Starting WoW for the first time.

Hi folks.

Long time no see.

I was having a discussion on Twitter with someone who is just starting out in WoW and was reading up on levelling a Mage. As the discussion went on I realised there was a whole load of stuff that you sort of learn by osmosis when you play, and that some of it might be handy to spell out somewhere for people.

So here comes Trak’s amazing Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Starting World Of Warcraft (but were afraid to ask since someone in /2 will call you a noob).

First of all comes server choice. The game will ask you Normal, Player Versus Player, Role Playing or Role Playing Player Versus Player. Normal is pretty much that, there’s no PVP without you consenting to it (though if you walk into one of the opposing faction’s capitals you will flag for PVP). Player Versus Player is much like Normal until you hit the level 20+ zones (or 15+ for Redridge) where you will find yourself flagged for PVP. Role Playing servers are Normal servers for people who want to play like they are their actual character, and Role Playing PVP servers are the same, but with the PVP rule set.

OK, so faction choice. Time was that this mattered, Alliance had Paladins and Horde had Shamans, now both sides get both (although if you want an Alliance Shaman or Horde Paladin you better have The Burning Crusade installed). So pick whichever faction appeals to you aesthetically, or idealistically, or where your friends are, or whatever. Remember that on a PVP server you can’t have characters on both factions, not without a second account anyway, but on a Normal server it doesn’t matter.

So then, race choice. The racials can actually matter, and have got significantly better of late. Fortunately the further complication of the separate racial spells for Priests is gone now. So, the racials then?

Racial bonuses are covered in some detail here on WoWWiki.

The ones worth considering are:

Dwarf: Stoneform is useful for everyone, Gun specialization is good for Hunters, Mace specialization for Paladins, Warriors and Death Knights.

Gnome: Escape Artist is excellent for PVP, and can dispell some strange effects that happen to have a snare attached, Expansive Mind is good for Warlocks and Mages, Engineering Specialist is extremely good if you are going to become an engineer.

Human: Every Man for Himself is a free PVP trinket effectively, which saves you a trinket slot. Perception used to be excellent, is now merely average, Diplomacy is probably the best racial in the game – reputation is massively important at the end game, and 10% extra gains is superb. Mace and Sword specializations are good for Paladins, Warriors, Death Knights and to some extent Rogues (although in groups you will be behind a target and so they can’t parry).

Night Elf: Shadowmeld is now superb, a free drop out of combat for all Night Elves. Quickness is quite useful for soloing and tanking.

Draenei: Gift of the Naaru is a heal over time that costs no mana, for Warriors, Mages and Death Knights it’s excellent as they have no innate heals. For Shamans and Paladins it’s decent as they lack Heal over time spells. For Priests it’s probably not that useful. Heroic Presence is amazing as well, a free +1% hit chance is useful at endgame. Gemcutting is a reasonable bonus to a tradeskill, but not as useful as the +15 other trade racials get.

Orc: Blood Fury is a free damage trinket, Hardiness is useful for PVP, Command is excellent if you’re a pet class (Hunter, Warlock, Death Knight) and pointless if you’re not, Axe Specialization is great again for Shamans (Enhancement spec’d), Warriors and Death Knights.

Tauren: Endurance is truly excellent, 5% more health, for tanks this is a huge deal. War Stomp is useful to interrupt combat for 2 seconds, which can be enough to knock a quick heal out.

Troll: Beserking is a nice Haste buff which gets better as you take damage, Bow specialization is good for Hunters, Da Voodoo Shuffle is useful for PVP.

Forsaken: Will of the Forsaken has been gradually reduced in effectiveness, it’s still great, but not the I.W.I.N. button it once was.

Blood Elf: The Arcane Torrent rework has made it more easy to use, and it’s a helpful spell interrupt/mini mana regen tool.

I skipped a fair bit, especially Horde side, which I don’t know as well, but that’s the gist.

So you have a race and faction, what about classes:

Whichever class you pick you will eventually have to “spec” into a particular niche.

Warriors are a pure melee class, either up in the monster’s face holding their attention to take damage so their colleagues can dish out the pain, or dishing out pain themselves. Warriors wear Mail armour until level 40, then Plate, this allows them to take much less damage than casters (who wear cloth) and so take more of a beating, giving them the natural role of punching bag in a party. Tanking warriors spec Protection, whilst damage dealers spec Arms or Fury.

Paladins also wear plate. They can tank similarly to a Warrior, and can also deal damage with a two-handed weapon, their extra trick is that they can also heal. In short a Paladin can be very good at any of the roles in the game, but by doing so loses effectiveness in the other two. Tanking Paladins spec Protection, damage dealers Retribution and healers Holy.

Death Knights can’t be accessed until you have a level 55 of another class and have Wrath of the Lich King installed. They can tank or do damage much like a Warrior. The difference is that they can’t use shields, and that all three of their talent trees can do either role, their trees are Blood (melee damage), Frost (control of monsters/players) and Unholy (area damage/disease damage).

Hunters are a pet class that wears leather until level 40 then wears Mail armour. They have a pet which generally tanks the monster for them so they can stand at a distance and shoot it. They also can lay traps to freeze enemies, slow them or do damage to them. All three of their trees are about damage dealing, with Beast Mastery focussing on the Hunter/Pet symbiosis, Marksmanship on damage with the bow and Survival their trapping/defensive abilities.

Shamans can heal, do magic damage or do melee damage. Like hunters they wear Leather until 40 then graduate to Mail. Shamans are also quite reliant on totems, which are physical items that provide buffs to party members within 50 yards or debuff nearby enemies. Like Paladins Shamans can be superb at several jobs, but getting good at one requires them to sacrifice effectiveness at another, this is especially true of Enhancement (melee) Shamans and healing. The three Shaman trees are Enhancement (melee), Elemental (spell damage) and Restoration (healing).

Rogues are Leather wearing damage dealers, who focus on Dual-Wielding daggers, swords or maces to do damage. They can also go into stealth to pull of sneak attacks. Of all the classes I find Rogue the hardest to get my head around, my first character was a Rogue I got to level 42, since then I have never got one past level 7 despite several tries, so I won’t even try to explain them…

Druids are another hybrid class, and like Paladins can tank, heal and do damage, as well as this they can choose between melee and spell damage. Druids can change shape into different animal forms, a Druid that is in bear form is a tank, a Druid in cat form acts like a rogue, a Druid in Moonkin form (giant Owlbear) does magic damage, a Druid in Tree of Life form is healing. A Druid in normal Night Elf/Tauren form is one that hasn’t levelled far enough to get Bear/Cat/Moonkin/Tree forms. Druids can do anything, but again their spec matters. A Balance Druid does spell damage, a Restoration Druid heals (and has the best Heal over Time abilities), a Feral Druid can do melee damage or tank depending on how they spec within the Feral tree.

Mages are the straight up damage casters, they stand, they shoot fire, ice or arcane energy at their enemies and they hope like hell that the enemy dies before they do as they’re doing it in nothing more than cloth. Mages have a tonne of tricks to keep themselves alive, including slowing enemies down, freezing them, teleporting themselves out of trouble and opening portals to other cities in the world.

Warlocks are a lot like Mages, especially if they spec Destruction. They do however get demons that act like Hunters’ pets which can help deal damage, tank or crowd control. Warlocks are again purely damage based, with their trees focussed on Damage over Time (Affliction), pet synergy (Demonology) and pure front loaded damage (Destruction).

Finally come Priests, the cloth wearing healers who get two whole healing trees (Discipline for damage reduction and versatility, Holy for big heals and area of effect heals) and a damage tree (Shadow – with damage over time).

Again, choose the class that appeals most, but bear in mind tanks and especially healers are in demand at 80 far more than pure damage dealers.

As for professions, take cooking, first aid and fishing as they are all usable by anyone, then take either skinning and mining or skinning and herbalism until you make a tonne of gold. They are profitable on the Auction House and worth far more to you than any low level crafted items that you’ll throw out in a level or two.

Finally a levelling strategy, again Alliance only. If you have The Burning Crusade get your ass to Azuremyst Isle, to get there:

Night Elves run through Teldrassil and the city of Darnassus, take the boat from Ru’thearn Village to Auberdine, then the boat at the end of the Auberdine pier to Azuremyst.

Humans run to Stormwind and take the boat to Auberdine (left dock in the harbour) then take the boat to Azuremyst.

Dwarves and Gnomes run to Ironforge, take the Deeprun Tram to Stormwind then the boat to Auberdine then the boat to Azuremyst.

If you don’t have TBC yet then level anywhere except the Night Elf starting zone, it’s dreadful and boring and has nothing to mine if you want to be a miner.

As a non-Draenei in Azuremyst you can’t do one quest, and can’t do one questline in Bloodmyst, but the quests are better designed and with better rewards than the older areas.

(As an aside, Horde side, non-Blood Elves STILL can’t do the starting quests for the Blood Elves at all).

Once done in Azuremyst head to Bloodmyst, and once done there head to Stormwind, then out into Westfall and do the Defias quest lines to get the quests to go into the Deadmines, which should be your first instance. You should be higher level than it needs (20 or 21 or so) and so if you can find a group it will be a cakewalk.

Once done there I tend to mop up Redridge, which goes from levels 15-25, and then head down into Duskwood, where I level up to 31 or so, then head off to Ironforge, make my way up through Loch Modan and the Wetlands to Arathi Highlands and Hillsbrad Foothiils, I do the quests I can in both those zones. Once things get hard I take the boat from Menethil Harbor in the Wetlands (the left dock) to Theramore, and do the Dustwallow Marsh quests – these were added in 2.3 and are excellent.

Then head off to Darnassus, run down through Darkshore and Ashenvale, through Stonetalon Mountains and into Desolace where I do my mid-30s, then go back to Arathi/Hillsbrad to round it out to 42 or so. At that point I head to Tanaris and do a load of quests there, until I hit hard ones, then go back to Desolace and south into Feralas where I get a few levels, then go back to Hillsbrad and go up through the north-east corner of the zone into The Hinterlands, which has a bunch of really fun things to do. When done there I head back and do the harder stuff in Tanaris (the Silithid things mostly).

Once done with those zones you’re pushing toward level 50 (if not there already) and can go west from Tanaris into the Un’Goro Crater, or north from Ashenvale into Felwood, these are both good places to get to your mid-50s. From there you head north up from the Hinterlands into the Western Plaguelands and get few levels kicking Scourge ass, then you may well be 58. Most people go to Outlands now. I don’t. I go to the Auction House at level 57 and buy a load of green armour and weapons for characters level 57-60 and equip it when I can, this stuff (from Outlands) is amazingly good compared to the old world stuff, and makes you a god in the old world… Then I go to Winterspring (which may well be my favourite zone in the whole game) which is up through a tunnel from north Felwood, and then to Silithus, which is west of Un’Goro crater. These zones would get you to 62 before the reduced experience requirements introduced in path 3.0, and are probably good for 64 or so now. Which means you walk into Outlands outlevelling it by around 3-4 levels, making it easy to fly through.

Outlands leads you by the hand – Hellfire Peninsula to Zangarmarsh to Terokkar Forest to Nagrand to Blade’s Edge Mountains (if you must) to Netherstorm and Shadowmoon Valley, you’ll hit 70 in Terokkar or Nagrand probably, maybe before if you took my advice and milked the old world. After that you can hang around in Outlands and get a few levels or hop the boat from Menethil or Stormwind to Northrend (assuming you got Wrath of the Lich King).

In Northrend we did Howling Fjord 70 – 72, Borean Tundra 72 – 74, Dragonblight 74 – 75, Grizzly Hills 75 – 76, Zul’Drak 76 – 77 then Icecrown 77 – 80. That left Storm Peaks and Sholazar Basin untouched to do quests for cash.

Remember, the more old content you milk the more quests will be worth cash at 80, and only quests that are not grey get bonus money at 80. No point leaving Outland to do at 80, it’s worthless. So try to leave stuff that is easy but still will be green. You can make 7000 or more gold that way.

And that’s how I level.

Phew.

Long post to make up for the absence.

Hope it was useful to someone.