What is the quickest path to an ah for each faction?
This is more of a guide than an actual discussion thread. I didn't want to mark it as a guide due to how ridiculous the topic is. However, seeing how many people pick the popular but longest routes to reach the ah, I decided to create this thread, in order to show you some numbers.
DISCLAIMER: This only shows the time between the portal and the nearest ah. It doesn't take into consideration other factors - bank, trainers, player interaction, music etc. I haven't used any speed boosts - like running in Unholy Presence or cat form. I used the 100% mount speed and the normal walking one. I've included the delay time as well. By that I didn't mean mounting up or reaching the town portal, but going outside, in order to mount up. For example, if you go to Stormwind, you spawn in a tower and you can't use any mounts there. The delay is the time you waste to exit it.
Nice little guide. Never thought about this. Funny how every single alliance player goes to SW, and every horde player goes Org to check AH when they're both clearly the most inconvenient.
Could you add also time from AH to nearest mailbox? :D
Actually, that's very a good suggestion. I forgot, that the distance between the ah and the mailbox is also a factor people take into consideration.
I will make 2 separate posts (one for the distance between the ah and the nearest mailbox, while the other will be dedicated to the distance between the ah and the nearest banker) for better visibility.
Since Fiutolog suggested it, the following post will show you the time between the auction houses in the different major cities and the nearest mailboxes. In my original post, I excluded the 1.5s downtime of mounting up, because I thought this information was redundant. However, when exiting the ah and heading towards the nearest ah, I didn't always have the need to mount up. So now I am including this small info here. Enjoy!
TLDR:
Engineering - Using MOLL-E near the auctioneer (obviously)
Dalaran - ~5 sec (delay & travel time)
Horde - Undercity = Silvermoon City's west ah (1 sec travel time)
Alliance - SW (2 sec delay & travel time)
Proof:
Neutral
Dalaran: 1 sec delay + 1.5sec mounting up + ~2sec travel time
Lastly, here's a post showing the distance between the ah's exit and the nearest banker (again, measured in seconds). I didn't include the downtime for mounting up.
TLDR:
Engineering - Using Jeeves near the auctioneer (obviously)
Dalaran - Horde Bank (14 sec travel time)
Horde - Undercity = TB (6 sec travel time) [since there's a possibility to collide with objects in UC, TB is better]
Alliance - Ironforge (7 sec travel time)