What is AvA? Alliance vs Alliance is a three way battle to capture static locations on the map as well as controlling The Elder Scrolls (OoOoOo The name of the game in the game gives me goose bumps). Cyrodiil is an incredibly complex style of PvP with many aspects that are not obvious to the first time player. This learning curve can drive some people away, but I promise if you stick it out it will be worth your time. This week we’ll be going over a few of the most basic aspects of AvA such as ESO PvP Goals.
Missions
You collect these quests at the Alliance Safe Zone (Where you enter Cyrodiil). They include Scouting missions to go to enemy locations and fill out a report, Bounty missions to kill players, Keep Assault missions for specific keeps, Resource Assault missions for specific resources, and Scroll 
missions for capturing a specific scroll. The most valuable of these are the Bounty Board missions. With the current system, there are two types of bounty missions. One limits you getting credit for a specific class (ie: Kill Templars) and the other is to kill any class of players. Both of these have a quota of 20 kills. You can do one of each type of Bounty mission per day (Total of 5). All of these quests reward you with Alliance Points (AP), gold, and experience.
Keeps
Most of the PvP in Cyrodiil revolves around the capturing of these walled holds. The benefit of owning keeps is that you can get some buffs for owning specific sets/numbers of keeps. These buffs are specifically listed in the Alliance Tab. The more keeps your hold and the longer you hold them betters your chance of winning the campaign.
Outposts 
These are smaller locations that serve only as staging points for invasions and links for free transit. With the prevalence of Forward Camps (I’ll get to this next week) these are not very important. Though if you have an easy opportunity you should take and hold them. Free transit can be vital to a keep defense. There are three of these in Cyrodiil: Sejanus, Nickel, and Bleakers.
Resources
Placed around keeps, resources serve as buffers for defenders and assault positions for the attackers. Each keep has three resources. These resources are a Mine, a Lumbermill (LM for short), and a Farm. Each of these add a statistical buffs to the keep which depends on how long each has been held. The longer the defense holds a resource the more powerful the keep’s Non Player Characters (NPCs) and walls are. Adversely, the longer an attacking force holds a resource, the easier it will be to take the keep. These benefits can be seen by clicking on a resource on your map.
The Emperorship 
If you own all of the Emperor Keeps then the person with the highest amount of AP in your Alliance is crowned Emperor or Empress. The Emperor Keeps are the 6 that encircle the Imperial City in the center of the map. Becoming Emperor has a ton of awesome perks. You get an outfit, new skill line passives, and your name up for everyone to see. Also, your Alliance gets buffed when it has an Emperor on the throne. To lose the Emperorship your Alliance must lose all the Emperor Keeps. With the current system, the Emperorship takes a lot of work to achieve, but the real work only begins once you’re crowned. Everyone in your Alliance looks to you for leadership. It’s your job to lead them to victory and glory.
The Elder Scrolls
Obviously, by the name alone, these are suuuuuuper important. They give you super buffs and should be taken very seriously. The biggest insult to another Alliance you can muster is to snatch their Scrolls. The Elder Scrolls are kept at their Temples deep in an Alliances territory. They are guarded by a large gate which is only penetrable by capturing a line of keeps leading up to it. Then, once you get it, you actually have to run it on foot (No horsey for you) back to one of the three keeps deepest in your territory and plant it in them. To capture an enemy’s scroll you have to be in possession of both of yours. When recapturing a scroll, you do not have to do anything save attack the retrieve it from the keep it’s held captive in. You should always protect your scrolls… Like your children. 
Alliance Points
This is the scoring system that all of Cyrodiil revolves around. It can crown an Emperor and declare a campaign winner. This is the stuff you’re after as a PvPer. You get AP from killing enemies, repairing, fulfilling missions, taking locations, and defending locations. AP is also how you rank up in Cyrodiil and unlock new PvP skills and passives in the Alliance War skill line. Using an add-on like Foundry Tactical Combat can allow you to see the incoming Alliance Points. This is how you know when you’ve received a tic of ap. Most tics are area specific. One of these is a defense tic. You should never leave a spot you’ve just defended from enemy assault before you see an AP tic relative to the size of the attack you just pushed back. Assault tics are the same way. Your Alliance mates killing enemies also give you a kill tic if you’re close enough. Learning these tricks are the first steps towards you becoming a vital member of your Alliance and possibly an Emperor.
Well, that’s all I’ve got for you this week. Once again it was wonderful to have you. So what’s your favorite part of AvA? Keep assaults? What’s your favorite keep? (Mine’s Alessia) Scroll Runs? Going all out for the Emperor? I’d love to hear from all of you!
Party Pyro