I’ve overall had positive experiences on both sides recently and I’m feeling a little torn as to which faction I’d like to stick with going into SL- maybe other readers are too. Please feel free to add your own bullets or share your personal anecdotes. This being the BG forum, the topic will only be concerning PvP sans arena seeing as though faction is largely an irrelevant choice where arena is concerned (specific racial abilities or potential ‘talent pool’ aside).
Alliance
Pro:
Extremely short expected queue times: Sometimes a third or less as long as horde’s
50% bonus honor gained: Won’t be relevant to everyone but some appreciate having short-term goals to work toward aside from the gear treadmill which offers no permanent rewards
Thriving WPvP scene: A wealth of red targets to kill in most endgame zones and numerous custom groups completing the weekly kill quests all throughout the week
AoO: An additional WPvP quest to knock out every week which awards 65 conquest and a 445 ilevel piece to help along the gearing process for newer 120’s
War mode bonus: 25% increase to experience and WQ rewards to compare against horde’s 10% increase
*Guilds/communities: A colorful variety of active, high population, organized groups who focus on every facet of PvP from WPvP to twinking to RBG’s to the Nazjatar world event and more
Con:
Winrates: Unacceptably low winrates on average in most epic BG’s (IoC notwithstanding) and some may experience sub 50% winrates in the 10/15 man’s as well (although this generally hasn’t been my personal experience)
Solo WPvP: You may feel outnumbered in most layers when not in a group which can make getting quests done really frustrating
Horde
Pro:
Winrates: Generally high winrates in the 40 man BG’s, especially AV and Ashran
Mercenary Mode: Access to merc mode means being able to bypass long queues on-the-fly
Solo WPvP: You’ll generally feel comfortable wherever you are
Con:
Long queue times: Especially for the epic BG’s, the wait can get borderline oppressive depending on the time of day
Desolate WPvP scene: Unless you’re blessed with a good layer, you may go a long time without seeing an enemy to kill which can make the weekly kill quests a chore to complete. Conversely, you may be layered with a pre-formed, organized alliance raid that will annihilate you in Nazjatar
*Guilds/communities: An apparent absence of active populations to play with consistently
*This one is highly anecdotal but I’m not impressed with the horde guilds actively recruiting on Bleeding Hollow, Illidan, or Area 52 (maybe the situation is better on Tichondrius). On the other hand, I’m really happy with the way Ruin, RUIN, Ruinous, Ruin Nation, etc. is run on the major ‘Alliance servers.’ They’re very casual/accessible but kick inactive parties every day which results in a nearly player capped guild that’s actually active. Groups are made constantly for Nazjatar, supply drops, random BG’s and a lot more. WoW feels more like an MMO on the alliance in my personal opinion; your’s may vary substantially.
I didn’t include racial abilities above as they boil down to individual race choices rather than which faction you choose however on average, I find the alliance racial kits to be much better. The throughput abilities are all balanced to be extremely similar to one another and flavor/convenience bonuses are what they are so utility racials are really all that matter. These are abilities such as shadowmeld, spacial rift, hardiness, war stomp, etc. and alliance has a definitive edge there in my opinion but you aren’t necessarily wrong if you disagree.
I’ll add more points as they come to me or as they’re brought up in replies. If you’re just counting points, it may look like I’m biased in favor of alliance but I consider the horde’s winrate and merc mode pros to be heavily weighted and extremely important upsides for the faction.
WPvP comfort varies based on realm. If you play on WRA as Horde for example, you’ll find yourself constantly outnumbered. Picking a server alongside faction is very important as main PvP hubs like Durotar/Goldshire are empty or packed based on what you’re phased into. If you’re Horde in Proudmoore you will never find anyone in Durotar.
If you’re interested in rated PvP, Alliance LFG is generally harder to push with above a certain MMR (Duelist+). However, if you’re just starting out in rated and want to get 1600-1800 or just need to cap, Alliance has more players queuing at that MMR.
If you plan on playing Druid, night elf is the way to go considering how strong shadowmeld is for restealthing into rake/bash>cyclone combos or drinks.
Horde is the safest bet for sure. It’s where most of the players are at, so more access to geared/skilled players.
Tons of pugs listed at any given time in the M+ group finder page. Raiding scene is healthier as well (I don’t raid seriously, but if you’re into that sort of thing).
For random bgs the queue times are long, but that’s the only real “con” I can think of for PvP.
Does it? I’m layered with players from a pretty wide variety of servers seemingly no matter which home server I’ve picked.
Yeah, shadowmeld is no joke. It’s good on it’s own but it’s even better for a class that can benefit from stealth openers in combat or a quick getaway with instant flight form in the open world. Still, racial ability quality is a pretty low priority when considering queue times, winrates, etc.
I’m not too concerned with that, personally. There are more good players on either faction that I could ever hope to group with anyway and I’m not big on PvE.
It’s tough. If alliance could actually clean wins in the 40-man matches, I’d be happy with alliance. Likewise, if horde just had some high population, high quality PvP guilds/communities like Ruin I’d be happy with them. Unfortunately, the community well for horde appears really dry.
The PvE aspect is a pretty big deal imo, considering that the best gear comes from PvE. Having access to a healthy/thriving PvE community is super important to me, that’s why I could never park my main on Alliance side (unless their PvE scene improves in the future).
There’s PvP communities/guilds on Horde as well, just might not be on your server. I don’t really care about PvP communities personally or see the need to premade, I find that Horde pugs are more than capable in random epic bgs.
Good point. Hopefully that situation will improve in SL with PvP vendors but I’ll remain skeptical until I see it. A stronger PvE community might mean having better geared teams on average.
I’ve check bleeding hollow, Illidan, and A52. I’m less inclined to check tich seeing as it’s hosted in Los Angeles and I live on the east coast.
Why not just ask them to bring you along during one of their epic bg premades? Seems cheaper than spending $30-$55 on a faction change + server transfer
The only reason to play Alliance would be aesthetic/RP reasons or if your friends are there and refuse to go Horde. Otherwise, Horde is better in every way since merc mode allows you to circumvent the one downside of playing Horde (queue times) at will.
