Thinking about getting back into the game.

[Airenn]

Every once in a while I get the desire to get back into WoW. I get bored of XI and think, Hey -- Let's try WoW again!

I enjoyed the beginning levels of WoW, but I never seemed to be able to get past lvl 40ish. It got too 'complicated' and I'd just stop playing. I felt like I couldn't keep up with everything going on.

It's been about a year, maybe two since I last activated my account. What's new, changes, what should I look for in reactivating. What good websites are there? Addons? (I never got into websites and addons for wow, and if they are anything like FFXI, I can see them being a huge help.)

My Highest was a Shadow Priest lvl 41, Arcane Mage lvl 34, and a Paladin lvl 30ish (I think I got the mount, I can't remember haha)

They all had their ups and downs but I preferred my mage and priest. The only reason I was leveling Pally was because I wanted to tank raids like a beast. The grinding sucked balls on Pally though, haha.


Any info would be appreciated. Also, is there a list of the servers somewhere, by chance? EDIT: A simple search found it! http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/realmstatus/

[Krye]

WoW has a built in quest helper now, you just open your map and there's symbols showing you where to go to get each item, kill each mob, etc.

http://www.wowwiki.com/Realms_list

If leveling up is too complicated for you though(I don't see how WoW could be complicated for anyone), you might as well not waste your time. In endgame raids if you can't pay attention to specific boss mechanics while focusing on ability procs to maximize your dps rotation you'll hold your group back or get yourself killed or worse you could wipe the entire raid. There are plenty of situations where you have to get out of "fire" on the ground or you'll die in a couple seconds, if you don't go to the right place at the right time when you get certain debuffs you could blow up and kill everyone around you, things of that nature. There are fights where one death can make the raid lose a damage buff that will prevent them from making the enrage timer or one death will heal the boss for 20% of his total health. There's a damage parser called Recount, so if your DPS isn't up to par everyone will know. Recount tracks what abilities you use, how often you use them, it tracks friendly fire so if you screw up in a fight and get somebody killed it can be traced back to you. Your guild can pick apart every action you make.

I'm not trying to be mean, you just won't get very far if you're a "baddie". And although there might not be anything you can do about it, if your internet connection is laggy or your computer is garbage and you get low fps in a raid environment, it's not even worth it to try to raid. You'll just get people pissed at you and things will get nasty because there isn't a very large margin of error. If you can't react instantly you will die.

But of course if you just want to screw around and do some 5 man dungeons or lol around in some battlegrounds, be my guest.

[Arelian]

To be perfectly fair, the first time I leveled a character it was a bit overwhelming.

If you're looking for a leveling buddy, feel free to send me a PM. I wouldn't mind having someone along to grind out some levels and it usually makes the process much faster anyways.

Once you get to 80, I'd recommend visiting elitistjerks.com and looking through the forums for whatever class you choose to play. They helped me get past that "n00b" stage and start topping damage meters rather easily. Being good in WoW is not very hard, it really just relies on doing what you need to do quickly.

Thankfully catching up the curve is extremely easy nowadays since you can go from a fresh level 80 to having some top-end gear extremely fast. Especially if you're a tank or a healer.

If you have any specific questions or, like I said, would like a leveling buddy feel free to shoot me a PM and we'll see what we can do! Regardless though, I hope you have fun!

[Tajin]

To be perfectly fair, the first time I leveled a character it was a bit overwhelming.

LOLWUT? unless you had no previous MMO experience I dont see how leveling a toon would be overwhelming in WoW, now even less with the foll proof tutorials.

And Krye pretty much summed it up.

Other than that the random dungeon tool makes leveling a breeze.

[Arelian]

LOLWUT? unless you had no previous MMO experience I dont see how leveling a toon would be overwhelming in WoW, now even less with the foll proof tutorials.

Did you ever try to find the Hinterlands when you hit that leveling range as Horde back in Vanilla/BC? Yeah. They told you where to go, but the definitely didn't tell you how to get there.

[Airenn]

WoW has a built in quest helper now, you just open your map and there's symbols showing you where to go to get each item, kill each mob, etc.

http://www.wowwiki.com/Realms_list

If leveling up is too complicated for you though(I don't see how WoW could be complicated for anyone), you might as well not waste your time. In endgame raids if you can't pay attention to specific boss mechanics while focusing on ability procs to maximize your dps rotation you'll hold your group back or get yourself killed or worse you could wipe the entire raid. There are plenty of situations where you have to get out of "fire" on the ground or you'll die in a couple seconds, if you don't go to the right place at the right time when you get certain debuffs you could blow up and kill everyone around you, things of that nature. There are fights where one death can make the raid lose a damage buff that will prevent them from making the enrage timer or one death will heal the boss for 20% of his total health. There's a damage parser called Recount, so if your DPS isn't up to par everyone will know. Recount tracks what abilities you use, how often you use them, it tracks friendly fire so if you screw up in a fight and get somebody killed it can be traced back to you. Your guild can pick apart every action you make.

I'm not trying to be mean, you just won't get very far if you're a "baddie". And although there might not be anything you can do about it, if your internet connection is laggy or your computer is garbage and you get low fps in a raid environment, it's not even worth it to try to raid. You'll just get people pissed at you and things will get nasty because there isn't a very large margin of error. If you can't react instantly you will die.

But of course if you just want to screw around and do some 5 man dungeons or lol around in some battlegrounds, be my guest.

Nah, it's cool. And yea, to me, it just seemed like there was "too much" going on in the endgame events. (I've watched my friend do several bosses and raids, and I was just blown away by how much was going on in the screen and how much he had to pay attention to certain game mechanics for each boss.)

The leveling was easy, but when it came to grouping up in a Dungeon, that's where I'd get intimidated. I did "ok" but not spectacular and I was worried that I'd hold the group back, fuck up, die, etc. I felt like I wasn't maximizing my potions and items and what not. I'd end up having tons of shit just sitting around cause I wanted to "save" them instead of use them as soon as I could.

To give an IRL example kinda, I skype with a friend who plays WoW and FFXI who has a webcam. In FFXI, I see him relaxed in his seat, with a half smile on. In WoW, he's on the edge of his seat, eyes moving rapidly, no grin at all. It's such a big fucking difference in attention levels...

[Airenn]

If you have any specific questions or, like I said, would like a leveling buddy feel free to shoot me a PM and we'll see what we can do! Regardless though, I hope you have fun!

Thank you, I appreciate that. What server are you on by chance? I am not sure if I want to create a new character or resume my priest.

A big reason I am thinking about reactivating is so I can play with a friend.

[Arelian]

I'm on Moon Guard, but I'm pretty much open to playing on any server. I don't have a raiding guild as of right now, so I don't have very many ties.

[Eaglestrike]

LOLWUT? unless you had no previous MMO experience I dont see how leveling a toon would be overwhelming in WoW, now even less with the foll proof tutorials.

And Krye pretty much summed it up.

Other than that the random dungeon tool makes leveling a breeze.

There are a million things going on in WoW that someone with no MMO experience or only FFXI MMO experience wouldn't get. There are tons of mob mechanics you don't see in FFXI, there are tons of spells that you have and you don't know which to use (think of mage for a bit, fireball, fire blast, scorch, cone of cold, frostbolt, flamestrike, blizzard, arcane missiles, fire/frost ward, mana shield, arcane explosion, blink, ice block, polymorph, etc you have all this stuff at 30-40) as well as running into some mobs that are straight up immune to some schools. Nothing was more fun on my elemental shaman than running into an elemental immune to nature damage, that also did a knockdown on me.

And not only do classes have lots of different abilities, but there are 9 other classes all with different abilities that in any PvP situation you need to learn. I got so mad my first time in PvP and mages would get out of my HoJ, I had no idea what they were doing and seriously thought they were hacking. I would complain in BG chat about it and NO ONE WOULD EXPLAIN WHAT BLINK WAS. How is a new player supposed to know something like that?

Some people take their extended experience of a game for granted, there's a lot to pick up on WoW.

To the topic at hand: Just enjoy what you're doing now, Cata is completely changing the leveling scene, for the better. Things will be simpler, quests will make more sense, etc.

[Lucavi]

Kyre nailed it perfectly. The big difference between FFXI and WoW is that in WoW, its no secret who fucks up. Everyone knows it; everyone knows who is dragging the raid down, be it through healing, tanking, or DPS, and people -will- drop you like a bad habit unless everyone knows beforehand that you are a rookie and are a friend of someone else in the raid.

The pace of WoW is far faster than FFXI. There's no sitting around between Weaponskills or waiting for the massive recast of some ancient magic. You're moving, acting, REacting, and sometimes just doing everything you can to get the fuck out of the way of other people (Heroic Blood Queen Air Phase Fear comes to mind). I remember going back and doing a few sea bosses on a friend's toon after WotLK dropped and I had cleared Naxx a few times - the difference was unfathomable.

Also, if you're having trouble with over-complications, I'd suggest rolling a hunter and going beastmastery spec. Its a pretty easy job to pick up and play, the threat of death is pretty low, and the skills that come in, come in slowly and varied enough that you'll never be doing too much at once. A few shot switching (really just serpent sting >> steady shot) and possibly laying a trap around or something.

[Correction]

LOLWUT? unless you had no previous MMO experience I dont see how leveling a toon would be overwhelming in WoW, now even less with the foll proof tutorials.

Two years ago the 40-55 grind in WoW was easily the worst in the game, regardless of faction. Remember this is before random dungeon finder (remember walking to Zul'Farrak/Maraudon/Uldaman/Sunken Temple for the first time? How about your first BRD party?) and without a levelling guide constantly in view you were guessing at the best places to gather quests.

[Lexa]

To give an IRL example kinda, I skype with a friend who plays WoW and FFXI who has a webcam. In FFXI, I see him relaxed in his seat, with a half smile on. In WoW, he's on the edge of his seat, eyes moving rapidly, no grin at all. It's such a big fucking difference in attention levels...

That's one of the appeals of WoW to me, though. XD Even though you can joke that WoW is EZMODE DON'T STAND IN FIRE LULZ, there's still enough variations in the encounters that I don't get bored. And the focus required really depends on the fight, your class, and the experience you have with that encounter.

When my guild first got into Icecrown Citadel to do the Rotface raid encounter, I was pretty much crapping myself with positioning, running from explosions, don't stand in ooze, OMGSLIMESPRAY, run with the mutation NO NOT THAT WAY YOU MORON OMG DON'T CLEANSE. Now I snooze my way through it.

Also, watching a fight without participating or knowing what's going on, makes it seem a lot more overwhelming than it really is. At least in my opinion.

[sb]

Many of the people saying wow is easy leveling might not have been playing back two years ago when you were trying it out. Back then it took a lot more xp/level and many of your quests needed groups as:

a: entire sections of maps were composed of all elites.
b: just about every chain ended with one or more elites to kill

(the major change to make it easier to level happened in 2.1 or 2.2 i think, it was sometime after BC came out...)

It still wasn't terribly hard or too much of a grind, but with out a leveling guild or friends to go with it was much more of a pain in the ass and a good deal slower than it is now.

[Kaylia]

Every once in a while I get the desire to get back into WoW. I get bored of XI and think, Hey -- Let's try WoW again!

I enjoyed the beginning levels of WoW, but I never seemed to be able to get past lvl 40ish. It got too 'complicated' and I'd just stop playing. I felt like I couldn't keep up with everything going on.

It's been about a year, maybe two since I last activated my account. What's new, changes, what should I look for in reactivating. What good websites are there? Addons? (I never got into websites and addons for wow, and if they are anything like FFXI, I can see them being a huge help.)

My Highest was a Shadow Priest lvl 41, Arcane Mage lvl 34, and a Paladin lvl 30ish (I think I got the mount, I can't remember haha)

They all had their ups and downs but I preferred my mage and priest. The only reason I was leveling Pally was because I wanted to tank raids like a beast. The grinding sucked balls on Pally though, haha.


Any info would be appreciated. Also, is there a list of the servers somewhere, by chance? EDIT: A simple search found it! http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/realmstatus/

You left before Lich King? Grinding on any class is a huge joke now. I can't imagine anyone having trouble. What changed over the last 2 years? Before 80? Easier grinding with dungeon finder, battleground gives xp, more xp per quest, cheaper mounts. At 80? Easier to get into endgame with the currents badge systems.


The addon I use are:

QuestHelper: put marker on the map for every quests, making it a joke to find what you have to do
Grid and Clique: Replace my raid/party UI (you dont really need something like this before 80)
Onebag: Link all 5 bags together in one big bag
Decursive: Easy way to remove people debuff (if your class can)
DBM: You will need this to raid, tell you a lot of helpful info during battle


Bartender/Pitbull: Move your bar, target, and character status around
Tidy plate: more visible name plate above monster's head.

[jonastheed]

Questhelper really makes leveling through quests much smoother. In addition, you can just queue for random dungeons while you're leveling to give you a nice change of pace.

[Siniroth]

Is questhelper really necessary with the in game function now?

[Eaglestrike]

Is questhelper really necessary with the in game function now?

I didn't use it before, but now I have no idea why anyone would bog their system down with it. The in-game one is perfectly fine.

[Correction]

quest addons still serve a nice function of weaving together quests that start on one continent and end on another (famously the quests that start in winterspring and end in eastern plaguelands). It's good for a bit of exp that way. Quest addons also have the added bonus of annotating quests that don't necessarily wind up marked on your map.

[Eaglestrike]

quest addons still serve a nice function of weaving together quests that start on one continent and end on another (famously the quests that start in winterspring and end in eastern plaguelands). It's good for a bit of exp that way. Quest addons also have the added bonus of annotating quests that don't necessarily wind up marked on your map.

There are very few quests like this. And most of the stuff that ends on another continent and such show up in the objectives tracker saying where to go 'Return to Ogle Oglethorpe in Booty Bay.' and the like. It's really not worth the resource hog that is Questhelper.

[Dainslaif]

Is questhelper really necessary with the in game function now?

I went from Carbonite down to the in-game quest helper function. It's not quite as helpful, but it's damn close. The plus side is it hasn't sent me to random areas where the quest mobs aren't, like QH/Carbonite used to do sometimes with bad data.

As far as my addon setup, these are the basics which will get you comfortable with stuff.
X-Perl unit frames - Nice organized large character/group windows that display any debuffs? Yespls. Same idea as Grid.
DBM - because it trivializes raid bosses and also helps in Northrend 5mans.
Omen - for threat monitoring (useful as a tank or high-threat DPS class)
Recount - because I like my epenis like my rlpenis - massive.

As far as like, superxhardcore raiding mods to maximize performance:
DoTimers - mod which tracks your buff/debuff/cooldown timers in an orderly configuration. Very handy for classes where you need to keep DoTs up while doing other stuff (feral kitty, Warlock, Boomkin)
Parrot - A nice combat number display addon. I also use it to track my Eclipse phases.
Lastly, most classes also have DPS maximizing addons that tell you what to press next for your rotation, like CLCRet or SquawkAndAwe. I wouldn't bother worrying about this until you're 80 though, 5mans are just facerolling anyhow.