World of Warcraft, What You Should Know
The first thing you need to do before all things is decide which server you are going to play on. You must select a server that is going to play the same hours as you. Picking your geographical location on the tab list on the bottom you can find a server that suits your time zone. It is also a good idea to check out the servers forums before creating a character on that server. On the forums you can find out what the players are like, is it a strong population of active members, what kind of guilds are doing raids on that server, you can even check out who wins the battlegrounds the most on that server.
Picking a server compliments your character also, picking a faction to play on can also help define which server is best for you. Finding a server that has more raiding guilds on your faction than the other, or dominates the battlegrounds in their battlegroup will greatly help you in the future whatever your endeavours may be.
Once you have picked your faction you need to decide what race and class you will play.
These also compliment each other with racial abilities. Certain racial abilities benefit certain classes more than others. For example, Orcs have a a bonus 5 expertise with axes making it a good decision for a Warrior to be an Orc rather than another race. Racial abilities vary for different classes, read each classes racial ability before making a decision. To be blunt though, the racial ability isn’t that big of a deal.
Picking a class to play is probably the biggest choice you will make in the game, it will determine your whole experience with the game and the role you play in it. Firstly determine whether your a fighter or a helper. I’ll explain to you in more detail what I mean.
Fighter
You are someone who wants to get in to the middle of the action and do some serious damage to your foes. You want a class that either gets up close and personal with big weapons or toys with their foe by attacking them from a distance.
Helper
You are someone who wants to help the Fighter’s with what they do best, this usually means healing.
Now for you to pick the class that best benefits how you want to play.
Warrior
Warriors are experts in weapons and defense against huge monsters. Playing a Warrior will allow you to either do damage or tank for groups. Tanking involves keeping all the monsters attacking you instead of the rest of your group.
Rogue
Rogue is another class that gets up close and personal. Not only do Rogues do a lot of damage they also have skills that allow them to stun mobs, making them great for Crowd Control (stunning one or more monsters, so group can kill the other monsters first).
Hunter
This class is all about damage. Using primarily guns, crossbows and bows these guys deal damage from a distance. Not only are they ranged combat, but at level 10 they can tame a wild beast to be their pet and help them fight. This makes hunters the fastest and easiest class to level.
Warlock
Masters of the dark arts, Warlocks cast spells from a distance and inflict monsters with DoT’s (Damage Over Time spells). They also are able to obtain pets to help them fight at level 10, the pets are learned as spells. You must summon your pets with soul shards. The spell drain soul is used on monsters just before they die which creates a soul shard.
Paladin
A class that can not only do Damage and cast a great amount of buff (beneficial) spells on players but they can also heal. Whether you want to get in close with weapons and help fight or stand back and heal, it’s up to you. Paladins also have the ability to tank.
Mage
Another class all about Damage, Mages are casters so they stand back and cast damaging spells at monsters. Mages are also great AOE (Area Of Effect) spell casters making them perfect for AOE Grinding. AOE Grinding is a big group of monsters chase after you then freezing or slowing them down so that you may damage them with AOE spells. Killing large groups at once makes it easier to collect items and finish kill x of y or collect x of y quests.
Druid
Druid’s are one of the Hybrid Classes in World Of Warcraft, meaning they can be a caster, a melee fighter, or a healer. Druids can also Tank. Druids can change into different forms, being different animals. Different animals have different benefits. Below are the different forms:
Cat Form – A damage form
Bear Form / Dire Bear Form – A tanking form
Aquatic Form – Increases swim speed
Travel Form – Increases run speed
If you are a caster. Moonkin Form – Caster form
If you are a healer. Tree Form – Healing form
Shaman
The other Hybrid class in the game, Shaman’s can be Caster, Melee Fighters, or Healers.
Priest
Predominantly Healers, priests are casters that can also do damage. The main healing class in the game.
Finally you can log in and look at your new virtual self in the land of Azeroth. Now you must start questing, the quests from levels 1-10 are a pretty much straightforward one after the other but afterwards you should start to take notice of what areas have a lot of quests close together. An example of this is, You must go to a valley and kill boars for one quest, but you also have another quest that requires you collect some Boar Meat from Boars. You would focus on doing these types of quests as they cut down on your questing time and increase the speed of your levelling.
Aslong as you stick to quests like this and skip the quests where you must run around Azeroth for half an hour to find a guy who’s lost or find an amulet lost in some outskirts cave you will level at a decent pace. Although there are some quest chains which huge amounts of travel are required so there is always the exception.
As soon as you hit level 5 you will want to take up two professions. They will be in the second town you visit. I suggest you take up Mining and Skinning as they are gathering professions that will make you gold as you level. You mine ore nodes around the zones as you level collecting stacks to sell on the Auction House. Skinning is performed on certain monsters after they have been killed. Collecting stacks of leather and fur will also sell quite easily on the Auction House.
By the time you have set yourself up with professions and complete the first 10 levels of the game, keep questing and exploring you will always find something to do or experience.
If you need some help, heres a great guide that helped me find secret ways and techniques to get gold. Click Here!
Hi, My name is Kendra, I’m from Vancouver, BC. My interested involve reading, writing and taking care of my family. I enjoy writing articles and taking a walk through the park on a sunny day. I hope you enjoyed my article(s) and wish you the best of luck!