How to Earn Those Seemingly Impossible Alterac Valley Achievements

Before attempting to shoot for several of these achievements, it is strongly advised that you have the following:

• AV Preform Enabler installed and ready to go
• A group of 10-15 friends
• Several hours to kill

I won’t go into much detail about the AV Enabler. Veteran BG players understand why it’s useful and nearly a requirement in most preforms. There is no exception especially when it comes to AV.

Loyal Defender

This Achievement involves you killing 50 players while defending your general. It’s either going to be Drek or Vann depending on your faction. If you happen to join an AV in progress where you are losing, then it’s the perfect time for you and your crew to make their stand. Ideally, your defense will involve a couple of Death Knights. Have them Scorpion any unsuspecting Horde (or Alliance) players in.

As DPS, strafe in and out of sight as much as possible. Sneak out and try to bait players in, but take care not to get yourself caught outside. Death Grip from Death Knights work both ways.

Line of sight everything as much as possible. There are two columns in the back of Vann’s room which I’ve found perfect for the job. I’d be able to partially conceal myself behind it and still heal players around me. There’s probably something similar in Drek’s room as well.

The most important thing here is to don’t ever release. If you’re lucky, opposing faction members won’t loot your corpse allowing the healers behind you to pick you up manually.

I was able to get this achievement in about 3 minutes after dying and doing the run of shame back into Vann’s room.

Now make like Braveheart and hold!

The Alterac Blitz

Ready for the fastest AV ever? Here’s the roles you’ll need:

• 2 tanks
• ~4 healers
• Miscellaneous DPS

You’ve got six minutes to win Alterac Valley. Once those gates open, your team is on the clock.

This is straight forward, PvP brute force tactics at its finest. With your team assembled and buffed at the gate, mount up and make straight for Drek’s room. Evade, sidestep, and ignore as many Horde as possible. Alliance players will be riding through the Fields of Strife along the west side while the Horde are going the opposite direction along the east.

If you’re lucky, you won’t get stalled heading down. Most of the time you won’t. If you do get held up, there’s nothing more you can do.

Assuming everything goes well, you’ll be staring down Drek and his four tower cronies. When Conquest got this achievement, we did it with 2 Paladin tanks. One of them picked up Drek and dragged him to the back of the room while the other picked up the other 4 tower marshals and peeled them away from Drek’s tank. The goal here is to minimize whirlwind damage as much as possible. Pop a Heroism and pray that your DPS is sufficient to take him down with the allotted time. You might have a few stragglers coming in from behind trying to put a dent in your plans. Dropping fear bombs and other forms of CC should delay them long enough for your strike force to take out Drek.

The other faction won’t even realize what happened. I’ll never forget the disbelief in Battleground chat when Drek died. It felt like Conquest went to Drek while the rest of the other players were working on Galv. Lot’s of “WTFs” and “Whoas” ensued.

Stormpike Perfection

Win Alterac Valley without losing a tower or a Captain. You must also control all of the Horde’s towers.

It is imperative that you do not attack Galv at all. I’ll explain why later.

You’ll be playing a tight checking defense at first. When your team comes screaming out of the gate, set up shop inside Belinda’s room and stave off the initial rush. Stonehearth is going to be assaulted at this point. Once Belinda is clear, head straight to Stonehearth and take it back. Use overwhelming force.

At this point, your team will need to split. The bulk of the forces will be advancing south and slowly capping towers.

Strong communication here is key. Definitely keep a player back on Belinda duty. You can watch from far away and see how many Horde players are going in. If it’s a substantial amount, alert the defense. The defense will be alternating between securing Stonehearth and Belinda. If Horde players manage to reach back, send 2 or 3 players to recap. It’s important to maintain possession of bunkers. If one is in the process of being turned by the Horde, and you manage to reduce their tickets to 0, you won’t get this achievement because you lost control of a tower. Even though they haven’t capture it yet, it won’t matter.

The strategy for the offense is to slowly and systematically capture towers. Note that the Horde have to have enough tickets left for this to happen. For example, if they have 40 tickets left and you still have two towers to cap, you won’t get the achievement. One tower will reduce the tickets to 0 while the other is still in progress. This is why you can’t kill Galv as it would drop their ticket count by 100 and reduce the time you have to capture towers.

We came close once to gaining this achievement but we lost a bunker at the last possible minute. This weekend. That’s my goal for this weekend.