The Art of War(craft): Strand of the Ancients part III
by Zach Yonzon 
Feb 7th 2009 at 1:00PM
Strand of the Ancients is one of the most efficient Battlegrounds from which to farm Honor because it has a guaranteed time to end and because players have the opportunity to both attack and defend. Unfortunately, as important as those roles are, manning cannons or siege vehicles grant less Honor because it grants less Honor from player kills. However, attackers gain bonus Honor for each gate destroyed while defenders gain bonus Honor for every gate that remains intact at the end of the timer or match. Bonus Honor is also awarded for capturing or defending the Titan Relic.
Three Strand of the Ancients Marks of Honor are awarded to the members of the winning faction at the end of the match, and one for the losing faction. In the event of a tie -- which can happen if neither team captures the relic at the end of ten minutes or, however unlikely, both teams capture it in exactly the same time -- players are awarded one mark each. These marks can stack up to 100 and are only usable in conjunction with other Battlegrounds Marks of Honor to complete the repeatable PvP quests Concerted Efforts (A) or For Great Honor (H). The Strand of the Ancients marks replace the Alterac Valley marks from the older versions of the quests. This quest awards 930 bonus Honor.
The associated factions for the Battleground are the Valiance Expedition for the Alliance and the Warsong Offensive for the Horde, although no reputation is gained from either faction when playing in it. Players starting at Level 71 may queue for Strand of the Ancients through the various Battlemasters in major cities and the portals in Dalaran or Wintergrasp.There are two brackets for the Battleground, Level 71-79 and Level 80. The only difference aside from the level spread is that tanks and cannons have 50,000 hp and 25,000 hp in the Level 71-79 bracket respectively.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Aler Feb 7th 2009 1:26PM
If you're in in the 71-79 bracket and aren't at the top levels, hop in a tank or a turret. Their damage and health is independent of your level, and will allow you to make a contribution to your team above and beyond what your level suggests.
Azizrael Feb 7th 2009 2:13PM
I find that the second tier of gates usually go down VERY easy. It's worth leaving people on the first row of cannons (blue and green) to defend until a graveyard goes down, because the offense still has to come through them with the siege tanks, and two cannons with focused fire on one siege tank can destroy it before it gets through.
Where the Alliance usually fails on our battlegroup is in the final section - once the gate of the yellow moon goes down the Horde just packs the doorway and nothing can get through, and the time runs out. Our Ally players can't seem to defend as well, and as a result Horde on EU-Rampage do much better in this than we usually do in Alterac Valley these days.
Koopatroopa Feb 7th 2009 7:10PM
Zach,
If the faction on defense always has the advantage, how would randomizing whoever is first on defense make a difference? Of course it would allow both factions to win somewhat equally, but whats the point when you already know if you start on offense that you have a much greater chance to lose? Doesn't sound so perfectly balanced to me.
Jark Feb 7th 2009 10:41PM
"the other gate on the same tier is no longer as important" I disagree. e.g If you can protect the west GY and purple gate the opposition will not have enough tanks coming through from east GY to destroy the final 2 gates.
gronyon Feb 8th 2009 12:17PM
@Koopatroopa : it's not that the first on defense has higher chance to win. A good team that start on offense, will play at maximum "time needed for them to break the relic" x2 (since when they are on defense they only have to hold until the time they took on offense is up). While a good team on defense needs to wait 10mn, plus the time they need to break on offense. Other than that there is really no unbalance between the teams. I play horde, and SotA is very effective BG. We will quite often.
@OP & Jark : tactics about "delaying" the tanks reinforcements are nice... as long as you can dispatch the first wave. During weekend it's quite common that the initial 4 tanks break every gate up to the relic (loosing 1 to 3 during the process is just not enough to lose the battle ^^).
The time required for a player manning the canons to run to the next tier and sit in their canon is quite long, if you start to move when you see "gate has been destroyed", you will be at the canon when the tanks are nearly on the gate. You lost half the opportunities to shoot at the tank(s).
When I see that all tanks are successfully rushing a single gate (i.e. there isn't many players killing the tanks before they are near the first gates), and I'm manning the cannon on the other gate, I directly fall to the second tier. And when second tier is focus-attacked and I feel we won't last long, I try and fall back to the yellow. Yellow gate is much easier to defend.
Once the yellow gate is broke, depending of the defense forces in place (high), and number of tanks still alive (low), it's still interesting to keep manning the canons so that offense players that follow the breaking tank are killed or at least heavily damaged... as long as 2 or 3 defense dude follow and finish the tank before the gate relic is destroyed.
About DELAYing the offense, one possible tactic is to have 4-5 dps on the beach next to one of the tanks, before the boat arrive. You'll have a 10-15s opportunity to seriously damage if not kill one of the tanks. The crowdcontrol, mass fears, nova or other mean of slowing players can win you precious seconds. But once you are dead, don't come back at the beach, go protect the gates, or prepare to protect the graveyards.
During OFFENSE, never have 2 tanks drive at the same place : the cannon would damage both. Instead one follow the other leaving a short space between both : usually only one tank will be hit at a time AND the second tank can fire at the melee trying to destroy the first tank !
Also, have spellcaster jump as passenger in the second tank (the one most likely to survive the defense ^^), and instead of trying to kill defense player, just CC them : sheep, roots, cyclons, typhoon (if they are behind the tank), whatever that will force them to sprint or jump on their horse to catch up.