The alliances attack on dazar'alor failed in their intent

[Trassk]

In doing the alliance war campaign, and seeing the last part of tides of vengeance, something I feel needs to be said about this.

Shaw says the planned attack on dazar'alor was to destabilize the hordes relations with the zandalari in an effort to weaken the horde instead of gaining a new force to its side.

And while the alliance killed rastakhan and destroyed much of the zandalaris fleet, what they ended up doing was making the pack between the zandalari and horde stronger as a result.

Its not like the zandalari can't build more boats, and they now have another ruler to replace their one just killed, and in doing so kinda made it personal as a result.

So yeah, what did the alliance really gain from the attack again?

[Kyux]

Yeah, which is exactly what Anduin said afterwards.

Yes the can build more boats but that takes time and resources which is a disadvantage either way. Yes they have a new ruler but a less experienced and charismatic one, and there will always be turmoil when leadership changes. Those two things enough are a decent reason to attack. And they were hoping it would also make the Zandalari reconsider joining the war. That part failed but the Alliance still got other benefits.

[Wilfire]

The Alliance attacked Dazar'alor for the same reason they attacked Taurajo.

The humans are still salty that they lost the First War so they are hellbent on punishing anyone who dares associate with orcs. Doesn't matter who they kill. Military personnel, hunters, civilians are all fair game.

Good thing Baine was there to set things straight and remind everyone that the Alliance has the moral high ground despite murdering civilians and the Horde should just surrender.

[Super Dickmann]

Restoring a fleet takes time and during that time the Alliance has naval dominance. Destroying 50+% of the fleet gives the Alliance a huge advantage logistically, especially since they lost nothing in turn. The Horde and Zandalari were already in bed before that. Before and after, the Zandalari aren't part of the Horde, they're an aligned party that maintain autonomy.

It's a huge victory at minimal cost. They failed at their intended goal, but that goal was pants on head retarded.

[Zandalariprelate]

I can't believe this kind of post are still being created, even if the alliance burned down the whole city, people will still complain "the alliance didn't get nothing but get the horde more angry than ever".

I hope blizz give some important victory so the forums can burn again like in the pre patch.

[Caerule]

The destruction of the Zandalari fleet remains a major victory, even if they did not succeed in forcing the Zandalari to bend the knee.

[Donald Hellscream]

They denied the horde a massive fleet, yeah they can rebuild but its not like they can just conjure up a fleet out of nowhere.

Yeah their ultimate goal failed because they had banked on Rastakhan surrendering, which he was obviously too prideful to do but they still denied the horde a massive military asset.

[rogueMatthias]

Because Alliance is just in the game at this point to further the Horde storyline. The whole of Teldrassil got fridged to drive Horde character development.

Zandalari needed to be weakened so they'd join the Horde and their king needed to die so the princess could take over.

Alliance conveniently attack, even though it makes zero military sense, and then pause and pull back for the Horde to regroup as soon as we've furthered their storyline for them.

[Varodoc]

It doesn't matter if the Zandalari were forced to join the Horde, they weren't neutral anyway (see Zandalari troops attacking Boralus and Kul Tiran captives not far from Dazar'alor), at least now their army was damaged in Nazmir and their fleet at Dazar'alor was greatly weakened, meaning that the Kul Tiran Fleet is now the ultimate power in the high seas, and the Alliance comes closer to victory with each passing day. Even Blightcaller realizes that the Horde is losing on all fronts. But obviously either Sylvanas pulls something out her ass with Knaifu, or Ashvane/Azshara destroy the Kul Tiran fleet. For the moment, though, due to the victory in Dazar'alor, the Alliance is the winning side.

[Nathasil]

In doing the alliance war campaign, and seeing the last part of tides of vengeance, something I feel needs to be said about this.

Shaw says the planned attack on dazar'alor was to destabilize the hordes relations with the zandalari in an effort to weaken the horde instead of gaining a new force to its side.

And while the alliance killed rastakhan and destroyed much of the zandalaris fleet, what they ended up doing was making the pack between the zandalari and horde stronger as a result.

Its not like the zandalari can't build more boats, and they now have another ruler to replace their one just killed, and in doing so kinda made it personal as a result.

So yeah, what did the alliance really gain from the attack again?

All of this also applies to every other "major battle" of the faction war so far...spoiler alert: It will stay this way.

[XDurionX]

In reality it takes years if not decades to restock a fleet, in Wow it's mere minutes.

[Bullettime]

Restoring a fleet takes time and during that time the Alliance has naval dominance. Destroying 50+% of the fleet gives the Alliance a huge advantage logistically, especially since they lost nothing in turn. The Horde and Zandalari were already in bed before that. Before and after, the Zandalari aren't part of the Horde, they're an aligned party that maintain autonomy.

It's a huge victory at minimal cost. They failed at their intended goal, but that goal was pants on head retarded.

It ultimately comes down to the Alliance victory being cheapened for plot convenience. In an actual war, it doesn't matter if the Alliance didn't stop the Zandalari from joining the Horde. What are they going to do when over half their fleet was wiped out and would take years to repair? Talanji would be dealing with the monumental levels of fallout of the Alliance sacking the city and getting out alive while a change in leadership takes place.

The Zandalari would be crippled and forced into a reconstruction effort while giving the Horde more soldiers in a war that isn't won or lost with raw numbers alone.

But plot convenience says that the Zandalari will fire back and still somehow be at peak military power on a revenge mission within 24 hours.

[Super Dickmann]

It ultimately comes down to the Alliance victory being cheapened for plot convenience. In an actual war, it doesn't matter if the Alliance didn't stop the Zandalari from joining the Horde. What are they going to do when over half their fleet was wiped out and would take years to repair? Talanji would be dealing with the monumental levels of fallout of the Alliance sacking the city and getting out alive while a change in leadership takes place.

In actual war the Alliance's goal would have been to destroy the fleet and capture the king as a hostage to threaten the Zandalari into compliance from the start, with killing him and claiming the city as a secondary option. Rather than attacking with the aim of separating the Horde from the Zandalari in some nebulous way and having no follow up because attacking the enemy while they feel sad is wrong. The Alliance did score a win, but the narrative wants the Alliance player to feel bad about it and so has Anduin and Jaina lecture them about how wrong it is to kill your enemy in a war.

As for how relevant it'll be long term, the Zandalari fleet being fucked remains a plot point as far in as 8.1.5. It's much likelier that the Horde will be denied any come back and instead Azshara will fuck up the Kul Tiran fleet for parity, given that the Horde's war campaign has been an endless cavalcade of failure.

[VladlTutushkin]

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We also failed to enjoy the victory since Anduin had to barge in afterwards and shit on our parade... Hell he should have organised a parade! And a feast. But what he did? Soured our mood! As if Alliance isnt already a bunch of depression mixed with faction shame and sadness. So yes on that i always agree with Dickman that Anduin can turn anything into a loss at least from his point of view.

[Maxilian]

Well the Alliance may have not gotten what they wanted in the end, but they also destroyed all progress made by the Horde in their war campaign.

-The Scepter is now once again in the Alliance hands

-The "special card" was given up by Baine

-The Horde new member that had special magic, was a traitor and killed on the spot.

So... in general, the Alliance won more than the Horde did.

[micwini]

In doing the alliance war campaign, and seeing the last part of tides of vengeance, something I feel needs to be said about this.

Shaw says the planned attack on dazar'alor was to destabilize the hordes relations with the zandalari in an effort to weaken the horde instead of gaining a new force to its side.

And while the alliance killed rastakhan and destroyed much of the zandalaris fleet, what they ended up doing was making the pack between the zandalari and horde stronger as a result.

Its not like the zandalari can't build more boats, and they now have another ruler to replace their one just killed, and in doing so kinda made it personal as a result.

So yeah, what did the alliance really gain from the attack again?

This is almost exactly what Anduin says after you hand in the final quest of the war campaign

[VladlTutushkin]

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The Alliance attacked Dazar'alor for the same reason they attacked Taurajo.

The humans are still salty that they lost the First War so they are hellbent on punishing anyone who dares associate with orcs. Doesn't matter who they kill. Military personnel, hunters, civilians are all fair game.

Good thing Baine was there to set things straight and remind everyone that the Alliance has the moral high ground despite murdering civilians and the Horde should just surrender.

Are you bulshitting now or just stupid? Zandalari provided Horde with ports, military bases, gear, supplies, staging areas for attacks and in later patches openly joined forces to attack Boralus and do Incursions. What about that is not an open act of war that makes them enemies of the Alliance? Plus we can go deeper and remeber how they tried adn failed to take over the world twice but that might be written off as "history" (despite happening not so long ago honestly.) But by all means go preach about "salty humans" and poor wittle Zandalari.

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Because Alliance is just in the game at this point to further the Horde storyline. The whole of Teldrassil got fridged to drive Horde character development.

Zandalari needed to be weakened so they'd join the Horde and their king needed to die so the princess could take over.

Alliance conveniently attack, even though it makes zero military sense, and then pause and pull back for the Horde to regroup as soon as we've furthered their storyline for them.

Agreed. Teldrassil was pure Horde lore vehicle and i gonna bet my hat and pants that "kaldorei dark rangers" will be now HUGE part of the plot when Shadowlands patch hits probably as Sylvanas new "army" but whole "Army of the Dark Moon" will stay just a cosmetic crap with a serious possibility of turning Tyrande "evil" like Yrel. Plus Delaryn who was first good new character in stale pool of Night Elven hero cast got first sassily murdered by Bitch Queen and later became her adoring fan to completely take away ANY inspiration that Teldrassil could give us.

[Mardux]

In doing the alliance war campaign, and seeing the last part of tides of vengeance, something I feel needs to be said about this.

Shaw says the planned attack on dazar'alor was to destabilize the hordes relations with the zandalari in an effort to weaken the horde instead of gaining a new force to its side.

And while the alliance killed rastakhan and destroyed much of the zandalaris fleet, what they ended up doing was making the pack between the zandalari and horde stronger as a result.

Its not like the zandalari can't build more boats, and they now have another ruler to replace their one just killed, and in doing so kinda made it personal as a result.

So yeah, what did the alliance really gain from the attack again?

It "failed" exactly as much as the horde's attack on teldrassil "failed".

[Rustedsaint]

We have had this thread 5x already .
The intent to drive the Zandalar away was failed before they even planted the bombs, the Zandalar were already attacking kul before the alliance raided the capital

[Super Dickmann]

Agreed. Teldrassil was pure Horde lore vehicle and i gonna bet my hat and pants that "kaldorei dark rangers" will be now HUGE part of the plot when Sahdowlands patch hits but whole "Army of the Dark Moon" will stay just a cosmetic crap with a serious possibility of turning Tyrande "evil" like Yrel. Plus Delaryn who was first good new character in stale pool of Night Elven hero cast got first sassily murdered by Bitch Queen and later became her adoring fan to completely take away ANY inspiration that Teldrassil could give us.

Teldrassil isn't to service the Horde since it's a prelude to Mists 2.0: Undead Edition, but to service two characters - Saurfang and Anduin and to put a big "Kill this" marker on Sylvanas. The night elves are tangential to their own genocide, we wait for their reaction until 8.1 whereas Saurfang gets a cinematic whining about something he enabled and Anduin gets to show how heroic he is by leading the Alliance pushback, while facing no blowback for allowing things to escalate to that point by not attacking Sylvanas earlier.

Delaryn has the same purpose. She was created to die so that we could feel bad about her death and want to off Sylvanas. I've bet my buying of an Anduin shirt on her betraying Sylvanas before this is done to drive home the "Oh no, she's like Arthas now " parallels. The night elves are an entire race of sacrificial lambs on the altar of human potential and muh honor.