Alterac Valley Tips

Here are some tips that we hope will give you a better experience in Alterac Valley. This is a very involved Battleground and it can take time to learn how everything works. If you have any questions, be sure to read the various Aterac Valley information pages we have created.
Stock-up on Supplies
Before entering the Battleground, see if you can find a Mage to summon level-60 water and food for you. You should pay or tip them for it, but if they give it to you for free, that's even better. This will save you from spending money on food or water at the vendor and lets the Mage earn some cash.

Get the Quests
There are some quests located outside of Alterac Valley. Pick up all the quests in front of the tunnel and near the instance door. There are a lot of Alterac Valley quests, so you'll need to free up some room in your quest log. There are also some quests located on signs. Don't miss those.

Enter the Queue
You can go to the Battlemaster in either Orgrimmar (Horde) or Ironforge (Alliance) to enter the Battleground queue. You can also just enter from Alterac Valley. Once you sign onto the queue, remember that you can do whatever you want while you wait. You can use your hearthstone to port back to town to learn trade skills, check out the auction house, or send mail. You can also head off elsewhere into the world and work on some easy quests or kill monsters for loot and reputation gain. Once the Battleground is ready, you can enter it from wherever you are.

Once Inside, Check Game Status
After you enter Alterac Valley, travel down the entry tunnel. You'll now be in the Alterac Valley Battleground!!! Now you need to open up the map. You can do that by hitting the "m" key once. If you don't see this, then hit "m" once more to open the Alterac Valley map. Take note of how the battle is going. Each person on your side (Alliance or Horde) is represented on the map by a dot. You can mouse over the dots to see player names too. The map can show you how your side is doing. If you're over on the enemy's side of the map, you're probably winning! You can review the Alterac Interactive Map for more details about the various important locations on the map.

Head to Base
It's now time to go to your main base. Horde players should go to Frostwolf Keep. Alliance players need to go to Dun Baldar. These are the main bases or towns for the respective sides. There are a lot of quests to pick up here for the Battleground. Many of these quests can be repeated. It's unlikely you will complete every quest your first time playing, so don't worry if you don't finish everything. You'll probably finish these quests gradually as you play day after day.

Find a Group
Alterac Valley is all about teamwork. Make sure you are in the battleground channel (type "/join battleground"), where allied players often communicate the latest news about the battle. Players are also automatically joined together in a raid group.

Loot!
When you kill enemy players, enemy guards, and certain creatures, they will drop quest items. These items can be turned in to activate special events. Read up on these events here. Some of the items can only be turned in if the NPC that collects them has spawned or is "up." People often communicate the NPC status in the general channel. If you cannot figure out where to turn in an item, try asking in the general chat channel. For organization purposes, you might want to move all the Alterac Valley quest items into the same bag and organize them. It's a fun thing to do if you're bored! When you leave the Battleground, you can only keep the racial quest items such as Human bone chips or Forsaken Hearts. The other items you gather, such as Storm Crystals, Stormpike Soldier's Blood, and Armor Scraps, will disappear when you leave the Battleground. So don't be surprised when they vanish. Those items that trigger big events disappear so that when you start a new Battleground, it will be fair. You should turn in all the items you can prior to leaving the Battleground. It's ok to leave without turning everything in.

Before turning in quest items, consider the impact on the game. For example, if the Ultimates are not ready to be defended yet, don't turn in the items.

General Tips
AFK
If you type /afk or go away from your computer too long, you'll exit the Alterac Valley instance. This is in place to encourage players to actively participate in the battle. Because you can't go afk, make sure you do everything you need to do outside of the game (eat, drink, etc.) before entering the Battleground.

Stay Together
Try to stay together with a pack of allies. If you are off on your own, you might be very susceptible to Rogue attacks or attacks by a mass of enemy players. If you stay around your allies they can heal you or help you fight if you get in trouble. Don't get frustrated when you cannot survive a large number of enemies attacking at once. This will happen when you go off alone.

Situational Awareness
The battlefield is all around you 360 degrees. There are also situations where the enemy might be firing down at you from above or from behind rocks or other obstacles. As you fight, continually look around you and above and below to make sure the enemy isn't sneaking up on you or that you are getting too far away from your allies. As you play more, you should gain a better understanding of where the enemy players like to hide out and where attacks might be coming from.

Solo Missions
You don't need a group to do everything. There are several missions you can do on your own. You can collect items for the cavalry charge by yourself. You can gather supplies for a ground assault. You can kill enemy guards to gather armor scraps to upgrade your troops. You can still help your team by assisting in these tasks.

Commando Raids
A five-person party can also do a lot to help the team. They can sneak into an enemy graveyard and attempt to capture it. If they select a graveyard deep in opposing territory where the enemy is not fighting, they can cause a distraction for the enemy. The enemy will have to come back to defend this graveyard.

Groups of Rogues can sneak into towers and try to take them in advance of a main army.

A party can enter a mine and gather supplies or turn a mine to their side.

Objectives
Your main task is to kill the enemy general. You should always be working toward that goal. This is achieved by fighting your way across the map, taking over graveyards, and destroying enemy buildings. Make sure you have the quest to kill the general.

Graveyards
Graveyards are very important to control. Control over the graveyards is how you advance across the map. Once you've captured a graveyard, your allied players can now spawn there when they die. Eventually, if you capture the graveyards outside the enemy town, you can use them as a base of operations to launch your final assault.

Capturing Graveyards
Graveyards are defended by NPC guards from the faction that controls them. You must eliminate these guards before you can begin capturing the flag.
To capture a graveyard you must click on the flag located at the center of the graveyard. There is a capturing process time similar to casting a channeling spell. After you've completed "casting," the flag will change to contested status. If you're attacked during this time, the process will be interrupted and you will have to start over again. So when someone is trying to capture a flag, the opposing players generally cast AoE (area-of-effect) spells on the capturer to interrupt their flag capturing. Once the graveyard has become contested, enemy troops can no longer spawn there. They must now travel from another graveyard further away. A message is sent to everyone that the graveyard is under attack. Expect the enemy to come and try to recapture the graveyard.

At this point, the graveyard assault group needs to defend the graveyard until it's converted to your side. This process takes about five minutes. If the enemy comes over and is able to complete the flag re-capture, the graveyard is instantly converted back to their side. They don't have to wait several minutes to get it back; they only have to complete the flag capturing action.

A common mistake players make is to leave the graveyard after it has turned to contested. The enemy then just shows up and recaptures the graveyard. Some players need to stay behind and guard the graveyard until it's converted to your side. If there aren't enough players staying, make sure you alert your team.

Defending Graveyards
When you receive an alert message that the graveyard is being taken over, you need to send some team members to save it. Since the graveyard was under your control, all you need to do is go back and click on the flag and complete the channeling time to recapture it. The enemy will try to prevent you from doing this. If you don't have enough people, you might not be able to recapture the graveyard.

If the enemy has not yet contested the graveyard but is trying to, your troops will continue to respawn at the graveyard for its defense. It's good to cast AoE spells over the graveyard so that anyone trying to steal the flag will be interrupted. Rogues often like to sneak in and try to steal it when no one is looking. If you ever see an enemy standing next to your flag, attack them to stop them from capturing the flag.

Towers
Towers contain allied NPCs and have powerful bow-equipped guards at the top that attack enemy troops from long distance. Towers are very effective in supporting your defense. Once a tower is destroyed, it will not come back again. It will remain on fire/destroyed for the duration of the Battleground instance.
Towers are full of NPCs. At the top of the tower are many bowmen. In the center of the tower rooftop is a flag. The enemy has to get to the top and capture the flag in the same way as the graveyard. They must then defend the tower in its captured status for several minutes. After that time, if the enemy hasn't recaptured the tower, the tower is then destroyed.

Capturing the Tower
One method of taking a tower is to have one player train out enemy defenders while another sneaks in and grabs the flag. The other method of capturing a tower is simply to send in a lot of troops and start from the bottom and fight your way up. You will need to cast a lot of overlapping AoE spells to fight the large number of enemy guards. The key in capturing the tower is usually numbers (more allied people helping the better) vs. how many enemy players are trying to defend the tower. You also need to take out the bowmen stationed around the top. Rogues and Druids can sneak up there and kill them. Other players can kill the bowmen from range or move up there while the guards are fighting other players. Once you have killed the bowmen, it's much easier to capture a tower.
Defending a Tower
It can be pretty easy to defend a tower. Make your way to the top of the tower and defend it from enemy players or recapture the flag if necessary. You can spam AoE spells in the flag area to stop players from taking the flag. You can also heal the bowmen stationed there to keep them fighting longer.

Ground Assaults, Cavalry Charges, Aerial Assaults, Ultimate Units
For more details on these events, go here. Spawning in these events and powerful NPCs are key to advancing across the map. Players need to be focused on unleashing these NPC charges as soon as they can. It is even better if you can time the attacks so that all three are out at the same time. This is difficult to do and might only happen with lots of practice and luck.
Make sure you tell teammates what is required to launch the attack. For example, if the Horde is ready to summon Lok'holar the Ice Lord and you need help to do it, notify people in the general chat channel that you require assistance in summoning him.

Once the NPCs show up, let people know where they are and escort them. If you don't support them, they will typically go off on their own and die.

Cavalry
The enemy will be trying to kill your wolves or rams to make their cavalry charges. Make sure you stop any enemy player that is killing your side's mounts. If you need help, use the general channel or raid channel to alert your allies.

After you have done the necessary quests to ready your cavalry, a player with higher reputation needs to order them out to battle. Simply click on the cavalry leader. If your faction is high enough, you should have an option to send them into the field. After they have reached their destination, you will need to command them again to send them deeper into enemy territory. If your faction is not high enough, alert other teammates that their help is necessary to get the cavalry into the fight.

Ultimate Units
After the Ultimate units have been summoned they will hang out for a while in the middle of the map - the area called the Field of Strife - before pushing on to the enemy base. Make sure your Ultimate unit is buffed, healed, and protected the entire time.

Enemy Leaders Check out this page for a list of enemy leaders. When you destroy all enemy lieutenants, commanders, or the enemy captain, you will disable the spawning of some enemy guards. This will help you advance along the map much easier. Try to kill any of them when you can.

Captains
Your captain gives everyone a powerful buff every so often. The captain also controls various guards. If your captain is slain, you will no longer receive the buff and you will have fewer allied NPCs to help your cause. For this reason, you need to protect your captain whenever he or she is under attack. Make sure you alert your team that the captain is in danger and organize a defense.

Final Assault
To take over an enemy town and fight the general, you should capture the graveyards outside and inside the enemy base. Once you take over both graveyards (which is easier said than done), the enemy guards will be forced to spawn at the tunnel entrance leading to their base, which is far away from their town. At that point, the enemy is really in trouble.

Before taking over the graveyard within the enemy town, you need to destroy the enemy towers in the base. This can be very difficult to do. However, once these towers are gone, the town will be much easier to take.

Defeating an enemy town can be very difficult and time consuming. You need a lot of players fighting in the town and you probably also need ground assaults, cavalry charges, and Ultimate units to assist you.

Other
A group of three Mages, a Priest, and possibly a Warrior can do a good job of attacking graveyards.

Class Roles

Rogue - Your job is to go stealth and take out high value targets like wounded players and Hunters/Mages. At least one Rogue should also be gathering Ram Hides or Frostwolf Skins. There are other roles for the Rogue to play, especially when working with Druids or other Rogues.
Mage - AoE, standoff, and snaring runners are your basic roles, but the best use of your abilities is to run into enemy players fully buffed on a suicide run, spamming Arcane Explosion. This can cause lots of damage and chaos to the enemy while also netting you tons of CP. It works especially well when multiple mages do it. You also make excellent bait.
Warrior - Leading charges and soaking up damage are your main roles. Keep the enemies' attention on you while the DPS classes take out the enemy. Another very effective attack is to charge and then AoE fear. Mortal Strike and Hamstring are you friends on high-value targets
Priest - Initially, keep the tank and yourself alive at all costs. Later, once everyone is engaged, switch over to DPS mode and kill everyone in sight. Cast Shadow Word: Pain, a DoT (damage over time) spell to wound multiple enemy players. Use Power Word: Shield for temporary protection from counter attacks. Like the Mage, the Priest makes excellent bait in a standoff situation. Shadow Priests can be very effective in Alterac Valley.
Hunter - One of the most powerful Alterac Valley classes, especially with marksmanship and engaging at maximum range. If you see a Rogue stealth, use Flare.
Druid - Healing, buffing, and joining Rogues on deep stealth missions. Use Stealth to sneak into enemy locations. Switch to Travel Form when you need to run away. Use Moonfire on different opponents, since the DoT portion of the spell doesn't stack, and Root to snare runners. Shift into Bear form if you're under heavy fire, and don't underestimate the power of your instant regen.
Warlock - Use DoTs to kill enemy players that try to run away. Use AoE Fear and AoE fire attacks. If you have Curse of Exhaustion, you can also slow down enemy players that try to run.
Shaman - Healing and general DPS during the big melees are your bread and butter. Chain Lightning can be used to attack groups of players. You can use your Frost Shock or Earthbind Totem to snare enemy players that try to run. Your Grounding Totem is good for absorbing enemy offensive spells.
Paladin - Good at defense. Use your stuns on AoE/Fear charges. Use your Shield when the enemy is about to capture a graveyard or flag.