World Of Warcraft help

[Type S Tony]

Done a search & found a thread on this that was created back in 2008 and no one had replied so thought I would start fresh.

Basically my bro-in law built me a new computer which he brought over on the weekend. Its pretty kickass like any new pc should be.

He installed a couple of his games on it for me to play (Battle Field, COD etc) and one of them happened to be WOW.

Now I remember when WOW first came out I practically lost a friend to it, he was just obsessed in the game which kind of turned me of it before I even knew what it was.

Fast Forward 5 years and I find myself with plenty of time to kill most nights, so Ive decided to start playing WOW.

List of questions:

- Best character to start with (Race? Type? Whatever) for a WOW Noob

- What does a battlenet account do for me?

- What expansions/ versions should I look at buying to be 100% up to date?

- Will a wireless connection stuff me around whilst playing?

- Do I need a headset?

- A friend of mine told me to come & play on the Dreadmaul server as he would help me out, What does this mean?

- Is it worth the $17/month?

- Is it worth buying epic stuff from the get go

Any help would be much appreciated guys.

 

[HighSeasHoMastr]

Fast Forward 5 years and I find myself with plenty of time to kill most nights, so Ive decided to start playing WOW.

List of questions:

- Best character to start with (Race? Type? Whatever) for a WOW Noob

- What does a battlenet account do for me?

- What expansions/ versions should I look at buying to be 100% up to date?

- Will a wireless connection stuff me around whilst playing?

- Do I need a headset?

- A friend of mine told me to come & play on the Dreadmaul server as he would help me out, What does this mean?

- Is it worth the $17/month?

- Is it worth buying epic stuff from the get go

Any help would be much appreciated guys.

First, this should be in the Console & PC Gaming section, but I'll answer anyways.

1- Alliance is lame, so go Horde. As for class, Hunters are stupidly easy to level and run solo with, so that's probably a good choice.

2- Lets you play WoW. Also lets you have ReadID friends and track them across multiple Blizzard titles.

3- Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, and Cataclysm.

4- A wireless-N/N+ should be ok, but it will probably lag in big cities and possibly in 25 man raids.

5- If you join a guild that does raiding or PvP you will almost certainly be required to have a headset. Otherwise no.

6- He'll probably give you some gold and run dungeons for you once you're high enough level to assist in your leveling. Plus if he "referred" you, you will get bonus xp when in a party with him.

7- Yes

8- NO! Level a character 1-85 while being stingy and you'll have some bank built up and have good enough gear to start doing 5 man raids. Then start running 5-man dungeons to gear up, and maybe buy some gear from the auction house. Once your gear is good enough, start running 5 man heroic dungeons to gear up, and maybe buys some gear from the auction house. Once your gear is good enough, join a guild and start doing serious raids to gear up... Sensing a trend? There's no need to buy anything.

ProTip- To avoid the monotony on questing, break it up by running dungeons once you're high enough level, because they get you experience too, and generally better gear.

Good luck, and enjoy never seeing your friends again

 

[Digitool]

Alliance all the way. Hunters are good and easy, but I prefer the warlock class. I like Human and Night elf.

I agree, run dungeons frequently in between questing and don't be too afraid to try doing battlegrounds. Once you get the hang of it, they're a ton of fun and a good way to PVP your character. Through battlegrounds you earn a different form of currency "Honor"

with Honor you can purchase special equipment that will be for the most part better than you get on drops from monsters.

Also, here's my tip. Kill the epic monsters whenever you see them, don't pass them by if you're just going from place to place. Epic monsters when you click on them, their icon has a dragon wrapped around them. They're harder, but they typically give a better reward and of course more xp.

 

[Type S Tony]

Cheers guy's,

I briefly read somewhere that Hunters were a good start for inexperianced players although the warlock or night elf sounds like the nuts.

im going to start playing my first serious session tonight so will post up details once done.

Its seems that theres heaps to learn...

High Seas < that was a really helpfull post buddy, much appreciated.

 

[Bigbazz]

The game has come a long way since old times and you can't really go wrong. The main thing they did with the cataclysm expansion (released in december 2010) was a complete overhaul on all the low level (0-60) areas, along with greatly increasing the strength of all the specs while leveling.

All classes have a damage talent tree, Warriors, Druids, Paladins and Death Knights can also spec into tanking. For leveling up you really want to choose either a tanking or damage spec, regardless of the class you pick.

Originally the Hunter was well known as perhaps the best leveling class, due to the strength of having a pet, but that advantage is really not apparent now days (especially since cataclysm) with all the classes being decent. Infact in cataclysm I would say the easiest classes to level would be the tanking classes, since they can all put out good damage while having massive advantages in being defensive, in otherwords if you're a tank you can't really die.

You have 2 different class types, the pure damage classes and the hybrids. Any choice is a good choice at the end of the day.

Hybrids : Tank + Damage = Warrior, Death Knight
: Tank + Healing + Damage = Druid, Paladin
: Healing + Damage = Shaman, Priest

Pure (damage only) : Rogue, Warlock, Mage, Hunter


The pure classes are by design meant to do slightly more damage than hybrids. However, in the history of wow this has rarely been the case, at any point in time depending on the design of a pve fight or the setup of a pvp team the hybrids have always thrived as equals. Though pure classes generally have things that make it "easier" to be a pure damage class, while the hybrids usually have other abilities tying in with their hybrid nature to support other aspects that would aid you in your journeys.


As for the race/species choice: Just go by what you like the look of, they all do the job well and have their strengths and weaknesses, but the differences are very small.


My main char was a Tauren Warrior, I played the Fury spec (Dual weilding melee damage class), I had a few other classes i played but the Warrior was the class for me above all else.

My advice is to pick the right one and stick with it, play the game and enjoy it. You don't need to waste your life away on it, many of the notions that encouraged that have been removed from the game.

 

[Mr. S]

Everything else has been said already.

 

[Bram Turismo]

- Best character to start with (Race? Type? Whatever) for a WOW Noob

It doesn't really matter which class of character you play, neither the race. Go by whichever you prefer. You have to ask yourself what you like to play best; If you are willing to protect your allies from monsters you might be interested in a tanking character as in a warrior, paladin, death knight or a druid.

If you are interested in purely dealing damage you could choose between a mage, a hunter, rogue or a warlock.

Then you have the hybrid classes that can heal their allies or deal damage; shamans, priests.

Two classes can play all three roles; druids and paladins.

I myself play a shaman on which I either deal damage or heal my allies. I spent some time creating a second character on which I tank; a death knight.

- What does a battlenet account do for me?

It's basically an account you use to log into the game with. But it is also used to log, and post, onto the forums.

- What expansions/ versions should I look at buying to be 100% up to date?

Besides the original WoW game you will need the Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, and the Cataclysm expansions. They aren't that expensive, and I think you can get a hold of a WoW Battlechest, which includes the original game and the Burning Crusade expansion, as well as guides and background story.

- Will a wireless connection stuff me around whilst playing?

Any type of connection will do. Bear in mind, though, that if you decide to get serious and start doing 10 or 25 man raids that require you to be on a live speaking channel such as Mumble or Ventrilo, the strain can get quite heavy.

- Do I need a headset?

Not unless you join a PvP or serious raiding guild that require you to be on a speaking channel. Some guilds don't even require you to speak, as long as you can hear them clearly.

- A friend of mine told me to come & play on the Dreadmaul server as he would help me out, What does this mean?

The WoW game basically has a large number of servers on which people play on. What your friend means is that he plays on the server called Dreadmaul. You can create 10 characters per server, up to a total character count of 50 I believe. I myself play on the Burning Blade server.

- Is it worth the $17/month?

The real question you need to ask yourself is: Am I willing to spend money on all of the expansion, and then the monthly fee? It's an addicting game, it's incredibly large as you cannot simply be done with the content. So you are assured there is always something to be done.

- Is it worth buying epic stuff from the get go

Not at all. With your very first character I'd say take your time to reach level 85, and get to know the class you are playing. A website I can heavily recommend is www.elitistjerks.com. Once you start hitting the higher levels, read up on your class on the forums to find out how to play your class with the utmost effect.

On that, I heavily recommend you to read some of the lore behind the game. It isn't required by any means, but almost everyone playing WoW these days don't really have a clue what it's all about. The amount of lore on the Wowwiki is just immense, and I've spent tons of time reading up background stories of the characters in the game.

Have fun!

 

[Type S Tony]

Thankyou brother Bram,

Your point on weather its worth paying the $17 or not really struck home and got me thinking that your right, there is heaps of content, more than enough to keep anyone occupied for a very long time so it may just be that its actually worth it.

I put in about 4 hours tonight, ended up choosing a Night Elf Druid for the reason that they can play all 3 roles.

Done a few different quest and got a good feel for the game,managed to get to level 5, its super confusing though, ended up having to call my cousin to ask him question's untill he finally snapped it and came over, Apparently I done well to kill a huge spider and a saber leopard thing at the same time.

Playing wow though made me realise how crappy my keyboard actually is, ordered a new G19 which I found on special for $145 delivered.

So how many hours of play you guys think ill need to put in to reach level 80?

 

[Bigbazz]

How long it takes to get to 80/85 really depends on how you play and the way you play. There are many ways to level up and some work better than others at different points of leveling.

You can gain experience doing

PvP
Quests
Dungeons
Exploration
Gathering (Mining, herbing)


My advise is to not rush it, enjoy it and just take things in, get to know your character, if you rush to max level you won't get to appreciate the storylines and progression of the game and you won't get enough time to become more skilled with your class and in dealing with certain situations.

How long it takes is like asking how long is a piece of string. Some people can level up extremely fast using the right methods and hit max level in a few days, others take longer. Don't be too surprised if it takes you a few weeks or more to get to max level, but there is so much game to be experienced before max level, you should just enjoy it.


Personally i think some of the magic of the game is lost when you finally hit lvl 85, as your gaming experience then completely changes. You have two paths of either gearing up by doing lots of pvp, or gearing up by doing lots of pve, or both. Its a bit like growing up, going through school and life, university and then reality hits and you gotta get a job.

PvP at high level takes a lot of effort, input and patience, you need gear to compete, so you have to run around and get destroyed for a while.
Pve at level requires a lot of effort, you must run all of the dungeons and heroic dungeons and then the troll heroic dungeons, an endless array of constantly killing the same bosses hoping for your item to drop, so you can move to the bigger raid dungeons.

Its the max level stuff that can start to take away your soul ^^ so to speak. Don't get me wrong, it can be great fun, but it can be stressful too when your aim changes from playin the game for fun, to playing the game to be good.

 

[Type S Tony]

Sweet as Baz,

Currently sitting on Lvl 12, The Dreadmaul Server is PVP and im about to skip over to the next land mass which im sure will be full of a whole bunch of people. My Question is can these guys randomly attack me & loot me of all my stuff?

 

[Joel]

I played WoW too, it's a fun game. I roll a Blood Elf Mage myself, I was arcane spec, but I don't know what spec I'd choose if I were to start playing again. I bought the game about two years ago, and played it for about 5 or 6 months. Later on, I sold my account to a friend at school, and took about a year off from WoW. Then, earlier this year, I got the urge to play again, so I bought my account back off the kid (for less than I initially sold it for ), and played for another two months.

However, I'm still sitting at level 80 on my mage, because I haven't got Cataclysm yet. I'll probably wait until next winter rolls around to get Cataclysm, that's usually the dull period in the calendar. Although I'm really not sure, with Skyrim, Battlefield 3, and MW3 all coming out next winter, I'm not sure I want to drop 60 bucks on Cataclysm, and then 17 dollars a month.

All in all though, WoW's a very fun game. Some of my best gaming times were in the summer after Ninth grade, coming home at 11PM after a stressful shift at work, and just unwinding, playing WoW until the wee hours of the morning. If you get a group of friends from real life playing the game with you, that's when it gets even more fun. At one point we had a perfect 5 man team going, and we'd talk through skype while we played. It was also a way to keep in touch with friends who went into different social circles in high school.

It was great fun, and truthfully I miss the experience a little bit. WoW is so much more fun to play with real life people. I found doing PvE was the most fun for me, although battlegrounds can be fun. I think I'd have to agree though, getting to level 80 takes some of the magic away. Once you get to the max level, that's where the game can really suck you in and leave you playing for hours and hours on end.

It's just good clean fun, if you can find some real life friends who play, or can find a good guild to play with once you level up and figure out the game a bit, it can be loads of fun. I found the game world to be very immersive, and it was easy to spend loads of time playing, and having fun. However, it's also easy to spend loads of time playing but get nothing accomplished in game. Playing with real friends is fun, but it can be really frustrating if they suck or can't connect properly etc. etc.


EDIT: Sorry, that post isn't really very helpful. I got caught up reminiscing my WoW days.

 

[Type S Tony]

LOL, All good,

Ive got my brother in law & one of my cousins who both used to play 24/7, ready to re-install there games and start questing together or whatever which should be fun.

I know what you mean about time passing by, I spent another 4 hours last night when playing and it literally only felt like I was on the PC for half hour. Most of that time was just spent trying to complete minor quests, some of which I had to do 2-3 times because the boss would always have 2 or 3 guards helping him/her attack me untill I managed to level up a few levels and learn some new spells which allowed me to attack from a distance, one of them is really cool, you basically hold your opponent down with roots and attack him with wrath or a moon beam so by the time they get out of the binding roots there practically dead.

Awesome game, already thinking of buying a 2nd pc to dedicate to wow only.

 

[Type S Tony]

Hey guys,

Managed to reach lvl 20 over the long weekend but i noticed last night i wasnt gaining any additional xp even though the things I was killing were level 18+.

Anyone know why this may be?

 

[Joel]

LOL, All good,

Ive got my brother in law & one of my cousins who both used to play 24/7, ready to re-install there games and start questing together or whatever which should be fun.

I know what you mean about time passing by, I spent another 4 hours last night when playing and it literally only felt like I was on the PC for half hour. Most of that time was just spent trying to complete minor quests, some of which I had to do 2-3 times because the boss would always have 2 or 3 guards helping him/her attack me untill I managed to level up a few levels and learn some new spells which allowed me to attack from a distance, one of them is really cool, you basically hold your opponent down with roots and attack him with wrath or a moon beam so by the time they get out of the binding roots there practically dead.

Awesome game, already thinking of buying a 2nd pc to dedicate to wow only.

Yeah, questing with real life friends and people you know is a recipe for both obscene amounts of fun, and obscene amounts of time on the computer

But as for your exp problem, I'm not really sure about any solutions.. Oh, that might be it. Did you buy the actual WoW game, or were you playing a trial account? Because trial accounts are capped at level 20, and if you want to level up further you'll need to buy a copy of the game and upgrade it (CD key). The original vanilla WoW game comes with a month subscription, so you won't need to worry about that quite yet.

 

[Type S Tony]

Yeah, questing with real life friends and people you know is a recipe for both obscene amounts of fun, and obscene amounts of time on the computer

But as for your exp problem, I'm not really sure about any solutions.. Oh, that might be it. Did you buy the actual WoW game, or were you playing a trial account? Because trial accounts are capped at level 20, and if you want to level up further you'll need to buy a copy of the game and upgrade it (CD key). The original vanilla WoW game comes with a month subscription, so you won't need to worry about that quite yet.

ah yes, I bought the actual game but still using up the 10 day trail, Will upgrade tonight.

Thanks for that man, I was starting to freak out a bit.

 

[mikAE86]

.

 

[Bigbazz]

Best way to make money is to get to level 85, the further you go into the game the more money will become available to you. Don't forget to pickup junk items (especially later on) in order to sell them to vendors. Using the auction house to sell stuff that you find (by whatever means) is the way to make big money. Easy money comes in the way of questing though, so just get on with it i suppose.

 

[Type S Tony]

- Upgraded the account and the ability to gain xp was restored, so annoyed though that the xp I would have gained wasnt added on once I upgraded, lvl 22 atm but should be lvl 23. Just finished up everything there is to do in Darkshore and moved onto the next land mass.

 

[Joel]

That's one thing I didn't get for a while. When you kill something, loot everything. Even the "rat meat" or "ruined pelts" and other seemingly useless items. It's all worth small amounts of money, and it adds up.

 

[Type S Tony]

Progress update:

Has been a little over a month since started playing wow.

Everything has changed as in now everything revolves around warcraft.

I have managed to level a Night Elf Druid to lvl 70, A drenai Paladin to lvl 49 & a human warlock to lvl 10 (my sister in laws character that I randomly play)

Have managed to get my cousin to get back into it and we have been leveling our characters together, its so much more fun when you have someone to do quests & dungeons with.

My other cousin turns out to be a guild leader of some sort and has hooked us both up with with about 5K gold each to get us through whatever we need. His also there to help out whever one of us may be getting farmed or if we try to take on multiple horde or something.

I haver managed to gear the druid with heaps of intelect & spirit so have a huge mana & health reserve but am finding it a struggle to do the same sort of DPS that my cousins same level mage & my Palidan do?

Any suggestions?

 

[Bigbazz]

Progress update:

Has been a little over a month since started playing wow.

Everything has changed as in now everything revolves around warcraft.

I have managed to level a Night Elf Druid to lvl 70, A drenai Paladin to lvl 49 & a human warlock to lvl 10 (my sister in laws character that I randomly play)

Have managed to get my cousin to get back into it and we have been leveling our characters together, its so much more fun when you have someone to do quests & dungeons with.

My other cousin turns out to be a guild leader of some sort and has hooked us both up with with about 5K gold each to get us through whatever we need. His also there to help out whever one of us may be getting farmed or if we try to take on multiple horde or something.

I haver managed to gear the druid with heaps of intelect & spirit so have a huge mana & health reserve but am finding it a struggle to do the same sort of DPS that my cousins same level mage & my Palidan do?

Any suggestions?

What spec are you playing? Spirit is typically a healing stat and if you're playing restoration spec you aren't designed to do damage. If you're playing Balance (giant chicken) spec then you should be able to perform comparable damage, however you may be using a badly talented spec or not performing your abilities in the optimum way. If you're playing Feral spec (pussycat/bear) then you absolutely would not be able to do good damage if you're using spirit/intelect gear. Feral requires agility based gear.

 

[Type S Tony]

Playing a balance spec druid

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/frostmourne/Smacknout/advanced

Ive been reading alot into it and got a good spell rotation set up with DOT's first followed by spamming whatever cast im eclipsed in but just dont seem to be able to do the same crit's & DPS.

Another mad issue im seeing is the actual cast times compared to other caster classes, on average it takes about 2-3 sec's to cast anything other than an instant cast, whilst casting you cannot move, so you have to basically sit there, turn on any buffs (barskin, natures grasp, thorns etc) and shoot off these long as casts that dont do any real sort of significant damage all whilst having the environment villain deplete you of half you life bar??

Just last night I started hitting +5K dps but thats only very random/rare atm, usually a standard cast of starfire or starsurge only netts close to 2K with the odd one going about 3,500K which is pathetic compared to my cousins arcane mage who regularly see's crits of 9,500+, he even had one crit 11K last night???

 

[Bigbazz]

Playing a balance spec druid

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/frostmourne/Smacknout/advanced

Ive been reading alot into it and got a good spell rotation set up with DOT's first followed by spamming whatever cast im eclipsed in but just dont seem to be able to do the same crit's & DPS.

Another mad issue im seeing is the actual cast times compared to other caster classes, on average it takes about 2-3 sec's to cast anything other than an instant cast, whilst casting you cannot move, so you have to basically sit there, turn on any buffs (barskin, natures grasp, thorns etc) and shoot off these long as casts that dont do any real sort of significant damage all whilst having the environment villain deplete you of half you life bar??

Just last night I started hitting +5K dps but thats only very random/rare atm, usually a standard cast of starfire or starsurge only netts close to 2K with the odd one going about 3,500K which is pathetic compared to my cousins arcane mage who regularly see's crits of 9,500+, he even had one crit 11K last night???

5000 dps at level 70 is very very high. I'm not sure if you mean burst or just 5k crits but it aint bad. I used to play when lvl70 was the maximum level, 1000dps was good, 2000 dps was best gear in the game on the highest damage classes level, and anything above that was approaching the absolute maximum that was possible with the best gear and a full 25man raid worth of buffs to increase damage and a fair bit of luck.

5000dps at 70 may be possible with the crazy talents available in cataclysm, but it certaintly isnt something to be complaining about, It was quite some time before most people were doing that at lvl80.


I've never played a Balance druid, but they do have a lot of abilities available that do massive damage, including area of effect damage (I don't know what level you get them) - The recent kill of the hardest boss in the game (only 1 guild has killed it in the world) had 2 Balance druids in the group and only 1 mage just to put things into perspective. Just keep with it and learn to use all of your abilities to make the most of situations, if you enjoy playing the class then keep at it, you won't be stuck with a dud class at maximum level.

 

[Type S Tony]

I love playing the druid because of all the different abilities, just the DPS is an issue & after scoruing through the blizzard forums alot of people seem to be having the same sort of problems, seems like the whole class is a very difficult class to play becuase of the massive rotations required to do significant damage & maintain health at the same time.

The light at the end of the tunnel is that it supposedly evens out once you get to 85 but thats going to take me atleast another 2-3 weeks to achieve. should be easier to level my pali though, So much fun going through a dungeon & constantly taking the aggro becuase the tank cant handle it.

Should get back into it Baz, would be fun

 

[Bigbazz]

I love playing the druid because of all the different abilities, just the DPS is an issue & after scoruing through the blizzard forums alot of people seem to be having the same sort of problems, seems like the whole class is a very difficult class to play becuase of the massive rotations required to do significant damage & maintain health at the same time.

The light at the end of the tunnel is that it supposedly evens out once you get to 85 but thats going to take me atleast another 2-3 weeks to achieve. should be easier to level my pali though, So much fun going through a dungeon & constantly taking the aggro becuase the tank cant handle it.

Should get back into it Baz, would be fun

If you enjoy the druid then stick through it, at level 85 with some decent gear you will be one of the leading dps specs. At the end of the day any class you play you will find a lot of people complaining about something on the forums, and whatever you play you will be able to compete decently at max level but some classes will take a lot more to get the most out of, that is just how it goes in WoW. Throughout leveling at different points different classes or specs will be ahead of others and the game isnt intended to be fully balanced around anything other than level 85.


I played the game for years mate, did the 25man raiding thing to the highest level for a long time and really the game has just lost its magic for me. It is definitely one of the best games i've ever played, but there comes a point with any game where you just don't get the enjoyment from playing it anymore.

 

[Bigbazz]

Playing a balance spec druid

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/frostmourne/Smacknout/advanced

Ive been reading alot into it and got a good spell rotation set up with DOT's first followed by spamming whatever cast im eclipsed in but just dont seem to be able to do the same crit's & DPS.

Another mad issue im seeing is the actual cast times compared to other caster classes, on average it takes about 2-3 sec's to cast anything other than an instant cast, whilst casting you cannot move, so you have to basically sit there, turn on any buffs (barskin, natures grasp, thorns etc) and shoot off these long as casts that dont do any real sort of significant damage all whilst having the environment villain deplete you of half you life bar??

Just last night I started hitting +5K dps but thats only very random/rare atm, usually a standard cast of starfire or starsurge only netts close to 2K with the odd one going about 3,500K which is pathetic compared to my cousins arcane mage who regularly see's crits of 9,500+, he even had one crit 11K last night???

Out of interest, what servers to australians play on? Do you get your own servers and battlegroups or do you join in with the americans/europeans?