Any advantages to staying Alliance?

[Ikith]

This is not supposed to be an Alliance vs Horde flame war however it might turn in to one.

Basically I just started to farm honor for weapons and its been terrible. In most BGs Alliance loses. It also seems that horde gets a lot of the cool content and Alliance is left in the dust. I mean sure Worgen seems cool in Cata but the goblins racial passive just seems unbeatable (Full discounts on items... WTF!).

I've been thinking for a couple of days about why I should stay Alliance but I just can't find any.

So I ask you BlueGartr, are there any advantages to staying Alliance?

[Norellicus]

Because receiving those few extra silver for your vendor trash is GAME BREAKING

[Clemz]

Additional grass areas have been added to the enemy faction's zones. This grass is exceptionally green.

[Dontkare]

If aesthetics are at all important, all the horde races look ugly as fuck. Except Blood Elf, but lolbe

[Siniroth]

Seriously, my BE warrior looks so frail and unfrightening, prot is a nice contrast to squishy.

[Katlan]

I don't get why ppl think Goblin racials are so awesome. The always exalted discount price is less beneficial then the human +10% rep bonus. How often do you really buy shit from vendors when most of the items you want anyways require exalted?

[Dontkare]

^ this

[Ikith]

^ this

Is it only from vendors or does it count for trainers as well?

If its from trainers as well then saving 1k per flying training as I'm leveling a goblin is super nice.

[Katlan]

I mean goblin have the 1% haste which is awesome. But aside that all their racials are complete garbage and the ability ones are just for fun. I really wasn't impressed w/Goblin or Worgen racials. Worgen 1% crit is nice, but the other racials are just meh (least from a druid's standpoint). And for other classes I find the Draeni 1% hit to be more beneficial

Is it only from vendors or does it count for trainers as well?

If its from trainers as well then saving 1k per flying training as I'm leveling a goblin is super nice.

By the time you get high enough to buy the 5k flying at 80, you sure as hell better alrdy be exalted w/the factions that offer it lol. Anyways, I don't think SW even offers a discount, I just noticed that the Variance Keep alliance town in Borean Tundra did though. And rep grind has become a joke, even more so w/ all the tabards. So not being exalted w/ stuff that matters by the time you get 80 makes no sense to me

[Eaglestrike]

My new tauren paladin, which I've been half BGing and half dungeon running on was exalted with Tauren, for max discount on class training, by 38. And you get no rep while BGing. You should be able to hit exalted with your home city by 30-35 and exalted with the "main" faction of your side by 45-50 np. So easy to get max discount on flying.

[Clemz]

It saves you money, sure, but gold is beyond incredibly easy to make. Just leveling my hunter 70-80 after the patch I made well over 4500g, which would have covered epic flying had I not already had it. If you want to compare racials, the human rep bonus is among one of the best ones. Orc and troll both have excellent racials. Draenei is great, as well as the various weapon expertise racials.

There's next to no reason to pick one faction over the other outside of aesthetics.

[Correction]

I don't understand why which faction you choose is a big deal. Unless you're a total lone wolf or you play the weirest, randomest hours possible, you'll eventually settle in with a guild that succeeds at a satisfactory level and that will validate your faction choice straight away. Factional advantages are really population imbalances and that will only matter to you if you're a complete PvP junkie, at which point you may as well play whichever side dominates your battlegroup. Wintergrasps win/loss log will give you a good enough idea of that.

There is no longer a serious inherent imbalance between the factions now that the draenei and human racials are nerfed to the ground and nobody is particularly happy with the remaining racials (except the human rep gain).

[Kaylia]

Additional grass areas have been added to the enemy faction's zones. This grass is exceptionally green.

They need to add this line to the update notes.

[Krye]

Tol Barad will only let in one horde per one alliance, so if you want to get into the battle to receive the rewards you have to pick whichever side isn't dominant on your server. Also, horde BG queues take about 20 minutes and alliance queues are instant, but the battlegroup merging is supposed to fix that. Horde racials are infinitely better than alliance racials for PVP, it's no contest and it makes me really sad that Blizz doesn't see the need to fix this.

However, full discounts on items is a terrible reason to go horde.

[Clemz]

They need to add this line to the update notes.

It was in the fake patch notes for 1.11 on April Fool's day, here. Seeing this thread just reminded of it.

[vrumpt]

i really don't think there is anything wrong with the alliance. It all boils down to preferences really. Here's some things i'm jealous that alliance has, coming from some a player who primarily plays horde 99% of the time.

-Dreanai hit racial, still pissed that horde doesn't get an expertise counterpart.
-Human rep gain bonus. Very powerful racial, prolly most powerful non-combat racial in game.
-Theramore. Place is friggen huge, and fortified to 11. Stonard's picket fences cannot compete.
-Stormwind. personally love the city, favorite city in game. Very RPG-esque, and very cool.
-Worgen mount being race-bound. Right now all i see are goblin bikes in Orgrimmar, and its really sad how goblins don't get first dibs on their own god damn mounts. Running wild is awesome, would be sweet to see tauren get plains running back in this form.
-Elwynn Forest and Redridge mountains - favorite 2 zones in the game, hands down. So pretty.
-Rams. Do want. so pissed didn't get brewfest ram this year.

all i can think of off the top of my head, but yeah Alliance does have cool toys to play with as well. Really its preference at its core.

[Falaras]

I've played both factions on multiple servers and it always feel like you are on the bad side and the other faction wins all the BGs. As far as racials go...that's the one thing that annoys me about Horde vs Alliance. As a mage the best racial you can get is the 5% INT from gnomes (which I guess is good now that INT is SP but it wasn't very good when I was a gnome) while Troll mages get berserking which is basically a super haste potion every 2 minutes.

[vrumpt]

I've played both factions on multiple servers and it always feel like you are on the bad side and the other faction wins all the BGs. As far as racials go...that's the one thing that annoys me about Horde vs Alliance. As a mage the best racial you can get is the 5% INT from gnomes (which I guess is good now that INT is SP but it wasn't very good when I was a gnome) while Troll mages get berserking which is basically a super haste potion every 2 minutes.

gnome racial was changed to maximum mana, and the troll racial is every 3 minutes now.

[aurik]

If you queue with 2-3 friends at least, your win ratio in bgs will go way way up, regardless of faction.

[Norellicus]

If BG win ratio is getting you down as alliance, just get a few people together and turtle up at the bridge in AV for a while

That's what happens anytime I'm in there, at least