I have not seen Ice Lord or Ivus summoned in - literally - years… and I don’t think it was because they hung out in the FOS for 15 mins.
4 Likes
How is running to the right of Balinda and then behind Snowfall optimal for the Alliance in a blitz?
2 Likes
So that’s the terrain advantage?
You say that as if there aren’t countless other videos of the same thing with different perspectives?
Horde video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oFTgEWzhW0
Gates open: 7 seconds
Stonehearth Bunker: 1:34 (so 1:27 in run time)
Icewing Bunker: 2:07 (2 mins in run time)
Dun Baldar: 3:00 (2 mins 53s)
Aid Station: 3:07 (3 mins)
Alliance video with a more traditional route: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XE7m66mxYs
Gates open: 1:28
Iceblood Tower: 3:14 (1:46 run time)
Tower Point: 3:32 (2:04 run time)
Frostwolf Village: 4:02 (2:34 run time)
Relief Hut: 4:34 [Alliance don’t actually go there but the flag is capped at 4:45] (run time: 3:06)
nb: I used the perspective of the priest in Alliance, as the Horde video is a rogue so I didn’t include paladins or death knights from either video.
3 Likes
Time to put the alliance zerg advantage to rest.
6 Likes
I was in a game like that last weekend. IBT and TP intact. SHB and IWB intact. SHGY and IBGY both intact. Zero things burning.
Galvanger was passed out from boredom only occasionally waking with a snort to yell “SLAY THEM ALL!!” then promptly falling back asleep. That would rouse Balinda who was busy reading her autographed copy of Before the Storm and sipping tea.
Took a little over an hour. Eventually we eked out the W but the best part tho was this one dude in chat raging about how messed up we were having “no respect for his time” and are inconsiderate for making the game take so long lol
5 Likes
Towers and NPCs are easier to handle as alliance. This isn’t a mystery. You can los archers in horde towers. You cannot in alliance.
Horde also effectively have to fight every NPC in stormpike. Horde npcs de aggro by the time you get to relief hut/towers.
2 Likes
You have this backwards.
As a horde and alli rogue…
Horde can access each towers flags WITHOUT any npcs seeing them. Turn flag, restealth and run off.
While you can potentially get to the flag in each Horde towers unseen…it is rare and harder to do as NPCs sit way closer. Sometimes, if you position yourself wrong, they can shoot through the walls.
As horde…I have ZERO issues turning flags in towers.
As alli…sometimes the archers shoot me out of stealth as I am using the stairs and hitting the first level (just under the flag).
5 Likes
Holding a tower is far easier than holding a Bunker. If there’s 5-10 Alliance in that tower, it just take one pushback to half the defenders coming.
Bunkers allow alliance more room to rush in and defend.
1 Like
You do know alliance archers were placed behind pillars, right?
Did you watch the horde version of the blitz Bynir linked? They didn’t aggro NPCs inside alliance keep. Why do you?
Alliance have no zerg advantage. That’s been a goto excuse for years, but it’s not true.
Regardless to that, they changed SHGY for a reason. Let’s just see if it makes a difference.
7 Likes
Changed it because of incessant tears of allies that couldn’t just run to the base and PVE their way to victory.
I mean honestly.
(And the horde whiners about zerg advantage was equally ridiculous)
3 Likes
They changed Alliance bowmen over 4 years ago. Stop spouting this as an excuse.
No, they don’t.
Incidentally, Horde players can reach each and every tower before Alliance players can. Use this “advantage”?
5 Likes
Why don’t you just time it from gates open to the moment they touch the wall in front of the boss (since this occurs in both videos). That would be the true point to point time for each faction for a straight Blitz run (and was what used to happen).
Horde:
Gates open: 7 seconds
Wall touch: 3:14 (3mins 7 secs run time)
Alliance:
Gates open: 1:28
Wall touch: 4:27 (2min 59sec run time)
So Alliance can get to the same spot 8 seconds faster than Horde. But wait, that’s with the Alliance running a sub-optimal route by going to the right of Balinda and up past Galv. If they ran to the left of Balinda and directly up through IBGY it would be even faster! But even if we just said it was 8 seconds, in a 3min run time that’s a 4.44% advantage in terms of speed. That means in a straight race Horde has to do almost 5% more DPS to catch up for the time discrepancy.
Alliance zerg worked because they would backcap, and sit in towers that were assaulted. Horde did not backcap and also did not sit in bunkers as they just wanted to fight in the road. Zerg AVs could go either way, defensive AVs should be a Horde win every time. We shall see how this map change plays out.
2 Likes
Here ya go. Alliance following your perception of the optimal path. Gates open at 2 seconds. They reach FW Keep at 2:44. It took 2:42 to zerg.
Horde. Gates open at 10 seconds. They reach SP Keep at 2:48 and AS at 2:55. It took 2:38 to reach the base and 2:45 to reach AS.
3 Likes
Well, can’t argue that one.
Or it was changed because the updates to the map brought out a clear, long standing imbalance in favour of one faction and it needed some addressing?
I think you’ve missed the point of the post. It wasn’t to showcase how quickly players can get to the end boss because blitz games - thankfully - aren’t the norm (and impossible to do now). It was to showcase that the run down to either end of the map, for both factions, is roughly equal. There is probably a few seconds disparity but it is all equalized by who reaches various points first. Then one could argue that the Horde bosses do more damage than the Alliance ones; and that the Alliance has to deal with two more elites.
In terms of ‘zerg games’ (not blitz), Horde reach the first objective that has a tangible outcome on the game.
4 Likes
Your information is 4 years out of date.
2 Likes
Holy hell, where do I start with this. I mean, we can easily see:
- Alliance gate opens at 0:00, Mist just finishes mounting at 0:02 so is already 2 seconds behind
- Mists stops twice during the run, once on the hill down from the gate (0:23 to 0:25), the 2nd time he gets caught in some rocks near Balinda (1:00 to 1:01).
- As a result of 1. & 2. he ends up way way behind the leaders. This can be especially seen when Mist hits FWGY, and the leaders are already going up the hill into the base P.S they’re not all DKs and Paladins ahead of him
- So if we sum up the time lost for 1&2 then we get an extra 5 seconds. Add that to your comparison (of 2:42 vs 2:45) and it pushes the difference to 8 seconds
- Now here’s the killer, the Horde shadow priest has the paladin mount buff…while Mist does not. So even with a mount buff the Horde is still behind!
Soooooo even with the Mist losing time during the run AND the Horde having a mount buff, the Alliance still win the race, and you want to try and say there is no difference?! Really?
2 Likes
In a zerg game where bunkers/towers need to be burnt, then it would be the LAST tower that would be the tangible outcome not the first.
In a 4 bunker/tower burn zerg it would be the last of East/West vs North/South, in a 3 bunker/tower burn it would be the first of East/West vs North/South.
This is because IBT/TP and SHB/IWB should burn before these. So reaching a certain spot at opposite ends of the map first still has an advantage, since it would mean you could get those towers burning sooner.