The AV makes it easier for Horde to defend but I’ve seen Alliance win by turtling and defense before. It’s just harder to pull off than Horde defense. Wintergrasp mostly comes down to who gets to defend and it’s usually always Horde who get defense for whatever reason. Ashran is just laughable with the 15% stat increase consumable on Horde side. IOC is really the only epic battleground where Alliance have an advantage. They get the high ground at Hangar and can shoot the flag with the airship guns.
1 Like
AV is a little horde sided. IoC is pretty much even. Ashran is pretty horde sided with buffs and an easier mage to deal with. WG is attack/defence biased not faction biased.
The biggest difference comes from the quality of the playerbase though.
It’s random. I asked the devs when testing wintergrasp on the PTR and they said it’s random. Cough also yes ioc, some alliance advantages I have noticed:
The alliance gunship guns can shoot the hangar flag and stop the cap.
The alliance gunship guns can also shoot the mid flag at a certain angle as well
Also they can shoot the horde ramp, which means any horde players coming up that ramp are going to get to the top with 10% health or just die on the way up. If you go the other way, the east tower turrets can shoot you.
All of the above is avoidable in some way, though, so that makes it okay. In my opinion.
1 Like
i played both side at Epics and can notice the difference in terms of terrain advantage…
IOC i believe alliance is faster to hanger compare to horde…also depends on players’ skill and the freaking lag fight at hanger…so at least ‘slightly’ balance…
AV is slightly bias to horde…the tower defense/layout is so much easier than bunker defense/layout…
Ashran is slightly bias to horde…with the +15%…
Wintergrasp is roll of dice…but most of the time, defender will win…
1 Like
I just came back since 8.2 but I have lost maybe 20-25 games with 3 wins the last 3 days I played.
I don’t think there is an extreme bias. Alterac Valley and Ashran have imbalances - some pretty big ones, including bugs - that should be resolved. Isle of Conquest and Wintergrasp are balanced (but not without fault); I don’t buy that the Hangar being slightly faster for Alliance to reach is an advantage that causes any losses, and I don’t count them being able to shoot the flag as an advantage either as the same works for Horde but with Quarry.
Alterac Valley
- Stormpike Graveyard is easier to assault than the Frostwolf Graveyard, as Commander Duffy is on extended leave (meaning the Horde has one extra elite 20m+ HP commander guarding their graveyards). This is partially the reason for Horde always assaulting SPGY before the Alliance is anywhere near FWGY, and also why it takes Alliance longer to assault the southern part of the map.
- Iceblood chokepoint
- (Bug) Dun Baldar is not currently mapped, meaning Horde (and Alliance) players can instantly ressurect upon death. This is much more beneficial bug for the assaulting team, as they can buy precious time on recaps. I had a game recently where we had killed the 4 druids and rogues in the bunker with 40 seconds to go, but due to this bug lost the bunker as they all resurrected.
- Vanndar Stormpike does less damage than Drek’Thar (because of Thunderclap vs Whirlwind)
Ashran
- 15% stat flowers, stacking with melee buff, stacking with base defense buffs
- Various Horde NPCs do significantly more damage than their Alliance counterparts
Oddly, despite these imbalances (which while they don’t seem very big by themselves, all add up and that’s before you throw in player morale), you’ll see some Horde players insisting it’s all because of supreme play and the Alliance is just terrible, yet you don’t see the same kind of win discrepancies in normal randoms because those are a lot more equal in terms of balance.
4 Likes
Good reply. I don’t think that we’ll see any changes soon. The Horde is Blizzard’s fav faction, and anything to keep them in their good graces is a matter of money and personal bias. Look at how quickly Blizzard nerfed Human racial when the Horde complained about it. They tripped over themselves to nerf it.
1 Like
2008-2016.
It took eight years.
It wasn’t even a nerf.
3 Likes
I won a Wintergrasp the other night. Crazy I know, I was surprised too.
1 Like
A point I would add is that the Horde towers are much easier to defend than the Alliance bunkers. Not only do they have a single point of entry, there’s no way you can sneak a cap in them, plus classes with knockbacks can stall attackers for a good minute or two at least all on their own. Contrast this to the bunkers which have multiple points of entry, attackers can sneak caps hiding behind the window pillar, and you have to be very lucky or calculated to pull off knockbacks in them.
The no-brainer solution here would be to change the towers into orc hovel buildings with a shape similar to the dwarf bunkers.
2 Likes
I don’t consider this an imbalance any more now than when Horde were using it as an excuse for all their losses years ago. The exact same thing works in reverse, so if they are easier to defend once they are assaulted it should be harder for Horde to take them back.
Yes, there are advantages that favor Horde in several of them. Horde getting to “randomly” defend Wintergrasp 99% of the time is probably the most egregious offense.
Next would be Alterac Valley, where the Alliance keep has almost no defense to speak of and Alliance literally do not have a single chokepoint to make a stand that can not be easily bypassed. Even their first pseudo-chokepoint is placed so far back that they can’t hold it without sacrificing Stonehearth Bunker, Stonehearth GY, and Balinda. This inherent inability to properly defend pushes Alliance into an “all offense” mode that struggles against the well-laid defenses of the Horde territory while the Horde rolls through Dun Baldar uncontested.
The biggest disadvantage that the Alliance faces though, are its own players. So many of them display a clear lack of knowledge of the maps and a lack of understanding of basic strategy.
In Isle of Conquest, for example, Alliance ranged will NEVER take out tower cannons to allow Demos to focus the gate. On the rare occasions that Alliance take Hangar, no one even considers that the Horde will susquently take Workshop and Docks, let alone make an effort to destroy Demos and Glaives, and they still lose despite securing the easiest path to victory.
Until the Alliance player-base can actually learn the maps and gain some understanding of basic strategic concepts, these advantages are just icing on the cake for the Horde.
1 Like
Alliance has a lot of players in epics who want conquest/honor, but don’t actually like PvP.
This is why a lot of alliance fail strats involve, for example:
- Running bombs in IoC
- Rushing RH in AV
Good point, probably a lot of this going on actually 
These types of players actively avoid PvP or are scared of it, are unaware of how the bg works, or both.
Actually, rushing RH is a perfectly valid strat… as long as a 3rd tower is secured. With rising gear levels and general rising power-creep of players, 1-tower Drek is perfectly doable even with PUGs.
The only “problem” with rush RH strat is most of the time random PUGs don’t execute it properly. They might secure RH, but get tunnel vision and stand around on noob hill instead of getting TP, etc.
Only in Ashran.
AV - horde simply outplays the alliance. They defend towers and they cap towers quicker. Alliance like to attack captains in the middle of the map for 5 minutes while horde is capping the north bunkers. AV is an auto loss for alliance.
IoC - I win 50 50 here
Wintergrasp - whoever is on defense wins.
Ashran - The 15% stat buff is 1/4 of the battlefield away from where Horde starts. It’s 3/4 of the battlefield for alliance. Unless alliance is way stronger than the horde team this is also an auto loss.
So anymore I know that if I hit epic queue I’m going to lose 75% of the time. So I just skip it and do small ones where win rate is close to 50/50. I assume anyone who is familiar with battlegrounds does the same thing.
3 Likes
But he’s right Bynir, Horde simply outplays Alliance in retail AV:
Distribution of Manpower
With regards to random PUG matches (PUGs vs PUGs):
- Horde usually leaves 10-15 defenders South on D, sends the rest North to O
- Alliance leaves 1-2 on defense for the entire North of the map (obviously not enough), sends 38-39 south to O
In other words, the Horde’s approach to the battle is much more balanced. Having some defense + a decent-sized offense >>>>> full mongo offense with zero D… since the bg is a towers race. Team A having some defense to slow down/delay team B almost always results in team A getting the upper hand on timers.
Damage Done / Killing Blows / Healing Done
In the games where the AV match actually lasts long enough for these stats to matter, Horde players almost always higher damage done / healing done than Alliance.
I mention this because things like Song Flower and similar player buffs don’t usually make any impact in AV (or the buffs mainly apply to NPCs). So such excuses (like Song Flower) don’t really apply here, and the damage done/killing blows chart tell quite a tale (doesn’t look good for Alliance).
Player Competence / Skill
Lots of Alliance players will cap a flag, and then just leave it/run off to PvP down the road. Leaving the flag wide open to getting backcapped by a random Horde Rogue or Feral Druid.
Or they leave only 1 Alliance to watch an important flag (such as IBT), and then act surprised when they see the “Iceblood Tower was taken by the Horde!” message 
I’ve also seen losses caused by clueless PUGs dragging in a “Commander” NPC into Drek’s room mid-fight, causing Drek to heal back to full and a loss (since Horde was already working on Vanndar).
Just a lot of dumb, minor mistakes that can really add up and contribute to a loss. Horde PUGs tend to have a little better situational awareness and make fewer of these types of mistakes.
Speed of Advance
Horde offense goes straight for the bunkers right out of the gate, they don’t waste any time with road PvP or fighting NPCs. I haven’t seen Horde go for Balinda first in ages. And of course, Horde actually defends the flags they cap instead of randomly running off.
On the other hand, Alliance offense often stops to fight Galv (complete waste of time 
) and/or they get bogged down at the IBGY area for no apparent reason (might not even be any Horde guarding IBGY). This “standing around” in one location by like 20+ Alliance really slows down the Alliance, considering it’s a race to get towers.
Another common point where Alliance gets bogged down is Frostwolf GY. Multiple times I’ve witnessed Alliance PUGs dismount to fight the “Commander” NPC there, even as Horde is already entering Dun Baldar. They’ll waste like 6-7 minutes fighting this mini raid boss, while the Alliance bunker timers are ticking down. Alliance just seems SLOW overall on getting where they need to be in the bg.
…sometimes, it really is bad play.
The map imbalance thing has already been nerfed somewhat on the retail AV map, pretty sure the Classic AV map is much more “rigged” in comparison. In classic AV I can definitely see some of the map imbalances directly contributing to Horde wins.
2 Likes
Or an honest Horde player who isn’t blinded by the Horde cult. I’m not going to pretend that winning Ashran with our 15% stat increase consumable on our side of the map, meaning we get 15% extra healing and damage than the Alliance does is due to outplaying the Alliance. My best wins is when Horde actually overcomes an obstacle and wins like coming back to win IoC when Alliance wins the battle at Hangar is sweet victory.
But that is my exact point. The fact there is a commander at Frostwolf Graveyard is an imbalance, because there isn’t one at Stormpike Graveyard. He wasn’t added back to the game when all the other commanders were. It would be harder for Horde players to assault Dun Baldar if Commander Duffy was stationed at Stormpike Graveyard like he is supposed to be.
You and I have had this conversation before re: distributing ranks. It is much harder for the Alliance to defend their central assets than it is for Horde players because of the map design. In order for Alliance to pull off the same thing Horde can do at Iceblood Pass, they need to split their team into 3 different locations. The Horde only needs one.
I have seen tons of strong Alliance teams defend Stonehearth with all of their might (killing 2-3 waves of 10+ assaulting Horde) only to watch as the map crumbles around them because HEY Horde players have 4 different ways past SHB but there is only ever one route past Iceblood. I have not seen a team go to Galv out of the gate (aside from normally one person who goes in and pulls him and then realizes he is alone).
You can keep claiming it is superior play, and in some games it definitely is, but it doesn’t take away there are glaring imbalances on the map.
6 Likes