By contrast, the nearest graveyard to the north is the neutral point, Snowfall, which the Alliance must wait 4 minutes in order to actually make use of, and which is farther away from any Iceblood objectives in any case. Just a few Horde players defending any objective from there can seem like many, because after they die they come back to the battle so quickly. While the Horde captain and the first tower are accessible, the Iceblood graveyard is nestled behind a convenient hill, creating a bottleneck very close to the resurrection point. Iceblood, on the other hand, is mostly closed off to entry from the north. If the Alliance wants to defend it, the only way is to take it back after the Horde has already been there. Stonehearth bunker, in particular, is so far south that the Horde can actually reach it first at the game's outset. Defending it simply takes too many players, so Alliance usually doesn't bother. The graveyard can be approached from two major directions, and it is comparatively easy to capture. There is minimal natural terrain blocking off access to any of the objectives, or forcing the attackers into a certain position. The entire area is wide open except for a narrow pass in the north, just near Icewing Bunker. To the left we see the Alliance captain's territory, Stonehearth.
The Horde has a very strong frontal defense near their captain, but a somewhat weaker defense near their general - the Alliance on the other hand, has a very strong defense around their general, but their captain's territory is effectively free for the taking. Both the Horde and Alliance ideally have some players on offense and some on defense, but as we'll see shortly, these territories are far from equal when it comes to how easily they can be defended.
Each team's offense must progress through two stages in order to reach the opposing general and destroy all the towers. Each territory has its bottlenecks that force attackers and defenders into certain places, and three of the barriers involved can be passed going one way but not going the other. Keep reading to see how they do it, and why the Horde can't play their ultimate best if they want to play at all.Īs you can see on the map above, the Horde and Alliance each have two major territories, one for each captain and general. Assuming a relative equality of gear, player skill and morale (and of course AFKers), the Horde can decide to make AV a slow but certain victory, or else toss the dice and make it a quick but uncertain race to the end. This seemingly simple shift has totally turned the faction imbalance on its head, and placed the game entirely in Horde hands to prosecute as they choose. But now that we have reinforcements, the general will automatically die of grief and shame once too many towers fall and players bite the dust, regardless of whether he's actually seen the enemy or not. The difference mainly lies in which parts of the map are most important, and how either side can use the terrain differences to win the game.īefore, the only way to win the game was to kill the opposing faction's general anything less was effectively an on-going stalemate.
Before patch 2.3, most people generally agreed that the map favored the Alliance, but now, we can see that it favors the Horde.
Alterac Valley has never been completely balanced.