Defending Stonehearth Graveyard

If you like straight out PVP and massive melee then SHGY is a good place for it. The Horde really want this place because it is generally the beginning of the end for the Alliance if it is lost. Not always, but mostly it is. The Horde need it to successfully take down Balinda Stonehearth and Icewing Bunker. Without it they have to run from either Snowfall (Winterax Hold) Graveyard or Iceblood Graveyard (aka IBGY) after they die. This takes time and time is crucial.

So defending SHGY can be pretty frantic and it is not that easy to defend. Really, you are aslo defending Balinda Stonehearth in her outpost and Icewing Bunker. The Stonehearth area is quite large and spread out with split levels. The Outpost itself is a large building and the attacks when they come from across the Field of Strife can flow around the Outpost on either side. If the bulk of the attack is coming from one side I have seen small groups of Horde sneak up the other side and cause havoc. Sometimes enough to take the graveyard because the Alliance are focussed on looking and defending the other direction. Always watch both approaches to the graveyard banner. The majority of times the Horde come from the shortest direction, up the road leading from Stonehearth Bunker.

Another successful strategy is the mass charge lead by a shadow priest. The priest will run into the waiting Alliance and fear everyone within their attack radius. They are quickly followed by the rest of the group who focus on the graveyard banner and the npc guards (if they are not already dead), while the defence is running in fear like headless chooks. This strategy is how they make the yards forward in a number of scenarios, not just at SHGY. See a shadow priest, silence it, suck away its mana and kill it. In that order. Same with warlocks.

Hunters should constantly lay traps around the banner. Renew them all the time. The Frost Trap is effective at slowing the opponents down and should be used in all front line battles. The explosive trap is excellent because of its area effect and because it explodes twice; once when set off and again when the cooldown expires. Anything to interrupt a player trying to claim the banner.

Warlocks and Shadow Priests for the same reasons used against the Alliance. Mages should freeze opponents in their tracks with Frost Nova. Rush in set it off, turn and Blink then range attack.

There may well be a whole host of other individual class strategies to disrupt attacks which I am not familiar with. If you have worked something out, use it. Slow them down, disrupt spell casting; whatever damage you can, do it. Especially when the Horde are close to the banner.