Alterac Valley - Imbalanced in favour of Horde?

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
1

Look at the HKs difference (listed by most HKs).
Almost ALL Alliance.

This is not due to Alliance players AFKing, again you would not have this numbers and so many allys toping the HKs.

The current iteration of AV favours Horde, I think this is quite clear.
If it was gear difference / participation, again, HKs would show it.

And this game was without the Horde backdooring into base, fair play from them. (btw some fix for that maybe soon)

My current experience reflects what I hear all the time: 95% loss VS EU horde, 50% loss vs Russian horde (because it’s a rush fest on both sides).

Any thoughts / other hypotheses to explain this ?

( I am proudly horde and have ever been on Retail, so i don’t think i have bias :wink: )

2

And yet, 14 years ago Alliance won most of the time.

5 months ago, Alliance won most of the time. How short people’s memories are.

Horde adapted, Alliance never answered. They settled for mediocrity. Which you can understand, considering they have instant AV queue times against 40-70 mins for Horde (and up to 2 hours for US Horde).

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3

On the last big vanilla private server the Alliance dominated AV.

It’s 100% the mentality of the general Classic mega cross realm alliance battlegroup population.

I mean it’s really absurd to believe that the map would make one side win 80%+ suddenly…

Don’t you see all the Alliance afk players when you play? There are like no offense and 15 in defense. Where are the rest? Most of the runs. Meanwhile Horde have non or very few afk leechers who fight and fight and fight.

4

Didn’t the Horde adapt by having Blizzard change the game for them? Because they could not be arsed to come up with anything they could do themselves?

Yeah, i think that is exactly what happened. How short people’s memories are.

OT:
The map is bad for Alliance. But this issue is vastly exacerbated by the enormous difference in Qtime. If you can get into a new match within seconds/few minutes you simply will not be willing to drag out a defensive match for 30+ minutes. If you have been waiting for this one match half of your playtime per day you WILL go that route, obviously.

The first problem can only be sorted by Blizzard. The second could - in theory - be sorted by the community, by equalling out Qtimes. Just like the Horde COULD have made their own premades 4months ago by putting in just enough effort and coordination. Also by equalling out Qtimes.

Hint: The Horde did NOT opt for that route.

So since Blizzard obviously won’t fix issue #1 and the community will obviously not fix issue #2, nothing will change.

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are you freaking kidding me right now? Even with the AV discord server for horde premades, we could never get grouped up the same way alliance did. You could get max 2-3 people on the voice channel and when everyone understood it was pointless considering the queue time on horde side, people started leaving the AV discord server.

The alliance clearly abused the queue system and I’m glad that blizzard intervened for once to fix something that should have never happened.

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OP here (sorry meant to use it since start).

I agree, but at the same time I think it would be farfetched that only queue time and overall engagement difference can account for such a massive statistic.

I have played AV an average of 5 hours per day for the whole 4 day WE, around probably 20 games at least, and I have won only ONCE, against Russian team (we just zerged faster).

It is very hard to hold IB GY for Alliance, I think more so than SH GY for Horde. The Horde cave rez is probably closer to IB GY than Stormpike GY is to SH GY.
But the biggest difference is that SH GY can be attacked by two sides, whereas IB GY only from the left (the other side being sheltered by the hill).
So eventually when alliance pushes to IB GY, Horde just goes on the left side of the map behind Balinda and eventually over runs the SH GY.

I think the only way is to wipe Horde ASAP, and rush to IB GY to ensure no Horde will rez and dodge alliance behind Balinda and take SH.

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14 years ago we played an av where npc dmg mattered and you couldnt run in field of strife like horde do now while alliance still have not passed icewing bunker. A mine would blow you up.

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Also, NPCs in the field of strife would just rape you. We were already desperately trying to tell everyone that rush AV would be bad when were still using the old forums 2 years ago.

Obviously nobody listened.

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9

AV Favors Alliance:

Bunkers > Towers - no debate, alliance can literally skip archers and go straight for the flag tag AND hit the archers through the tower wall with no retaliation, while horde has to kill basically all archers in the bunkers before they can safely tag the flag and have no way to cheese kill said archers.

Balinda > Galvangar - in terms of annoying abilities, namely sheep, arcane explosion and mass slow whereas Galv has cleave (capped at 3 targets), whirlwind, mortal strike and aoe fear. Galv can be completely shut down with a simple disarm, and his fear only lasts 6 seconds… oh and you can kite him endlessly because he has no ranged abilities LUL.

Alterac Ram > Frostwolf - Ram has Charge (which stuns) and Wolf has a mere Rend. pray who do you think gets more easily dazed off their mounts?

Icewing choke is easier to attack and hold for horde compared to Iceblood choke for alliance. but both are attackable and defensible nonetheless, it depends on your ability to hold the graveyard at the choke, for both sides.

Alliance base layout > Horde base layout

Alliance base:

Clumped up NPCs
A Bridge covered by 2 bunkers firing cancer arrows at whoever tries to cross
Trinket recall point right next to aid station flag, makes for easy ninja tag.
Horde cannot cheese/skip the marshals for easy Vanndar kill.
ONE backdoor that is hard to exploit, a lone alliance ranged class can hold this backdoor 1 vs 10-15 a simple blizzard aoe makes it impossible for any horde to get up.
Irondeep mine tucked away behind SP gy aka easily defended.
Commanders/Lieutenants clumped up near all the essential base exits for easy regen buff and easy choke defense.
The only downside to the alliance base is the fact that entrance to AV is tucked in the back of the base, meaning it takes them 10 seconds longer to get to the mid field when the game starts, this does, however, become an advantage in the late game when alliance should be defending their base (instead of just giving up)
Horde base:

NPCs all spread out, easy access to base essentials like Relief Hut.
No bridge.
Barracks that block west/east towers from firing at incoming alliance.
Walls with 3+ sections that can be ‘exploited’ by a simple jump (no wall climb needed, like with that ONE alliance backdoor) - not defendable.
Coldtooth mine outside of base, just behind tower point; hard to defend
Commanders/Lieutenants separated and alone just like all the other NPC’s, easily killed.
Drek’thar easily cheesed for quick kill, making towers even more useless to the horde.
Trinket recall point at least 90 yards away from relief hut flag, right in front of Drek’thar’s barracks, good luck getting to the relief hut flag with 30+ allies camping the location.
No geographic advantages at FW GY, as opposed to the hill/mountainside next to SP GY.
Horde’s only advantage is their cave entrance being next to their frontline which becomes a DISADVANTAGE late game when they need (and want to) defend base.

2 Likes
10

The fact that horde can reach SHGY about 5 seconds after the alliance says it all really. If Alliance want to win they actually need to have someone constantly coordinating the team. Theres multiple strats that all involve some kind of turtle and defense.

Horde literally have one strat that everyone knows. You don’t need any raid leader other than a quick RW telling players which way to block at the start.

I mean if you want a true representation of AV you need to look at the honor wknd. It’s definitely much more balanced in terms on win/lose ratio because you actually have decent geared pvpers leading the raids.

What you normally have in AV is badly geared fresh Alliance 60s grinding rep versus raid/PvP geared horde players.

11

even if the horde cave was in the back of their base you’d lose AV because your faction has a defeatist i-will-go-fish-after-first-death attitude.
you can’t fix cowardice and/or lack of will with map changes.

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I have to say, you certainly outdone yourself with that post.

Let me ask you, because you are obviously in an extreme state of zugzug.
If horde is as powerful and strong in PvP as you claim, how come Alterac Valley is the only battleground where horde is able to assume complete domination?

Why is that horde struggles when against equal odds, such as it is in other battlegrounds, but when in Alterac Valley where they are at a supposed map disadvantage (according to you), they somehow shine through and win 95% of the games?

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Yes, we in theory could premade as well. I was part of a discord channel for this 8k or so members and at best I got 5man premade of random guys in discord. Once. Few other times 2 to 3. While alliance got regulary 30+ guildies.

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Yeah its funny how you think you are so superior, while on AB/wsg pug vs pug horde has maybe att best 50/50, Id say alliance is even better

15

Fair points, but that would appear only if Alliance actually manages to get IB GY before Horde tags SH GY. Which basically never happens.

And no, the backdoor is not that easily defended. It takes you a couple of jumps and voilà. I even can do it while stealthed.

I think this must be bad memories from when AV premades were a thing. Because I mean honestly, what is your current AV win rate ? How frequently does the Alliance ever get to see beyond the IB GY into Horde base ?

Anyway, I would still much rather have these defensive long games rather than a 5 min cheap zerg fest as I heard it was prior to AV fixes.

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The only thing that changed is alliance not being able to premade.
It’s still your rotten attitude.

17

Of course Alliance was dominant prior to AV premade bans (which were a very good thing VS dumb zerg AV)!

If you have 3 mins queue, you can easily create and manage to get a full coordinated group in, while when you have 1h wait, most people’s plans have time to change and leads to people leaving the group before the option to enter AV even appears.

As for back in Vanilla (I played only Horde back then), I do not remember well, but I sure do remember losses. It cannot have been such a win difference. But weren’t premades a thing too back then ?

18

Private server Alterac Valley and Classic Alterac Valley are very different things.

For example, Vanndar had aggro range over his entire room on private servers, but on classic he does not. This itself makes a massive difference when it comes to end game defense of Dun Baldar, since alliance are then able to do the exact same thing Horde is able to do at Dreks room.

Just to name a few other things that I can remember: arrows dealt more damage on private servers, more NPCs in Alterac Valley on private servers, 2nd backdoor jump to dun baldar not working on private servers. (in fact it never existed in the 1.12.1 client, it is a feature of new classic client)

You cannot use the win ratio of alliance on a private server Alterac Valley, there are just too many changes compared to classic.

19

Yes, keep making excuses when your faction just gives up.

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The only downside to the alliance base is the fact that entrance to AV is tucked in the back of the base, meaning it takes them 10 seconds longer to get to the mid field when the game starts, this does, however, become an advantage in the late game when alliance should be defending their base (instead of just giving up)

I love how you make this seem very minor while comparing Rams and Wolves like it’s a big thing /clap.

Horde being able to get to SH just as Alliance arrive is a massive advantage as we are forced to then defend it and wipe you and then afterwards when we try make a push for IB we have to wipe you again and then once more to actually take IB. But hey, it’s the only downside right.