My World of Warcraft Guide for Zelaron
 

First off, let me say, if you haven't played WoW beyond the stress test, then read this. Secondly, stfu. Lastly, this is Horde-only since, you know, the clan is going to be Horde.

Note that these are not my opinions, well some are, but most are perspectives on both sides that I've been reading extensively about on the forums.

Choosing your Race

Since we're going to be Horde, you have four choices. Orc, Tauren, Troll, and Undead. I'll list the advantages and disadvantages of these classes:

Orc

• Advantages: Racial traits not yet announced.
• Disadvantages: " " " " "
• Classes available: Hunter, Rogue, Shaman, Warlock, Warrior

Tauren

• Advantages: Plainsrunning ability at level 40.
• Disadvantages: Plainsrunning is arguably worse than a level 40 mount, despite being free. No level 60 plainsrunning yet. Very large, hard to maneuver in group instances.
• Classes available: Druid, Hunter, Shaman, Warrior

Troll

• Advantages: Racial traits not yet announced.
• Disadvantages: " " " " "
• Classes available: Hunter, Mage, Priest, Rogue, Shaman, Warrior

Undead

• Advantages: Underwater breathing, Immunity to Fear and some stun effects.
• Disadvantages: Unbelievably abused by the Paladin class (who don't even have talents yet!!) in PvP. Priests in PvP can also use Shackle Undead which is a bitch. UD have a large advantage over classes like Mage though, because they can't use Polymorph on you in PvP. Just expect to be abused by Pallys and Priests.
• Classes available: Mage, Priest, Rogue, Warlock, Warrior

Choosing your class

All the classes except for Paladin are available to the Horde. Likewise, Alliance cannot have Shaman.

Note that numbered rating is for PvP only.

Druid

• Advantages: "Jack of all trades." This class is sort of like the newbie friendly class, as you can be a second rate meleer, second rate healer, second rate rogue. Has different transformation modes like Bear (Warrior) and Cat (Rogue.) Travel mode as well.
• Disadvantages: Since they are a jack of all trades, they are a master of nothing. Underpowered due to this, according to some. Can only be Tauren.
• PvP ability: As with most classes, it largely depends on the player. But are also vulnerable to other players that know what they're doing as well, because they can't tank as well as a warrior, and although they don't die quickly due to their healing, they will eventually run out of mana if trying to take on more melee-oriented classes and die. Not that amazing, but not bad either. 7/10

Hunter

• Advantages: Excellent solo ability, maybe the best in the game. Able to tame pet beasts. Ranged attacks with bows and guns while pet tanks.
• Disadvantages: Weak in groups. While grouping, Hunters have to ration out their powerful shots because they'll draw too much aggro and die. This makes their DPS (damage per second) low. Even weaker in PvP.
• PvP ability: Very gimped right now, especially without any talents. Right now it's entirely possible for your opponent to simply ignore your pet and go for you, since you can't be forced to attack the pet. They can just fear or polymorph either you or the pet, and finish the other off. 5/10

Mage

• Advantages: New spells are easier to get than new weapons, so mages do consistently good damage. Can solo well, especially with frost nova to root enemies. Brings useful aspects to groups as well. Everyone loves conjured food and water, especially other spellcasters. Mana stones are useful as well. Polymorph is good CC (crowd control.) Self and group teleport to major cities is great.
• Disadvantages: Can only wear cloth, physically weak. This can be counter-acted a bit with Frost armor/Mana shield but if they're being hit, they're in trouble. Compared with other classes, mages don't have much in the way of high end equipment currently, so their DPS isn't able to be tweaked to extra high amounts like other classes can. Might change in retail with new items?
• PvP ability: Also largely depends on the player. Your hardest fight will probably be melee classes like Warrior and Rogue because they just have a LOT of HP and refuse to die. Frost nova + blink and nukes can sometimes ensure victory against them, but it's risky. Against other casters, mages are pretty good. Depends on your talent configuration, though. 8/10

Priest

• Advantages: Can spec mostly in Shadow for solo and PvP, or Holy for grouping. Every group wants a priest.
• Disadvantages: Even though shadow priests still have all the healing abilities of their holy counterparts, groups don't want shadow priests usually because Holy is that 15% more effective. Currently, the Holy talent tree sucks. Can only wear cloth, so weak and frail like mages. Horrible at melee, don't even bother trying past the mid 20's.
• PvP ability: Great as a shadow priest. A well played properly specced shadow priest can kill most other classes with relative ease. Fear + Silence + Mana Burn + Mind Blast + Mind Flay + Mind Control = fun. You can lock a caster up for 14 seconds out of 30, with fear and silence, that's pretty damn good. Holy priests aren't made for PvP, maybe for group PvP but they are usually targeted first and die rapidly. 9/10 Shadow and 6/10 Holy.

Rogue

• Advantages: Arguably the highest DPS. Anti-caster class that rips through anything that is not a Warrior, Paladin, or Rogue. Poisons are good, Stealth abilities are unique and effective. Long duration stun attacks. Amazing solo as well.
• Disadvantages: No mail or plate armor. No buffs or healing. Dual wielding weapons is inaccurate. Doesn't bring much to groups except raw damage. Some groups always turn down rogues because of this, but the smart ones will want DPS.
• PvP ability: This also depends highly on your talents. You can go into stealth and assassination to rip casters an even bigger asshole, or go Combat and Assassination to try and go toe to toe with warriors. Still, rogues don't have a big weakness because if a caster is trying to kite them (spellcast, root, run, repeat) they can just vanish and sneak up behind them for another 10 seconds of stun (Cheap shot + kidney shot.) A rogue in the truest sense. 9/10

Shaman

• Advantages: Well rounded, arguably the most well balanced class in the game. Great melee if you go down the Enhancement tree. Can get Mail armor at level 40. Ghost wolf at level 20 kicks ass for travelling. Totems are amazingly helpful and don't cost all that much mana. Good heals. Groups are always willing to pick up a shaman.
• Disadvantages: Not the best at anything, except having totems of course, but even those don't last very long and you have to be standing in range. Only affect group members also. Totem quests are a pain in the fucking ass. No one-cast buffs for other players except water breathing/water walking.
• PvP ability: There's really two kinds of PvP Shaman. Quasi-mages or quasi-warriors. Going down the elemental tree and getting improved shocks (instant cast damage spells) can kick some major ass if you can properly kite other melee classes. Go cloth/leather for the +int and +spirit gear. Other option is going down the Enhancement tree and getting 2H weapons, wear mail armor. Go beast mode while healing yourself. Get nature's swiftness from talents to have an instant-cast big heal. Melee-type is suspectible to kiting from other classes sometimes. Still, totems help you no matter which kind you choose. Shaman can be the bane of rogues due to earthbind totems that unstealth rogues and frost shock that doesn't allow them to bounce around. At the same time, Shaman can be abused by rogues. So it depends on your skill. 9/10

Warlock

• Advantages: Summoning pets is kickass for soloing. Great DoT spells (damage over time.) Soulstones instant-rez you and party members you hand them to. Health stones to act like potions. Some AoE (area of effect) damage spells as well. Able to summon party members to you. More HP than other casters because they can afford to wear +Stamina (HP) gear rather than just +Int and +Spirit. Free level 40 and 60 mounts. Practically unlimited mana, because you can siphon mana from your pet rapidly. Getting new pets like the level 50 Infernal soon!
• Disadvantages: Cloth armor only. If pet dies, you're in trouble. Some annoying bugs, and some of the curses just plain suck ass. Only one pet is really useful for instances (Imp) and one for PvP (Succubus)
• PvP ability: Subjective to the player. Ranges from sucks ass to kicks ass. Assisted by succubs pet, you can chain fear on a warrior while you kill them off with DoT spells and Shadow direct damage spells. Very annoying tactic, but works well. Drain mana against casters and Paladins while using fear to make them worthless. The main purpose of the DoT spells (besides damage) is to give a chance that your next Shadow direct damage spell will cast twice as fast, using certain talents. That can happen quite often, making the warlock formidable. Your most annoying opponent will probably be priests because they can dispell your DoTs. 8/10

Warrior

• Advantages: The tank. Every group needs a warrior. Can use just about every weapon. Can use Plate mail. Lots of HP, lots of armor, lots of damage (sometimes.) Rage bar means that they don't need to have downtime between fights, unless they're hurt.
• Disadvantages: Currently, one of their main selling points (Fury specialization) SUCKS ASS and is worthless. So every warrior is just about forced to go for Arms spec for damage and Protection for groups. Which means that warriors spend most of their time spamming taunt in groups, which is shit boring if you ask me. And as you might expect, defensive warriors suck for PvP, so..
• PvP ability: Arms warriors are really good, mixed with a few of the Fury talents. Having so much HP means they won't die easily. They can even use some fear and debuffs on enemies using rage. Vulnerable to kiting by some spellcasters, but that's about it. You won't have to worry about shaman shocks, so that's a plus. Warriors are better than Paladins. 9/10

More guides coming soon in this thread as I write it.

Skills and Spells

Every even level (except level 2) you gain new skills and spells that can be bought from class trainers. These cost money, generally a rather hefty amount for your level, which can leave you poor. I recommend only buying what you know you're going to be using, or only buying the high level rank later on. This is because you can skip Rank 1 but buy Rank 3 when it becomes available, and so on. Skilling up weapons, tradeskills, and defense is different. Every time you level up, your skill cap is raised by 5. What this means is, let's say you start with 1/10 skill in maces and 1/10 skill in defense at level 1. As you use maces and get hit, your skill will level up. Let's say right before you level up, you have 10/10 maces and 10/10 defense. You hit level two, and your skills increase to 10/15. As you fight, it'll go up to 15/15 again. Then level three, 15/20. Get it? The higher up it goes the slower it raises. Note that you need more skill to be able to hit things. So if you're level 20, you'll rarely hit monsters your level if you have 30 skill in maces. And even when you do hit, it will be for single digit damage. If you have your skill maxed, you'll hit often and for alot.

Weapon Specialization is different still. Let's say you're a Warrior, and want to get the ability to use Guns. Well, you have to go to one of the major cities (in this case it's the Undercity) and talk to the Weapon Master NPC. For a cost, he'll train you in Guns. But when you get a new weapon or armor specialization, your skill starts off at 1/yyy, corresponding to whatever your level is.

Tradeskill leveling works on the same XXX/YYY system, but you have to use higher level skills to raise it after a while. Let's say you have Herbalism. Now, at level 1 you can collect Silverleaf and Peacebloom until you hit 15, then you can also get Earthroot. At 50 skill, Silverleaf will rarely, if ever, raise your skill. Earthroot will, but not as much. However, level 50 Mageroyal will raise it every time. (Until you hit the 100's, of course..)

Go to Thottbot to see how you progress in skills every even level. Go to classes and pick one, then scroll down the list and such.

Talents

Talents work similarly to the Diablo 2 skill system. There are three talent trees per class. Depending on which tree(s) you specialize in, you can gain different abilities, and in some cases even become drastically different than someone who specialized in different talents. Note that some abilities such as Mind Flay for shadow priests can only be gained through talents. However, once you have them, they tend to level up just as other skills/spells do, meaning once you're the right level you can buy Rank 2, 3, etc from your trainer.

At level 10 and for every thereafter, you get one (1) [uno] talent point. You have to work your way down the talent trees to get to what are generally the more powerful talents. There are six steps in each tree, the top one needing 0 points in that tree to get talents, the next one needing 5, then 10, then 15, then 20, then 25, and finally 30 for the ultimate one. Also, some talents need prerequisite talents to invest in. Since it takes 30 points in a tree to get the last ability, making the total 31, you cannot fill two trees. This is because the level cap is 60, giving you 51 talent points. This usually makes it hard to choose what you want to do (at least it should, if the class is well balanced.)

IGN has a recent and very well made talent planner for each class. Play around with it and see how it works.

Here are some maps I quickly edited.

Keep in mind there are two continents in WoW.

Kalimdor (left side) is where the Horde is located.

Eastern Kingdoms (right side) is where the Alliance and Undead are. Undead are on the right side because of the events that occured in Warcraft 3.

These maps just show you the general layout of the lower level areas.

Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms.


Note that switching between either continent is free via zeppelin. Which means you could create a troll, take the zep, and go to the Undead starting area and do undead quests if you really wanted to.

This is how I'll be leveling: 1-10/12 in Durotar, 10/12-22/24 in The Barrens, 22/24-28/30 in Hillsbrad Foothills. RFC instance 15ish, WC instance 18-20ish, RFK 28ish.

Instances

Instances are areas independent from the rest of the world. What this means is that you have to go through a loading zone first to enter it, and every instance is independently loaded. So for example if you have two groups of five people and they both enter Ragefire Chasm at the same time, they'll end up in different instances of the same.. instance. Get it? If you ever played Anarchy Online or City of Heroes this is easy to understand. Instances have quests that are usually marked with (Elite) on the end of the quest name because instances have Elite monsters.

Elite monsters have huge amounts of HP and more resists, as well as more damage. Generally an elite monster is better than one of the same type two levels above it. They also drop better items and more money. This makes instances primarily for grouping.

Instance bosses are also elite.. and a pain in the ass. You need a good group of decent level to do instances. But a really good group can do them at low levels as well.

So let's use Ragefirm Chasm as an example, the first instance you can really use as Horde. It's for levels 13-18. If the group was all level 13, you would probably die within the first 5 minutes. If you were all 18, it'd be too easy. But a group with a 16 warrior, a 14 priest, 14 mage, 15 rogue and a 13 warlock could probably do it. It depends.

Note that instances drop loot that is usually geared for the minimum level I listed. Farming RFC at level 20 won't help your character.

General things you should know about combat in WoW

Note that using any ability at all has a one second global cooldown. So that means you can only use one ability per second.

Melee

First of all, melee is automatic assuming you activate it, are in range, and facing the enemy. Melee weapons differ in type (dagger, spear, sword, etc), as well as speed and damage. Weapons list the DPS (damage per second) though. So let's say you have a weapon that attacks for 10 damage in two seconds, and one that attacks for 5 damage in one second. They both have a DPS of 5. For most things, DPS is all that matters. However, when you bring abilities and tactics into play, weapon speed can make a considerable difference.

Let's say you're using Poison as a rogue. Poison has a certain chance to be applied to the enemy every hit. Therefore, the more often you attack, the more poison you can apply. Get it?

But on the flip side, let's say you're using the Sinister Strike ability as a rogue. That ability is instant attack and completly ignores the damage per second, but focuses only on the actual damage the weapon does. So the slower weapon will do more damage. Ain't that about a bitch?

Also, if you're using abilities that don't use your next melee round to go off, it makes more sense to use an ability RIGHT after an attack. So let's say you're a shaman and you hit someone with melee, it makes sense to create a totem RIGHT after that so your attack speed isn't interrupted. Because if you cast it one split second before you would have attacked, you could interrupt your melee. Although usually it's laggy enough that it does melee also.

Casting

There are instant cast spells, cast time spells, and channelled spells.

Instant cast spells are usually buffs. These go off the second you hit the button and can be done while running (although if it's an offensive spell like frost shock you'll have to be facing the enemy.)

Cast time spells require you to stand still (you can turn around) while the spell starts casting. During this time, you are quite vulnerable to attack. If someone attacks you while casting, your casting bar will go back a bit. This can make it practically impossible for you to get a spell off if more than one person is attacking you at a time. And that's really annoying. However if its 1v1 your timer usually goes up faster than they can knock it back. Certain abilities like earth shock from Shamans and Kick from Rogues can stop your spell. If that happens, the cooldown timer will still go off as if you casted it. When the spell is cast, your mana is subtracted and you can move around right away.

Channelling spells require you to stand still, but don't have a wait time to cast. Rather, the spell is done for a period of time. An example of this is a warlock transferring health to their pet. While doing this, he cannot move for 4 seconds or however long it takes. After 4 seconds the spell is complete and you can move again. For these, mana is subtracted first. So if you break it within half a second of starting you still lose your mana.

Shields

Using a one handed weapon and a shield is the general way a warrior will tank. Popular with Shaman also. Here's why shields are useful (or worthless, depending on your view.) Shields add a LOT of armor when worn. And armor = damage reduction. Additionally, shields have a "block" rating. Let's say your shield is 400 armor and 12 block. What this means is that if you block (which isn't that high a chance to begin with), 12 damage will be subtracted from the amount you would normally take. It does not block all the damage.

Regeneration in Combat

During combat you do not regenerate HP without items/talents. Mana is still regenerated, but there are special rules for mana in particular. (These do not apply to Rogue and Warrior.)

The Five Second Rule and how to work around it: During casting and for five seconds after the spell is cast (or interrupted) you will not regenerate mana. At all. So this means you should cast multiple spells right after another in a short burst, then wait a while, rather than cast one every 5 seconds. Let's say you regen 50 mana a second, have 1000 mana, and you have a few spells that cost 200 mana each. If you cast one every 5 seconds, you'll be out of mana after casting 5 times. If you cast two spells then wait 10 seconds, you'll have 1000-400 = 600, then regen 250 = 850. This will allow you to drag the fight out much longer.

The official WoW site has been updated.

Check out tradeskills and such.

https://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/professions/

Update your guide, it is outdated.

Acutally my site is slightly more updated, http://gsurge.com/wow.htm but I won't update it yet. Maybe when I have a lot of free time.