Why do people say the Alliance 'lost' or were 'passive' in the Fourth War?

[Sliske]

I've heard this countless times now as a critique of BFA and i don't understand it at all. Lets look at a timeline of events.

1. Azerite appears, both the Horde and Alliance start gathering it
2. It effects Sylvanas in a particular way and she ends up surprise attacking Teldrassil (Alliance lose here)
3. The Alliance then rallies and raids Lordaeron in an equal fight, sacking the place and will likely soon reclaim it for the alliance (Clear Alliance victory)
4. The two factions then recruit the two Island nations
5. During the War Campaign, the horde honestly does very little. Much of it is focused on the useless San'layn allies and Gallywix's greed. meanwhile the Alliance set up for an attack on Dazar'alor (very clearly not passive here. I'd say Alliance easily had the more aggressive and dominant war campaign)
6. During this time, Arathi Highlands is being fought over. I don't know who wins in lore, but we can safely say neither faction was passive here.
7. The Battle of Dazar'alor. Do i even need to talk about this one? Alliance literally raid the Horde's new allies' Capital, decimate their fleet, slaughter their people and kill their king. They get away with it pretty scot-free, too. This is losing? This is passive?
8. Darkshore events. While the Horde struggle to hold the place, Tyrande literally goes fucking super saiyen and starts slaughtering the horde with Malfurion in tow. Again, don't know who wins in lore, but just from the outside, we can safely say the Alliance won here.
9. The Nazjatar intro. Its literally the horde fleeing for their lives. Is this passive? Is this losing?
10. Finally, we team up to fight Azshara.

Other things to add:

- Incursions, both factions gave as good as they got.
- The new battleground, both factions gave as good as they got.
- Islands, both factions gave as good as they got.

Lets also look at the over-all theme of the quests.

Kul'Tiras' questlines end with the nation united again under a new Lord Admiral. Their fleet is at the ready, Jaina is mary-sue levels of powerful and moral is at an all time high.

Meanwhile, on Zandalar, my boy Rezan gets got almost immediately. The rest of the questlines are basically a mad struggle against the inevitable darkness that does indeed come. The advisor to the King, Zul, is found a traitor. Their royal bloodline is enslaved to a death god, Bwonsomdi. The protective seals over their Kingdom are broken and G'huun is released. The only thing that could bring moral lower, is if a huge faction come out of nowhere and kill King Rastakhan. Boy, i hope that doesn't happen in a few months.

Lets also look at the behind the scenes shit - Saurfangs rebellion. This does nothing but weaken the horde and strengthen the alliance. Alliance over-night essentially becomes twice as strong as the Horde. Saurfang literally only existed up to the Mak'gora because we allowed him to.

So, lets hear it - i keep hearing it, now argue it. Tell me why you keep saying the Alliance was passive and lost in BFA.

[Darknessvamp]

Bottom line, the War ends with the Horde facing no back lash for their actions as Sylvanas gets blamed for everything, Saurfang dies a "hero" and the Horde soldiers can chill without worries as they start building new homes in Ashenvale, Lordaeron is a decimated ruin that can be recovered by the Forsaken at anytime and they still control Gilneas anyway. Lost one irrelevant vampy boi.

Alliance meanwhile have to be content with none of their grudges getting resolved, #Never4getTeldrassil is forgotton, lost a capital city physically as well as their new ally's whole fleet and not to mention completely disregarded everything they thought about the Horde with the unification. They also have an angry Troll Empire to potentially contend with in the future which was only brought into the current war because of their own actions.

The warfronts don't matter because of the coming ceasefire due to the unification so the zones won't be "won" by any side. Whilst I won't say the Alliance were passive, they did lose considerably.

[Florena]

The idea that the undead can that easily reclaim lordaeron after it was super blighted or that the horde get to stay in ashenvale/hold Gilneas sounds like a lot of assumptions to me unless something in the game is actually indicating that.

I don't like how everything went but nothing I've seen so far suggests the horde keep night elf lands.

[Varodoc]

2. It effects Sylvanas in a particular way and she ends up surprise attacking Teldrassil (Alliance lose here)

And why did it lose? Because Blizzard conveniently wrote the Vindicaar and Aurobos (two spaceships that can teleport entire armies across oceans) out of the story. You can already see where this complaint comes from.

3. The Alliance then rallies and raids Lordaeron in an equal fight, sacking the place and will likely soon reclaim it for the alliance (Clear Alliance victory)

They didn't sack anything. They also failed to conquer Lordaeron when it should have been an easy victory, since they had Sylvanas cornered and outnumbered. And why did it turn out so badly for them? Because they completely forgot about the blight.

6. During this time, Arathi Highlands is being fought over. I don't know who wins in lore, but we can safely say neither faction was passive here.

The Alliance was winning as per Nathanos' statement in 8.1.5.

7. The Battle of Dazar'alor. Do i even need to talk about this one? Alliance literally raid the Horde's new allies' Capital, decimate their fleet, slaughter their people and kill their king. They get away with it pretty scot-free, too. This is losing? This is passive?

Why don't you highlight what happens AFTER the battle? Both Anduin and Jaina choose not to press the advantage even though they could end the war, because they don't want to look as bad as Sylvanas.

Tyrande literally goes fucking super saiyen and starts slaughtering the horde with Malfurion in tow.

Not really. I mean, she just exterminated a Horde garrison (big deal, I'm pretty sure any generic raid boss could oneshot a camp) and then proceeded to kill one of the Nine Val'kyrs (again, big deal, even a level 20 Alliance adventurer in Andorhal could do that). And yes, the Alliance was winning that warfront as per Nathanos' statement in 8.1.5.

9. The Nazjatar intro. Its literally the horde fleeing for their lives. Is this passive? Is this losing?

No it's not. It's the Horde luring the Alliance into a devastating trap.

Kul'Tiras' questlines end with the nation united again under a new Lord Admiral. Their fleet is at the ready, Jaina is mary-sue levels of powerful and moral is at an all time high.

Sure, let's just gloss over the fact that the nation is devastated from the civil war, the Old God/Naga incursion in the north, and the Drust invasion in Drustvar, as well as the pirates' invasions that decimated southern Tirigarde, and invaded Boralus itself in the Siege of Boralus dungeon, where Kul Tiras barely avoids destruction thanks to Jaina's little amulet trick.

[Sliske]

Ways Alliance won:

- Sacked Lordaeron and are about to retake it with Calia
- Sacked Daza'alor and killed King Rastakhan
- Outmanuevered them at every turn during the war campaign
- Reunited Kul'Tiras and have two Super Saiyans on our side (Jaina and Tyrande)
- Had the option of dismantling the Horde, spared them because that is the Alliance way

Ways the Alliance lost:

- Got sucker punched at Teldrassil by the full might of the Horde vs just the Night Elves.

Heres an analogy. Ever seen one of those fights where this little rat bastard comes up and hits a guy from behind, then said guy turns around and beats the ever loving shit out of him? Thats BFA. The Horde essentially ran up to the Alliance and sucker punched them, then got their asses handed to them.

Their Warchief is a traitor. Saurfang sided with the Alliance and then died. Thrall returns in a depowered state. Baine is put through the ringer. Lor'themar hid away as per usual. Gallywix is about to be usurped. Every single race in the Horde got thoroughly ass-wooped or made to look like a bitch.

Yet Alliance lost because we showed mercy and didn't slaughter them like animals?

Come on.

As for Teldrassil, we got our revenge. We sacked Lordaeron and they had no choice but to plague bomb it, but we're about to retake it. On top of that, we wiped our asses with Dazar'alor. The best the Horde could muster was sending Mekkatorque into his escape pod as the rest of the Alliance for lack of a better word, ransacked the shit out Dazar'alor. Like, this wasn't Siege of Orgrimmar. Siege of Orgrimmar was for the most part the coalition fighting against a very specific faction that involved a lot of old god corruption. Dazar'alor wasn't that. Dazar'alor was THE Horde. The Horde you're playing right now. Thats the Horde that got hit. We weren't killing Garrosh's traitors. We were killing the actual Horde. Decimating them at that.

This is loss to you? This is passiveness? Now, keep in mind the above. Now we march on Orgrimmar, but we're the Alliance. The Alliance don't slaughter people that are weak, like the old Horde did to the Draenei. No, the Alliance has morals. If that is passiveness, you don't understand what passiveness is.

Put yourself into the mindset of a member of the Horde. you're in Orgrimmar. Outside the gates is for the most part the entire Alliance. At your back door is Genn and an army of Worgen. You've heard about what happened at Dazar'alor. Maybe you had friends and family that were killed there. Now they're here. Saurfang is there too, but could he stop the Alliance if they went into a killing frenzy? Of course not. Then you hear them leaving.

Is your mindset "passive bitches haha" or one of fear and respect?

[Varodoc]

Behold the great Sack of Lordaeron, where the Alliance, led by King Anduin Wrynn of Stormwind, won a great victory over the Horde. I'm sure the future generations will sing songs about this triumph:

[horbindr]

Ways Alliance won:

- Sacked Lordaeron and are about to retake it with Calia
- Sacked Daza'alor and killed King Rastakhan
- Outmanuevered them at every turn during the war campaign
- Reunited Kul'Tiras and have two Super Saiyans on our side (Jaina and Tyrande)
- Had the option of dismantling the Horde, spared them because that is the Alliance way

-lordaeron while a victory, was one as pyrrhic as they come. the alliance objective was to reclaim the city/zone, which was not achieved. (meanwhile sylvanas objective was to kill as many soldiers as possible and deny territory, which was achieved)
-they did win in dazaralor and played the horde pretty good, but strategically again no land gained + an enemy made. the attack pretty much cemented the zandalari as an allied race. the horde did need a plot device to even the odds after this, luckily the alliance likes walking into traps though.
-not sure how much those warcampaigns really count, the horde wins in theirs too afterall.
-last i checked jaina is buddies with the horde again and tyrande is more on her own side than the alliances.
-dismantle the horde? their army didn't occupy any horde city. they might have had that option if the battle for orgrimmar had occured and they actually occupied it (but knowing sylvanas, there would have been another UC style failsafe).

[Kyriani]

I wouldn't say the Alliance "lost" or were "passive". But they don't feel like they won much of anything in BfA.

-Teldrassil - Alliance Lost... Sylvanas burned it to the ground killing most of the civilians.

-Lordaeron - Deus Ex McJaina saves the day... TWICE, and it still ends up being a pyrrhic victory because Sylvanas destroys Lordaeron rather than allow the Alliance to take it. The Horde also evacuated most, if not all, the Undercity civilians to safety. Sylvanas flies away twisting her mustache like a Bond villain.

-The Alliance apparently got their revenge for Teldrassil by killing a Valkyr while Nathanos somehow escapes a god empowered Tyrande... really?

-Dazar'alor - It's certainly a clear victory for the Alliance militarily... but it never should have happened in the first place. The invasion of Dazar'alor is merely a vehicle for the Horde narrative, pushing the Zandalari into joining the Horde in a very obvious way which makes the Alliance leadership look stupid... again. That kinda douses any sense of victory from that battle.

It's not that the Alliance is suffering losses so much that any time they seem to win it feels hollow. That isn't to say the Horde don't have their own narrative problems. Many Horde players are rightfully upset that their faction keeps getting painted into the "villain" box. On top of that yet another of their capital cities gets invaded which feels like a retread of MoP, along with Sylvanas becoming Garrosh 2.0.

Ultimately both factions suffer from shitty writing.

[Palapop]

I've heard this countless times now as a critique of BFA and i don't understand it at all. Lets look at a timeline of events.

1. Azerite appears, both the Horde and Alliance start gathering it
2. It effects Sylvanas in a particular way and she ends up surprise attacking Teldrassil (Alliance lose here)
3. The Alliance then rallies and raids Lordaeron in an equal fight, sacking the place and will likely soon reclaim it for the alliance (Clear Alliance victory)
4. The two factions then recruit the two Island nations
5. During the War Campaign, the horde honestly does very little. Much of it is focused on the useless San'layn allies and Gallywix's greed. meanwhile the Alliance set up for an attack on Dazar'alor (very clearly not passive here. I'd say Alliance easily had the more aggressive and dominant war campaign)
6. During this time, Arathi Highlands is being fought over. I don't know who wins in lore, but we can safely say neither faction was passive here.
7. The Battle of Dazar'alor. Do i even need to talk about this one? Alliance literally raid the Horde's new allies' Capital, decimate their fleet, slaughter their people and kill their king. They get away with it pretty scot-free, too. This is losing? This is passive?
8. Darkshore events. While the Horde struggle to hold the place, Tyrande literally goes fucking super saiyen and starts slaughtering the horde with Malfurion in tow. Again, don't know who wins in lore, but just from the outside, we can safely say the Alliance won here.
9. The Nazjatar intro. Its literally the horde fleeing for their lives. Is this passive? Is this losing?
10. Finally, we team up to fight Azshara.

Other things to add:

- Incursions, both factions gave as good as they got.
- The new battleground, both factions gave as good as they got.
- Islands, both factions gave as good as they got.

Lets also look at the over-all theme of the quests.

Kul'Tiras' questlines end with the nation united again under a new Lord Admiral. Their fleet is at the ready, Jaina is mary-sue levels of powerful and moral is at an all time high.

Meanwhile, on Zandalar, my boy Rezan gets got almost immediately. The rest of the questlines are basically a mad struggle against the inevitable darkness that does indeed come. The advisor to the King, Zul, is found a traitor. Their royal bloodline is enslaved to a death god, Bwonsomdi. The protective seals over their Kingdom are broken and G'huun is released. The only thing that could bring moral lower, is if a huge faction come out of nowhere and kill King Rastakhan. Boy, i hope that doesn't happen in a few months.

Lets also look at the behind the scenes shit - Saurfangs rebellion. This does nothing but weaken the horde and strengthen the alliance. Alliance over-night essentially becomes twice as strong as the Horde. Saurfang literally only existed up to the Mak'gora because we allowed him to.

So, lets hear it - i keep hearing it, now argue it. Tell me why you keep saying the Alliance was passive and lost in BFA.

Horde attacking Stormsong Valley?
Horde attacking Tiragarde Sound AND Boralus?
Horde freeing biggest Alliance traitor? (Lady Ashvane)
"Horde fleeing for their lives" in Nazjatar? Or they laid perfect trap for Alliance led by that turd Stinkmane?
Whole Alliance war campaign, our "high king" was /afk in SW Keep, jerking off to worgen refugees.
"Alliance over-night essentially becomes twice as strong as the Horde." by having in-side turmoils (especially humans vs night elves vs worgens)

What game did you play lol?

[Kyphael]

Behold the great Sack of Lordaeron, where the Alliance, led by King Anduin Wrynn of Stormwind, won a great victory over the Horde. I'm sure the future generations will sing songs about this triumph:

I was thinking that. Anduin was so passive at every turn, and seemingly needed Varok, and vicariously, Thrall, to shoo off Sylvanas. Hardly a victory deserving high praise.

[CTiranno]

Ways Alliance won:

- Sacked Lordaeron and are about to retake it with Calia
- Sacked Daza'alor and killed King Rastakhan
- Outmanuevered them at every turn during the war campaign
- Reunited Kul'Tiras and have two Super Saiyans on our side (Jaina and Tyrande)
- Had the option of dismantling the Horde, spared them because that is the Alliance way

Ways the Alliance lost:

- Got sucker punched at Teldrassil by the full might of the Horde vs just the Night Elves.

Heres an analogy. Ever seen one of those fights where this little rat bastard comes up and hits a guy from behind, then said guy turns around and beats the ever loving shit out of him? Thats BFA. The Horde essentially ran up to the Alliance and sucker punched them, then got their asses handed to them.

Their Warchief is a traitor. Saurfang sided with the Alliance and then died. Thrall returns in a depowered state. Baine is put through the ringer. Lor'themar hid away as per usual. Gallywix is about to be usurped. Every single race in the Horde got thoroughly ass-wooped or made to look like a bitch.

Yet Alliance lost because we showed mercy and didn't slaughter them like animals?

Come on.

As for Teldrassil, we got our revenge. We sacked Lordaeron and they had no choice but to plague bomb it, but we're about to retake it. On top of that, we wiped our asses with Dazar'alor. The best the Horde could muster was sending Mekkatorque into his escape pod as the rest of the Alliance for lack of a better word, ransacked the shit out Dazar'alor. Like, this wasn't Siege of Orgrimmar. Siege of Orgrimmar was for the most part the coalition fighting against a very specific faction that involved a lot of old god corruption. Dazar'alor wasn't that. Dazar'alor was THE Horde. The Horde you're playing right now. Thats the Horde that got hit. We weren't killing Garrosh's traitors. We were killing the actual Horde. Decimating them at that.

This is loss to you? This is passiveness? Now, keep in mind the above. Now we march on Orgrimmar, but we're the Alliance. The Alliance don't slaughter people that are weak, like the old Horde did to the Draenei. No, the Alliance has morals. If that is passiveness, you don't understand what passiveness is.

Put yourself into the mindset of a member of the Horde. you're in Orgrimmar. Outside the gates is for the most part the entire Alliance. At your back door is Genn and an army of Worgen. You've heard about what happened at Dazar'alor. Maybe you had friends and family that were killed there. Now they're here. Saurfang is there too, but could he stop the Alliance if they went into a killing frenzy? Of course not. Then you hear them leaving.

Is your mindset "passive bitches haha" or one of fear and respect?

In Dazar'alor the Alliance kills mostly Zandalari guards. The army of both the trolls and the Horde were in the north after being lured by the Alliance.

The Alliance, as stated by Nathanos, was winning on all fronts not thanks to numbers (as we can clearly see from the Anduin cinematic) but thanks to the advantage of having achieved sea domination thanks to the kul'tirans ships and the decimation of the Zandalari's fleet. As soon as that advantage disappeared (after the introduction of Nazjatar), Sylvanas was the one with the stronger army, as stated in the last patch from numerous npcs.

About the thread, IMO the problem isn't with the Alliance in general but with Anduin beign too passive. He was almost never the one to push the Alliance in action (role covered instead by Tyrande, Genn, Jaina and the npcs from the war campaing) so all the stuff that the Alliance npcs did during BfA came out as if they were following their own agendas instead the orders of their High King.

Put this in parallel with the Horde war campaign where Sylvanas or her right hand Nathanos were always doing stuff and, even if this campaign ended up achieving almost nothing, it seems that the Horde was always more proactive thanks to his leader beign almost always on the frontline or involved in some way.

[Arrashi]

Its not about what they were doing, its about how were they doing it. Like that absurd line about not pushing adventage after battle for dazalor, so they can stay maxed on lawful good.

[Super Dickmann]

Because their goal was to remove one person from the very beginning while forgiving everyone else. Because they never pushed their advantage when they had the opportunity, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Because in our last snapshot of the conflict in 8.2.5 they were set to lose if not for having to ask Saurfang, who was the second biggest Horde aggressor against them in the first place, for help. Because the lands the Horde took are in limbo, so until further notice they conceded yet more (night elf) territory to the Horde. Because the Alliance leader spends more time chastising the leader of the victims of genocide than the one who helped perpetrate it.

[Arrashi]

Because their goal was to remove one person from the very beginning while forgiving everyone else. Because they never pushed their advantage when they had the opportunity, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Because in our last snapshot of the conflict in 8.2.5 they were set to lose if not for having to ask Saurfang, who was the second biggest Horde aggressor against them in the first place, for help. Because the lands the Horde took are in limbo, so until further notice they conceded yet more (night elf) territory to the Horde. Because the Alliance leader spends more time chastising the leader of the victims of genocide than the one who helped perpetrate it.

Blizzard absolutely mastered ability to write outcomes that satisfy absolutely noone.

[Grimbold21]

Lordaeron is probably gonna be handed over/appropriated by Calia's light cleansed forsaken.

[Jalham]

Because their goal was to remove one person from the very beginning while forgiving everyone else. Because they never pushed their advantage when they had the opportunity, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Because in our last snapshot of the conflict in 8.2.5 they were set to lose if not for having to ask Saurfang, who was the second biggest Horde aggressor against them in the first place, for help. Because the lands the Horde took are in limbo, so until further notice they conceded yet more (night elf) territory to the Horde. Because the Alliance leader spends more time chastising the leader of the victims of genocide than the one who helped perpetrate it.

"Lands the Horde took are in limbo" is pretty much it, many assume the Horde still control all those lands. We actually don't know if that is the case or not after the end of the war. Maybe they do maybe they don't. Who won the battle of Darkshore in canon ? Who controls Ashenvale now ? If the NE went back to Hyjal does that count as a new land for the alliance ? since it was neutral before this.

[horbindr]

"Lands the Horde took are in limbo" is pretty much it, many assume the Horde still control all those lands. We actually don't know if that is the case or not after the end of the war. Maybe they do maybe they don't. Who won the battle of Darkshore in canon ? Who controls Ashenvale now ? If the NE went back to Hyjal does that count as a new land for the alliance ? since it was neutral before this.

depends on the warfront there. how long that took, who won that, etc. if the alliance won that (think i read that somewhere) then it's probably very very limbo.

but if that warfront is still ongoing or a stalemate, then the alliance can't do that much in ashenvale and the horde has a lot of time to reinforce positions there.

[Arrashi]

I'm not asking for a 50/50 split in terms of victories but it would've been nice to stomp the Horde at Lordaeron seeing as they lit our tree on fire, but instead Sylvanas schemed and schemed and our leaders were too braindead to not see it coming.

Luckily jaina had her deus ex machina ready.

[Feanoro]

- Because the supposed High King never made an appearance without being sad about the poor misguided Horde and shitting on his own side.

- Because when the Zandalari felt sad, we didn't press an advantage and end the idiot faction war. Oh man, that gets the blood pumping!

- Because some of the Horde actually had empathy and remorse for atrocities, all is forgiven. Again. No better way to signal "you don't matter" than to pretend none of those losses happened.

[Rozz]

It's not that they lost the war, it's that they didn't gain anything from it. Even the ARs had their best assets nuked by the war or Azshara, so I'm not surprised people feel this way.

As for the passive comment, it's likely because the Alliance was once again predominantly reactionary. Every chance they had for a monumental offensive was reeled back in for a moral higher ground. They were 'passive' in that they took part in the war, without the intention of ever actually winning or changing anything. For the Alliance, it as a battle to protect the status quo. To defend what was left, to reclaim what was lost, but never more than that. You might compare their tactics to a plant. Toxins and thorns to protect themselves, but still accepting whatever comes beyond that.