Why doesnt Alliance take SF GY in AV?

[WaltherLeopold]

You're free to explain how Alliance loses the very first fight that usually happens right next to their GY without resorting to anything that essentially is "the Alliance is weaker".

Because by the time the fight occurs at the graveyard a good chunk of the raid is afk already, because they were unable to pass middle and threaten IB, but because horde can be on the offensive the entire opening phase of the game (through controlling the middle), you don't need more than 5 people to stop the entire Alliance raid, a single hunter trap and a few mages will inevitably kill a lot of stragglers and/or slow down the alliance enough to force an unfavourable engagement.

Once the Alliance starts losing even an inch on AV its almost game over immediately, the map can very easily reverse itself into a bottleneck in favour of the horde, once horde has SH, everything south of it is automatically secured. Unlike if Alliance grab IB or FW.

Edit: you might notice the only time the Alliance actually beats horde is when the entire raid is stacked up and ready to fight, this can occur on SHGY or on the way south. This very much talks against your concept of "horde is just better", because generally the horde v ally fight is not balanced, since generally the alliance is very spread out along a marching route.

[Kralljin]

Defending IB GY is laughably easy as horde and can easily be done by only 5 hordes. All alliance players are funneled in one choke-point with a tower shooting down on them and with hordes spawning 20 seconds away. In the meantime taking SH GY is totally free for hordes as it has multiple entry points, with no towers defending it and barely and NPCs.

I want to see how you defend IB with 5 people when 10+ Alliance comes rushing at you, the Archers don't do shit against larger numbers because they select random targets and only do anything if they actually focus fire someone, not to mention that at least half of them can't even fire in the direction of IB.

Disregardingthat the Archers don't do jack anymore after someone tapped the tower or the fight has moved at the actual flag because you're out of Range.

The Dun Baldar bridge is both a curse and a blessing, getting across as horde is difficult, but getting across as alliance is equally difficult. So you're essentially stuck inside the alliance base.

You're not walled off, you can always go down into the wilderness and get back on the path between SP GY and SH GY, it's a one way street, though (which is circumvented by the telport trinket).
Seriously, this something anybody who has looked at the Alliance Base knows.

The numbers don't lie and alliance has not experienced a 1% winrate throughout the majority of classic by just not trying hard enough.

Because Alliance just has given up on PvP, there is a good reason why Alliance makes up 70% of the PvE Server population in Classic, despite "only" having a representation of 54% across all Servers (Yes, there are more Alliance players than Horde players in Classic).

Because by the time the fight occurs at the graveyard a good chunk of the raid is afk already

Sums up Alliance stance quite well - "We lose because we're afk".

you don't need more than 5 people to stop the entire Alliance raid

If 5 people stop your entire raid without any support from npc's, then your team is just plain terrible.

a single hunter trap and a few mages will inevitably kill a lot of stragglers and/or slow down the alliance enough to force an unfavourable engagement.

Look, between the entire open No mans Land of AV and the Frostdagger pass, you cannot tell anyone that a single Frost trap shuts you down and what is this nonsense about an unfavorable engagement?
Hey, if you lose a fight in the middle of AV, that's not an unfavorable engagement, fighting right at the GY is unfavorable engagement - like the Horde has at SH GY and they still win.

Unless the Horde specifically sets out on meeting the Alliance rush head on (which they usually don't), then there is no fucking way how an Alliance zerg cannot reach IB GY.
And if they do, it's a fair fight, simply because it's happening closer to Alliance side doesn't mean it's somehow Horde favored, quite the contrary in fact.

Once the Alliance starts losing even an inch on AV its almost game over immediately, the map can very easily reverse itself into a bottleneck in favour of the horde, once horde has SH, everything south of it is automatically secured. Unlike if Alliance grab IB or FW.

Turns out that when you lose ground despite actually holding the advantage, sets you up for failure.

Similiar thing goes for the Horde btw., if they lose IB, the game's done, because they have no hope of capturing Dun Baldar with a smaller force or actually defending their base.

Edit: you might notice the only time the Alliance actually beats horde is when the entire raid is stacked up and ready to fight, this can occur on SHGY or on the way south.

They usually don't, as seen whenever Alliance tries to defend SH GY.
From my experience, Alliance wins whenever they have enough decent people on their side that rush for IB and holds it, but that's the thing, they win when they have better players.

[Bramickias]

Putting aside that quite often the first major clash happens at SH GY, which then ends in Horde capturing SH GY, not because of the Terrain, but simply because the Alliance is weaker, you don't lose a zerg when you control the GY right next to it if both sides are equal in strength.
This whole "Horde spawns closer to the middle" is such a non issue, because no one ever fights over the middle, the first fight is about SH GY and that's where Alliance loses despite holding the advantage.

Of course the first major clash happens at SHGY, It is the mid point between the 2 starting caves. SHGY IS the middle of the map. Everything south of Balina is Horde territory.
SHGY is so much anti-alliance that the rezzing spot is in a chokepoint, and the other chokepoint in when youre coming North from the Alliance side after a 1min ride. IBGY to SHGY is pretty much the same distance as Alliance cave to SHGY.
If we can cap SHGY without losing IBGY, its a 100% vistory, unless the Alliance straight up rushed Drek and noone cared to trinket back to defend. I wished they went for SFGY more often, cuz the slow walk up north is really freaking slow sometimes.

[Kralljin]

Of course the first major clash happens at SHGY, It is the mid point between the 2 starting caves. SHGY IS the middle of the map. Everything south of Balina is Horde territory.

You are free to elaborate why Alliance then so often loses the first fight, despite it happening on their turf.

People obsess so much over this "Horde reaches the middle sooner" when in reality this grants them no tangible advantage in a direct fight, there is no mechanic that somehow gives Horde a bonus because they have more terrain, the fact that you fight near the Alliance GY gives them an advantage, not the Horde.

SHGY is so much anti-alliance that the rezzing spot is in a chokepoint, and the other chokepoint in when youre coming North from the Alliance side after a 1min ride.

By the time this choke point really comes to bear, the Horde is already sitting right on the flag because you lost so much ground.
And for the record, if both sides rush on the eastern side, they meet around SH Bunker and SH GY, not right at the SH GY flag.

[DaFuzZ7]

The actual strategy for Alliance is RH>FWGY>towers>drek, but people absolutely CANNOT resist grabbing FWGY once they see the people rushing for RH aggro the guards around FWGY. This forces ALL dead horde to spawn at RH, their base, which pushes alliance out of their base.

That was the fullproof strategy for YEARS, and still works if people do it, but people REFUSE to listen in random BGs nowadays. Everybody thinks theyre right. Its sad. AV used to be such a great honor farm for alliance.