Does the faction war actually make both sides stronger?

Lore Story Forum
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At the end of Mists of Pandaria, when Wrathion agonizes over Varian refusing to conquer Orgrimmar and the other Horde settlements, believing that only a world united could properly withstand the Burning Legion’s future invasion, Tong the Fixer says something very interesting in hindsight:

"Always you speak. Never do you listen! You ignore the lessons of Pandaria! You see, there is balance in all things. Wisdom etched in our very fur: Black and white. Darkness and light.

When the last emperor hid our land from the rest of the world, he also preserved the homeland of our ancient enemy, the mantid. Why did he do this? He did so to keep the land whole. Living with the mantid for ten thousand years has made us both STRONG.

So it is with your Alliance and your Horde. They are not strong despite one another; they are strong BECAUSE of one another. You mistake your greatest strength for weakness. Do you see this?"

Sa’at, a Keeper of Time at the Black Morass also states that: “Indeed, if the orcs never make it to Azeroth, the Alliance will never form. Eventually civil war will break out, further weakening the human kingdoms. Ultimately the Burning Legion will invade Azeroth, destroying it in the absence of any defenders.”

Many are tired of the faction war, and understandably so, it is a pointless, cyclic conflict in many ways. But this statement made me pause and think for a moment. Say if the Alliance conquered all of Kalimdor, or the Horde took the Eastern Kingdoms, one faction basically dominating all of Azeroth.

Without a suitably strong enemy to constantly test their skills against in perpetual peace, wouldn’t they inevitably stagnate or even fall to in-fighting over time? Even though the pandaren strive for harmony, even in isolation, they did not become total pacifists for a reason.

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If by ‘stronger’ you mean characters suddenly displaying amazing super powers they never had before, and normal characters unexpectedly still being able to stand toe to toe with them, then yes.

Yes it does.

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Killing troops, expending resources and wasting time when theres always bigger threats on the horizon is not pragmatic. Especially against a previous war with space demons. Makes us much weaker

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Only because neither the alliance nor the horde seem to suffer any actual consequence of their wars.

I haven’t seen any war bonds, calls for rationing, population problems, or any other indication that the constant warfare has any real consequence.

This logic only works because Blizzard says it does.

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I think what we have here is a case of the story telling us that war is strengthening us - in cases like Tong and Sa’at - but failing to show it well. If they really wanted us to pick up what they’re putting down, they should show us a world without the Alliance and Horde fighting to see how it might be worse.

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According to Lost Honor, Stormwind has deployed the last of its soldiers. They’ll have to recruit and train “farmers” next.

Blizz can do w/e they want to, and they’ve changed the narrative since Tong the Fixer. War is making us weaker.

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Considering this War was kicked off with the near extinction of one of Azeroth’s most ancient and storied Races, I’m going to go with “no.”

In addition to that, Sylvanas has stated that her goal is to kill everyone in Stormwind and raise them into Undead Servitude. We also see that she has zero issue raising her own troops during or after a battle to serve her purposes. Basically she is running at full steam to making the phrase “Death to the Living” a reality.

Add on the acknowledgement that Stormwind, the literal backbone of the Alliance military is about to run out of traditional troops, and we’re about as far from “stronger” than we have ever been.

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Genn states the Horde has never been more vulnerable. Nathanos says victory is within the Alliance’s grasp.

The Alliance was weak in Old Soldier, yet is at the cusp of total victory now. Which means the Horde is weaker than the weakened Alliance.

It would appear “stronger” is not the word that would fit to the current situation.

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No.

Peacetime makes them weaker. But neither faction is ever at peace because they’re constantly fighting other threats when they aren’t fighting each other.

Fighting each other just burns resources.

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Fighting each other COULD make both stronger, as we’ve seen in the real world where conflict can cause technology to advance. The only problem is theres no breathing room for things to get better. Its bam bam bam bam, where there needs to be breathing room to grow and learn.

If there was even a year or 2 between immediate conflict it would help, but where we are just slamming against each other or the next big thing it doesnt cause improvement.

Even in Tong’s example the Mantid did not fling themselves at the Pandaren every year, they would slumber for a time, reawaken, send their warriors, the strong come back, the weak die, and slumber, repeat.

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Depends.

On the tech side, the factions became stronger: Iron Horde tech, P.L.O.T. Armor, Vindicaar, Azerithe weapons and tanks, more Loa powers, more NE powers.

Population and other resources, it should have taken a deep dive as there seems to be little time between wars to replenish the loses.

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In the past the Faction War was always the appetizer, and didnt cause catastrophic casualties like BfA has. For Example: In Wrath there were some factional skirmishes, but we ultimately worked together to take down the Lich King. We proceeded to do the same thing in most expansions.

Skipping to Legion, same thing. We had some faction tension, but it didnt lead to any major loss of life, and we banded together and went to Argus for the win.

Battle For Azeroth so far has done what we didnt do the in the past: An actual Faction World War. We’re not banding together to fight the “Big Bad” because they havnt made themselves available yet. This time major casualties, loss of territory, loss of racial capitals, and depletion of resources, has actually happened. As Genn said, “They’ll be calling up farmers next.” This time the war is taking its toll and having permanent consequences.

So, I would say without a shadow of a doubt that this time the Faction War has made us weaker. That will definitely be playing into whatever comes next for this expansion.

In all honesty, I think the faction conflicts never did make us any stronger. I believe we got stronger by joining together to take down the main villains, not fighting each other.

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This. Also doesnt Chronicle talk about how N’zoth learned that if the Horde and Alliance were fractured they would be easily destroyed, while together they’re nearly invincible?

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Competition makes you stronger, but only to a point. The huojin and tushui can compete and both sides grow stronger, because they aren’t attempting to actually wipe the other out (in Pandaria; not once the Horde and Alliance get involved, obviously).

However, there comes a point when you’ve already culled the “weak” and then you start wiping out your strongest and exhausting everyone. Perpetual competition just becomes a war of attrition, and even if the last man standing is the strongest from both sides…he’s still only one man, and he can’t stand against a fresh army thrown at him.

Even in Tong’s example of the mantid, he’s wrong. The mantid are not a perpetual enemy. The mantid swarm, the Pandaren push them back, both sides stop and lick their wounds until the next swarm…which happens, what, once a century I think? I seem to recall that the mantid swarming early because of the disruption caused by the Cataclysm and us was a plot point.

The devs’ attempts at philosophy are short-sighted and incomplete. For our conflict to strengthen us, it needs either to be taken from outright war to wargames played for prestige, or at the very least we need to have the good sense to eventually take time to recover from the wounds we’ve inflicted on each other.

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In hindsight, I increasingly feel like the whole “making each other stronger through struggle” thing may have been less about the factions in the narrative, and more like a meta reference to the players getting more powerful (i.e. leveling/gearing up) through all these wars and conflicts.

Instead of a reference to the Alliance and Horde coming out of the wars stronger, it arguably ends up feeling a bit more like the story was trying to tell those the players who were fed up with the faction infighting “hey, but you’re getting better and stronger loot out of it, right?”

The factions are basically bystanders making a mess for our benefit at this point; I’m halfway convinced that if questioned about the “moral lesson” about the faction conflict from MoP, the official line would be that going through things like faction wars are the only reason the players were strong enough to take down the Burning Legion. So while the factions continue to bleed out and cripple themselves as they limp from one war to the next, we “Champions of Azeroth” from both sides continue to ride the waves of senseless conflict to ever greater heights of power.

Might be why there’s such a disconnect between the factions’ themes and behavior and a lot of players found in them; you’re not really supposed to relate to your faction. It exists solely to fight (and fail) in the wars that will continue to fuel the players’ forever accelerating rise as superheroic demigods.

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So much this.

To the topic in general, Tong is a bartender. I trust his insight into the logistics of getting ice and alcohol into a cup. Not so much his insight into the wars and politics of a world his people haven’t interacted with in over ten thousand years.

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Neither are the Horde and Alliance necessarily perpetual enemies. At least there are many individuals on both sides, such as Thrall, Anduin and Velen, who have tried to broker for peace on many occasions, unlike the pandaren and the mantid.

There have been frequent lulls of uneasy peace between them, when facing the Legion and Illidan on Outland, after the Lich King’s fall, after the Siege of Orgrimmar, and throughout Legion expansion to an extent, at least managing to refrain from open war.

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Someone get Tong a copy of the “Parable of the Broken window”. Those pandarens like a good story. Let him choke on that one.

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Nah bro short answer is nah.

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But our lulls of “uneasy peace” seem to only come when we’re at war with something bigger. That’s not peace, that’s just changing so we have a mutual target rather than shooting at each other. It doesn’t allow for rebuilding or recovery on either side.