Alterac Valley

[oldmandennis]

There's a bunch of reasons AV used to be better for horde. It used to be that the tower you run through in the horde base below the two towers that have archers was flagged as "indoors" and dismounted all attackers. It made assaulting the base every bit as hard as assulting the ally base. It's easier to kite riders/reavers to the tunnel or to the base if you are trying to defend frostwolf. If you are defending SP you have to kite practically through the GY, which is pretty dangerous. IB tower defends the approach to IBGY, SHB does not defend SHGY.

The only advantage the horde has gained during the series of nerfs is the development (I don't know if it was possible when AV first came out) of the wall pull.

[Monkey]

The only advantage the horde has gained during the series of nerfs is the development (I don't know if it was possible when AV first came out) of the wall pull.

That's not correct: the Horde also received an additional chokepoint at Iceblood Graveyard. It was previously possible to ride around the graveyard in three different ways, now they all funnel around that corner to the flag. I ground my warrior to exalted in the early days of AV (back when Lobotomizer was the hottest thing since sliced bread or for slicing bread) and used to run up around the horde line to ninja the graveyard all the time. It was disappointing when I got there on my druid and couldn't do the same thing (would have been fun with druid forms).

Since I rarely saw the Alliance make it to pulling Drek in the old days, I don't know if there were more, but there was definitely that change.

[oldmandennis]

That's not correct: the Horde also received an additional chokepoint at Iceblood Graveyard.

Ah. That would be important... if they made the map strategic again. If a tower was an actual obstacle, that point would be pretty brutal - especially since in a "real" game you need to take out Gavelcar to stop the buffs and slow down NPC spawns. Any time the main group wiped to combo of Lt's, tower fire, and fast respawns from IB, you could wipe the Gavelcar attempt too.

[Icebird]

I haven't done much pvp since the pre-expansion days, so that might qualify my observations a bit.

I think a possibly underestimated factor is "knowing what to do to win each battleground". Horde groups win a majority of WSG and AB games. Pick-up players joining these games see a successful strategy, copy it, and pass it on the other players. Alliance players, who lose more than they win, don't develop a successful strategy.

But in AV its reversed. Everyone generally knows the standard battle plan, without anyone having to explain it: capture snowfall; kill Galvangar; capture iceblood, capture frostwolf, destroy the towers, wait for the relief hut, pull the warmasters, kill the General profit. A token defensive force would usually hang about to slow the Horde up (since if you wanted to actually pvp in AV that was where to be).

There were ways for the Horde to win, but most of them involved drawn-out war of attrition type matches which is probably counter-productive to fast honor accumulation. One reasonably successful strategy: Horde captures Snowfall before it caps (it would rarely have more than a couple of defenders if any), wipe the alliance trying to kill Galvangar, then bottle them up in the nothern half of the map (since everyone would respawn at DB or the tunnel). Stormpike can be captured (particularly if groups are smart enough to sneak around the back by the mine) but Dun Baldar usually has to be prised out alliance hands though sheer force of numbers. Summoning the Ice Lord is one way of breaking the impasse.

Chris

[oldmandennis]

This is almost totally outmoded since the 2.0 patch (before the xpac) for the horde.

90% of horde puggies (those that are actively playing at least) are playing for honor, not necessarily to win. They would strongly prefer a 25min loss with most objectives taken to the 60 to 90min game you are describing. If you cap SF before IB is capped, be prepared for a ton of harsh language. If you do succeed in creating a turtle, most intelligent players will leave the BG.

As horde, 5-7 people max on defense is best for a fast win. Avoid the main body of allies, give them anything they commit 10-15 people. Focus on using the defense to wipe small groups. If they only put a few on Galvangar, wipe them. If a few try to break out and cap FW or the base objectives early, stop that. If they don't defend capping objectives, cap them back.

The other thing you can do to try and make sure that the ally towers get capped. It's a boring job, but it will slow them down substantially when they get to warmasters.

[Lissa]

The Ruin AVs are getting really one sided now. About 15 Alliance stay back on defense and try to keep the horde from taking SH GY and Bunker and push the horde back toward IB GY while the other 25 Alliance take out Galv, take IB Tower and then push to IB GY. Once the offense takes IB GY, forcing the horde back to cave spawn until 2.2 comes out, then the defense moves up to IB GY and the two fight until they push the horde back past TP. Once the horde are pushed back away from TP, the defense moves up to hold the road between TP and the mountain side and the offense continutes it's march south. It gets pretty crazy now with the fighting out by TP and the cave.

[oldmandennis]

Wow your horde suck. That's really bad. If the ~20 who are playing can't take SH vs 15 defenders, they are terrible.

[Lissa]

Wow your horde suck. That's really bad. If the ~20 who are playing can't take SH vs 15 defenders, they are terrible.

No, about 15 Horde is all that really play, the rest pretty much afk in the tunnel or try to screw around with the offense.

[Bolty]

Wow your horde suck. That's really bad. If the ~20 who are playing can't take SH vs 15 defenders, they are terrible.

As Lissa said, it's not that they're terrible, it's that they don't really try. Seeing as how Alliance loses 80-90% of PuG vs PuG games in Eye of the Storm, Arathi Basin, and Warsong Gulch on Ruin, the Horde pretty much dominate PvP.

Then you have these 12-year-olds Alliance-side in AV games who say things like "lol Horde sucks." We'll see if they keep thinking that next patch when the anti-AFK stuff is in place and the Horde may decide to start actually playing. Those 25-minute AV games can easily become 3 hour turtlefests if the Horde on Ruin decide to fight back...

-Bolty