Does Horde have -any- relative power to the Alliance?

[Kwento]

I think when it comes down to it, The Horde have no individual or even forces that could stand up against Jaina Proudmore wielding the Staff of Antonidas infused with the power of the Thunder King.
(I'm not saying this is good writing, just a fact, i hope her staff or character is destroyed in BFA)

Power levels wise:
Jaina > The Horde

Absolutely! And Gallywix > The Alliance because of his money and Azerite

[Combatbutler]

I think when it comes down to it, The Horde have no individual or even forces that could stand up against Jaina Proudmore wielding the Staff of Antonidas infused with the power of the Thunder King.
(I'm not saying this is good writing, just a fact, i hope her staff or character is destroyed in BFA)

Power levels wise:
Jaina > The Horde

She had that staff in so many conflicts now and once almost died wielding it, so I wouldn't say it grants her that much of a boon to be honest.

[Skyforge1]

She had that staff in so many conflicts now and once almost died wielding it, so I wouldn't say it grants her that much of a boon to be honest.

Name one since it was empowered in MoP?

[Rydanis]

Let's not forget, the use of arcane magic was banned by the Kaldorei for quite some time. It wasn't until the Cataclysm that arcane was permitted to be used in Night Elf society, so those Kaldorei in the Cinematic would have laughably little skill after either being entirely new to being mages, or picking it back up after several thousands of years of disuse. I'm not sure how anyone actually believes the Alliance is anywhere near as powerful as the Horde when it comes to magic, even with all their skilled humans.

And it wasn't the Alliance that wiped an entire city off the map with a mana bomb. When was the last time they actually achieved a significant military victory? They lost Theramore, Southshore, much of Ashenvale, Gilneas, and soon to be Teldrassil. They are absolutely formidable, yes, but not at all the invincible force OP seems to believe them to be.

[Combatbutler]

Name one since it was empowered in MoP?

Siege of Orgrimmar, Garrosh's trial, where she lay literally dying on the floor and was saved by Chi-ji for example.

[Mehrunes]

Now, to address the pile of nonsense from the OP:

Alliance:

Humans. Weaker person per person when compared to members of the horde, but much more numerous, disciplined and better equipped. Humans in WoW universe aren't much to look at, but like in many fantasy universes their power largely comes form diplomacy and ability to assemble a fighting force of other races superior to the sum of its parts.

Why are the much more numerous, exactly? The current Alliance has mostly humans of Stormwind. Stormwind was flattened by the Old Horde mere three decades ago. Survivors fled to Lordaeron where they all managed to arrive in Southshore, which isn't even a city. After that Alterac was dismantled by the Alliance and its population formed the Syndicate that's hostile to the Alliance. Stromgarde left, then fell to Trolls and Ogres. Gilneas left and almost got destroyed by the civil war, Worgen outbreak, Cataclysm and Forsaken invasion. Dalaran got demolished by the Legion and is now neutral, Lordaeron (the largest nation) was almost entirely Scourge-ified and Kul Tiras lost its main army and navy to the Horde, then vanished for years and only now returns to the fold.

Also, what humans are in other fantasy is irrelevant, since in WoW Alliance's army is utterly dominated by humans. Given the above, that doesn't say much about the rest of Alliance.

Dwarves. I feel like ever since Warcraft 3 Blizz was going out of their way to diminish the importance and power of steam tanks. They weren't even a part of any major conflict, purely for reasons of a giant metal thing with a cannon DWARFING -ANYTHING- horde can throw back at it. This alone would make alliance vs horde conflict quite trivial. But guess what? I'm not even half-way done. Dwarves also happen to be tough bastards that carry axe-rifles, and come BfA will also hold the most important chokepoint in the Eastern Kingdoms (Blackrock Mountain). They make best equipment in the warcraft world. And frankly, dwarves alone should be able to if not completely send the greens running, but win any defensive attrition war against any attempts to attack them in the mountains.

Why on earth is Blackrock mountain the most important chokepoint in Eastern Kingdoms? Blackrock is in the middle of nowhere, Fuckville. It's surrounded by utterly worthless wastelands. Stormwind would be attacked by a Horde army arriving by sea in a nearby coastal zone. Khaz'modan would be attacked by Horde army arriving by sea in Wetlands or by air/sea in Twilight Highlands.

Night Elves. Lacking in numbers and evidently losing much of their territory, a night elf archer would still realistically be a much bigger presence on any battlefield than the game leads on. The way Saurfang just shrugs off arrows in the cinematic is a prime example of Blizz giving orcs plot armor. Those three arrows should've left him bleeding out and dying, but I guess with the healing the way it is in WoW real life physics of fractured bones & muscles don't really apply. Still; Night elves are quite big, nimble and vicious, and should be quite challenging to take down, even if they have largely lost creatures like stone giants helping them wipe the floor with orcs in warcraft 3.

And yet they have been continously ground into the dirt by the Horde and needed to be bailed out by Alliance reinforcements from EK each time. This time unsuccessfully, with the Horde burning down their world tree and their capital with it. And you don't understand how arrows work. You don't bleed out when you get shot with arrows. You bleed out if you remove the arrows (if they hit parts that bleed significantly). Saurfang broke the shafts of the arrows. Also, they hit him in his metal armor (one in his super thick pauldron). They wouldn't get deep.

Draenei. Again, big and experienced due to age; There isn't much in ways of old tbc draenei lore to really quantify their power, but the lightforged literally have SPACE SHIPS AND LASER BEAMS. Again; Much like dwarves, how does this even compete vs literal spear-chuckers?

Draenei were almost wiped out by the Old Horde, then the Legion almost finished the job recently. The survivors of Legion's attack on Exodar all fit under Velen's tiny shield.

Horde:

Orcs, trolls and tauren all largely fall into one category -- superior 1v1 to a human, but woefully under-equipped and unable to tactically take larger-scale engagements. There's no tactics to speak of, no discipline, just primal rage and blunt but effective shamanism. Well guess what -- being angry at a dwarven tank ain't going to do sh*t as it rolls you over and turns you into a horde-flavoured pancake. And unlike the alliance united under the humans, horde is a much more loose conglomerate largely weary of working together. They stand ideologically divided, with the races not in any way complementing each other on the battlefield.

The Horde demolished Stormwind in the First War, was demolishing the Alliance in the Second War until Gul'dan took a large part of them away. The Horde was demolishing the Alliance in WotLK-MoP war until Darkspear Rebellion happened. The faction that's failing at strategy and tactics is the Alliance. They overextended like retards in Cata and it cost them a dozen zones. Vol'jin defeated an army multiple times larger than his in Shadows of the Horde. One Tauren managed and the player managed to completely destroy a Dwarven fortress in the Barrens (defended by multiple tanks).

Undead. Now this is probably the most powerful race the reds have due to one single trump card -- the plague. Realistically, with the Valkyr gone and the forsaken taking MASSIVE losses in those Legion warden tower quests there shouldn't be more than a few thousand of them left; But even that aside, a forsaken combatant is largely weaker than even their human counterpart. They may not 'die' as it were when they get their head cut off but it is mighty difficult to battle without arms. Their gear is busted and rotten. And there's a reason a stereotypical undead is a rogue -- their best way of attack comes from subtlety, not full frontal engagements.

Since when did the Forsaken take massive losses in Warden towers? Those were teeny tiny conflicts. And only a thousand left? Never mind the idiotic reason you claim behind it, but the Forsaken are massive. They begun as half of Scourge forces in Lordaeron, which consisted of almost all population of Lordaeron (the largest human nation), parts of Gilneas, Alterac, Stromgarde and significant portion of Dalaran and 90% of High Elves. Then they began resurrecting thousands daily from old graves once they got the Val'kyr. Also, undead in WoW are physically strong. And their armor isn't busted and broken, because they are capable of making a new one. And they still have Val'kyr.

Goblins. Again -- as combatants they're worthless, but their exploding machinery can prove quite deadly. But there has been no evidence of horde-aligned goblins building anywhere near as efficient and numerous mechanized military as their alliance counterparts, especially after most of it was dismantled during Siege of Orgrimmar.

"Especially after most of it was dismantled during the Sige of Orgrimmar"? So you're counting what Blackfuse made? Good thing it completely trumped anything Gnomes and Dwarves ever built.

Blood Elves -- Lore-wise they are very few, but even if we assume player-centered 60+% of the horde numbers, that still doesn't explain how a bunch of wannabe-paladins, decent rangers & decent mages can do much more than stall their alliance foes, should they choose to go fully offensive. Also; Any advantage blood elves have is largely trumped by the presence of void elves. A mana bomb would do some damage, but I doubt that after theramore the alliance would just let that happen again. And frankly I still consider mana bomb in theramore to just be bad writing.

Right, decent Mages. In a magocracy. With a reignited Sunwell. And decent rangers when their military revolves around those. With Sylvanas being one of the best archers in Azeroth's history. And with Blood Elves having anima golems.

[Azen]

So many alliance fanboys "quoting lore" without any citation...

If you are gonna measure dicks, don't do it with just your opinion. Your arguments have zero credibility then. All I read most of the time is;

AllianceFanboy#66554: "alliance is better because I BELIEVE we have better everything"

[Mehrunes]

That's true, but there's a lot fewer of them. And let's not forget that night elves are basically just bigger blood elves, when it comes to archery. Perhaps even magic. Come to think of it, there really weren't any memorable blood elves in the BfA cinematic, which is why my thoughts are a bit skewered against them. It will be nonetheless curious to see what becomes of Quel'Thalas, as it does feel like the alliance advancing that far north will put them in a bit of a predicament. -- assuming Blizz ever get off their asses and decide to do -anything new- with BC zones.

Even magic? Each and every time Blood Elves fought Night Elven Mages in Cata, the Night Elves ended up humiliated. And mostly dead.

given that all the godlike lore figures have left the alliance and become neutral id say allys dont have that much of an edge anymore.
thou one whould assume that dranei and night elf mages/druids/shammys whould be far superior to any other race simply due to having gained experience for many millenias.. Tbh even an average nightelf/dranei mage shoudl be way ahead of jaina proudmore for instance.
A below average night elf hunter whoudl still have milions of hours of archery training, while a troll hunter whould have 20-50k hours.

Night Elven Mages got kicked out from Kalimdor thousands of years ago and are now in the Horde. The Highborne that joined in Cata are few in numbers, spent ages sacrificing each other to a demon in order not to die and the Darnassian Night Elves they trained were all failures when it came to confrontations with the Blood Elves. And Draenei discovered Shamanism only after Draenor exploded.

[Aucald]

While I understand this is an often passionate subject, but tempers and rhetoric need to be kept civil. Any further unnecessary invective beyond this warning will be met with penalties.

[Ophenia]

Horde:

Orcs, trolls and tauren all largely fall into one category -- superior 1v1 to a human, but woefully under-equipped and unable to tactically take larger-scale engagements. There's no tactics to speak of, no discipline, just primal rage and blunt but effective shamanism. Well guess what -- being angry at a dwarven tank ain't going to do sh*t as it rolls you over and turns you into a horde-flavoured pancake. And unlike the alliance united under the humans, horde is a much more loose conglomerate largely weary of working together. They stand ideologically divided, with the races not in any way complementing each other on the battlefield.

But this Primal Rage will make you able to destroy guys such as Mannoroth. Not a single Human could do something like that, I'm even sure that not even a group of well-coordinated Humans could do that.

Tribal forces are often way more resiliant than "intelligent" races. That's why Saurfang can withstand 3 arrows in the chest while Varian couldn't do shit after being hit by 2 spears.

[Amaterasu65]

Alliance was a "superpower" in the end of MoP, after saving Horde from their own Warchief. Doubt it changed much since then, even with the Allied Races added to both factions.

[Mehrunes]

Army:
The Horde has many capable warriors.
An Orc or a Tauren can take on two Humans at a time.
Now, for some reason i dont understand, the Worgen are supposed to be the best fighters who can easily outmatch an orc (O_o?)
And there's also the Nightelves, Draenei and Dwarves. Who are also great fighters.
But! The Horde now has the Zandalari. Many Troll warriors with their imba regeneration. Which is incredibly op lorewise.
At range, it's basically Dwarves/Nightelves VS Bloodelves.
But while the allies would win the ranged battle, the Zandalari still make up for everything.
Horde takes this one.

There's also the part where Alliance loses more than half of the large force they sent to Undercity. And fails to take it and is forced to flee to Arathi.

Navy:
With the new BFA information at hand, the Zandalari are said to have the biggest naval fleet.
Close second is the Kul'tirans.
Third is Stormwind.
The rest are irrelevant.
I say this one is a tie.

Alliance lost the entirety of its navy in Tides of War. Zul burns their rebuilt navy in BfA. During WoW's time the Horde won basically every naval fight and successfully blockaded two continents for a time (in case of Lordaeron it was at least half a decade).

Air:
I dont think i need to say much.
The Horde has a few beast riders, and a tiny number of pilots.
While the Alliance has a few Gnomish pilots, a lot of Ironforge pilots and riders,
the Wildhammer gryphon riders who lorewise are incredibly op.
And of course, the Vindicaar.
Alliance takes this one by far.

The Horde has zeppelins (that predate Alliance's gunship by years), their own gunships, Goblin planes, Troll/Forsaken bat riders (as seen in Legion that is already enough to take down an Alliance gunship while the Alliance needed gyrocopters to take down a Horde one in MoP) and at least one Frost Wyrm.

Engineering:
While the Horde now has the Bilgewaters, they are very very few. So very few.
On the other hand, the Alliance has more Gnomish engineers, a ton of Dwarven heavy machinery, and Draenei/Lightforged engineering too.
The Horde however has a wildcard. The Forsaken with their Blights.
I'll give this one to the Alliance, but fear the Blight.

Why would they be so very few? The ship the player escaped on wasn't the only one. And Gnomes wiped out 80% of their population and turned a part of the survivors into Leper Gnomes when they detonated their radiation bomb. Forsaken also build quite a lot of stuff (mostly related to the Blight), Blood Elves have Anima golems, Orcs still build some decent siege weapons (and if the Mag'har allied race is from AU Draenor, they have very advanced weaponry thanks to Garrosh).

And lastly, Magic:
Nightborne and Bloodelves vs a bajilion alliance spellcasters, including the Kirin Tor.
And so much light magic to deal with the Forsaken.
There's also shamans, druids and warlocks on both sides, but lorewise they are not that many.
Alliance takes this.

Two magocracies vs one magocracy that's a city state that was ravaged 3 times in a decade. Wait, Dalaran is neutral again. So two magocracies (and the Forsaken that used to be Kirin Tor members and Zandalari Empire) vs one Jaina. And at least one magical well.
Alliance gets obliterated on magic front.

[Saberstrike]

Why are the much more numerous, exactly? The current Alliance has mostly humans of Stormwind.

Because while you wrote a lot about what humans suffered, don't forget -- current orcs are at most a few hundred that escaped post warcraft 2 detainment camps, who used human ships (most of which crashed on the way) to land in Kalimdor and got buddy-buddy with a single tauren village that got ran over by a bunch of centaurs. If we consider humans to be in the thousands, orcs / tauren should be in the hundreds. And Darkspear should be in the dozens. That's why humans are -- realistically -- the most numerous race, even despite the orcish conquests. They beat back the orcs; Plus humans are like cockroaches, they are everywhere.

Why on earth is Blackrock mountain the most important chokepoint in Eastern Kingdoms?

Because besides navy it's one of only two ground routes between dwarven lands and Stormwind -- second being Badlands --, with both being tight defensible choke points that are surrounded by harsh terrain, inherently leading to attrition if a large army chooses to march through either. Using navy in this case is smart; But we're yet to see who wins that one in BfA.

[Deleted]

You lot have the vindicaar. So yeah. You lot are wining.

[StationaryHawk]

Reading this was difficult. You admit to being biased, but have built your entire argument upon it.

[Mehrunes]

You sell Humanity short imo, they are potentially the most powerful race on Azeroth.
Even though the last race to actually learn how to wield magic, they have some of the -if not the - most powerful mages on Azeroth.

All the ancient races are on their last legs and the brutish races in Azeroth eventually can't match the Alliance races when it comes to creativity, technological advancement and strategic leadership.

Which is why the greatest feats of engineering came from Blackfuse and Alliance's strategy in Cata consisted of "let's attack every zone at once and then wonder why we lost a dozen zones after we spread our forces too thin"

I am alliance too. But even if I were not, everything you said is true regardless. That and the fact that "Blood elves" could actually be more at home in the Alliance then they are siding with undead..... Tauren are far more alike to Night Elves and other alliance races... then Orcs... but oh well... "Thrall saved the Tauren" so now they are part of the horde! Fuck realism, fuck politics....

Especially the part about Forsaken numbering in the thousands because lel Warden towers. Also, Blood Elves were betrayed by the Alliance multiple times and Tauren are much more Shamanistic (which ties them to Orcs) than they are Druidic.

[Highwhale]

Which is why the greatest feats of engineering came from Blackfuse and Alliance's strategy in Cata consisted of "let's attack every zone at once and then wonder why we lost a dozen zones after we spread our forces too thin"




Especially the part about Forsaken numbering in the thousands because lel Warden towers. Also, Blood Elves were betrayed by the Alliance multiple times and Tauren are much more Shamanistic (which ties them to Orcs) than they are Druidic.

Both cases were gameplay reasons. Alliance lose lands in Cataclysm revamp because Horde side had less zones to level. BELF joined Horde to balance A:H players ratio.

[Combatbutler]

You sell Humanity short imo, they are potentially the most powerful race on Azeroth.
Even though the last race to actually learn how to wield magic, they have some of the -if not the - most powerful mages on Azeroth.

All the ancient races are on their last legs and the brutish races in Azeroth eventually can't match the Alliance races when it comes to creativity, technological advancement and strategic leadership.

Humanity is one of the oldest races on the entire planet and they didn't built a notable society until 3.000 years ago. Humanity has more or less a history of sitting on their hands and not getting shit done for at least 12.000, they started to appear at the same time the trolls began to rise.

And even what they have built today pales in comparison to the nations of the past.

[omeomorfismo]

I think when it comes down to it, The Horde have no individual or even forces that could stand up against Jaina Proudmore wielding the Staff of Antonidas infused with the power of the Thunder King.
(I'm not saying this is good writing, just a fact, i hope her staff or character is destroyed in BFA)

Power levels wise:
Jaina > The Horde

if even a powerfull and experienced mage as kadghar with atiesh can be easily stabbed to death by a young and a inexperienced garona why jaina shouldnt? take a random shadowstalker, train him enough with belmont and he will be ready to skeaky in all azeroth places....

[Azen]

Both cases were gameplay reasons. Alliance lose lands in Cataclysm revamp because Horde side had less zones to level

Alliance gained new questing hubs Post cataclysm too.

BELF joined Horde to balance A:H players ratio.

The horde needed a race which would balance population, Blood Elves where a good fit because they had been betrayed by the Alliance since before WOW. Joining the Horde made the most sense.