Discovering Battlegrounds
I’ve recently discovered PvP. I’ve always refused duels, never rolled a character on a PvP server, and always sniffed at guild members who spent most of their non-raiding time in the battlegrounds. But then, during one of those periods where I couldn’t face grinding anymore and all of my quests were either too high-level or involved dungeons, I tried both WSG and AB. And you know what? I absolutely, totally love it.
In the beginning, of course, I was abysmal; I was everyone’s meat. But I got better, and am becoming addicted to the adrenalin rush. I can actually do some damage, my kill-to-death ratio is finally on the “good” side, and I’m learning a lot more about playing my class. I do, however, have a few questions…
Why does Alliance suck so badly? In every single match I’ve ever been in, Alliance has been disorganised, rushing off every which way like startled rabbits, arguing about tactics or (worse) not communicating at all. Horde, on the other hand, seem to be very well organised, they work as groups, they’re very well geared and they always wipe us out. Every. Single. Time. It’s very discouraging. They also seem to be a lot more hardcore than Alliance is; I’ve been in a few where you couldn’t even rez because there were two or three Horde players camping the graveyards, waiting for players to rez and be re-killed.
That said, I still want to play. I’m even twinking my level-48 hunter a bit: Elven chain boots, Stoneraven, new mail, matched one-handed blades with plus attack power for dual-wield. I check my HKs and rank. I’m getting serious about it, which amuses me no end. But you know what? I still refuse to duel. :)
So, what are your experiences in battlegrounds? Why is Alliance seemingly destined to lose? Why can’t we play as a team?
I think you will find more new or casual gamers playing the allience side versus the horde. That’s my guess. I play on the Horde side, and have been playing the Arathi Basin game this past week: I have only been part of one losing game. And i’ve played my fair share now.
And graveyard camping is lame, and most of the time when I’ve played and I see people doing it i’ll tell them off, or someone else will beat me too it.
Alliance finds more success in Alterac Valley. Though I think it’s because you can win that with minimal interaction with the Horde, unless the Horde actually attempts to ount a defense…then it can go either way.
I see more people take instruction in AV.
I find in my battlegroup, there are certain times of night where you can find Alliance winning AB…the time when the hardcore players are on and they’ll adhere to a strategy and not do stupid things, like try to grab a fourth node when they’re jsut barely holding three.
WSG seems to be dabblers central. They go there cuz they want to kill, not because they want to win.
Honestly, I just hang in there now getting some kills during the 2-5 minutes before AB or AV pops (unless it;s clear to me that the pople in tere are trying, then’ll I’ll stay).
I think there is a feedback mechanism at work too; Alliance sucks in BGs, so the good BG players reroll Horde and the Alliance players that show up have neither experience nor any real motivation to improve, the situation being so hopeless. Cross-realm battlegrounds will make this even worse. Once in a while Alliance queue as a guild, and that might work better, as there is both motive and opportunity to learn from group mistakes.
Having played both sides, my personal impression is a bit different. First, Horde seems to – as has been mentioned – comprised of more re-rolls than “originals”. Which means people know the abilities and racials of their counterparts. Quick, what’s the cooldown on Earthshock or Grounding Totem? What’s the Troll Racial “Berserking” do? I can tell you what Shadowmeld does, what Perception, Stoneskin, or Escape Artist do. I know the cooldowns on pally bubbles, the length of Blessing of Freedom, and I know what Command does for Orcs. That’s a huge advantage.
Secondly, the overall climate. I’ve never seen people argue as much, call each other gay nubs, tell each other how they have a Rank 14 on some other server in 49, 59, and 60 BGs on Horde side as I’ve seen them on Alliance.
AV is a game of loooong drawn out fights between drinking. WSG is one of brief burst damage encounters. Having Paladins and Shamans on either side bemnefits that, as well, Paladins being the masters of 7k mana pools and survivability while Shamans are OOM faster than any other class, morons playing 31 Balance Druids aside. AB is in between, and Horde seems to win whenever there’s even minimal coordination on its side. It doesn’t have to be that way. Paladins are excellent flag defenders, Shadowmeld is hugely powerful in AB, and Paladin blessings are huge.
As to why Alliance sucks at the small BGs, there are a few schools of thought on that.
1) Shaman talents are generally considered better for small-group PVP content than Paladin talents (and the corrolary, Paladin talents are considered better for PVE content).
2) Some people also argue that Alliance racial abilities are better for PVE and Horde racial abilities are better for PVP. I personally think that racials like Troll Berserking are horrible in PVP and racials like Shadowmeld and Perception are awesome, but I concede that Undead Will of the Forsaken really throws a wrench in most Priest and Warlock PVP routines, and the Tauren Warstomp is just great in a group setting.
3) It is PURELY an opinion being expressed here, but having played both an Alliance and a Horde character, I found the Alliance battleground chat and environment extremely hostile, while the Horde chat and environment very friendly. For example, prior to Patch 1.11, I almost never had a problem getting people to form a raid group in both 20-29 and 40-49 Horde BGs, but I frequently found cliques and niches on the Alliance side that refused to group up or try to complete BG objectives, and just tried to farm honor. I have seen very informal statistics that there is a correlation between age and faction (with younger players preferring Alliance and older players preferring Horde), which may convey a sense of maturity, but again, most of this is pure speculation.