Enemy at the gates!

Maybe not at the gates, but still in Stormwind... Last sunday (2nd January) Tides of Misery attacked Stormwind and captured the portal island (not for long, they got zerged). Dark Saints quickly formed defense raid led by Parashade (yes, again that noob), strengthened it by invites from trade chat and then brutally killed all enemy raiders in our "beautiful" city (I want baaaack to my Silvermoon!). Still, great respect to Tides of Misery, who weren't affraid to strike alliance capital city and fight against endless waves of really highly buffed guards and large groups of frenzied alliance players. Umm, ok - they avoided Stormwind guards by landing on portal isle which isn't protected, but that was a smart move!

Horde tried to regroup in the mountains, but because of being corpsecamped and long runs from graveyard they called it. Parashade logged his horde "spy" character and received loads of whines about zerging, because it was the best time for hordies to spam that nab (lol, what a pro spy character if whole realm knows about it). Tides of Misery claims it was an experiment and they didn't hope for much. Well, I'm sure it wasn't a total fail in that case.

Grumzod about Stormwind raid.

Why people like to whine spam Para?

Conclusions from this raid and 2 Dark Saints' Orgrimmar raids:

• city raids in Cataclysm are much harder, but still possible. Guards are incredibly strong, propably the best idea is to use pve geared tanks to take them off of other raiders (especially cloth wearers).
• It's rather stupid idea to rush inside the city. It's highly recommended to move slowly and deal with all nearby guards before pulling more.
• Flying at low altitude is even more stupid. In that case all flying guards on the way will be pulled in addition to ground guards on landing (crashing) spot. It's propably a wipe. Am I right, Zoogi?
• Air guards can be anyway avoided by flying at high altitude.
• Small groups and solo gankers (especially rogues) aren't powerful in enemy cities these days. A full raid is recommended.
• And of course it's much easier to reach enemy cities thanks to flying mounts in Azeroth (no more long trips, Zeppelin hijackings, etc)!

So, the city raiding is much more challenging nowadays and much more exciting. I hope we will have great wpvp events in Ravenholdt because of that (in addition to smaller world skirmishes and some plotted events).

Experiment #1: distance between attacker's graveyard and the city - for Orgrimmar and Stormwind. Wohoo, good time for some researches...

Orgrimmar. Gathering data...

So I suicided cus I'm emo... (nah, I'm not! I did that for the science!)

Graveyard - 00:00 [mm:ss].

Durotar map: Graveyard --> Orgrimmar route.

Orgrimmar gates - 02:12.

Orgrimmar (central area) - 03:19.

Stormwind.

One of my pro horde alts in action!

Crap! (Graveyard - 00:00)

Elwynn Forest map: Graveyard --> Stormwind route.

Stormwind gates - 03:14.

Stormwind Trade District - 03:50.

Stormwind Cathedral Square (central area) - 04:14

Summary.

Note: In both cities I've chosen "central area" because it gives average values. If you die at the deepest part of the city, you need slighty more time - which is equal or less to time between gates and central area (let's name that distance as City radius. It can be slighty inaccurate anyway.).

                                     Gates                Central area                 City radius
Orgrimmar:                   02:12                       03:19                            01:05
Stormwind:                   03:14                       04:14                            01:00


Horde players need 1 min more to reach enemy city from graveyard!

It's good to know these values - you know how much free time you have after wiping enemies in your city (and you can go afk, smoke, check facebook or watch some porns).