Overview:

Alliance Battles (more simply called AB) are 12 vs. 12 PvP battles that determine the alliance border between the Luxons and the Kurzicks. Luxons always fight in their traditional red colour, whilst the Kurzicks fight in their traditional blue colour.

 

Joining an Alliance Battle:

To join an Alliance Battle you MUST possess GW:Factions and your Guild must be allied with either the Luxons or the Kurzicks. Travel to your Guild Hall and talk to either the Luxon Navigator (Luxon Alliance) or the Kurzick Kommandant (Kurzick Alliance). You are then transported to the outpost of the battlefield that is currently being fought over. It is possible for allies of the Luxons to be invited as guests to Kurzick Guilds and fight in Alliance Battles with them, and vice versa.

Once at the outpost, you need to form a party of 4 players to join in the Alliance Battle. When the leader of the group hits the ‘Enter Battle’ button, your group will be transported into the Alliance Battle, assuming there are twelve individuals (three teams of 4 people) on the other side waiting to enter as well. The countdown timer will keep resetting until both sides have 12 players. Team Chat talks to the entire team of 12 players, and it is not possible to only talk to your own team of 4. Chatting players from another 4-player group will have their names in darker blue, and an (Ally) suffix.

 

Battlefield Maps:

There are 5 battlefield maps. The map you fight upon is determined by the current alliance border between the 2 nations. The more territory one nation has, the harder that map will be for that nation, thereby giving an advantage to the defending nation. The 5 maps are:

• Kanaaki Canyon(Deep Luxon)
• Etnaran Keys (Shallow Luxon)
• Saltspray Beach (Neutral)
• Grenz Frontier (Shallow Kurzick)
• Ancestral Lands (Deep Kurzick)

 

Brief summary of objectives:

 

The goal here is to amass 500 points before the other team.

You gain points by killing opposing players (1 point added per kill) and maintaining possession over Control Points (from the start of the match, every 7 seconds the game checks to see how many Control Points a side holds – 1 point is added to a side's score for every Control Point that side holds when the game checks), of which there are 7 in total for each map.

Etnaran Keys and Grenz Frontier have 6 different types of Control Points: 1 Resurrection Shrine, 1 Resurrection Orb Shrine, 1 Melee Defence Point, 1 Elemental Defence Point, 1 Attack Point, and 2 NPC Follower Points.

Saltspray Beach has 4 different types of Control Points: 2 Resurrection Shrines, 2 Defence Points, 2 Attack Points, and a Dragon Roost.

Also, a white towel winning situation is if the entire opposing party leaves. A knockout winning condition is if one side can hold all 7 Control Points for 60 consecutive seconds. The match will end with a win for the prevailing side in each of these scenarios. In this way, it can be seen that capturing Control Points is of utmost importance.

 

 

How to capture Control Points:

• A Control Point is captured when your team outnumbers the enemy players within range of the contested locations.
• While capturing, there are 4 rates of change: with 1 additional player, it takes approximately 20 seconds to change the point state; with 2 additional players, it takes approximately 15 seconds; with 3 additional players, 11 seconds; and with 4 or more additional players, it takes approximately 8 seconds to change the point state to your favour.
• As long as your aggro circle overlaps the Control Point, you are counted as a capturing team member. This is a very important point to note for Casters and Rangers. When attacking a Control Point, always try to make sure you are within capturing distance, as this allows you to exert your capturing influence on the Control Point as well as fight the enemy. The more of your players within range of a Control Point, the faster you will capture it.
• Control Points have 3 states: Enemy control, Neutral control, and Friendly control.
• Finally, pets, minions, Spirits, and so on are excluded from capturing Control Points. 

 

Description of the Control Points:

• Resurrection Shrines: These allow you to revive closer to the battlefield. Capture of a Shrine will spawn an NPC Monk to help maintain control. Once the Monk is dead, however, he won’t respawn. Monks are counted as teammates when capturing a Control Point.
• Resurrection Orb Shrines: These give you a Resurrection Orb; fallen players within radius of the dropped Orb are resurrected. The Orb respawns 30 seconds after it has been dropped. This point, much like the Resurrection Shrine, spawns an NPC Monk to assist you in maintaining control.
• Melee Defence Points: These provide players within range with an increased chance to evade melee attacks.
• Elemental Defence Points: These provide players within range with increased elemental armour.
• Attack Points: These give your team a Battle Cry; whereby for 60 seconds, players within range move 25% faster, attack 15% faster, and have their skills recharge 33% faster.  The Battle Cry will be applied as long as you are in the area. 2 NPC Rangers will spawn to assist you in maintaining control. Much like a player, the Rangers contribute to your team’s capturing power. Conversely, once the Rangers die, they will not respawn until the next point switch.
• NPC Followers: The Elite Elementalist Point and Elite Warrior Point spawn a follower Elementalist and Warrior, respectively. The followers contribute to capturing and holding Control Points the same as a human player. Followers respawn 60 seconds after they die, though if you lose control of the point your follower automatically dies.
• Defence Points: These give your team a Shielding Urn; players within the radius of the dropped Urn will share damage reduction. As long as you control this point, a new Urn will spawn 30 seconds after the current one is used. An NPC Ritualist will spawn to assist you in maintaining control. Much like a player, Ritualist contributes to your team’s capturing power, but his spirits will not. Conversely, if the Ritualist dies, he will not respawn until the next point switch. If you lose control of a Defensive Point, your Shielding Urn will disappear.
• Dragon Roost: The Dragon Roost will spawn a Saltspray Hatchling that can be used as a follower. The Hatchling contributes to capturing and holding a Control Point similar to a human player. The Hatchling respawns 60 seconds after it dies. If you lose control of the Dragon Roost, your Saltspray Hatchling dies.

 

Reward:

 

• Each player or NPC kill awards the team’s members with 1 Luxon or Kurzick faction point, and 10 Balthazar faction points. Each kill also adds 3 points on to your team’s score.
• Both the winning and losing team earn 1 Luxon or Kurzick faction points for each point they scored in the battle, so each kill is effectively worth 4 Luxon or Kurzick faction points.
• The winning team receives an additional 1000 Luxon or Kurzick faction points. This means a minimum of 1500 points for the winning party.
• "Underdog Bonus": The disadvantaged attacking side gets additional faction for fighting on certain maps. This bonus is equal to the attacking sides total score in Etnaran Keys and Grenz Frontier, and equal to double the attacking sides total score in Kaanai Canyon and The Ancestral Lands. For example, if the Kurzicks win at Kaanai Canyon, they will receive 1 faction per kill, plus 1000 faction for winning, 500 for the points they scored, and 1000 for the "Underdog Bonus", for a total of 2500 faction.

 

Useful Tips:

• There is no Death Penalty during Alliance Battles, and dead characters are respawned very quickly (20 seconds or less, sometimes instantly).
• A lack of a Death Penalty coupled with fast resurrections means that there is little point in bringing along a resurrection skill.
• It is far more important to spread out and capture Control Points, rather than fighting the enemy directly. A clumped up team can not easily capture or defend multiple Control Points. Sometimes it is worth giving up a Control Point and then recapturing it in order to respawn your NPC guards. Sneaking around large groups of foes to attack undefended Control Points is often the best strategy.
• There are a plethora of corpses in Alliance Battles. This makes builds such as Minion Masters and IWAY Warriors quite powerful.
• Large Area of Effect (AoE) spells are excellent against the NPCs guarding the Control Points, as it is possible to take out several of the NPCs in one large burst of firepower (Elementalists are good at this, as are Barrage Rangers).
• Each base is guarded by 3 Base Defenders. His only function is to make it impossible for the opposing team to enter the base. He uses the skill ‘Base Defense’ (Target foe takes 999 damage, and is knocked down for 5 seconds) to instantly kill any approaching foe. Base Defenders are invulnerable, so there is no point in even approaching close to one!
• Try not to solo places. Teams of players are always more effective than a bunch of individuals.
• At the start of the Alliance Battle, performing a 4-4-4 split is usually the most effective tactic, allowing you to capture multiple Control Points simultaneously.
• Speed boosts are very handy, as there is a lot of running between shrines involved in Alliance Battles.
• When attacking Control Points, move with capturing (aggro bubble) radius, to exert your influence upon the Shrine. Many Rangers and Casters fail to do this, thereby wasting valuable time afterwards as they have to wait to capture the point.
• Communication is important during the battle, as is the radar and mini-map. Refer to all of them!
• Above all – good luck, and have fun! Alliance Battles are very hectic affairs, with 24 players plus pets plus minions plus NPCs all fighting it out. Keep playing them, and you’ll soon be a master in the ways of Alliance Battles!

written by Krell Zhyll