The Alliance is its own worst enemy

[gcsmith]

No wonder Anduin says he can't stop Sylvanas. He's too busy crippling himself with keeping the 'moral high ground'.

I know... in that cinematic i just wanted genn to ask Anduin why theyre not using the vindicarr

[Beerbill Society]

And why should we consider that when Alliance has been consistently getting its ass kicked by the Horde and survived both of its war against them only because of internal turmoil within the Horde?

One word: BIAS.

But I guess the only one who could truly answer this is Blizzard, why be so inconsistent?

Probably because they face the Silver Age Superman Problem, but we will never know.

[Florena]

I barely had any investment in the faction war before but this kills what little I had left. I understand that Anduin wouldn't want to say, firebomb Orgimmar or something, but this goes beyond just being naive.

ENDING THE WAR QUICKLY WOULD SAVE THE LIVES OF YOUR SOLDIERS. Less widows and orphans left at home. Take the quick victory because it's either that or a bloodier victory that costs more lives on your team.

[Tarba]

Lore writers are alliance and horde enemies.

Fixed.

Sylvanas's prehenptive war was to weaken enought the alliance so they could not have the power to make a big attack. Next thing they do is a big attack against the still non-horde Zandalaris.
Then suddenly, after killing their king they want to try "to not push them into the horde". While three months ago the only child of said King and direct heiress was in Stormwind's prison.

[pikopi]

Jaina couldn't even defeat Thrall despite holding one of the world's greatest artifacts. Once Kalec got there it was over for her.

Just the opposite; Kalec saved Thrall from Jaina. He was defenseless against Jaina then

[Hellspawn]

When your goal is peace and not to exterminate every Horde race, Anduin makes a lot of sense

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I genuinely think Sylvanas fans don't like Anduin because he's a representation on what having a leader who actually loves his people and azeroth and just wants the best for the world is like. Anduin is such a maturely written character when you compare him to Sylvanas.

Well it is not about exterminating the horde but to end the war. You know, if you give your enemy time to recover there will be no end of war and blood shed. They sacrificed their people for this advantage only to not use it?

[Hubbl3]

Forcing a surrender of the Horde, ending the war or continuing the war, killing countless more.

Hard choices for the Alliance indeed.

Why is Blizz unable to write good (or "morally grey" for that matter) characters without making them stupid at every scene they are in. You can be good and still recognize that pushing an advantage to force an surrender is better than possibly month/years of slaughter.

But no, not in Blizz world. Everyone is evil and stupid, or good and stupid.

[Octavius]

Jaina couldn't even defeat Thrall despite holding one of the world's greatest artifacts. Once Kalec got there it was over for her.

Varian couldn't have dismantled shit. Without Malfurion and Velen present Alliance leaders were out-powered by the Horde ones. Had Varian tried anything the Alliance leadership would have been gutted and the Alliance army in Orgrimar would be left headless for the Horde to destroy (with Sylvanas resurrecting the humans ever since the rebellion's fleet landed).

Alliance wasn't supposedly a superpower during WoD. They were a superpower shortly after SoO and Blizzard immediately backtracked on that by saying even the majority of Orcs rose against Garrosh, making Horde losses in SoO meaningless (now compare that to the Alliance getting its teeth kicked in for more than two previous years of the war, going as far as losing almost all of its navy to Garrosh's krakens). Comes WoD and Alliance lost its largest fortress on the planet to the Iron Horde (while Horde was only temporarily pushed out of Rockard) and then lost Taylor's entire expedition to a traitor.

Sylvanas vanished from the face of the earth after 4.0 and only sent token support to Theramore and Krasarang. Alliance was basically fighting a war against the Horde missing the might of one of its strongest races and yet were still losing.

The Sunwell doesn't get used against the Alliance either. Blight gets used only sporadically.

-Thrall was on the ground during his confrontation with jaina. Pretty much losing. Then Kalec stopped her. Sounds very much losing.
-Varian could dismantle cause he had the bigger army in town. The only one horde leader who could've stopped a bit the ally was thrall, who was really op at the time. The Alliance has Jaina, who is very powerful but still I guess thrall is more powerful. Still, bigger army, could very likely dismantle the horde (at great cost of lives, of course).
-This is true, they retconned the thing very shortly with the retarded "we said Garrosh could conquer the world, but then only a fraction of one race was with him". Yeah, great writing. Well the horde lost a group of darkspears in nagrand, in general the casualties in draenor were very light for both sides.
-Sylvanas is not so powerful as individual, almost all alliance leader can match her (even genn did that, and is literally the only one without magic abilities of sort) and the forsaken were present in pandaria e made a whole, ridicolous, campaign in Lordaeron. They were very much present in the last war.
- Sunwell in at best defensive weapon (it was said quel'thalas enjoyed a sheild before its destruction, now is unknown if that shield still exists), most likely a boost. Then we can say N.elves have second well of eternity then. Still the alliance has vindicaar which confronted the legion on their own homeworld, a bit different level of weapon.

[Dartz1979]

Jaina and sylvanas are my wow waifus i just wont do it can't kill them.

[Mehrunes]

-Thrall was on the ground during his confrontation with jaina. Pretty much losing. Then Kalec stopped her. Sounds very much losing.

Thrall wasn't actually trying to hurt Jaina. At no point in this fight was he going all out, he was just wasting time trying to talk sense into her and sitting there holding the wave.

-Varian could dismantle cause he had the bigger army in town. The only one horde leader who could've stopped a bit the ally was thrall, who was really op at the time. The Alliance has Jaina, who is very powerful but still I guess thrall is more powerful. Still, bigger army, could very likely dismantle the horde (at great cost of lives, of course).

Please give a source for them having the larger army in Orgrimmar. And Jaina is worthless if she can't cast. Sylvanas silenced Dar'khan with her voice when he was pretty much a Mage god, having Anveena's power him up as him personal Sunwell battery. Jaina is nowhere near that. She'd be silenced and then she'd die.

-Sylvanas is not so powerful as individual, almost all alliance leader can match her (even genn did that, and is literally the only one without magic abilities of sort) and the forsaken were present in pandaria e made a whole, ridicolous, campaign in Lordaeron. They were very much present in the last war.

In Pandaria they were present in Krasarang, just like I said. Other than that they had mere individuals here and there. The campaign in Lordaeron happened in 4.0 and as such was also covered by me. You didn't actually offer a counterargument to my point. The Forsaken didn't aid the Ashenvale campaigns. Or the rest of Kalimdor front. After securing most of Lordaeron they didn't attack the rest of EK even though Menethil's Harbour was ripe for picking with Cataclysm shattering its defenses.

And Sylvanas is ridiculously strong as an individual. Genn didn't match her for squat. He didn't even wound her despite a direct hit with his claws to her face. He barely survived the fight and collapsed after it. Had he not been rescued, he'd have died to poison. To requote what I said on the topic in another thread:

Sylvanas can kill people with her voice. Easily. Anduin comments just that in Before the Storm. And he's a talented Priest (dipping into Paladin) that has the Light to protect him.

She can break bones and armor with her voice, on an army scale, going as far back as shortly after her resurrection, as commented by Arthas in Rise of the Lich King.

She can kill people by floating through them, as evidenced by BfA cinematic.

Not to mention she's one of the most talented archers on Azeroth. On top of that, as evidenced by both BfA and Legion cinematics, her arrows explode. She even took down a siege tower with them.

She's durable to boot. Ass per the Edge of Night, she's nigh invulnerable and would have survived even the fall from the top of ICC. She took a direct hit to the face from Genn in the culmination of Stormheim and had no visible damage, even though in Broken Shore's cinematic Genn was turning demons into sashimi.

And finally, she's just abnormally strong physically. In War Crimes she killed a wolf with her bare hands by ripping its head off. The force required to rip a human head off is around the same as the amount of force required to kill someone with one hit. And wolves have thicker necks, i.e. require even more force.

Plus the aforementioned ability to silenced spellcasting with her voice.

- Sunwell in at best defensive weapon (it was said quel'thalas enjoyed a sheild before its destruction, now is unknown if that shield still exists), most likely a boost. Then we can say N.elves have second well of eternity then. Still the alliance has vindicaar which confronted the legion on their own homeworld, a bit different level of weapon.

The Sunwell is just a smaller Well of Eternity. And Well of Eternity could be used offensively. As for Night Elves, they simply suck at magic. Every time their Mages fought Blood Elven ones in Cata, the Blood Elves humiliated them.

[MikeBogina]

You do remember that Alliance somehow could have Stormwind park be destroyed and remain in that state for several years, whereas "Siege of Orgimmar" left no damage at all, right? Burn a couple of useless buildings, break some walls, anything. Nope. Bloody civil has ended, no trace of it ever happening.

You do remember that Stormwind is the largest and most updated city in the game, right? Orgrimmar also sat in a state of construction for years that made the city look horrible.
So you want a couple of useless buildings to burn down and some broken walls, when none of that even happened in the raid... just like when we raid any place, we never leave permanent damage afterwards and why would there be? You think if a couple buildings got burned, that they'd just leave it there and not fix broken walls? This isn't like a cliff that Deathwing outright destroyed, you can't just repair a cliff that fell into the sea so easily as a couple burned buildings...

This is also the problem with the Alliance, you guys are given too much and then when Cata came along and Blizzard wanted to balance things, you lost zones, theramore and a park... because you had more zones, you had more cities and you had the biggest city.

You're lucky we have mutual enemies to face like Old Gods and the Legion or else you'd see more Alliance heroes dying too(cause you know the 15ish op alliance characters to the hordes 1)

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Jaina and sylvanas are my wow waifus i just wont do it can't kill them.

But you're fine with killing tentacle-waifu Azshara?

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-Thrall was on the ground during his confrontation with jaina. Pretty much losing. Then Kalec stopped her. Sounds very much losing

He was also on the ground during his confrontation with Garrosh, definitely losing.

-Varian could dismantle cause he had the bigger army in town. The only one horde leader who could've stopped a bit the ally was thrall, who was really op at the time. The Alliance has Jaina, who is very powerful but still I guess thrall is more powerful. Still, bigger army, could very likely dismantle the horde (at great cost of lives, of course).

Horde Rebellion = Garrosh's Orcs > Varians army
Thrall could have brought the earth down on them at any moment and Sylvanas could have raised the dead(oh and also cancel out Jaina's magic). The alliance were really in no position at the time, they're lucky "muh honor" was in effect again.

Sylvanas is not so powerful as individual, almost all alliance leader can match her

Literally none of the Alliance members cept for Velen and Anduin would stand much of a chance against her if she used her banshee powers. She doesn't have the destruction capabilities of many of them, but she counters those heavy hitters easily.

Sunwell in at best defensive weapon (it was said quel'thalas enjoyed a sheild before its destruction, now is unknown if that shield still exists), most likely a boost. Then we can say N.elves have second well of eternity then. Still the alliance has vindicaar which confronted the legion on their own homeworld, a bit different level of weapon.

Night Elves having another Well of Eternity would need them to have vials of eternity to create. They're also far removed from using sources of arcane anymore and even devolved back to being more savage/barbaric people closer to the Trolls they evolved from. Then there's the outlawing of the well and arcane use that led to Illidan's imprisonment and the banishing of the Highborne in the first place, the Night Elves would never use a well again.

However the Nightborne may reactivate their NightWell if there was a need for it, and that tapped into the leylines of the world.

Whenever someone mentions the Vindicaar, you just gotta remember one thing... Oculeth. He'd destroy that thing in a split second. And would the Army of Light really risk their last ship capable of fighting against the Horde when they know the real war is coming?

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Probably because they face the Silver Age Superman Problem, but we will never know.

Was that Superman being too powerful, so they have to find ways to put him in situations where he couldn't use all his powers? If so, I've seen Knaak and other writers have this recurring problem where their powerful dragons are restricted to mortal forms, or else problems would be solved quicker.

[WolfRider]

i take it you weren't around for cata/mop, so kindly take your ignorance and stow it.
during cata rastakhan charged zul with finding new homeland since his visions were beginning to annoy him, to this end zul reunited the trolls save for the darkspear and waged war against the alliance and horde.

in mop they resurrected the moju emperor lei shen and once again waged war upon the combined forces of the horde and the alliance.

I was there during Cata and Mop, but you're wrong.
Zul always took advantage of his visions to cheat Rastakhan.
Rastakhan sent Zul away because he was starting to afraid people with his visions, so he gave him some ships and soldiers so Zul could find a new home for him and his followers.
What did Zul? He went to visit every Troll Tribes left to reunite the Troll Empire and use Hakkar's power, a plan that failed.
Then Zul came back to Rastakhan after the Cataclysm, a lot of Zandalari and lesser Tribes followed him. Rastakhan let them flee Zandalar to find a new land.
What did Zul? He went to Pandaria to resurect Lei Shen and try to make a deal with him, another plan that failed.
Zandalari by nature are not conquerors and don't invade lands, they just found the Loas and settled peacefully in Zandalar mountain chains.
Zul, who is NOT from Zandalari high caste, always wanted to expand the Troll Empire and used his visions to manipulate Rastakhan.

So no, Zandalari were not involved in a war against the Alliance. Talanji welcomed the Horde because she suspected a plot against his father.
It took the Alliance raid on Zuldazar and the murderer of his father to make her and the Zandalari join the war against Alliance.

[MikeBogina]

Scrap such stupid ideas right at the start, never to implement them. That easy.

Like no faction conflict at all? I think it's hard for them to not do it, because the game was built on Humans Vs Orcs, Red Vs Blue and that the other stuff like deathwing and demons were added to enhance the story. Then there's also the problem that if we don't take these HordeVsAlliance detours, that we might burn through established lore villains faster.

The Horde and Alliance conflict to me, is just Blizzard's attempt to buy more time and fabricate content because they lack more villains for us to fight. Back in Cata-MoP I would have accepted as them just making mistakes and poor writing, but seeing BFA and them knowing neither faction wants this and they still went and did it, makes me believe that it's not just poor writing and mistakes, but them purposely doing it now. They know they're pissing the fans off with the faction conflict, but their writers aren't good enough to keep up with the pace of 2 year expansions :/

[WolfRider]

What you seem to have issues grasping is the difference between:
- being at war with the alliance
and
- being at war with the alliance cause they are part of the horde.

The former is the case... and was ever since their blockade of ships destroyed 6 of the 7 ships sent after Tanaji's ship.

I think people tends to forget that Zandalari destroyed the Alliance ships because Alliance imprisoned their princess for no reasons and sent battleships to sink her boat. And Alliance entered the Zandalari waters with unfriendly intentions.

Reminds me of the Alliance ship that destroyed a goblin boat full of civilians fleeing Kezan...

[Teleros]

Halford "great attack much success
Shaw "we should have victory within a few weeks"
Genn "horde has never been like this since barely two expansions ago! we should play whack a warchief again and be done with this!"

Anduin "Yes but at what cost?! Surely this sucks, its not like we spent multiple weeks planning this out all across Voldun, Nazmir and Zuldazar....oh we did?"
Jaina "if we attack them while they mourn the king WE KILLED, and PLANNED for, we will be like my arch nemesis Lady Waifu!"

Out of universe I agree with the reasons why, but if you read the spoilers for the Dazar'alor raid, Rastakhan dying was not intended. The plan was to force the trolls into remaining neutral, thus ensuring Alliance naval domination. With that done, they can pick and choose when and where to attack across basically the whole of Azeroth.

Halford saying it was a great success is just him not looking at the bigger picture - ie, what I'd just written above, and which Anduin points out too. Then Jaina goes all wimpish about pushing the attack, and Anduin says a few platitudes.

The fact is that we don't know what the Alliance plans to do after Dazar'alor yet. Logistics permitting, Genn has the right idea (simply put, a quicker victory almost certainly means fewer casualties for everyone, Alliance and Horde), but... /shrug. It wouldn't be the first time Blizzard ignore any and all conception of strategy & logistics in their eternal quest for rule of cool battles and stuff.

[Zandalariprelate]

When your goal is peace and not to exterminate every Horde race, Anduin makes a lot of sense

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I genuinely think Sylvanas fans don't like Anduin because he's a representation on what having a leader who actually loves his people and azeroth and just wants the best for the world is like. Anduin is such a maturely written character when you compare him to Sylvanas.

Do you realize the stupidity of Anduin caused WoD and by proxy Legion? Yeah I don't mind superman like guys on the leadership seat but there are times when even Superman knows the villain must pay for what he has done, that is why he killed once Zod and his gang and always arrest villains, he isn't telling them: Don't do the thing like if people were 5 years old kids

[Tiwack]

We often give our enemies the means for our own destruction.

[Zandalariprelate]

Nope. Garrosh caused WoD - no one else.

are you joking? dead garrosh= No WoD=No AU Gul'dan but WoD gave us the best draenei Yrel, so it was worthy

[Darktbs]

-Thrall was on the ground during his confrontation with jaina. Pretty much losing. Then Kalec stopped her. Sounds very much losing.
-Varian could dismantle cause he had the bigger army in town. The only one horde leader who could've stopped a bit the ally was thrall, who was really op at the time. The Alliance has Jaina, who is very powerful but still I guess thrall is more powerful. Still, bigger army, could very likely dismantle the horde (at great cost of lives, of course).
-This is true, they retconned the thing very shortly with the retarded "we said Garrosh could conquer the world, but then only a fraction of one race was with him". Yeah, great writing. Well the horde lost a group of darkspears in nagrand, in general the casualties in draenor were very light for both sides.
-Sylvanas is not so powerful as individual, almost all alliance leader can match her (even genn did that, and is literally the only one without magic abilities of sort) and the forsaken were present in pandaria e made a whole, ridicolous, campaign in Lordaeron. They were very much present in the last war.
- Sunwell in at best defensive weapon (it was said quel'thalas enjoyed a sheild before its destruction, now is unknown if that shield still exists), most likely a boost. Then we can say N.elves have second well of eternity then. Still the alliance has vindicaar which confronted the legion on their own homeworld, a bit different level of weapon.

Don't bother, Mehrunes head thickness is without equal in this forum.

[Deleted]

are you joking? dead garrosh= No WoD=No AU Gul'dan but WoD gave us the best draenei Yrel, so it was worthy

If anything, it should actually be pinned on Vereesa for changing her mind with the plan at the last minute and merely placing the decision in Anduin's hands. If she had not changed her mind, she would not have warned him, and then Anduin would not have known, and Garrosh would have died. In fact, Sylvanas makes this very point in the Three Sister's comic, so one would imagine that this is a rationale that Blizzard feel could be legimitely argued among the playerbase, otherwise they would not have put it in. But still, this is slightly OT and splitting hairs.