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Comment by 81708

The Strand of the Ancients is a Titan-themed battleground which will be a "D-Day like situation" where one Faction attacks from sea, and the other defends the large Keep at the northern end of the battleground.

Siege weapons will be used throughout the battleground. Offensive weapons will be used by the attacking force to break through the defenses around each tier of the map, while the defending side will have their own weapons available. Each team progresses via controlling capture points on each tier. Some capture points allow access to different types of siege weaponry.

Comment by 182501

this brings back memories of conkers bad fur day......

Comment by Manestone

They might change it before the release but if you look at the npcs in the battleground.

Anti-Personnell Cannon http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?npc=27894

Cannon Blast

The Anti-Personnell Cannon reacts hostile towards Alliance.

_
Battleground Demolisher http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?npc=28781

The Battleground Demolisher reacts hostile towards Horde

_
This would leave me to believe that the Horde are defending using there Immobile Cannons. (Immobile is a total guess).
And the Alliance would be defending using there Steamengine type things.

This might actually be a good thing because whenever the Alliance get to defend 90% of them go afk. Maybe it'll keep them awake lol

All Alliance who have ever played an AB know what I mean /sigh

Comment by 167496

sounds really kickass to me

Comment by 139841

yea, I think this is deffandly like the D-Day landings, for one thing, on a map, I believe, the sea was north of landing grouns, there were ramps on the sides of landing areas, I believe, and there was a trench system, that I believe, looked VERRY similar to the trenches showed in map, Personally, i think that'd make a ssick map lol, way to go Blizz!

Comment by 203596

can u say rogue heaven lol..rogue/druid premade just stealth all the way to base and slay everything without any thing to stop them

Comment by 195915

Hmmmm....
I wonder what the objectives are....

Comment by 137604

will there be npcs? it sounds like it would be kinda lame with only 30 ppl

Comment by 163531

What are the bracets for this? If it is 71-80 it will suck, (due to non lvl 80s)
Heres hopeing for (70-79) (80)
And for NPC's, attacking and Defending, like AV before they took em all away, and we had Cavalry Charges and Infantry Attacks, supported by Vipore, Icheman and Slidore on Gryphons and Ivus the Forest Lord tanking everything. Lets have that (though no Ivus)

Comment by darkkeijp

It looks nice but it will be very hard to make it work. lets all hope they succeed together with wintergrasp. (looks like a mini-wintergrasp anyways)

Tho immagine this premade v premade.

Comment by nazumagal

This definately won't be another EotS, I can tell that just by looking at the map. This battleground will keep you on the edge of your seats while chugging Monster to stay awake for hours on end.

Comment by 64407

Ok, I am a beta tester and I'll try as much as possible to explain this BG.

Each match takes exactly 20 minutes and is parted in 2 parts: the first part, which takes 10 minutes, has the Alliance as Attacker Team and the Horde as Deffender Team. After the 10 minutes pass, the roles change. As far as I've seen, the order is always the same - the Alliance always begins as Attacker and ends as Deffender, and the Horde viceversa. After the roles change, any sign of the previous turn are removed. Every effort for completing the goal of that BG must be restarted.

So, what's the goal of that BG? To reach the southernmost building and click on the Artefact there.

So, untill there all seems easy, but now comes the hard part. The BGs map can be parted in 3 separate areas, called by me:
1. The initial area. (Northern part of the map)
2. The middle area. (Middle part of the map)
3. The Artefact area. (Southern part of the map).

The initial area is where the attackers's boats reach the island where the conflict takes place. The attackers arrive in 2 different boat, 1 arriving in the northwertern part of the map, and one in the northeastern part.

In order to get to the middle area, attacker's must destroy one of the 2 gates that are the only pass zone between those 2 areas. The first part of the battle in the BG is when the defenders try to keep the attackers as much as possible away from the gates. The gates can be destroyed only by using siege weapons, which will be discussed later here. While you can destroy both gates, it is recomended to destroy only 1 and all attacking troops go through it

The way you can get from the Middle Area to the Artefact Area is very similar to the way you can get from the initial area to the Middle one. 2 different gates which can be destroyed, 1 being enough to be destroyed in order to be able to pass in the next area, siege weapons required.

The Artefact Area has a single Gate protecting a large temple where the Artefact is hidden. The temple itself has a gate of it's own. The gate that leads to the garden holding the temple that holds the artefact functions just like the others gates - destructible by Siege Weapons only. The final gate - the temple's gate - is destructible by only siege weapons as well, but it has a little difference from the other gates that I'll imideatly say.

So, siege weapons. There are 2 kinds, 1 useable by attackers, 1 by deffenders. Each of the gates the deffenders need to deffend (except the final gate - the gate of the temple - thats the difference I was talking about) has 2 static Siege Weapons, 1 on the each part of the gate. Those Siege Weapons are easely controlled, but the projectiles travel quite slow, so it's quite hard to hit the target if it moves. It deals ~2000 fire damage to the ones it hits and also applies a debuff that deals periodical fire damage over a few seconds. Those are useable by Deffenders only.

The other Siege Weapon active in this BG (the Demolisher) is the one of the attackers, which is used to destroy gates, but which can also create havoc among players. It has 2 abbilities: 1 who sends a Fire Boulder similar to the Defender Siege Weapon one, but which is way more hard to control and 1 which deals meele damage to players or gates near the Demolisher.

The Deffender cannons do not respawn, but the Attacker Siege Weapons can and will respawn. There are a few points over the map where those respawn.

Little is remained to say. The Attacker Weapons spawn near their starting locations initially, but they start spawning near the middle of the map as the game progresses. Siege Weapons, unlike gates, can and should be destroyed by players. There are 3 capturable graveyards on the map, but I cannot say exactly how they work, as they are quite buggy in beta.

Well, that's it. I wrote loads more then I intended, but I hope I explained it good. Happy PvP-ing!

Comment by Grindalwald

The game in the show Gladiators pops in to mind when I think about this bg. The game where a gladiator is on a huge turret at the end of a room shooting tennis balls, and the challenger has to run from node to node using various weapons trying to shoot a target behind the gladiator that is trying to shoot him.

Comment by 181678

Whats the lore behind this lol like why are both forces fighting for this place? just like eots no one now all we know about eots is that some Belfs and draeneis are fighintg over some place in the netherstorm,think its cause its close 2 TK and they want 2 use the place as a foothold aganst it remember reading about it somewhere. anyways we don't even now why theres a fight for this place or whos fighting over it since when ever its this bg's weekend u won't see there npc's wandering capitals but you'll just see the capital's race npcs recruiting ppl for strand of the ancients instead.

Comment by ADAJehuty

So, will there be factions associated with this BG and tabards and such? The SoTA battlemaster in Stormwind has a pretty awesome tabard, and I'd like to get my hands on one...

Comment by Thaspraya

The name could be a play on "Defense of the Ancients", also known as DotA, a very famous Warcraft III map.

Comment by 152018

Can't you imagine it?

The noble Alliance girds themselves for the challenge ahead. The Rogues and Druids look at their abilities, wondering why they're needed. Only those who can outwardly destroy the enemy belong here. They look at each other, and cry on the inside.

The Mages and Warlocks mock them among their friends, laughing at their inability to AoE. Everyone steps on the shore, the Death Knights, Warriors and Paladin's plate armor, gleaming in the sun. The mail of the Hunters and Shamans chinking in the background. The others line themselves up, placing the last of the buffs onto their allies.

And then, total hell.

Quickly the Alliance is fired upon, looking for cover on the barren shores as if it's Burgundy. Quickly, an engineer gets into a steam engine, and blasts down the gates. A few are injured, a retarded Night Elf thinking he needs to stealth shot down, but they press on.

Again, they're rained upon with Anti-Personelle weaponry. The Priests attempt to reflect back the hailing firepower. The engineers hop into the steam engines, and blast down the second gate.

The yells of the Orcish language echo through the canyons. One more gate, and the keep is theirs. Many are injured, dozens are dead, but one good hit from the steam engines will quickly even the playing field. Beautiful, barber-cut hair flowing in the wind, the Alliance break down the last door, only to be confronted by the Horde.

Battle cries ring out. Rogues and Druids are Vanishing, Warriors are Intercepting, Death Knights are silencing, Mages are Polymorphing, Warlocks are Fearing, Shamans are Grounding, Hunters are Mastering, everyone else is doing something that ends with -ing. Many die in the wake of war.

And then, ka-boom!

Everyone turns. The last door is blasted down. The Artifact of the Ancients lay on a small pedestal in a small garden. Everyone looks at each other, and they all charge for it. Death Knights of the Alliance quickly bring out Anti-Magic Shells and Armies of the Undead. The Horde cannot repel them anymore.

The Alliance captures the jewel, when everything becomes fuzzy... everything rewinds in their heads...

The honorable Horde girds themselves for the challenge ahead...

Comment by 243362

From MihaiLung's lovely description and from the map. I would compare this to World in Conflict's Assult Mode. One team has an amount of time to take some bases while the orther team defend. And when the time runs out they switch.

Comment by 33866

it's dustbowl

i wonder if rogues can sap sentries?

Comment by Kotasirith

Don't jump off the ship early when it is your turn to attack. Otherwise it can be a long long swim to shore.

Comment by 260255

Burgundy? You mean Normandy.

Comment by 141045

This battleground makes my head spin. So I was playing horde and the alliance breached the relic after 3 minutes. I was sure we were going to lose. But with ten seconds left in the game, we ninja'd the relic and somehow won. How does that work? Alliance beat our time by a good six minutes.

Edit: Years later, thank you for clearing that up.

Comment by 166472

There seems to be some key mistakes that defenders make which ultimately decide the flow of battle (whichever sides makes more mistakes loses).

Attacking is straight forward:

Grab the seaforium charges before you mount a vehicle.
Mount a vehicle or stealth up to the gate
Pound away at the gate with said vehicle, drop the charge once you've been destroyed. Rinse repeat.

Defending is not just a matter of who's manning the turrets closest to the thick of the battle. Defending is about being smart enough and knowing when to fall back, protecting the graveyards and recapping them as necessary, not abandoning gun positions that can still pound away at tanks as they make their slow and clumsy ascent through gates that have been breached, and disarming seaforium charges as they have been placed.

I've seen too many people sitting at useless turrets on the opposite end of the battlefield just waiting for something to come to them.

Pro: Yay you got a turret, you can now shoot palm trees.

Con: You're helping the opposing team by doing diddly squat!

Also it's key as a defender to remember that blowing up a tank doesn't mean that eveyrone inside the vehicle will perish and burn in the ensuing flames of destruction. No they're making a beeline run for their initial target and planting charges. They will need killing, and the charges will need disarming.

Also, I'm not sure why but I've noticed many players like to just kinda run behind enemy tanks. If you don't already know let me be the first to tell you that you do not need to be at a mounted cannon to shoot these behemoths. Your regular attacks will work just fine against the tanks, so feel free to actually hit them once in a while.

Sadly the machine shops on this battlefield do not work like the ones in Wintergraps, and you cannot simply duck into a shop an assassinate the goblin offering tanks. Capturing and holding graveyards however will make sure that the opposing team does not get the machine shops on the second ring.

Just some fun tips to observe on your next run through.

Comment by 239092

Can anybody explain how the Honor is provided in this BG?
I did one Match and won 1300 Honor and then one and only got 900. Yupp, both were wins, but at the same time, i didn't get the exact same bonus-honor as my Teammates did.

Comment by Bovey

Regarding your confusion over the "unfair" length of the second round — you might be unaware that Strand of the Ancients is a race. Whichever side can capture the relic in the shortest amount of time wins. Thus, if the Alliance manages to do it in five minutes, then for the Horde to take one second longer means an automatic loss, and thus, there is no point to giving them more than five minutes (however long it took the Alliance) when it is their turn on offense.

While you are 100% correct regarding how the time works, I still can't help but feel there are inherent advantages and disadvantages in attacking 1st or 2nd. For example, the team attacking 2nd will always know the exact time they need to beat in order to win, and can make strategic decisions (such as sending a tank in now, or waiting for another tank to spawn and join) based on the amount of time remaining.

If the Alliance (always the 1st to attack in my battlegroup) captures the relic very quickly, the Horde knows they should ignore the graveyards, and put all of their effort into an all out Zerg. If the Alliance fails the capture the relic at all, the Horde knows they can take their time, capture graveyards, and wait for reinforcements to arrive before making each push.

As a member of the Horde, I always have to prepare to defend for a full 10 minutes. Members of the Alliance on the other hand may have to defend for a considerably shorter time, and can prepare differently as a result.

I am not really sure at this point which side has the advantage, but again, I can't help but feel that one side does, even if it is a minor advantage. The simple way to balance this would be to randomize which faction attacks 1st.

Comment by Bovey

Does anyone know if there is a way to dismount from the tanks if you are in a gunner seat?

Last night I tried grabbing a tank from one of the shops to make a final push to the keep with time winding down. I accidentally ended up jumping into one of the gunner seats (instead of the driver seat), and could not figure out how to get out. I do not see a pet bar (with a dismount option) when in a gunner seat, nor could I figure out any other way to get out. No one else ever came to take the driver seat, so I ended up spending the remainder of the BG sitting in the shop with my thumb up my Gnome-hole.

Edit: This was in fact an issue with Bartender 4 that has been rectified in a recent release.

Comment by TehFridge

There is a dismount button where your pet bar usually is... If you have addons that move these bars you may need to tweak them or flat out disable them to see it.

Comment by 196309

In Finnish SOTA means war

Comment by 283816

(offensive) Here is the trick:Yell in your /bg that all shall attack Blue or Green gate when they are destroyed you yell: attack red gate! or purple gate, after you yell: NUKEEE yellow! (defensive) Use the cannons at the gates to shot down the Sieges and when Blue or Green gate and Red or Purple gate is destryed u shall yell in /bg DEFENCE YELLOW! no fight with allies!(hordes) and even if the gate is destryed u keep defending at yellow becouse if u fall back to keep gate u will get a big chanse of allies(hordes) Sieges to range attack the last gate. Thats it hope you will pwn allies(hordes) in SotA.

Comment by 284530

I agree that it is unfair that Horde always starts on defense!

Comment by 239609

If anyone played FF XII and came later on to Yiazmats spawn, you'll know where the inspiration for this place comes from ;)

Comment by 290352

Considering how both sides have to stay the entire BG duration, I don't see the point of saying the first people on offense only have to fight for 5 minutes while the defenders have to fight for 10. If the first group sets the timer to 5 minutes...they then have to spend the next 5 minutes Defending or they lose. They don't have to just play for the first half...they have to stay and finish it too. If Offense takes 8 minutes, the next round will take no more than 8 minutes. If Offense takes 2 minutes, the next round can't take more than 2 minutes. So SotA can take 4 minutes or 16 minutes or anything between 1 - 20minutes (probably more than 1 considering the amount of time it takes to move from the start and get thru the gates etc...but the point should be clear). If you queue hop...you don't get credit for winning. If you leave early you don't get credit for winning. The only way to get credit for winning is to STAY for both halfs of the fight. The BG takes the same amount of time if you start on Defense as it does if you start on Offense.

There is no advantage to starting on Offense or Starting on Defense. In fact if anything the advantage goes to the Defense, because while the Offenders have motivation to attack as fast as possible, they don't have any set timer and the longer it takes them to win just turns into the longer they have to defend. If they can't make it within the 10minute timer, then the intelligent ones will be worried that they can't defend for 10minutes. Where instead for the people starting on Defense, they know going into the offense phase exactly what they are facing. It may not change the strategy much, but it definitely increases focus when you have a static goal rather than a dynamic one.

Comment by 233332

Shadowstep rogues can ShS up to turrets on offense, thereby bypassing gates. There are two good strategies that a ShS rogue can use to capitalize on this.

- Go to the gate everyone else is NOT going to (Green or Blue) at the start. Ride as close to the gate as you think you can get away with, stealth, ShS up to a turret, then cap the GY on that side. The main assault force should cap the other one. Capping both the east and west graveyards early is a huge tactical advantage because it doubles the number of tanks your side has easy access to.

- Get to the Yellow gate as quickly as possible by Shadowstepping up to turrets (again, preferably on the side everyone else is NOT taking so you avoid AOEs etc.). Destroy both turrets on the Yellow gate, which rogues can do very quickly -- I can take out a turret in about 15-20 seconds assuming no interference. This is, again, a huge advantage, because the heaviest fighting usually takes place around the Yellow gate, and you are depriving the enemy of their biggest source of DPS against tanks. It is not typically worthwhile to destroy turrets on any gate but Yellow, however.

With multiple ShS rogues carrying Seaforium in a premade, they could even win the round without destroying a single gate! I would love to see a premade of ONLY Shadowsteppers -- the enemy is standing around at Green/Blue scratching their heads, then all of a sudden "The keep has been destroyed!" LOL!

Comment by crosstalk1

Currently bugged when i died and the game ended I ended up in the barrens.

Comment by 48128

There is a very simple way to win Strand of the Ancients, it works all the time and so far i haven't seen anyone else doing it.
I wasn't going to post this as once i do i bet people from the opposite team will use the same tactic, but anyway here goes;

Only works when attacking.

It's only possible to do this trick as a Warlock.
Hop into a vehicle to defend it (E.g. don't drive it yourself) and fear ANY target that gets close to the vehicle, just keep spamming fear and even though you can only fear one target at any one time it doesn't matters as the target run speed is increased while under the effects of fear so the target will ALWAYS get feared far enough to be of any danger to the vehicle, giving you enough time to fear another target.
Just keep doing this for every hostile target that get close.
If possible use howl of terror once in a while, Shadowfury is very handy aswell.

It's very funny to see 5 people chasing down your vehicle without getting a single hit on it, after a while they'll give up and chase another vehicle or attack some players.

Keep in mind to launch an attack every once in a while in between the fears to kill the ones chasing you because eventually your vehicle will break down due to ranged attacks.

Comment by 153483

*reminds himself of the saving private ryan .gif*

awesome.

Comment by 102865

There are Great Reef Sharks in the waters of SotA. Found them in both, left and right top corners of the map.

Comment by 196061

I find that as a DK...when i drop a Seaforium charge at a gate and cast Death and Decay over the charge, it makes it impossible for the horde to disarm it.

Comment by 151035

Here's one way of how it is unfair for the horde to defend first everytimes...

Now if a horde is doing the acheievment , they have to defend the beach WITHOUT loosing ANY walls for TEN WHOLE MINUTES, even if in a pre-made...as even the crappiest team can break atleast 1 wall

On the other hand, the allys can make a pre-made...capture relic in like 3-4 mins then they would have to defend the walls for ONLY 3 MINUTES

(pre-mades are only examples)

NOW tell me how that is fair? if u allys still think its fair then i would like to see the horde attack first THEN we'll see how its fair =P

Comment by 11636

Blizzard has posted that the original intention was to have SotA randomize who is on offense first, but apparently there were "some issues" that caused them to disable the randomizer. They recognize the imbalance this causes over time and plan to reinstate it at some point.

Source: http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=7913071242&pageNo=1#4

Comment by 279110

A very curious thing happened to me late last night ( or early this morning I guess ). We fought SOTA to a draw. Yup, no one won. It was a tie. Kind of like soccer? Weird as heck, never saw anything like that and I am still a noob.

/ makes me long for a shootout, like hockey.

Comment by ToTheMaxx

Player: Maxx
Server: Drak'Tharon

Offensive: The first goal is to take down either the green or blue walls. If you can do both that's great but not necessary. The next part seems to allude 90% of people in the BG, you need to get the east and west graveyards. So many times I see people just run past them completely ignoring them as they try desperately to break down red or purple. Even if you succeed, you will need to take at least one of these graveyards. The sooner you do it the better. I recommend focusing on either blue or green and taking its respective graveyard then running strait to the next one in line.

Now that you have both graveyards advancing through red/purple shouldn't be too hard. Your team will most likely be focusing on a single wall (i.e. if you zerg green the defending team will try their best to defend purple) so just a small group of people could get away with taking the other workshop and blasting their way through the mostly ignored wall. (in the same example, red)

Now comes the choke hold, Yellow. If time permits you to not just rush in (about 2-3 mins left) than you have time to invoke some level of strategy. Rogues can shadow step up to defense turrets (according to wowwiki, I'm not a rogue so I don't know) and destroy them with the help of whatever amount of the team is not in a destroyer. A total of four players should gather the destroyers from both workshops and wait at the red/purple walls till all 4 are together. As destroyers you will want to go in together rather than 1 at a time. This way everyone on foot has to focus on 1 destroyer and this allows the precious little time needed for the surviving destroyers to break down a wall (it doesn't take very long at all).

Most teams on defense will have abandoned the turrets at red/purple once the wall is destroyed. If this is not the case, these turrets must be destroyed.

With your ground forces working on the turrets, your combined assault of four destroyers will make their way through the mass of horde and blast through to the run to the keep. If these 4 destroyers don't take down the keep wall (also very weak) than another wave should do the trick. If the other team is keeping you from getting to the orb once the keep doors are destroyed than a single stealth class can complete this task no problem.

Additional hints as the offensive team :

1. As a destroyer, if you hug the very edge of a wall you are trying to destroy only 1 turret will be able to hit you. If only 1 turret is left alive/manned than you will be able to attack the wall without taking damage. Even if the turrets are still up, this is a good idea.

2. Always carry a seaforium explosive. Even if you die someone else can pick it up. If you place one of these at a wall. Defend it, as it takes 10 seconds to explode. and only 3 (I think) for a horde player to disarm it.

3. Destroying Blue/Greens turrets is pointless as you will spend most of the BG behind those walls, but destroying red/purples may be a good Idea. Yellows turrets must be destroyed ASAP.

4. Alliance always start first. According to wowwiki, the horde can destroy the destroyers just as the game starts. Whereas Alliance have to wait 5 seconds. Take advantage. I do not know if this is a rumor/patched.

5. If rogues can in fact shadow step up to the defending teams turrets, you can turn around and go claim the graveyards before the walls are destroyed. This may be an offense but it's a lack of foresight on blizzards part.

6. Do not take south graveyard until the keep wall is destroyed.

Defending:

You will start out by having all players run to the beach. 2 players at green and blue will handle the turrets. The rest of the team will try to slow down the advancing team and destroy their first wave of destroyers. Placing a frost trap on the pier is a good idea. If the attacking team is splitting their forces than carry on as normal. But if the destroyers from one side of the beach start to head to the other, you must call it out. If they are going to concentrate their forces on one wall. Players should do their best to defend it and get players on the guns for the next wall. As within the next few seconds after the wall breaks the people on the next walls guns will be able to attack these destroyers.

Once either blue/Green is down. Your priority switches to defending the graveyards behind these walls. Until these graveyards are taken or red/purple show signs of breaking, players should not abandon their turrets on the green/blue wall and there should be players on the red/purple walls. Do your best to defend either purple/red but your priority is the graveyards. If purple/red are showing signs of wear or a graveyard is taken, get players onto the yellow turrets (abandon blue/green once a graveyard is taken or red/purple breaks).

If the enemy team has taken 1 graveyard (lets say east) than there should be at least 2 people defending the other graveyard. That doesn't sound like much but the attacking team will almost not care entirely and rampantly continue their assault on the selected wall of zerging choice. I know that the eastern most red turret can shoot players trying to take the western graveyard. This may be an oversight but for this reason if we zerg I pick green. (may be possible to hit east graveyard with purple's turrets but I can't remember at the time). So have 1 person guarding the flag, and another on the turret near it. The person guarding the flag will try to taunt horde players into the range of the turret to prevent the flag from being taken.

Once forced back to yellow it's a good idea to keep players on red/purple's turrets. As the attacking team has to bring their destroyers through these walls even though they are destroyed. This will force them to destroy the turrets at red/purple which will ultimately slow them down. If you are manning a red/purple turret with your wall destroyed and you are capable of killing a destroyer, don't. Instead weaken it to about 5%. This way it has to travel the rest of the distance to yellow just to be instantly destroyed.

Yellow will be your choke hold for the remainder of the fight. Both turrets and players should focus on killing destroyers. If there are no destroyers in view than players on foot should focus on defend the turrets from the assaulting players. If you are manning a yellow turret and there seem to be no horde around and the yellow gates have been breached, fire at the ground in front of the gate. This will halt stealthies from sneaking over to the keep and dropping charges on it. There will very rarely be a moments peace for a yellow gunner.

Allow the attacking team to take the south graveyard if they are foolish enough.

Once your yellow turrets are destroyed. Just bunch up and try to prevent them from getting past. Frost traps on the yellow gate help out. If red/purple turrets are still up than players should still be on them to weaken destroyers.

Additional hints as the defensive team :

1. You can disarm charges. If you are a gunner and a player drops one on your gate. Don't abandon your gun to disarm it. Not worth it as they are fairly weak. Even if you gate is extremely low a single shot from a destroyer will break the gate and at that point it's as good as broken anyway.

2. The south graveyard is not to be defended. The east and west graveyards must be defended

Comment by Torgani

This BG seems pretty fun, however I've noticed a disturbing trend.

In the 70-79 bracket that I'm in, the alliance does well in the first round, the Horde will all either AFK or Que Jump between rounds to another BG, causing the BG to exit without giving the alliance a chance to win.

While I don't agree with the above posts claiming that Horde always starting as the defenders is "unfair" to the horde, it seems to encourage bad or exploitive play. Maybe if Bliz were to make who starts random, the Horde wouldn't get so disheartened and give up so easily.

Comment by 284530

They should make it harder to breach the gates. Learned real quick that you can take tank right up to the gate and fire point blank to breach it in seconds.

Comment by 75221

What you want to do to best help your team is always remember:

Offense:
If you are not in a vehicle grab a C4 charge (located around the GY areas) and assist the the vehicles in breaking down a gate. The fater the gate falls the faster you can move to the next one. Also, try to concentrate on one gate at a time so maximum damage is being placed on it and not split between gates. Watch the battle ground chat at all times to find out which gate the attacks should be consentrated on. Vehicles should have a "one track" mind, get to the gate nonstop and do as much damage possible before your vehicle is destroyed players on ground should also help keep their vehicle operators going for as long as possible by killing anyone attacking it.

Defense:
If the canons located on the gates are occupied, drop down into the battle field and do everything possible to slow the other faction and to keep themn from damaging the gates. This consists of taking out the Demolisher vehicles as FAST as possible and also taking out attackers that are potential C4 carriers that are on foot. If a C4 charge does gets planted beside of a gate you have 10 seconds before detonation to destroy it.Again keep an eye on battle ground chat for locations that need assistance in slowing down the attackers.
If the attackers do make it to the final gate ground units should fall back to the last gate as soon as possible to prevent it from falling.

Remember, whoever takes down the last gate the fastest is winner.

Comment by 67552

How about the leaders of the BG's meet to flip a coin to decide who attacks first, then start the game? Nifty AND ingenius

Comment by 339606

Hi, can som1 help me out? atm i only want honor, is SoTa the best Bg to get honor in? plzz tell me som1. atleast tell me your own opinion because right now im just very very confused.

Comment by 64626

As of 3.2, the faction starting on attack/defense will now be randomized at the start of each match.

Now horde might actually play more :)

Comment by 230816

SOTA is so broken. I was actually in the Q for 1 hour 31 mins b4 it popped. Luckily we actually had enough players - most times, there aren't enough and the game's over in 2mins with nothing to show for it...and yet, it's required for For Great Honor. ...yay.

...maybe the # of Battlegroups needs to be cut in half, doubling the size of each. Then maybe the queues won't suck for SOTA, and there will actually be enough players. (just my 2 cents)

Comment by 478510

Blizz might be factionist. There are back entrances for all horde cities and very heavily guarded front doors for alliance. but the first time I played SOTA Horde was attacking.

Comment by 531007

I believe this area is based in Sholazar Basin (like IoC in Icecrown, WSG in between ashenvale/barrens, etc). Would somebody clarify this for me?

Comment by 548083

How do i get here?

I've been trying to enter this battleground, but i dont know how

Can someone tell me?

Thank you

Illidan

Comment by MetalGenocide

I may be wrong in saying, but the gates of the <color> Moon could be an easy reference to Eternal Arcadia / Skies of Arcadia.
Arcadia is orbited by 6 moons, Red, Purple, Blue, Green, Yellow and Silver (which would be the relic chamber).

I know, long shot, but I thought I'd just throw it out there.

Edit: The Ancients were also a race of people living under the silver moon in the Arcadia games.

Comment by Deluge

Anyone done some testing on whether it's actually worth fighting if you start as attacker and fail to get to the relic?

Lose honor = Draw honor ?

Would kinda suck to know that you've wasted 7 minutes on nothing, defending a keep that will lead to a draw anyway.

Comment by 493392

IDK if anyone has mentioned it but there are sharks in these waters

Comment by 670958

Replay for Bovey:

Yes you could just /Dismount i think? :D

Comment by pacman7654

I was in SotA today and the west and east graveyards autocapped in front of my eyes with no horde even near them. Has this always happened and I just never noticed? Were they cheating somehow? Was I lagging? btw we won anyway ;P

Comment by ScottCom

I wanted to put in another tip that I've found and it really seems to work well. Once through the gate, have one of the four tanks continue to go to the other gate. This will split 2-3 defenders off of their assault on the tanks that matter. I've done this in almost every SotA I've ever done and we almost always win since they just can't handle all those tanks that aren't me bashing through their wall with full HP.

Comment by fourwindsoh

How to Win Strand of the Ancients: Basic Strategy
This guide assumes you know the basics of the battleground, such as the purpose of demolishers and seaforium charges, and the different rounds. This guide is separated between strategies on offense and strategies on defense. You will win every time guaranteed if all players on your team use these strategies.

Defense
1. Stay near or ahead of demolishers at all times.
2. When a wall falls, use ports to get behind the next intact gate. Use the closest port, even if it is in the opposite direction of chasing a demolisher.
3. Slow demolishers. Use abilities such as frost shock, frost trap, hamstring, slowing poison, mind flay, chains of ice and the others like it.
4. Destroy demolishers but only if they are already slowed or you do not have an ability to slow them.
5. If the opposing team is actually running charges on a regular basis, which is rare in pugs, maintain a presence of several players at key walls to disarm them. When not disarming charges, they can engage in strategies 1-4 above.

Offense
1. Always get a seaforium charge when resurrecting or arriving at the dock.
2. Use crowd control on players attacking demolishers. Slow as many players as possible. Fan of knives with crippling poison, frost trap, and howl of frost are excellent. Howl of Terror is good as well as fears and curse of exhaustion.
3. If all players have been crowd controlled, use your charge on the next wall, but stay near the demolishers to crowd control as needed.
4. Those with dispelling abilities should be cleaning the demolishers constantly. For players with those abilities, this will be their number one priority.

Myths
1. Demolishers are better than seaforium charges throughout the game. The truth: At the yellow gate and beyond, where defense is usually highly concentrated, demolishers can be very hard to slip through with all the slowing abilities used there. In that situation, if all players on your team run charges, the game will be over very quickly. With all players running, they cannot be all stopped. This is rarely tried so it's effectiveness is consistently doubted. I have seen it work effectively many times with the better teams.
2. Fighting players in front of walls or on the beach is useful. You are far more helpful engaging in the strategies listed above. Disengage from players if possible.
3. Taking the south graveyard is bad. The truth: It is far easier to quickly return to battle and run a seaforium charge while holding the south graveyard. Running charges can down yellow and the relic chamber wall faster than demolishers when the defense is average or better.

In Summary
Use ports on defense as needed: do not chase demolishers. Use seaforium charges on offense, but crowd control players attacking the demolishers first. Always get the charges when you resurrect and use them. Do not fight to kill players.

Comment by RianLli

On the boat ride in, sometimes I see the red bar or a hostile creature, but the boat is moving too quickly to target it. Does anyone know what this is?

Comment by Sixpac

This BG is an insult to every pvp player.

Comment by Kanariya

With the Patch 5.4 changes to this battleground, the Southern Graveyard is actually worth taking now when playing as offense. A ton of bombs spawn right next to the graveyard, making it a lot easier to get the Yellow Gate down.

Comment by rmalheiros

Strand of the Ancients has been removed in Battle for Azeroth.
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20762736077#5

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