Alterac BG: how to cap Frostwolf towers wellFollow

Fellow rogues,

Most of you will know the following, but this might help the newer pvpers out there (although Alterac can hardly be considered as "real" pvp, but that's another question).

You all know that it's fairly important to destroy those two towers and the earlier the better. What I'd like to share is how to do it best. I'll try to demonstrate what I used to do (and which is bad) and what I now do (and which works wonders).

In both cases, I consider it best for a rogue to head straight for the Frostwolf keep when the BG starts. Most of the path is rather trivial so I won't go into details (just stay mounted all the way, dismount and eat to recover the life lost due to the towers' archers).

For those who're not very familiar, here's a map:
http://www.wow-europe.com/en/info/basics/battlegrounds/alterac/map.html

WHAT NOT TO DO

What I used to do is remain mounted up to the keep and dismount while entering the tower wich is on the right after passing the entry gate of the keep (probably eastern tower but I wouldn't swear).

Problem with that is that archers start shooting at you and you're in combat, so you can't eat and most importantly you can't restealth. So you have to vanish, at which time you can eat, restealth and go up the tower. Problem is, the archers discover you 100% of the time, so you loose some more life and finally capture the first tower.

After capturing this first tower, you bandage/drink potions to get back to full health, but still can't restealth because you're in combat. So you run from the top of the tower to the entry of the second tower, you get shot while doing this and you're back to low life, can't restealth (so you can't eat) and can't bandage because you just have. So you have to wait 1 min for the bandage CD to lapse before you can finally go up the second tower. When you do this, you'll get shot again and finally you'll cap the second tower.

Problems:
- during the whole process, you're often at low life and very vulnerable to any horde defender;
- it takes long with all those breaks to recover health, wait for timers, etc.
- after you've capped the two towers, the archers are still firing at you and any other alliance player entering the keep until the towers are finally burnt, which makes the rest of the keep's attack more problematic (namely, capturing the cemetary);
- you're not stealth and you're surrounded by hostile archers, so if a defender comes to recap the towers... you're dead (or likely).

WHAT TO DO

When you're before the tower THROUGH WHICH you have to ride just before accessing Frostwolf keep, stealth. You can then walk the usual path up to the first tower or, alternatively you can actually jump on the small wall which is on the side of the tower through wich you usually ride, then jump on the snowy hill and actually pass on the left side of the tower instead of through it (which is better to avoid any detection problem because be aware that the two wolves which patrol there will see through your stealth as the white circle on their heads indicate).

So you reach tower number 1 (the one on your right when you enter the keep) in stealth mode. Go immediately up the tower, and at the time when you reach the first floor (the level where the tower doesn't have walls anymore), you hit VANISH. That's right, even though you're in stealth, you burn your precious vanish. This gives you the improved stealth which will allow you to climb the last floor without being noticed. You can reach the flag (going around the hut on your RIGHT) and cap it immediately. After that, you can restealth immediately and jump to the courtyard.

You're still in stealth, climb up tower number 2 and when you reach the last floor of this tower, you go around the hut on the LEFT, where there are no archers. Once again, you reach the flag in stealth and cap it immediately.

Advantages:
- during the whole process, you're stealthed (except when capping the flags of course) and at full health, so you're not very vunlerable;
- no waiting time at all, so you've capped both towers in a record time;
- and here is THE REAL BENEFIT of this technique: after you capped a flag this way, the archers of the corresponding tower disappear IMMEDIATELY (not after 5 min when the tower's destroyed); don't ask me why, but that's how it is; based on my experience, this happens when you perfectly ninja a flag without the achers seeing you and shooting at you (maybe others could tell us more about that or correct me if I'm wrong);
- this means that you can remain stealthed in the courtyard (or on top of a tower, as you prefer), with no archer shooting at you and you can easily "defend" both towers (to avoid a recap);
- as soon as just 1 more person reach you, go and happily cap the cemetary (usual technique: 1 mounted lures the NPCs away, while the other one caps the cemetary).

I think that doing this early towers' capture and preparing the ground for an early cemetary capture is a big contribution to the success of an Alterac BG and that it's wise to allocate a rogue to this mere task.

Ok, that was nothing stelar but I don't see many people capping those two towers as quickly as I do and in such a clean manner (no remaining archers) so I thought that this might help a few rogues out there.

Good luck on the battlefield,

nostra

Oooh, come on! Be a fair player!

It's no cheating, it's the essence of being a rogue: remember, "they do it from behing"? That's exactly it: nice and sneaky, unseen leaving all archers with a dagger between the shoulderblades.

Isn't it beautiful? :)

nostra

I do what you do Nostra in that I head for the FW towers right from the start. But I do them in the reverse order.

Cap left (East) tower first (for some reason they don't bust you out of stealth. Restealth after capping. Jump down. Head over to the West tower. Talk to our NPC to release him. Restealth. Stealth up stairs of the west tower. Archers will bust you out of stealth. Run past archers cap tower. Vanish. Still at 90% health...no food....no bandages.

Horde rogues have been doing that since as long as I can remember.

Cripes, they've found out our secret!

Alliance rogues have been doing this for as long as i remember, which of course is longer than you remember and therefor horde stole it from alliance! !! !!!!

awesome trick thx for sharing

dp.

Edited, Nov 7th 2007 11:48pm by crazeecracker

I assume that what you call marshalls is the "Maitre de Guerre" in French (I have the game in French). If so, yes we still pull them... or rather "him".

With the above-described technique, when the bulk of the attackers reach Frostwolf, the two towers are usually catching fire (and the cemetery is being capped). And unless the rest of the BG has been doing only crap, there is only ONE marshall to pull.

So just one pull and focus Drek, game over pretty fast.

Some more feedback regarding another poster saying he's doing the towers in a reverse order as compared to me (left first, then right). It does work indeed, it's really a matter of preference. I prefer my order however (right, then left) because I know I'll use my vanish on the right tower so even if something goes wrong (like me being spotted accidentaly earlier), I just run and vanish at the usual spot and the rest of the capture goes as usual (since I don't need to vanish for the remaining tower). This doesn't hold true if you do the tower in the reverse order, in which case if you @#%^ up on the first (left) tower and have to vanish... then you're f.cked because you can't do the remaining (right) tower clean (i.e. so that all archers de-spawn immediately).

And about the technique with distract and sap to avoid using sap on the right tower. If it works, it's a nice move, well done. So far, I haven't mastered the technique, I'll try this week-end (last time I tried, it said "out of sight" when trying to distract on the top floor from the lower level).

nostra

Edited, Nov 8th 2007 9:07am by nostraaa