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

[Deleted]

We'll see. It's up to blizzard how bfa ends. I guess both sides have casualties, and stop fighting when we realize there's a new powerfull threat rising from tha depths... /WHOA
Lorewise alliance has moar power, but Horde kicks more ass.

[Terongor]

I know right, not even against themselves

First war was horde victory. End of third war at that point we cannot be sure it Jainas survivors of lordaeron where part of the alliance and neither was Night elves. Also what war did the alliance win without horde support? They only won second war because of Gul'dans betrayal if Gul'dans and Dragonmaw forces had arrived to support the siege of Lordaeron they would have crushes Lordaeron.

Also before SoO it was stated neither side alone could take on Garrosh. So tell what war did alliance win alone? Without anysupport from horde traitors? BtDP was win for the horde because its warchief succeeded with his goals and alliance lost because their main purpose was to stop Ner'zhul.

Also battles are differant than wars.

[frogger237]

To which your only argument that actually had some explanation to it was explicitly contradicting Word of God. So, in conclusion, you've offered absolute squat to justify that conclusion.

Funny how you mention word of god when others and I will link in game shit and Blizz quotes in several threads showing you are wrong with what ever the thread was about and yet you just write it off as colorful writing or make up some head cannon why it isn't true. I was wrong about most the orcs siding with Garrosh.

This threads whole point was if the Horde could realistically have relative power to the Alliance and the answer is no. Realistically the majority of Human soldiers would take on the Worgen curse since it gives you a resistance to undeath and improves your combat abilities. Anyone with an even remote connection to the void would have been kicked out of Silvermoon as they would never want to take another chance of the Sunwell being corrupted and they don't have Alleria to fix it if shit goes down again. Hell Umbrics followers were kicked out for just researching it, this was before they even became void elves and had void powers.

And like I said before, void elves would be the only ones to join a faction since they are kinda forced to. And even if this werent the case the Lightforged could nuke both Suramar and Highmountain from orbit. The majority of the Nightbornes mastery over magic involves the leylines and so their power would be diminished anywhere else until they map and discover them elsewhere.

Demon hunters follow Illidan and prob wouldn't join the Horde. Especially when they are threatened by the war chiefs second in command.

Since there are many different factions of goblins whose only loyalty is to coin, the Alliance would easily be able to obtain all the goblin tech they wanted and then have the gnomes improve on it. Blimps are terrible as warships and would easily be shot down.

Sylvanas would need to start sacrificing her own soldiers to blight the shit out of the Alliance and the majority of the Horde would turn on her.

[Zulkhan]

Yeah I'm done with this too. The whole point of the Horde was that they were smaller groups of outsiders, joining together for protection, and making up in strength what the Alliance has in numbers. The scrappy underdogs as it were.

No, not really. The whole point of the Horde was getting a bunch of survivalists together, either people that had to found a stable home yet or got their already established homes threatened from multiple sides, hence the need of allies to achieve these goals. That's what granted the "underdog" feeling. Attaching that feeling to arguments about inferior numbers is unsubstantiated as you can get. Little to nothing proves the Alliance to have bigger numbers, only that they had established homelands and claimed territories from the very start, which is why they banded together for completely different reasons.

The only real advantages the Alliance had was overall better technology and a firm defensive mindset when it comes to martial equipment and built fortifications. Then again, the factions expanded and grew over the years, gradually improving their respective lackings and getting near to close certain gaps.

Aye I think they forget the hord has never won a war without alliance help yet.

You must really pretend to be blind for not seeing the other side of the argument, namely the Alliance never defeated the Horde until this didn't crumble on itself.

[Deleted]

First war was horde victory. End of third war at that point we cannot be sure it Jainas survivors of lordaeron where part of the alliance and neither was Night elves. Also what war did the alliance win without horde support? They only won second war because of Gul'dans betrayal if Gul'dans and Dragonmaw forces had arrived to support the siege of Lordaeron they would have crushes Lordaeron.

Also before SoO it was stated neither side alone could take on Garrosh. So tell what war did alliance win alone? Without anysupport from horde traitors? BtDP was win for the horde because its warchief succeeded with his goals and alliance lost because their main purpose was to stop Ner'zhul.

Also battles are differant than wars.

you sound a littel salty, says it all when you need to find excuses to say the alliance wasn't the alliance when it won

[Powerogue]

The goblins are genuises at weaponry and technology. They build the mana bomb. They RESHAPED AN ENTIRE ZONE just to impress the horde. What they put their minds to, they accomplish or explode trying. (Which is often a success!)

Blood elves are rejuvinated by the power of the sunwell, and now have the powerful blood magic constructs from the thunder king in their arsenal. I still wonder where they're getting new ones, did they just put that titan keeper in M'uru's old room? Someone needs to check on that...

undead, as you pointed out, have the plague, which depending on the recipe can melt flesh right off the bone, turn enemies into shambling monsters, or make a mean triple-layer dip for a party.

Orcs are like double the size of your average human and roided to hell. Tauren are similarly big and beefy. Not sure what to give the darkspear trolls though, except trolls in general having the remarkable knack to keep coming back after being kicked down.

[Tsiku]

Disclaimer: I'm an Alliance player, so I am biased.

As an Alliance player and a fan of the lore of the Warcraft, I'm appalled at the huge disservice you just did to the Horde. The way you talk about the races its as if you've never even looked into the lore outside of just playing the Alliance questing zones. Before you make posts, you should do a little research.

Orcs: Physically strong(yes 3 elf arrows aren't going to do much if they aren't aimed for the head) and the best Shamans in the game, masters of controlling and speaking to the Elements, and you just shrug it off. You follow up by claiming that they can't do anything as a group??? Like hello? Even when they were being controlled by the blood of Mannoroth they still worked as a group of Orcs. They are disciplined and they fight with Honor.

Trolls: Didn't even mention their dark art roots, being masters of assassination and voodoo magic. While trolls in game have been portrayed pretty poorly, I'm expecting that to chance come BFA. Lets not forget that prior to Horde the Troll Tribes almost wiped out the Elves of Quel'Thalas.

Tauren: The only known race actually capable of summoning and speaking to the spirits of their fallen, having the fastest 'runners' in lore, and another burly race capable of taking many hits before actually falling.

Undead: Old citizens of the Kingdom of Lordaeron, many of the best Human warriors, mages, and hunters came from Lordaeron and you shrug it off saying "ya they're only good at being rogues". Please...learn your lore, thanks. As for the Val'kyr, Sylvanas still has 4 of the original 9 pact members able to resurrect her and has been shown to have several other lesser Val'kyr in her army not able to resurrect her.

Goblin: lol what? What have the Alliance Gnomes built that the Goblins don't have "superior numbers" of? You're literally making head-canon at this point. As for their being "worthless" in combat, Goblins have always been great tacticians, because of how smart they are, and the Alliance themselves lost several battles because they underestimated goblin tactics during the second war.

Blood Elves: "decent rangers and mages" like again, what? The BEST mages and rangers came from Quel'Thalas, of ANY race of ANY faction. They also have spellbreakers, elite forces able to shut down enemy mages of any kind. While they're diminished in number only, they make up for it with the skill to take down any Alliance race in a 1v1 fight with the exception of possibly Worgen if it were 2 non-mages.

[Terongor]

you sound a littel salty, says it all when you need to find excuses to say the alliance wasn't the alliance when it won

They won what? Like tell what did they win alone?
Also Night elves weren't part of the alliance during third war and if you count survivors of lordaeron as part of the alliance we could still argue that horde forces did more work because of their numbers and horde had alot of freed people from interment camps, trolls and tauren, also Thrall actually hurting Archimonde unlike Jaina.

Also what did the refugees with Jaina did? got crushed by Archimonde and Scourge? only major thing they managed to do was free Grom from demon corruption who killed Mannoroth after that.

[Magnagarde]

namely the Alliance never defeated the Horde until this didn't crumble on itself.

The Horde's betrayal from within doesn't change the fact the Alliance won the Second War. He explicitly mentioned winning a war, not the way the war was won and he wasn't wrong.

The Alliance had numerous betrayals from within too(ie Medivh, Perenolde), but managed to overcome them and win the war against the Horde.

Blood Elves: "decent rangers and mages" like again, what? The BEST mages and rangers came from Quel'Thalas, of ANY race of ANY faction.

That is not entirely true. The best mages overall are humans, whereas arguably the most powerful one was a night elf.

There's no arguing the fact that the best rangers come from Quel'thalas because rangers have been invented in Quel'thalas to begin with. It's like saying that the best Windows OS comes from Microsoft.

[chr2]

I think we can all agree that Alliance has the numbers advantage and the tech advantage while the Horde has the strength advantage.

Now I see a lot of people discussing magic, and I'd say the Horde wins this one. Here's why:

Arcane - The Horde has two races whose civilizations are literally based upon arcane magic (Blood elves and Nightborne for those who don't follow), while the Alliance now has the Dark Iron dwarves who are pretty keen on magic too, but it's not as big a part of their culture as say smithing. Otherwise most other Alliance races have only really dabbled in the arcane, while one (*cough* night elves *cough*) literally frowns upon it. Some people have brought up that the Draenei are ancient and would have vast knowledge of the arcane, but the Draenei are mostly based around the light and are already few in number, so what little amount of Draenei mages there are, while probably powerful, are in the end significant. Aside from the big two mentioned in the beginning, only a few of the other Horde races really delved into the arcane. It should also be mentioned that a good number of Alliance mages decide to join the Kirin Tor of Dalaran instead, who remain neutral since the war on the Legion, while Horde mages generally refrain from doing so out of fear of persecution. Horde wins this one.

Fel - Both factions somewhat frown upon fel magic, so only a few number of warlocks would exist in either faction. Still the Orcs have their remnants from the First and Second war who make up a good portion of Orgrimmar (the Cleft of Shadow) and they were kinda the ones who started this whole "warlock" thing. Besides we've seen warlocks have a presence in modern day Horde warfare, both as troops and commanders (like Ga'trul in the Alliance Jade Forest intro), while they have been nowhere near as present in the Alliance. Horde wins this one.

Light - I won't even go into detail with this one. Alliance was the clear winner pre-BfA, and with the addition of the Lightforged and nothing to counter them on the Horde side this has only strengthened their grasp.

Shadow - Pre-BfA there was little to no presence of Void magic in the Alliance, whereas all Forsaken priests were shadow priests since using the Light would hurt them. Now the Alliance is getting Void elves who are all about the Void so this certainly changes things, but not by that much since they aren't very numerous. I'm calling this one a tie.

Nature - Pre-BfA Night elves would've made up the bulk of Azeroth's druids, with there being a decent number of tauren and only a few trolls and worgen. Come BfA Horde now gets Highmountain druids (who, from their lack of in-game evidence, appear few in number) and Zandalari dinomancers (who, from what we've seen in MoP and the BfA alpha (see Raptari Druids), appear fairly numerous), while Alliance so far has gotten nothing, tipping the scales more in the favor of the Horde. If the Horde doesn't win this one, it's definitely a tie.

Death - Like most of the "evil" types of magic, Death magic isn't that present in either the Alliance or the Horde aside from a couple Death Knights in both factions... And then there's the Forsaken. The Forsaken were born of Death magic and they continue to deploy it through their Val'kyr and Dark Rangers. Horde wins here.

Shamanism - Most Horde races are built upon shamanism, while the Alliance only has a couple Wildhammer dwarves and a handful of Draenei who were taught by Nobundo. Horde easily wins this one.

So as you can see the Horde is superior in most schools of magic giving them another advantage. It seems fair that way: Alliance has tech and numbers, Horde has strength and magic. 2:2.

[Azarak]

You're so misinformed it's a bit ridiculous. Like to say you're biased is a massive understatement. To say at all that the Alliance is more advanced already ruins your credibility. The goblins alone are absolutely ingenius, especially when it comes to blowing up their enemies. The undead and blood elves are especially smart as well due to their lifespans and use of magic. Sure the hordes technology is a bit more dated looking in appearance, that's mostly due to style choice.

Your point of all the horde races being low population is also pretty hilarious, especially in terms of orcs, Lauren, undead, and trolls. Sure they've taken heavy loses at some point, but so have the Alliance races, stormwind was completely destroyed by orcs, gnomeregan was destroyed by plague (and still is), night elves like all elves are constantly being decimated (especially come BFA lol) worgen were limited to begin with, etc. You especially mentioned undead numbers being low, but that's ridiculously wrong, let's not forget every human they kill gets revived by val'kyr, while by the way are not even remotely gone (another hit against your credibility, stormheim was just a failed attempt to get ALL val'kyr). And using the warden towers as a canon lore point is fucking hilarious lol. Youre use of it is invalid anyway because the Alliance technically lost just as many people at those towers lol

The undead have a very strong military and not needing to sleep or eat is a very strong military advantage. Let's also not forget that the orcs military is so strong that it took the combined might of the entire Alliance and the rest if the horde just to stop Garrosh. Orcs (however primitive you wrongly THINK they are) have very powerful siege machines as well. Of course after SoO they might have lost a bit of power, but that doesn't mean they're just dead. Also any advantage you think humans might have, the Forsaken would have as well, on the count of being human in their lives.

I'm not going to say the Alliance are weak, because I'm not ridiculously biased. But I am informed enough to know that the factions are pretty equal in power each with their advantages and disadvantages (all of which are most likely known by the other).

[Rydanis]

I'm not going to say the Alliance are weak, because I'm not ridiculously biased. But I am informed enough to know that the factions are pretty equal in power each with their advantages and disadvantages (all of which are most likely known by the other).

This. This is what most of the people in this thread have been saying, and yet we get responses like "you're salty" and such. We're not salty, we're just defending against the aggressively biased title of the thread and all of the OP's insisting that the Horde has not a single strength besides goblins. They actually asked for Horde players to come and talk to them over this. See here.

So... yeah. Can some more horde-aligned players give me a different perspective on the matter? Cause it looks to me that red VS blue is swiftly devolving to a mix of 16th - 30th century warfare -somehow- struggling to defeat bronze age barbarians and their slightly less backwards friends. It's getting a bit ridiculous.

Directly to the OP, I would say you might want to actually level a Horde character and read our quests to get a better idea of what the Horde is capable of, according to the most current in-game lore. I honestly do believe the factions are on equal footing and have very different strengths and weaknesses, but I may be a little biased playing on both sides.

[mickybrighteyes]

That is not entirely true. The best mages overall are humans, whereas arguably the most powerful one was a night elf.

um.. what? citation please.

Best mages overall being the group of general master of nothing jack of all trades category that does basically whatever the plot demands? OR the civilizations that spend more time practicing the tactics/art as this overall 'best' group has spent climbing out of the dirt and building their civilization up (to also include the time period where they finally got around to learning the basics of magic)....

and most powerful being a night elf? let me just say this, if it's who I think you're referring to... they aren't anything like the night elves we see in game and are more like the nightborne in their ideas and beliefs.

[Magnagarde]

um.. what? citation please.

Best mages overall being the group of general master of nothing jack of all trades category that does basically whatever the plot demands? OR the civilizations that spend more time practicing the tactics/art as this overall 'best' group has spent climbing out of the dirt and building their civilization up (to also include the time period where they finally got around to learning the basics of magic)....

and most powerful being a night elf? let me just say this, if it's who I think you're referring to... they aren't anything like the night elves we see in game and are more like the nightborne in their ideas and beliefs.

The most powerful mages, overall, have been humans(in the post Arathor period). Aegwynn, Medivh, Rhonin, Jaina and tons of others which can all be easily listed, but I'm going for the most popular ones.

The most powerful mage known to come of Azeroth was Azshara. She was a night elf, so saying she is a nightborne is completely false. Who she most closely resembles in terms of ideology and use of arcane power is another subject that doesn't change the fact that Azshara was a night elf. The nightborne on the other hand are no longer night elves.

[mickybrighteyes]

The most powerful mages, overall, have been humans(in the post Arathor period). Aegwynn, Medivh, Rhonin, Jaina and tons of others which can all be easily listed, but I'm going for the most popular ones.

OK... well Rhonin can be struck from teh list because of flaming hair and raptor army (among other horrible plot developments in his story... I would rank the guardians as pretty nice, except for how they pass their power to each other. Go ahead and thank the elves for the arcane knowledge they passed along with the title of Guardian

The most powerful mage known to come of Azeroth was Azshara. She was a night elf, so saying she is a nightborne is completely false. Who she most closely resembles in terms of ideology and use of arcane power is another subject that doesn't change the fact that Azshara was a night elf. The nightborne on the other hand are no longer night elves.

see here's the thing... the night elves post azshara shunned magic to such a point that the practitioners were holed up in ruins. the night elves that were like Azshara either turned naga or stayed in suramar and were altered by the nightwell.

So yes saying she's more like the nightborne is NOT an innaccurate statement Shaldorei and Sindorei culture and lifestyle is more akin to what Azshara was doing. Or are you under teh impression that the high born night elves back before the war of the ancients were all big on trees and shit like the modern Night Elves are now?

[omeomorfismo]

The most powerful mages, overall, have been humans(in the post Arathor period). Aegwynn, Medivh, Rhonin, Jaina and tons of others which can all be easily listed, but I'm going for the most popular ones.

The most powerful mage known to come of Azeroth was Azshara. She was a night elf, so saying she is a nightborne is completely false. Who she most closely resembles in terms of ideology and use of arcane power is another subject that doesn't change the fact that Azshara was a night elf. The nightborne on the other hand are no longer night elves.

? kirin tor archmages should be more or less on par with higher magisters of silvermoon and guardians are to all effects like 8 mages in one, process that is known by belves. maybe only kadghar is really more powerfull than all others, but neither rhonin nor jaina are said to be better than rommath

[mickybrighteyes]

? kirin tor archmages should be more or less on par with higher magisters of silvermoon and guardians are to all effects like 8 mages in one, process that is known by belves. maybe only kadghar is really more powerfull than all others, but neither rhonin nor jaina are said to be better than rommath

Rhonin was basically heralded as the fiery haired harbinger of doom with a raptor army and often portrayed as being more proficient with magic than even dragons... because reasons... Thank Knaack for this bit of contribution to the WoW lore and be thankful that his demise was actually one of the positive outcomes from the bombing of Theramore. We only pray that his raptor army doesn't resurface in the lore.

[Magnagarde]

? kirin tor archmages should be more or less on par with higher magisters of silvermoon and guardians are to all effects like 8 mages in one, process that is known by belves. maybe only kadghar is really more powerfull than all others, but neither rhonin nor jaina are said to be better than rommath

It is nowhere said that Rhonin is more powerful than Rommath because it doesn't need explicit saying nor do they need comparing. It's like asking Blizzard to explicitly say "Aegwynn(stronger than Rommath btw)" after she batteld the avatar of Sargeras.

Rommath's true power lies with his pragmatism and overall knowledge(and the will to expand said knowledge where others would stay away from it). He however comes nowhere near the majority of the human mages I mentioned.

[Tsiku]

The Horde's betrayal from within doesn't change the fact the Alliance won the Second War. He explicitly mentioned winning a war, not the way the war was won and he wasn't wrong.

The Alliance had numerous betrayals from within too(ie Medivh, Perenolde), but managed to overcome them and win the war against the Horde.



That is not entirely true. The best mages overall are humans, whereas arguably the most powerful one was a night elf.

There's no arguing the fact that the best rangers come from Quel'thalas because rangers have been invented in Quel'thalas to begin with. It's like saying that the best Windows OS comes from Microsoft.

The best mages are elves...hate to break it to you. They live longer which allows them to hone their magical skills, this is known and said in several books laying around in Northrend Dalaran that you can read in game. The specifically say that Humans pick up magic fastest of any of the races, but because of their short lifespans they'll never be as good as elves.

[Magnagarde]

The best mages are elves...hate to break it to you. They live longer which allows them to hone their magical skills, this is known and said in several books laying around in Northrend Dalaran that you can read in game. The specifically say that Humans pick up magic fastest of any of the races, but because of their short lifespans they'll never be as good as elves.

Except that they're really not the best mages in the history of Azeroth, save for Azshara and the time magic which the nightborne excell at. The most powerful mages have otherwise always come from the humans. Why it is so is something only Blizzard has an answer to.