If you run BGs as alliance you will eventually see someone rage quit with the parting words of "Alliance sucks!". As I've played Alliance for pretty much my whole WoW career I usually just ignore the comments and requeue hoping for a better result from the next one. I've always thought that the complaints had no merit as my win/loss ration is usually close to 50% on all my alliance toons. As an experiment I decided to level an 80 Horde hunter I had on another realm and it was a real eyeopener.
I've only played about a 100 games at level 85 but I was amazed at the difference. First there is much less talking than occurs on the Alliance side. In one of my first Alterac Valley's no one was talking so I put up the comment, "D Galv?". The only response I got was, "Uh yeah obviously" and then we proceeded to roll over the Alliance. At this point my overall winning percentage as a horde player is around 60% but many of those losses were during the leveling process where the competition is much tighter. Given my experience so far I think there are only a few things that affect the winning percentage - BG Design, Racials, and Playerbase.
[b]BG Design[/b] - One of the issues with BGs is the sides aren't set up as mirror images so despite Blizzards efforts some of the instances do have advantages. The funny thing is advantages change as strategies morph over time. For instance, the Horde historically have considered the Alterac Valley setup as unfair to them since the Alliance can get to their base much quicker. This has caused the Horde into the more defensive "D Galv / recap towers" strategy that will win almost every time if a majority of players help. I know when I play alliance that my only worry is when the Horde stack on Galv. The downside is can result in a turtle but most Horde will take the 200+ honor in 30-40 minutes rather than a 15 minute loss that results in 50 honor. No other battleground is as extreme as AV but the water surrounding the Horde base on Twin Peaks and the differences between BET/MT in EotS are other examples. Do these give one side a huge advantage? Not enough in my opinion to cause the variations we see in winning percentage.
[b]Racials[/b] - Another possible explanation is racial abilities. Just looking at the hunter class someone on EJ calculated the following dps differences by race using an orc hunter as the baseline (non-dps abilities in parenthesis):
+66 - Troll w/ Bow (Da Voodoo Shuffle - Snare Resistance)
+0 - Orc: 0 (Hardiness)
-80 - Troll w/o Bow (Da Voodoo Shuffle for snare resistance, Regeneration)
-154 - Worgen (Darkflight for speed burst, Aberration for decreased curse durations)
-163 - Goblins (Rocket Jump for short burst movements)
-187 - Blood Elf (Arcane Torrent - silence and 15 focus every 2 mins, +resistance to magic)
-263 - Draenei: (Shadow Resistance and Gift of the Naaru for a heal)
-180 - Dwarf w/ Gun (Frost Resistance and Stoneform to remove some ailments)
-409 - Night Elf (Shadowmeld, Nature Resistance, Quickness to avoid damage)
-429 - Human (Every Man for Himself to shake off speed reduction and traps)
-435 - Forsaken (WotF to remove certain status effects and Shadow Resistance)
-444 - Dwarf w/o Gun (Frost Resistance and Stoneform to remove some ailments)
-444 - Taurens (War Stomp stun, Nature Resistance, and Endurance for extra health)
N/A - Gnome - Cannot be a hunter (Thank god!)
Source: http://elitistjerks.com/f74/t112408-[cataclysm]_marksmanship/#2_1_The_Spec
Looking at this list it certainly seems like the horde have a definite advantage and some quick math puts it between 1-2% dps. The thing is it is hard to put a number on the non-dps abilities. For instance the racial Every Man for Himself allows humans to take another dps trinket instead of the PVP trinket that is pretty much a requirement for every other class. That would more than make up for the loss. Still, it appears the horde do have a distinct advantage in this area.
Playerbase: This is a tricky subject but my experience is that I win 50% of my games as alliance and 60% as horde. I realize that I haven't played enough games to be statistically relevant but my experience mirrors what many say on the forums. You'd think that with millions of players playing the game that it would be impossible for one side to consistently have better players than the other side but I think the answer is pretty simple.
Right after release a majority of players rolled the alliance as most people could relate to them better, especially the under 18 group. When battlegrounds came out the Horde was outnumbered but as a result they had almost instant queues. This lead to the generally accepted saying, "If you want to PVE - Roll Alliance, If you want to PVP - Roll Horde". Over time the population disparities lessened but the thought that Horde was the faction to roll if you wanted to PVP stayed intact. When new players come into the game, if they are interested in PVP, the more serious players will reroll. This isn't a huge part of the playerbase but its enough to improve the general quality of the Horde teams you get in PVP.
Every time I lose a BG it is almost always because the other team played better. Sure they might have had better gear but the key is knowing your class. In my experience the most frustrating BGs are where you see everyone in the group is around ilvl350 but they spend most of the game in the middle of the field and at the end of the game you have double or triple their dps. These players had the gear they just don't know what to do with it. The bottom line in my opinion different battleground design or a 1% difference in dps isn't meaningful in the big picture. It's all about the playerbase and that is the key difference. Blizzard can't force players into a specific faction but the Horde's current popularity might fix it over time. That is because so many people have moved to the Horde to PVP they now have queues instead of the alliance. This may be enough to move more good players back to the alliance but I doubt many really good players move without the racial issue being addressed. I know for myself, that I am enjoying Horde despite the 5-10 minute wait for a battleground.
TLDR : If you want to PVP, play Horde.
I've only played about a 100 games at level 85 but I was amazed at the difference. First there is much less talking than occurs on the Alliance side. In one of my first Alterac Valley's no one was talking so I put up the comment, "D Galv?". The only response I got was, "Uh yeah obviously" and then we proceeded to roll over the Alliance. At this point my overall winning percentage as a horde player is around 60% but many of those losses were during the leveling process where the competition is much tighter. Given my experience so far I think there are only a few things that affect the winning percentage - BG Design, Racials, and Playerbase.
[b]BG Design[/b] - One of the issues with BGs is the sides aren't set up as mirror images so despite Blizzards efforts some of the instances do have advantages. The funny thing is advantages change as strategies morph over time. For instance, the Horde historically have considered the Alterac Valley setup as unfair to them since the Alliance can get to their base much quicker. This has caused the Horde into the more defensive "D Galv / recap towers" strategy that will win almost every time if a majority of players help. I know when I play alliance that my only worry is when the Horde stack on Galv. The downside is can result in a turtle but most Horde will take the 200+ honor in 30-40 minutes rather than a 15 minute loss that results in 50 honor. No other battleground is as extreme as AV but the water surrounding the Horde base on Twin Peaks and the differences between BET/MT in EotS are other examples. Do these give one side a huge advantage? Not enough in my opinion to cause the variations we see in winning percentage.
[b]Racials[/b] - Another possible explanation is racial abilities. Just looking at the hunter class someone on EJ calculated the following dps differences by race using an orc hunter as the baseline (non-dps abilities in parenthesis):
+66 - Troll w/ Bow (Da Voodoo Shuffle - Snare Resistance)
+0 - Orc: 0 (Hardiness)
-80 - Troll w/o Bow (Da Voodoo Shuffle for snare resistance, Regeneration)
-154 - Worgen (Darkflight for speed burst, Aberration for decreased curse durations)
-163 - Goblins (Rocket Jump for short burst movements)
-187 - Blood Elf (Arcane Torrent - silence and 15 focus every 2 mins, +resistance to magic)
-263 - Draenei: (Shadow Resistance and Gift of the Naaru for a heal)
-180 - Dwarf w/ Gun (Frost Resistance and Stoneform to remove some ailments)
-409 - Night Elf (Shadowmeld, Nature Resistance, Quickness to avoid damage)
-429 - Human (Every Man for Himself to shake off speed reduction and traps)
-435 - Forsaken (WotF to remove certain status effects and Shadow Resistance)
-444 - Dwarf w/o Gun (Frost Resistance and Stoneform to remove some ailments)
-444 - Taurens (War Stomp stun, Nature Resistance, and Endurance for extra health)
N/A - Gnome - Cannot be a hunter (Thank god!)
Source: http://elitistjerks.com/f74/t112408-[cataclysm]_marksmanship/#2_1_The_Spec
Looking at this list it certainly seems like the horde have a definite advantage and some quick math puts it between 1-2% dps. The thing is it is hard to put a number on the non-dps abilities. For instance the racial Every Man for Himself allows humans to take another dps trinket instead of the PVP trinket that is pretty much a requirement for every other class. That would more than make up for the loss. Still, it appears the horde do have a distinct advantage in this area.
Playerbase: This is a tricky subject but my experience is that I win 50% of my games as alliance and 60% as horde. I realize that I haven't played enough games to be statistically relevant but my experience mirrors what many say on the forums. You'd think that with millions of players playing the game that it would be impossible for one side to consistently have better players than the other side but I think the answer is pretty simple.
Right after release a majority of players rolled the alliance as most people could relate to them better, especially the under 18 group. When battlegrounds came out the Horde was outnumbered but as a result they had almost instant queues. This lead to the generally accepted saying, "If you want to PVE - Roll Alliance, If you want to PVP - Roll Horde". Over time the population disparities lessened but the thought that Horde was the faction to roll if you wanted to PVP stayed intact. When new players come into the game, if they are interested in PVP, the more serious players will reroll. This isn't a huge part of the playerbase but its enough to improve the general quality of the Horde teams you get in PVP.
Every time I lose a BG it is almost always because the other team played better. Sure they might have had better gear but the key is knowing your class. In my experience the most frustrating BGs are where you see everyone in the group is around ilvl350 but they spend most of the game in the middle of the field and at the end of the game you have double or triple their dps. These players had the gear they just don't know what to do with it. The bottom line in my opinion different battleground design or a 1% difference in dps isn't meaningful in the big picture. It's all about the playerbase and that is the key difference. Blizzard can't force players into a specific faction but the Horde's current popularity might fix it over time. That is because so many people have moved to the Horde to PVP they now have queues instead of the alliance. This may be enough to move more good players back to the alliance but I doubt many really good players move without the racial issue being addressed. I know for myself, that I am enjoying Horde despite the 5-10 minute wait for a battleground.
TLDR : If you want to PVP, play Horde.
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