Alliance Battle

Alliance Battles (abbreviated as AB) are 12 vs 12 PvP battles that control the Kurzick-Luxon border. Kurzicks wear their traditional blue color and appear as blue dots on the map while Luxons wear their traditional red color and appear as red dots on the map. Alliance Battles were introduced in the Guild Wars Factions campaign. They are only available to players who have Factions registered in their Guild Wars account.

There are five alliance battle maps. The battlefield map is determined by the location of the border between the two warring nations. The more territory one nation has, the "harder" the map will be for that nation.

Finding an Alliance Battle

 * You need to have access to a guild that is allied with either the Luxons or the Kurzicks.
 * Travel to a Guild Hall that is allied to one of the factions and talk to the Luxon Navigator or the Kurzick Kommandant (which one appears depends on the guild's alliance) and accept the request to fight for their side. You are then teleported to the outpost of the battlefield that represents the current status of the border.
 * The Shady Luxon and Suspicious Kurzick can transport the player from their faction's staging area to that of the other faction in order to fight for the other side.
 * Players allied with the Luxons can be invited as guests by Kurzick guilds to join their side in Alliance Battles and vice versa.
 * You can travel to the outpost at any level, but you need to be level 20 to join a party and do battle.

Battlefield Maps
There are five battlefield maps determined by the current location of the Kurzick-Luxon border. Players cannot choose which map to fight in. Maps deeper in one faction's territory give greater advantages to that team. To compensate for this, the opposing team has an "Underdog" bonus multiplier for their rewarded faction at the end of a match. When the border shifts, all players in the staging area are automatically moved to the new map. If the border has shifted while the player is in battle, they will be transported to the new map once their battle has ended.

Forming a Party
You assemble your group of 4. The party leader will press the "Enter Battle" button and your party will be sent into the alliance battle, provided there are twelve individuals (three teams of 4 people) on the other side waiting to enter as well. The game will keep resetting the 30 second timer until there is a full team ready on each side.

Team Chat in the chat window allows players to chat with all of their allies. Chatting players from another 4-player group will have their names in darker blue, and an (Ally) suffix. You cannot chat with only your team in alliance battles. Drawing on the map will only be seen by your team of 4, and no one else.

Winning the Battle
To win a battle the winning side has to accumulate 500 points before the other side. Accumulating points can be done in two ways:
 * 1) Killing players of the opposing faction. 3 points are added per kill.
 * 2) Holding a control point: 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.

A faction may be given an automatic victory under the following circumstances:
 * Controlling all seven capture points for 60 seconds
 * All members of the opposing faction leave the match.

Control Points
There are seven control points on the map which are captured by having more players and allies in its vicinity than the other team. Depending on the specific battle map, control points will be at equal distance from either side or closer to the side that is losing on the border. By default, most control points will be in neutral status.

A team attempting to capture a control point will bring in a number of players to it:
 * Each player or NPC in a control point's vicinity will shift the control point 1 pip in favor of their team.
 * A control point's total pips are the net number of pips between the two sides, to a maximum of 4 in one direction.
 * A neutral control point must be shifted completely in one team's favor to be captured.
 * An owned control point must be shifted completely out of the controlling team's favor to be neutralized before it can start the process of being captured.
 * Pets, minions and spirits will not add a pip to the status of the control point.

Once captured, a control point will spawn a few NPC guards (which count towards holding the control point) and offer some other special abilities (resurrecting allies closer to the battle, increasing characters speed, elemental protection, creating NPCs that follow players around). If the NPCs are killed, they will not respawn unless the control point is lost and recaptured. The saltspray dragon hatchling is an exception and will respawn.

Reward

 * The winning side receives 4000 Imperial faction points.
 * Each side also receives an amount of Imperial faction points equal to their score at the end of the match multipled by the map's "Underdog bonus," regardless of whether they won or lost.
 * Each kill (excluding pets, minions, and spirits) awards all members of that side with 30 Imperial faction points and 10 Balthazar faction points.

General Strategy

 * There is no Death Penalty during alliance battles and characters are respawned 20 seconds after their death. This makes Minion Masters and skills like "I Will Avenge You!" viable as there are almost always corpses lying around to use.
 * This lack of Death Penalty and quick resurrection means there is little point in bringing resurrection skills.
 * It is important to spread out and focus on gaining shrines rather than directly fighting the enemy. A clumped up team can't 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.
 * Look in the "U" map the state of the shrines to more strategically decide a next move. Keeping the "U" map open and zoom it out to see all the flags helps to easily stay informed of the ownership or state of each shrine.
 * A tutorial to the current map is offered by a NPC in the outpost. Be sure to have read the instructions before forming a group.
 * Generally, you'll want to capture resurrection shrines so your team members can resurrect closer to the battle instead of on the other side of the map.
 * Since there is a great deal of running around involved in alliance battles, bringing a speed increase is highly recommended.
 * Often, the gates will open 1 to 4 seconds early. Be prepared to run early if needed.

Videos

 * Sample Video from the Kurzick Side (An Air Elementalist perspective in Grenz Frontier, with a few added scenes from other outside areas)
 * Sample Video from the Luxon Side (A Fire Elementalist perspective in Etnaran Keys)

Bündniskampf Batallas de alianzas