Which US PVE Server is best to go to?

[Vigilate]

I'm going to sound biased, but go with Sargeras-US. You mentioned looking at Turalyon, but coming from a person who has played on both, on Alliance side, you will get more out of Sargeras than Turalyon. Turalyon has few decent guilds, next to no PuG activity, and no pvpers. Sargeras has numerous quality guilds, a vibrant PuG scene, and a respectable PvP scene. Transferring to Sargeras after playing on Turalyon for two and a half year was a breath of fresh air. The complaints about queues are overstated, at least on most US realms. Sargeras has the 2nd highest number of Alliance players in US but only occasionally gets a 5-10 minute queue at prime time on Tuesday nights. Even then, 99% of the time, there is no queue.

[Redpanda]

Stormreaver-US has a lot of competitive guilds, to even get on the front page for 10 man at this point you have to kill siegecrafter we also have a lot of high progression 25-mans with 17 25s pushing solid progression.

http://www.wowprogress.com/pve/us/stormreaver

We aren't insanely Populated but we are high pop we have a good economy but still enough flexibility that it isn't being manhandled like Illidan's we are ranked 5th in PvE and been going up crazy fast our Pop is 10 horde to 1 alliance.

We are a PvP server but it hasn't been a problem, rare camping exists but it is definitely possible to get them, unlike other servers where each spawn has 10 people camping it, our Timeless isle has people but isn't like a consistent army raging we are decent pop but we aren't even close to queue times.

dura my love


Stormbeaver represent! Not too populated but good enough to have people to do stuff with. Nice place nice people.

[Kazgrel]

I'm going to sound biased, but go with Sargeras-US. You mentioned looking at Turalyon, but coming from a person who has played on both, on Alliance side, you will get more out of Sargeras than Turalyon. Turalyon has few decent guilds, next to no PuG activity, and no pvpers. Sargeras has numerous quality guilds, a vibrant PuG scene, and a respectable PvP scene. Transferring to Sargeras after playing on Turalyon for two and a half year was a breath of fresh air. The complaints about queues are overstated, at least on most US realms. Sargeras has the 2nd highest number of Alliance players in US but only occasionally gets a 5-10 minute queue at prime time on Tuesday nights. Even then, 99% of the time, there is no queue.

Turalyon did have an influx of folks a couple months ago when free transfers were opened up from Area52 and Stormrage. How exactly it may have affected the server I couldn't say. I have a seldom played alt there, but I could definitely tell a fair amount of folks took the free transfers.

That said, I highly doubt the alliance side there acquired numbers to match Sargeras.

[Equalizer]

Turalyon did have an influx of folks a couple months ago when free transfers were opened up from Area52 and Stormrage. How exactly it may have affected the server I couldn't say. I have a seldom played alt there, but I could definitely tell a fair amount of folks took the free transfers.

That said, I highly doubt the alliance side there acquired numbers to match Sargeras.

Turalyon is still a decent server. However, it's definitely not active for PvP or pug raids though. If anything it'd be more active horde side. Not compared to something like Sargeras.

[Tiberria]

As far as servers that have connected servers attached to them, there are advantages and disadvantages. One huge advantage is the fact that every server your primary server is connected to effectively gives you 11 additional character slots, which is really nice for extreme altoholics. A disadvantage is that you take a latency hit from having connected servers. When US-Ner'zhul was connected with two other servers (that were about half its population combined), I immediately starting getting a 30-50 ms latency increase over where it was before the connection, and over what I get on other non connected servers on the same data center.

One thing to consider with PvP servers is that even if you choose one of the 95%+ faction dominated PvP servers like Illidan, Mal'ganis, Kel'thuzad, etc, you are still subject to CRZ in all zones outside of Pandaria. That means that when you are leveling (1-85 zones), the faction domination isn't there, and you are subject to ganking from other servers. Even PvP servers where world PvP in max level zones is non existent can have a pretty irritating leveling experience. If you want a PvE server because you don't want to be bothered by world PvP, don't choose even a 99% dominated PvP server unless you never level alts.

I wouldn't worry about time zone; time zones are kind of fluid across servers. For example, Stormrage (EST server) has several late night guilds on it. EST guilds often raid on PST servers. Not only that, but whenever a realm connection goes into place, the server's time zone is actually subject to change. Ner'zhul was a PST server but became a CST server because of realm connection somehow. I'd more worry about data center and getting somewhere that has low ping.

http://www.wowwiki.com/US_realm_list_by_datacenter

If you're in eastern Canada, you'll want a NYC datacenter server ideally. Central Canada probably a Chicago server, and western Canada, probably LA or Phoenix. Your ping can easily go from 20 ms to 150 ms depending on which data center server you're on; I know mine does (on the east coast of Canada).

[Kickbuttmario]

As far as servers that have connected servers attached to them, there are advantages and disadvantages. One huge advantage is the fact that every server your primary server is connected to effectively gives you 11 additional character slots, which is really nice for extreme altoholics. A disadvantage is that you take a latency hit from having connected servers. When US-Ner'zhul was connected with two other servers (that were about half its population combined), I immediately starting getting a 30-50 ms latency increase over where it was before the connection, and over what I get on other non connected servers on the same data center.

One thing to consider with PvP servers is that even if you choose one of the 95%+ faction dominated PvP servers like Illidan, Mal'ganis, Kel'thuzad, etc, you are still subject to CRZ in all zones outside of Pandaria. That means that when you are leveling (1-85 zones), the faction domination isn't there, and you are subject to ganking from other servers. Even PvP servers where world PvP in max level zones is non existent can have a pretty irritating leveling experience. If you want a PvE server because you don't want to be bothered by world PvP, don't choose even a 99% dominated PvP server unless you never level alts.

I wouldn't worry about time zone; time zones are kind of fluid across servers. For example, Stormrage (EST server) has several late night guilds on it. EST guilds often raid on PST servers. Not only that, but whenever a realm connection goes into place, the server's time zone is actually subject to change. Ner'zhul was a PST server but became a CST server because of realm connection somehow. I'd more worry about data center and getting somewhere that has low ping.

http://www.wowwiki.com/US_realm_list_by_datacenter

If you're in eastern Canada, you'll want a NYC datacenter server ideally. Central Canada probably a Chicago server, and western Canada, probably LA or Phoenix. Your ping can easily go from 20 ms to 150 ms depending on which data center server you're on; I know mine does (on the east coast of Canada).

Yeah, I live in Eastern Canada. Hmm, I don't know if any of this is true because when I was playing on Magtheridon US, I would be getting good or bad latency at random times. Too random actually. After updating my modem, my internet speed started becoming much better.

[Anprionsa]

Our guild recently moved to Kel'Thuzad. So far we love it. You've actually had a few in this thread as well. Pretty active. New York data center.

[Kickbuttmario]

I chose Mannoroth US at the moment. Solid PVP server with higher alliance/horde ratio toward Alliance and connected with 2 horde toons. 2 Toronto buddies I know both play on a Chicago server and are connected with 3 servers, and got a world 100 kill on heroic Garrosh, so I don't think it really matters.

[Ulfric Trumpcloak]

I havent played wow in a year, but if i remember well, Stormrage has been the best PVE server since Wotlk, and 100% alliance since mid cata. The only downside is that the server is overpopulated but still if you are looking for an alliance pve server, you cant go wrong with stormrage.

nvm, i made the post without reading the whole thing, you dont want queues and apparently stormrage has 20-30min queues at night.

[Kickbuttmario]

Okay, so after 4 hours of Mannoroth US, it seems like its okay but still not sure now. I am now considering Kel'thuzad US because of peer pressure <_<.

[Squirl]

Okay, so after 4 hours of Mannoroth US, it seems like its okay but still not sure now. I am now considering Kel'thuzad US because of peer pressure <_<.

They don't call it Kool'Thuzad for nothing.

[Tiberria]

Okay, so after 4 hours of Mannoroth US, it seems like its okay but still not sure now. I am now considering Kel'thuzad US because of peer pressure <_<.

Just remember that if you really hate world PvP, you'd still have to deal with it in CRZ leveling zones when leveling alts, even if the 99% Alliance ratio on that server makes world PvP in Pandaria non existent. You also still have to deal with Timeless Isle/Censer of Agony with the PvP server rule set.

[Kickbuttmario]

They don't call it Kool'Thuzad for nothing.

All of your fellow guildies and kel'thuzadians get embarrassed and just walk away after you said that

Just remember that if you really hate world PvP, you'd still have to deal with it in CRZ leveling zones when leveling alts, even if the 99% Alliance ratio on that server makes world PvP in Pandaria non existent. You also still have to deal with Timeless Isle/Censer of Agony with the PvP server rule set.

No, I think I am making a bigger deal then I thought I am. A lot of guilds have already fallen a part in Kel'Thuzad US and Mannoroth US so I think I am just going to stay on Mannoroth US for now till I see if I ever decide to go hardcore or casual again.

[Bacail]

Proudmoore alliance is a strong choice. High aussie pop so fewer dead times. Solid economy and generally good people. Solid raiding progression as well.

[Kickbuttmario]

WoW, just realized that Sargeras was CST. Literally a 1 hour difference from EST. Not to mention, most guilds that belong have raid times near the evening at appropriate times. Hmm... Might consider that now.

Thanks for the help MMO-C posters. Yall are making it easier for me to find my new home .

[Deleted]

http://www.wowprogress.com/realms/rank/us

Judging from this, I'd say Stormreaver is by far the best server to go to if you like PvE, but also don't want it to be too populated. Illidan seems awesome if you don't care about server population.

For those of you wondering the same, but with EU servers: http://www.wowprogress.com/realms/rank/eu

Twisting Nether if you don't care about server population. We don't have a queue right now even though we have more ranked raiding guilds than any other server in the game, but there's a pretty nasty queue at patch launches for a few months. It's an awesome server though where you can get any PvE content done at any hour of the day, probably the best in the game if you're a PvE addict.

Stormreaver if you do care about population. It's a relatively small population, but they have a hardcore raiding community there, which gives them a rank as high as #5 US server even though they only have a 1/6 or 1/5 players of the massive servers.