Alterac Valley is the new Alterac Valley
Today was the first day in my 'Matt runs AV in the morning while his wife's asleep so he can make breakfast for her' scheme since Patch 2.3 changed AV. We all know that I'm a big fan of Alterac Valley, and since my stated goal in running PvP battlegrounds until Arena Season 3 eventually comes out is to collect enough honor to go into full-time arena play alongside my wife wearing as much Season 1 gear as I can get my grubby hands on, the amount of honor I can accumulate in a two hour patch of play is important to me.
So far, it's been very nice.
The removal of the lieutenants and commanders and the emphasis on taking and holding bunkers to remove the marshalls means that there's a lot more actual PvP going on, at least in my battlegroup. (Go, Shadowburn!) I ran several matches this morning, and AV doesn't seem to have bogged down as everyone indicated it would: the honor from capping a bunker or tower is adjusted upwards to 62 so there's a real reason to make sure it gets done, while the other team definitely doesn't want you to do it. I fought more in the Icewing Bunker than I have in quite some time. At one point, I managed to hold a druid/warlock/rogue team just long enough to ensure that the bunker burned. Sure, they killed me, but they killed me too late, and that's a victory in my eyes. I stopped running AV long enough to run the daily PvP quest (today it was EotS) and after a frustrating low-honor match, we got that done on my second run, meaning that I actually made a tidy little sum of gold and honor that helped push me over 2000 for the day.
AV seems revitalized to me, and much less a PvE experience. I learned a lot, including that a warrior with even an enhancement shaman tossing him the occasional heal can rip faces off. Icewing Bunker is mine!
How is AV working out on your battlegroup? Are people still trying the zerging tactics without holding bunkers? Are folks hip to capturing mines for reinforcements? Are your matches more PvP oriented than before or less?
