is to immediately create and assign three groups of (stealth) people to defend and delay for as long as possible, and everyone else should immediately focus on attacking Iceblood or Frostwolf Graveyard while keeping deaths at a minimum, to ensure the attacking groups can resurrect away from Stormpike Graveyard. Once a steady foothold is established, proceed to quickly capture all the Towers and the Frostwolf Relief Hut (stealth classes, if there are any on the attacking group, are very helpful here) and from there you should be able to take down Drek'Thar before Vanndar Stormpike dies.

There are multiple quests in Alterac Valley. Some are only available inside the battleground and help you win while others are obtained from the Alterac Mountains entrance NPCs, and grant you unique gear. The non-repeatable quests also contribute with reputation, helping you reach Exalted, and the best rewards, faster.

H The Battle for Alterac and A The Battle of Alterac can be picked up at the Alterac Mountains entrance with no prerequisites, and reward some of the most powerful blue items in the game: Ice Barbed Spear, Cold Forged Hammer, Wand of Biting Cold, and Bloodseeker. Make sure to do these in your first few Alterac Valley battles!

The faction insignia quest line is also of note, allowing you to upgrade your lowly Frostwolf Insignia Rank 1 into a pretty good Frostwolf Insignia Rank 6 once you are at maximum Exalted reputation. The related quests are all given by the NPCs in front of Alterac Valley's entrance in the Alterac Mountains.

While you can still find one-time quests for these, such as Towers and Bunkers, the purpose of sub-objectives is to make your win in the battleground more likely.

Ironically, many, if not most of these objectives actually make your win less likely in the sense that they force you to return to your base for turn-ins, and thus force you to be on the defensive, often making it impossible for you to return to the offensive, as you will find the enemy faction barring your way.

Killing the enemy captain, A Captain Balinda Stonehearth or H Captain Galvangar can be somewhat worth it as it denies the opposing faction their occasional buff and grants extra Honor, but it will take a while to do, and it is quite possible to lose Alterac Valley by a difference of seconds.

Due to their slow acting effects and lengthy completion requirements, we would only recommend you to bother with doing any of them in a stalemate situation, in which case summoning H Lokholar the Ice Lord or A Ivus the Forest Lord may well be your only way to win. To accomplish this, simply gather Stormpike Soldier's Blood or Storm Crystal from the corpses of your opponents and turn them in at Primalist Thurloga or Arch Druid Renferal. Remember that your summoned raid bosses are not invincible and will need a lot of support in order to make the difference.

All of the rewards are mirrored between Horde and Alliance, but as is typical in WoW Classic, there are a few lore-appropriate changes such as Horde getting an Axe while Alliance gets a Mace. The full list of reputation rewards is below.

Some of the gear you can find at Exalted is better than Molten Core and Onyxia's Lair gear. This makes Alterac Valley a very popular destination, as all you need to get your hands into this gear is a little bit of time, with zero RNG involved.

Alliance Item	Horde Item	Required Reputation	Item Type
Stormpike Soldier's Cloak	Frostwolf Legionnaire's Cloak	Honored	Cloak
Stormpike Sage's Cloak	Frostwolf Advisor's Cloak	Honored	Cloak
Stormpike Soldier's Pendant	Frostwolf Legionnaire's Pendant	Honored	Cloak
Stormpike Sage's Pendant	Frostwolf Advisor's Pendant	Honored	Amulet
Stormpike Cloth Girdle	Frostwolf Cloth Belt	Honored	Belt
Stormpike Leather Girdle	Frostwolf Leather Belt	Honored	Belt
Stormpike Mail Girdle	Frostwolf Mail Belt	Honored	Belt
Stormpike Plate Girdle	Frostwolf Plate Belt	Honored	Belt
Electrified Dagger	Glacial Blade	Revered	Dagger
Crackling Staff	Whiteout Staff	Revered	Staff
Stormstrike Hammer	Frostbite	Revered	1H-Weapon

The items in the table below all required Exalted reputation and are all available to both factions.

Item	Required Reputation	Item Type
Don Julio's Band	Exalted	Ring
Tome of Arcane Domination	Exalted	Off-Hand
Tome of Fiery Arcana	Exalted	Off-Hand
Tome of Shadow Force	Exalted	Off-Hand
Tome of the Ice Lord	Exalted	Off-Hand
Therazane's Touch	Exalted	Off-Hand
Lei of the Lifegiver	Exalted	Off-Hand
The Lobotomizer	Exalted	Dagger
The Immovable Object	Exalted	Shield
The Unstoppable Force	Exalted	2H Mace

Item	Required Reputation	Item Type
Superior Healing Draught	Friendly	Healing Potion
Superior Mana Draught	Friendly	Mana Potion
Frostwolf Battle Tabard (Horde) or Stormpike Battle Tabard (Alliance)	Friendly	Tabard
Alterac Heavy Runecloth Bandage	Friendly	Bandage
Bottled Alterac Spring Water	Friendly	Drink
Ice Threaded Bullet	Honored	Bullets
Ice Threaded Arrow	Honored	Arrows
Major Healing Draught	Honored	Healing Potion
Major Mana Draught	Honored	Mana Potion
Alterac Manna Biscuit	Honored	Food+Drink
Gnoll Skin Bandolier	Revered	Bullet Quiver
Harpy Hide Quiver	Revered	Arrow Quiver
Frostwolf Battle Standard (Horde) or Stormpike Battle Standard (Alliance)	Revered	Battle Standard
Horn of the Frostwolf Howler (Horde) or Stormpike Battle Charger (Alliance)	Exalted	Epic Mount