I know that Alliance dominated AV for about 5 years. However, this has not been so since BoA. One reason this might be is the elite placement at graveyards and the fact that alliance graveyards do not have elites compared to Horde. Since the objective is to kill the boss before the other faction does, time is always a factor. Killing elites to take graveyards takes time.
The elite placement in towers is also a problem. A small number of horde players can defend a tower because the elite is next to the flag which is placed inside a closed tower where there is limited mobility. The alliance elite is in a bunker where players can weave in and out of the arches. A player can just kite the elite round the tower while another caps flag.
Some people on these forums will claim the 25 million health “miniboss” commander missing from the Alliance’s penultimate graveyard is not an imbalance, and that the reason Alliance loses is because they stop to fight that same penultimate Horde elite at Frostwolf Graveyard.
AV favours Horde for the following reasons:
Iceblood chokepoint
Commander placement (“just CC them” in a tiny round room)
Missing elite designed to slow down offense - Stormpike Graveyard and Dun Baldar would be much harder to assault if Commander Duffy was actually there
Damage done by Drek’Thar vs Vanndar (though minor, still an imbalance)
I dont think ive won an AV since coming back as Alliance, out of about 8 Ive played thus far. It seems Horde can roll through Stormpike untouched by anything. Ive always thought most alliance dps exceeds that of horde, horde brings more healers in the que for whatever reason in these 40 man BGs, theirs no reason why Horde is beating Vandaar before alliance beat Drek, and it happens usually by the time the Alliance has Drek down to half HP.
lately i have been playing D, but when i lead O, i run straight to SHB, grip the elite the edge and then knock him out of the bunker, this allows me or a team mate to cap SHB at the same speed as if there was no elite at all.
this should be possible on ally against IBT, however horde likes to guard it.
Dosao, are you suggesting that a 25 million HP NPC that empowers nearby allies (keeping in mind that by the time Horde reach SPGY, they have also already sent several Alliance back there?) would not slow down the game at all?
CC’ing the commanders is much easier for Horde given the open space in bunkers vs towers. This is a fact. You don’t even have to engage them to know this - the Horde commanders are 2 feet away from their respective flags, whereas the Alliance ones are at the top of the stairs in bunkers on the other side of the flag.
In order for them to be comparable, the Horde commanders would need to be on the second floor of the tower.
Yes this is possible for Horde commanders too. It’s not hard to cap towers or bunkers because of the NPCs - all it takes is one person to distract them while someone else caps. They only become problematic when other players are involved.
The horde towers are so much worse than the bunkers … I have slight essential tremor so my hand is not steady. I can hardly run up the tower without falling of the narrow pathway.
The Alliance’s graveyard should favour the Alliance. That change was made with the intention of trying to level the playing field in regard to Iceblood vs Stonehearth. It was, unfortunately, unsuccessful.
What is your point? Does the ability to kite the commanders make the fact the Alliance has one extra 25m+ hp NPC to deal with not an imbalance?
cant you u just go up behind ibgy. This isnt vanilla av. You should see all the classic threads made by alliance complaining about the horde starting cave.
