OK, you need to stop. Kyalin, I generally like most of your arguments, but conceptually yes the Alliance far outstrips the Horde in every single level. You’re need to just invalidate “content” and “lore” to defend the argument that they are not is really frustrating. Because “what we see in game” does NOT reinforce the idea that the Horde is powerful. We barely won the ONE battle we had to win in all of BfA we had to win to label us villains, then lost every single other battle after. And that IS reinforced by the Horde BfA experience.
In population numbers. Magical aptitude. Tech advancement. Available resources. Cosmological Domain proficiency. Class proficiency. Hell, the Horde doesn’t even really excel at ZugZug physical prowess, since NEs, Dwarves, and Draenei have repeatedly been shown as potent (if not more potent due to their strength AND agility) than H Races. That doesn’t even get into the disparity between hero characters. Which, thank god so many Alliance ones are forced to remain “neutral”. Like Kadghar or Magni.
You yourself have made repeated arguments that the NEs alone (or offset by the Draenei and Worgen) should be sufficient enough to defeat the entire Kalimdor Horde combined. And your primary method I’ve seen you use why the EK Horde shouldn’t get completely steamrolled by the heart of the EK Alliance is … largely the Forsaken just sort of Blighting everything that moves. Since the BEs and Forsaken don’t have the manpower, resources, or Heroes to challenge the EK Alliance. So … Blight is truly their only deterrent.
Yeah, like I said, Jaina’s a fair cop. I can find a cinematic of her showing up on the pirate ship that she stole from Captain Hook. I have believable evidence in that instance.
The thing is in Warhammer the story is very clear that the evil races are in fact evil.
If you are fine with Blizzard embracing the evil Horde story branch then by all means.
Continue.
The problem is Blizzard keeps making Horde do unspeakably evil things seemingly without any serious provocations and then they proceed to lamely backtrack and whitewash what was done.
And of course assure us that the Horde is indeed moral and good and they have yet another excuse for what happened.
So. I agree with you completely if we abandon this Horde is good idea and just embrace evil.
I throw out text most of the time, yes, and for reasons I explained. I’m aware that it’s there - it does little for me emotionally when the visuals conflict. I don’t want lore nerd answers here, I want answers that address whether the ideas that the author has put on paper make it to the audience in a believable way.
That means, yes, I’m laser focused on game and visual content. SHOW IT to me.
Lightforged + Draenei have a spaceship with a laser (at least one)
Majority of Azerothian Wild Gods that have been represented in game side with the Alliance historically
You and other posters have repeatedly gestured at Alliance’s supremacy over terrain (Dwarves and their mountains, Night Elves and their forests, etc) superior to the Horde
Gnomish engineering is repeatedly depicted as superior to Goblin engineering, e.g. Horde Mech Suit self destructing whereas Gnome Mech Suit was fine, e.g. Mechagon vs Literally Anything Goblin, etc, and now Mekatorque is Iron Man
It was confirmed via devs that Night Elves were the first Druids, have been at it longer
Jaina and the Void Elves have repeatedly been shown to be more magically competent than the Blood Elves and Nightborne, even being able to teleport out of the Maw without use of the Waystone, even being able to Frost magic the Blight Aware, even being able to conjure Tsunamis, freeze the entire superficial layer of the ocean to have a battle, and more. Jaina alone can apparently also summon an entire fleet of ships from a pocket dimension created by Void magic. Not to mention the magic boat during siege of undercity.
Anduin can mass rez the entire army leading to Alliance victory
Moira is the Shadow Priest “Main Hero” during Legion; the Dark Iron Dwarves can apparently command the elemental forces of Fire way better than we’ve ever seen a Tauren or Orc or Troll do, so we don’t even have superior Shamans
Magical Wild God Wolf Powers
The Void Elves are particularly egregious since Shadow/Void was traditionally a Horde thing, but just kidding
Blizzard literally forgot the build the Horde up lol
You’re talking to the “lore nerds” about their perception of Alliance power levels. So you’re going to get lore nerd answers. That includes canon sources you think shouldn’t count.
OK. In terms of territory control that’s obvious. Prior to (and after) the 4th War the Horde held far less in terms of territory than the Alliance canonically. The majority of Horde territory is infinitely less resource valuable, especially on Kali. Population numbers have never mattered in WoW, but the Horde faction is especially this way. And there isn’t a single Class or Cosmological Domain in this entire game that a Horde-Horde/Neutral outstrips an Alliance-Alliance/Neutral. Not even Shamans, where the Horde is shockingly lacking these days. And in terms of tech … if the Draenei are allowed to be included … the Alliance outstrips the Horde too. The Gnomes and Dwarves/DIs aren’t inferior to the Goblins and AU Mag’har in any way; beyond maybe manufacturing (and the Horde isn’t ever allowed to use that).
And a major reason for this is … that aforementioned massive neglect Blizz has shown the Horde over the last decade. They may “like writing us”, but its hard not to notice every story is a net negative (outside of ARs). Blizz does not put in the work to build up the Red Faction OR its characters beyond the minimum.
Who needs a shaman, whose core concept is Death Stuff + Elements, when you can have *checks notes * Death Knight Ebon Blade Acolyte Mages Maintaing A Portal Through Shadow Magic
Lightforged + Draenei have a spaceship with a laser (at least one)
I’d accept this if we didn’t keep it in the garage when fighting the Horde.
Majority of Azerothian Wild Gods that have been represented in game side with the Alliance historically
These also get benched - and are understood to be neutral
You and other posters have repeatedly gestured at Alliance’s supremacy over terrain (Dwarves and their mountains, Night Elves and their forests, etc) superior to the Horde
On paper yes - but we do not see this mattering.
Gnomish engineering is repeatedly depicted as superior to Goblin engineering, e.g. Horde Mech Suit self destructing whereas Gnome Mech Suit was fine, e.g. Mechagon vs Literally Anything Goblin, etc, and now Mekatorque is Iron Man
This item qualifies.
It was confirmed via devs that Night Elves were the first Druids, have been at it longer
Text - tossing it out on the framework I have discussed.
Jaina and the Void Elves have repeatedly been shown to be more magically competent than the Blood Elves and Nightborne, even being able to teleport out of the Maw without use of the Waystone, even being able to Frost magic the Blight Aware, even being able to conjure Tsunamis, freeze the entire superficial layer of the ocean to have a battle, and more. Jaina alone can apparently also summon an entire fleet of ships from a pocket dimension created by Void magic. Not to mention the magic boat during siege of undercity.
Jaina as I said is a fair cop.
Anduin can mass rez the entire army leading to Alliance victory
This works.
Moira is the Shadow Priest “Main Hero” during Legion; the Dark Iron Dwarves can apparently command the elemental forces of Fire way better than we’ve ever seen a Tauren or Orc or Troll do, so we don’t even have superior Shamans
I’ll accept this.
Magical Wild God Wolf Powers
Oddly we haven’t seen a lot of them, with Legion probably being the exception. If I want to see what he did in Wolfheart for example, I need to consult this reenactment:
http^s://youtu.be/xNInwu9zwjo
(Content warning: Language throughout - that’s why I broke up the link on this one - visit at your own discretion.)
The Void Elves are particularly egregious since Shadow/Void was traditionally a Horde thing, but just kidding
We just had an expansion get kicked off where the Horde got to be better in Night Elf forests than Night Elves and then get to celebrate it with genocide.
We’re told that Gnome engineering is better than Goblin engineering. The one time we’re shown, and this is the only single instance, is when Gallywix burns through all his fuel. Which isn’t even a malfunction. My car didn’t malfunction cause I decided to run it straight through to empty.
Any other time we’re shown that Goblin tech works perfectly fine.
This isn’t showing this is telling.
There are other elements besides fire. Jaina may of conjured a tsunami but Thrall very easily pushed it back.
They had to keep it in the garage because the Horde doesn’t have an answer for it.
Seriously.
This has been a complaint on both sides.
The Alliance characters are super strong but have to be written as incompetent morons. Example: Anduin not accounting for Blight at the SoL.
The Horde is written as weaker but gets lucky. Example: The entire Night Elf army gets sent to Silithus prior to the WoT. Saurfang finds a path through a forest into Darkshore that the Night Elves apparently didn’t know about.
Moving goal posts, it was shown in-game, and it belongs to the Alliance.
By whomst lol
Valsharah questlines and Druid Class Legion questlines confirmed NIght Elves were the first druids and were at it longer
Yes because it’s the Alliance being better at Shadow magic now than the Horde, which is historically a Horde cultural staple via Trolls, Forsaken, and Shadowmoon Orcs.
