So I have now participated both sides of the new AV meta and here are my observations.
Horde perspective.
Alliance players are few, so its usually the same groups of group in AV all the time, and most of them are 60 and decently geared, usually T1 or better and for BG that’s just fine.
Horde players are a mix of Naxx geared shamans, warlocks and wizards of all kinds, but quite a few under geared low level (yes not level 60) characters of all sorts.
Horde blaming them each other for general failures on all fronts, and an air of toxicity that is new. A general confusion of why the Battle was not an automatic win.
From the Alliance perspective.
Overall positive, and I did not join the alleged “premade”, instead I was part of a normal group, it was mostly level 60 (I did not actually see any sub cap) characters but the group seems to be mostly people who do AV and like being there and have fun. I asked if there was a Discord, and I was told that Discord groups start later on.
Team play was paramount, people were calling out contested towers, asking for support securing Horde towers, pulling the LT’s and everything felt very organized, almost intuitive.
The atmosphere was positive and I did not feel that people were being toxic at all.
Takeaway
Non level 60 characters cost you games, in reality AV should be setup like every other BG with level 60 only versions, and a 59 minus BG.
Horde map advantage is real, but Alliance are just playing better now, not sure why, how but they are… I actually got heals, peels, freedom, bop, you name it. Was really good!
Attitude is everything, if you have a poor attitude and take it out on other players and berate them in game its not likely to improve their output or effectiveness.
It’s hard to blame sub-60s for wanting to join. Many people love AV and look forward to being a high enough level to queue, I think it would definitely be a good thing to have a 60 bracket and a 59 bracket.
It worked out well for the horde until the Alliance figured out that the horde became weak, pathetic and soft, and ripe for the plundering. Now I think the sub 60’s will peter out because its become painful for them now that Alliance have tasted blood.
yeah I’ve been taking my now-level 56 troll priest to AV. I think the first time I queued I was 54…I wouldn’t go in at 51 because you can’t hit anything and heals are so weak they barely help, but I didn’t want to wait until 60.
It’s been kinda rough, last weekend the queues were 30-45 minutes and the win rate was probably 50%, but last night the queues were less than 10 minutes and I won like 2 out of 8 games. It was like queuing as alliance used to be
Yup, I think the taste of blood has emboldened the alliance so much so that its not even the Discord premades that are winning now, at least I know that the last game I played in was 100% not a premade of any kind and we won easily, it was really bad.
Felt like playing Horde a few weeks ago, not even challenging. I suspect that the Meta will stay this way into TBC where the map is reasonably well balanced, and then who knows after the 2.0 changes.
I concur on the horde portion. I don’t play alliance. I saw a lot of sub 60s. There was an attempt in one of my games to get people to join a discord and roughly 6 of us joined while many others slung insults and acted like they were too good to join the discord and that it wouldn’t help…as we were getting flat annihilated.
Attitude matters a lot. Sub 60s matter a lot. AFK players matter a lot.
The aspect that confuses me is that the players were confused that we were losing. Decent alliance players queuing would have owned the groups I was in without needing discord. It was pretty pathetic actually.
Not sure I agree with this. It entirely depends on whether Horde decide to counter the discord with their own discord. I think there is a good chance that they do. If they do, that might actually be fun because the games should be tightly contested.
Yup, that’s exactly what I saw, and tried to convey that as best I could in the OP. Its almost like the Alliance re-rolled Horde in mass and now QQ that they cant win LOL… Sure felt that way to me. I did my normal rogue stuff, capping towers, re-capping towers, and trying to batter the healers and dodge warriors… (Horde side), but nothing I could do would save them from their own self inflicted toxic behavior.
Seriously defeating is the toxic behavior, and name calling… I get it, people get frustrated, and I think everyone can get frustrated from time to time… The thing that makes me most annoyed is the quitters that just give up, and declare “We lost” when the game just started and there is loads of time to push back and win.
That would actually be super fun to play, just hope that people keep the positive attitude Alliance side and the Horde cheer up, because a well earned battle is the best.
My only concern are the people who are there for “Honor per hr” I hate them, because they always be throwin games that they don’t feel are inline with their honor per hr range.
If it is true that the alliance rerolled horde in mass, I don’t think it had anything to do with the AV woes. A lot of us were just bored and wanted to play the other side of the game.
I made a horde character for the Rogue experience on that side, then got into PVP again and found it very enjoyable playing the better racial in terms of Classic PVP. Changes a lot, Undead is still excellent, but Human is also extremely good in Arena.
You keep using that word, I don’t think that word means what you think that word means.
What you do not smell is called iocane powder, its odorless, tasteless, dissolves instantly in liquid, and is one of the more deadly poisons known to man.
I’ve PVP a lot on both sides because I like PVP and I also like seeing the differences between players in PVP in general. This is why I’ve found this whole new meta thing interesting.
The not expecting to lose is “new” as horde in AV are so used to winning. I’ve seen the complaining by horde during AV weekend as well when the alliance win more often. The toxic and blaming each other is bad and it was just like this when AV first opened. I even remember posting about it on here. That was part of why I hated having to queue solo AV when 5 mans weren’t allowed and what I don’t like about pugging in general as I hate being around toxic people.
Anyway with that being said the interesting thing is even with the horde the attitude seems to be changing to a little more positive. The first game I was in horde were stupid and just kept trying to take SHGY. In a lot of the recent games SFGY was considered very important though and horde would go back to get it.
One of the last games I played with my horde was a base race and the alliance won it but nobody in that group was mad, their attitude was well at least we tried.
Then in the last one, the horde were talking about some unknown horde discord. It was never linked but I joined late. I honestly hope the horde get something set up too with how the queue times are stablizing.
The alliance are absolutely winning without premading too. I’ve seen that as well.
First of all your title. There is no “horde failure”. Alliance are cheating and premading, that’s the only reason horde are losing right now. Like one year ago and Blizzard fixed it and allies cried for a year before they found a new way to cheat.
Horde are not blaming everyone, at least not in my AVs. Everyone knows alliance are cheating so we can call out very early if it’s a cheating premade and people keep cool cause they know if we lose it’s because alliance is cheating and there is not much we can do about it.
Non level 60 are for both factions but since allies are premading of course they don’t take sub 60.
There is no “map disadvantages”, at least none huge and for the little ones, both factions have some. Huge map disadvantage is a just a way alliance justified their loss over the year.
“alliance are just playing better”. Lol. When I read that I knew you were biased. How can you say such a thing. So alliance play better all of a sudden ? Of course not, you guys are just premading. Again. That’s it and it’s certainly not about skills.
