It was a tough weekend for battlegrounds. I spent a significant portion of my game time trying to grind out honor for the Medallion of the Alliance on my Rogue. The random battleground finder was not my friend. Over the weekend I was thrown in to a total of 11 Eye of the Storm matches, for 0 win 11 losses. Apparently the random battleground finder attempted to test my patience by throwing me in to group after group with team mates that thought 'zerging' the flag - while the opposition capped three to four towers with little to no resistance - was a solid strategy. Every so often - usually when we were down 1200 to 250 (which is what you should expect if you zerg the flag and only bother to hold one tower) - someone would express their 'dismay' in Battleground chat. It usually went something like this:

"FFS guys. L2P. You all suck. Alliance suck at PvP"

Now I'm guessing that if you've spent any time in a Battleground, particularly on the losing side, you'll have seen something very similar. Sometimes it makes me laugh, sometime it makes me nod in agreement. Lets break it down.

"FFS guy" - a sign of general frustration. It also suggest that the person expressing this frustration believes that he/she is a soldier and in no way responsible for the debacle that is unfolding.

"L2P" - again, a sign of frustration. Occasionally used by a Battleground veteran at times when a majority of the group appear to be behaving in a way that suggests this is the first time they have entered the field of battle. Occasionally, you'll see this used by someone who needs to L2P themselves - the L2P rookie. You know the guy. He's the guy that continually runs to the centre to grab the flag by himself, even though your team does not hold a tower. He's the guy that thinks its a great idea to take on four of the opposition by his/herself. He's the guy that focuses on the Fury warrior all the while ignoring the tree standing 20 yards behind the fight, keeping the Fury warrior at full health. The L2P rookie is also the one highly likely to spam chat telling people that they need to play because he/she has done xK damage and they only just joined the battle. They brag that it took four of the enemy to bring them down.

"You all suck" - this one makes me laugh. "You all suck". Suck is a team effort. The team sucks, everyone in the match is part of the team. If the team sucks, you suck.

"Alliance suck at PvP" - I've levelled both Alliance and Horde toons to level 80 and can say that I've also seen the Horde variation of this statement. On the weekend though, after a remarkable string of comprehensive losses I began to wonder if there was any truth to this statement. Do the Alliance really suck at PvP? On the basis of what I saw on the weekend, I have to say I'm leaning toward 'yes'. But is that really the case?

In a case of nerd rage I decided to roll a couple of new Horde toons on my main server for the sole purpose of running battlegrounds. At this point of the expansion I'm sick of levelling through quests and running the same dungeons over and over, so any XP my new Horde toons will get will be through battlegrounds, or just general play while waiting for a battleground to pop.

I also plugged all my battleground statistics, from all my toons, into a spreadsheet. I should mention that I have only ever PUG'd battlegrounds. Also, up until this point, I've spent far more time Alliance side than I have Horde side. Here are my battleground records so far for all my toons.

Alliance

Total battlegrounds played: 785
Total wins: 311
Total losses: 474
Win (%): 40%

Horde

Total battlegrounds played: 167
Total wins: 95
Total losses: 72
Win (%): 57%

It was interesting to see that some battlegrounds are far more evenly matched than others. Due to numbers I'll just list the three old school battlegrounds, Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin and Alterac Valley.

Warsong Gulch

Alliance

Total battlegrounds played: 215
Total wins: 83
Total losses: 132
Win (%): 39%

Horde

Total battlegrounds played: 75
Total wins: 33
Total losses: 42
Win (%): 44%

Warsong Gulch is fairly well balanced. A large part of this is due to a large percentage of the battles starting with relatively equal numbers on both sides. Perhaps this is due to the 10 v 10 nature of the match.

Arathi Basin

Alliance

Total battlegrounds played: 266
Total wins: 84
Total losses: 182
Win (%): 32%

Horde

Total battlegrounds played: 63
Total wins: 45
Total losses: 18
Win (%): 71%

In my experience, Arathi Basin is the most unbalanced battleground in my battle group until you reach the level cap. While levelling it is rare to port in to the middle of a 15 v 15 Arathi Basin. More often than not the Horde outnumber the Alliance 3 to 1. Here's an example.

I played 8 games on my Horde Death Knight yesterday in the 50-59 bracket for 8 wins 0 losses. That sounds impressive... until I add that none of those 8 games started with 15 v 15. The biggest Alliance turn out was one game where it was 11 Alliance v 15 Horde. The average battle started with 5-7 Alliance v 14-15 Horde, with the gates opening in one game with 2 Alliance v 15 Horde. When the numbers are so heavily stacked in your favour it's very difficult to do anything but win. In this instance it's not so much a case of "Alliance suck at PvP" as it is "Alliance don't turn up to PvP".

The lack of Alliance numbers in Arathi Basin is an interesting problem. Do the Alliance stop queuing because they keep losing or do they keep losing because they never have the numbers?

At level 80 this numbers imbalance is addressed, thanks to the random battleground finder, and the win/loss ratio starts to even out a little more.

Alterac Valley

Alliance

Total battlegrounds played: 123
Total wins: 69
Total losses: 54
Win (%): 56%

Horde

Total battlegrounds played: 21
Total wins: 11
Total losses: 10
Win (%): 52%

Ahhh... Alterac Valley. There's long been the belief that the layout of the map favours the Alliance in this battleground. I'm not really sure that is the case, but if there is a map advantage, it's not really translating to massive numbers in the win column. Alterac Valley is as much a coin toss as any of the battlegrounds in my opinion. Granted my Horde side numbers aren't huge, however I'd expect the win ratio to hover around the mark it is at now. Maybe it is just me, but at level 80 Alterac Valley has become a zergfest. The outcome of the battle is often determined by which faction can get to the opposite end of the map the fastest with the most numbers. Crusader Aura for the win.

So they are the three battlegrounds that I have the most numbers for. As you can tell, taking Arathi Basin out of the equation, the results for both factions are fairly similar. I'm interested to see how these numbers pan out as I continue playing, particularly as my Horde characters start progressing.

One thing I'm looking forward to is levelling a couple of my Horde to level 80 so I can enjoy the fruits of Wintergrasp for once. Wintergrasp is really a sore point for me on my server. It's another example of where the Alliance just refuse to turn up in any numbers. If I port in to Wintergrasp with less that 5 stacks of tenacity I almost pass out with surprise. I haven't set foot in VoA for over a month now. This makes it hard to gear up quickly via the charity loot system that VoA offers. It makes me sad.

There is one big difference that I have noticed between the Alliance and the Horde at level 80 in my battlegroup. Alliance side, it's not uncommon to port into a match to find that half your team is sporting blue PvE gear. I'm not usually a Gearscore snob, but when half my team are sitting at 2000-3000 Gearscore and all have less that 20K HP the little gnome in me cries. When the opposition all run toward you wearing what is obviously PvP gear, you know that it's not going to end at all well.

This all causes me to come to the one conclusion. Do the Alliance suck at PvP? No. It would just appear that, on my server at least, the Horde place greater emphasis on it. The fact that the Horde continue to turn out in greater numbers and in appropriate gear all point to that conclusion. I enjoy battlegrounds but I'd prefer that both sides started on an equal playing field.

The way PvP and battlegrounds are currently structured, the faction that is the strongest is consistently rewarded and therefore grows stronger again. The weaker faction will always struggle to keep up. Even if, at level 80, both factions have players of equal 'skill', the faction that dominates in the lead up to 80 will have the immediate advantage. Here's an example. When my one, and currently only, level 80 Horde toon reached the level cap he did so with over 70K honor in the bank. With that I was able to immediately pick up two solid PvP pieces. With Wintergrasp under almost permanent Horde control I'd also been joining Wintergrasp during the lead up to level 80, acquiring enough Wintergrasp marks of honor to buy even more PvP gear. It wasn't long before I was inside VoA running 10 and 25 man raids. Again this yielded more PvP gear. When you pit two players of equal skill, class, spec and talents against one another, and one is wearing a decent set of PvP gear while the other is wearing whatever PvE gear they've managed to scrounge up via the random dungeon finder, you'd expect the PvP geared player to win every time. This is the issue. Dominance allows you to gear up for PvP quicker, which in turn allows you to maintain that dominance.

When I sat down to write this I didn't expect that I'd finish with War and Peace, but there you go. Part rant, part analysis, part insight into my mind. Scary. Keep on truckin'.