while waiting for the honor reset I decided to write a guide focusing on Alterac Valley battleground and how this battleground works in Vanilla, because it differs from post 2.3 Alterac alot! Also I will explain to you how you get your quests done for Alterac, because many people spam chat in Alterac on how to do quests.
Alterac Valley is a battleground designed for level 60 players, you can enter it however if you are level 51 or higher. The respective faction base is inside Alterac Valley and in Alterac Mountains.
Why Alterac Valley?
- The rewards of your faction are great! You get some decent blue items, food, ammunition, potions at higher reputation levels and if you get to exalted, you get some BiS preraid/PvP epic rings and weapons for casters/melee. You also get an epic mount at exalted, but still need expert riding.
- Farming honor, herbs, mining, fishing
- Zerging can be fun for some people like me
- It's just a crazy environment like nothing else in World of Warcraft
Still with me? Great!
First of all, I'm going to explain things that are different compared to retail Alterac Valley.
-Most important thing is, the only way to win Alterac is by killing Drek'Thar or Vanndar. Only if those two bosses are killed you win, there are no reinforcements.
-Also, all NPC in Alterac respawn, only Lieutants and Commanders stay dead once they are slain, so kill them! They usually guard key structure buildings of your faction.
-If you kill the enemy factions Captain, you get 125 Reputation with your faction and all enemy NPC in field of strife will despawn. Also your captain grants you a temporary 20% health boost buff, so keep him alive!
-Focus the minelayer! The whole enemy territory is covered with (invisible) landmines, if you step on one you take 1300 fire damage. The minelayer patrols between the your captains building and the second tower/bunker. He requires about 10 ppl to kill, so beware! If he is killed, mines stop respawning (they still detonate!) He spawns after 30mins. Rogues can see and disarm the landmines.
-Your commanders are strong elite units that grant you a buff if you stay in their range, so fight near them!
-Everytime you manage to destory an enemy tower/bunker, your general gains an additional elite guard and your oppenents general loses a guard. (Example: Destroying the first horde tower, Iceblood Tower, grants Vanndar Stormpike an Iceblood Marshal and kills the Iceblood Warmaster of Drek'Thar)
-All elite guards of the generals need to be killed OUTSIDE! You can pull them outside of the fortress (only the general resets) and kill them there. Pull one by one, they have a whirlwind AoE.
-To capture a mine, you must slay the named elite mob deep inside the mine. You will need a group for this! If you capture a mine, your factions NPC will spawn and finish off all enemy units. After 30mins the mine turns back neutral and the neutral boss respawns. You need to get the KILLING BLOW on him for it to turn back to your faction, if your NPC kill the neutral boss, the mine wont recap. It does NOT matter how much damage you do to the boss, you just have to get the killing blow!
-Snowfall Graveyard is guarded by Winterax elite trolls, so beware. 1 Winteraxtroll will always respawn there, the others do not respawn once the graveyard is captured.
Quests for Alterac Valley:
Yes, they do give alot of exp. Yes they do give gold. Yes you should do them. I will explain only those people dont seem to be able to figure it out themself:
Brotherly Love: Simple, go to Tower Point/Icewing Bunker and kill the commander (requires at least 5-10 ppl) If the commander is not here, he got killed and you have to check out in the next BG.
Capture a mine: Explained above how to do this.
Defusing the threat: You must kill the explosives expert, the horde one is in Frostwolf Village (next to smith), the alliance one is in Dun Baldar (next to stable master). Beware, you need a group to do this!
Fallen Sky Lords: You need to find and SPEAK with the wing commanders. They do not respawn if killed and only one player per BG can talk to the wing commander to get it for the quest. If a wing commander is not were it should be, check in the next BG. They are at: Guse (Icewing Bunker) Jeztor (Stormpike Lumber Mill) Mulverick (Dun Baldar North Bunker) Slidore (Tower Point) Vipore (Frostwolf Village) Ichman (West Frostwolf Tower)
Master Ryson's All seeing eye: Not on Nostalrius
Proving grounds!: DO THIS QUEST! It rewards you with a trinket that allows you to teleport back to your factions main base and is extremly important. You can upgrade it each time you get another reputation level with the BG faction up until epic quality on exalted. You have to loot a banner hiding within Icewing (Alliance) and Wildpaw (horde) covern. Just run in as far as you can (you will die, its filled with elite mobs) and run back to your corpse (do not release at GY) until you reach the banner at the end of the cave. CC the mob and get the banner and let yourself die to respawn at the graveyard.
The Legend of Korrak: Korrak the Bloodrage spawns exactly 2 HOURS AFTER BG STARTED and ONLY ONCE PER BATTLEGROUND. No he wont spawn at 4 hrs. You have one chance of killing him per alterac valley. He spawns in the middle of Field of Strife, just were the winterax troll gather after 1 hour has passed. Korrak is a raidboss, so watch out for that, you also have to get the FIRST HIT to tag if for your faction, you wont be able to loot the skull if you kill him while the enemy faction got first hit. If thats the case you can only try to reset him by killing all enemy players. You can also kite him to your factions guards so they help you kill him.
Repeatable quests:
Racial items: Loot from player races and turned in at your faction npcs, each race is turned in at a different NPC. (Human - Towerpoint, Nightelf - Frostwolf Village Gnome - Frostwolf Village, Dwarf - Frostwolf first tower, Orc - Dun Baldar South Bunker, Undead - Icewing Bunker, Troll and Tauren - Dun Baldar) Each turnin grants you 40 silver and reputation with your bg faction and your racial factions.
Zinfizzlex Portable Shredder unit: You have to turnin 30 Thorium, 50 Mithril and 75 Iron Bars and a steamsaw (you can loot it from a tool bucket at the Stormpike Lumber Mill/Frostwolf lumber mill inside alterac valley) at Master Engineer Zinfizzlex who resides at Snowfall Graveyard (at the actual GY, not the banner). You get a rare Shredder unit item which lasts for 7 days (real life days, not played) and summons an elite shredder you control (like eye of the beast or mind control, not like a pet). Notice: You have to dismiss your pet first if you have one or you wont spawn a shredder and waste the 2 hrs cooldown. The shredder is level 61 elite, has about 30000 health and can easily kill most clothies. He has a cleave and a melt armor ability, the later deals about 700 fire aoe damage and actually destorys the durability of the armor of players that get hit by it, so its quite annoying for them
. You control the shredder unit it dies or 30 minutes run out, then you have to wait 2 hrs to cast it again.Summonable units in Alterac:
In Alterac Valley you can summon extremely powerful units to aid you in battle by turnin in quests at your faction. DO IT WHENEVER YOU GET INTO A ZERG BG! If you time these NPCs right, you WILL WIN.
Leveling your ground units: Armor scraps: Loot from players, turnin at your Smith at base. You get a 10% armor buff and reputation. You need 500 scraps per upgrade level to upgrade your factions NPCs. You can also ask the Smith how many scraps you gathered. The upgrade levels are: Normal, Seasoned (58-59) Veteran (60) Champion (60 Elite) At veteran level your normal NPC units can kill enemy players in a few hits, so it really pays off to upgrade them! Champion units oneshot clothies, they make your base literally impregnable. Units upgraded by this are: Patrolling units, graveyard guards, archers and the ground assault units.
The ultimate unit - Lokholar and Ivus: Blood/Stormcrystals: You have to turnin 200 Blood or Stormcrystals looted from players at your base (Horde: Primalist Thurloga in a cave next to smith, Alliance: Archdruid Renferal at the grove behind Dun Baldar North bunker). Once 200 units have been turned in, you can talk to the npc to send them in. The will start running to Field of Strife, killing everything in their path (they DO hit hard, but protect them!) You then need 10 players to click and channel on the altar that spawns to summon your factions lord. The elemental lord is a raid boss who will move to Frostwolf Graveyard/Stormpike Graveyard, killing NPCs and players on his way. Protect and buff them! While Ivus the Forest Lord starts out stronger than Lokholar, the Icelord can grow stronger as he kills players. Each player he kills (he needs to get the killing blow!) he gets 10% size, 10% attack speed and 75 attack power, stacking 10 times, so LET HIM KILL players, npcs do not count for this. Everytime he gets stronger, he yells an emote. If you manage to kill the enemy elemental lord, you get rep and they drop 2-3 BOP blue items for level 54+. You can resummon them but you have to turnin the items again.
The cavalry : Frostwolf and Stormpike Riders: You can summon your factions cavalry by farming 25 Ram (Horde) or Wolf (Alliance) hides, dropped by Alterac Rams and Frostwolves. You have to turn these in at your factions Rider Commander (Horde one is located far east in the forest next to frostwolf graveyard, Alliance one is next to Aid station). You also have to tame 25 rams (Alliance) or 25 wolves (Horde), you get the item and quest for taming one at your stable master, next to the rider commander. You have to tame the mob, using the item and run back to stable master once it turns friendly, it will follow you. WAIT there until the mob gets to the stable master and despawns, then you can turn in the quest. You have to do this 25 times. You can see the progress in the stables, if the stables are full (all empty spots taken) you have to tame 5 MORE (if stables are full, the master will yell it!) After you got everything done, talk to the Rider commander to spawn the cavalry, consisting of 9 58 Elite riders and the commander. They will charge towards the enemy main base and rip everythin apart that stands in their way. If they get killed, you can resummon them.
The ground assault: The mines: After a mine is captured by your faction, you can loot supply boxes inside the mine if you have to respective quest from your quartermaster. You have to turnin 100 boxes from the mine farther away of your base or 300 boxes from the mine closer to your base. (10 or 30 quest turnins). Your quartermaster will yell after enough turnins have been made and hand ONE player the attack orders. At the same time, elite units will spawn in field of strife. You have to turn these assault orders in to Field Marshal Teravain (spawns south of Stonehearth Bunker) or Warmaster Garrick (spawns east of Iceblood Garrison) to send the elite units into battle. They will attack the enemy fortress, killing everything in their way. THEY HIT LIKE A TRUCK! If they get killed, you can resummon them by turnin in enough supplies again. These units do scale with your unit upgrade level, so for example if you managed to turn in enough armor scraps at the smith to get your npcs to Veteran level, these units will also spawn as Veteran 60 Elite and have more health/damage.
The call of air - Top Gun incoming: Flesh and medal turnin: First of all you have to escort your wing commanders back to your base. You can loot the flesh/medals from enemy players. If your wing commander reaches the base alive, he will offer you a turnin quest. If enough items have been turned in (its 90/60/30 items, the commander closest to your factions base requires the most flesh, the one held captive in the enemy base requires just 30) After enough turnins have been made, talk to the wing commander again to send them to battle. The wing commanders will patrol different areas: Horde: Guse - Icewing Bunker and Stormpike Graveyard Jeztor - Stormpike Graveyard and Dun Baldar Bridge Mulverick - Sanctuary of Dun Baldar Alliance: Slidore - Tower Point and Frostwolf Graveyard Vipore - Frostwolf Village Ichman - Frostwolf Keep. The war riders spawned by the wing commander are flying units who bomb npcs and players alike. They got a nasty knockback stun bomb and have alot of health. Once they get killed, you cannot spawn them again for the remaining battleground.
I hope this guide provides some help for players who never got the chance to participate in Vanillas version of Alterac Valley or are trying to finish their alterac quests.
- Winterax, member of <The red dawn>
Special thanks to
Korrak the Bloodrager and all the Winterax trolls <3
