A newcomer's Guide to Warcraft - Toogie learned the hard way so you don't have to!

Hi. I decided to make this guide for fun and to kill some down time at work. I will cover many topics from character creation to strategies for making money. It's not a guide to tell you what to do but it will explain many things which should be considered when rolling your first character and many lessons I learned the hard way. I have played this game way too much so I hope this helps some people out there.

Making Your First Character

The first thing you will have to do after installing warcraft is pick a server. I chose based off where my friends were, some people pick one with a cool name which is fine. Keep in mind that you must be on the same server to play with friends. It's important to pick a server type that fits you. Here is a quick rundown of the different server types.

Normal- Sometimes called PVE servers. On these servers players must flag themselves before they can be attacked by other players. You can flag yourself by typing /pvp or attacking a flagged player or npc or by healing a pvp flagged member of your own faction. If you join a battleground you are automatically flagged. Characters made on PVE servers are only able to be transferred to Normal or RP servers.

PVP- On these servers you will be flagged for pvp by entering any area that is contested or belongs to the opposing faction. Pretty much after level 25, expect to be flagged pretty much anywhere you might be leveling. This means higher level players can and will hunt you down and kill you for sport. Starting areas and capital cities are safe zones. It is considered to be more difficult to level on these servers due to being killed by enemy players on a regular basis but it is also a lot of fun to kill them back. Characters made on a PVP server can be transferred to any server using the paid character transfer service.

RP- RP servers are just like normal servers with the exception of an additional set of rules to follow. These realms are catered to players that want to "role-play" or pretend they are actually the characters on the screen. The rules seem to be loosely enforced but you are generally expected to speak as if you were your character and have a name that fits a Medieval setting. The complete rules can be found here. http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowgm/?id=agm01725p Characters made on RP servers are only able to be transferred to Normal or RP servers.

RPPVP- RPPVP servers are just like PVP servers with the exception of an additional set of rules to follow. These realms are catered to players that want to "role-play" or pretend they are actually the characters on the screen. The rules seem to be loosely enforced but you are generally expected to speak as if you were your character and have a name that fits a Medieval setting. The complete rules can be found here. http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowgm/?id=agm01725p Characters made on RPPVP servers can be transferred to any server using the paid character transfer service.

Picking Your Race/Faction

After you have picked the server you will be taken to the character creation screen. From here you will need to pick the race, class and looks of your character. Also you will be choosing your faction. There are two factions Alliance and Horde. you cannot speak with or mail players of the other faction so If you plan on playing with friends you will want to be the same faction. On PVE or RP servers you can make characters of either faction. On PVP or RPPVP servers you can only have characters of the same faction. Keep in mind if you have characters in both factions they will not be able to mail things to eachother or transfer things by using nuetral auction houses. The Alliance are humans, dwarves, night elves, gnomes, and drenai. Horde are Orcs, Undead, Tauren, Trolls, and Blood Elves. If you have no preference on faction, read on and pick based off of which race/class combination sounds best to you. I'm going to give a run down of the races and classes. However not all classes are available to each race.

There are 10 total races in Warcraft. Each faction has 5. They are all pretty much equal but have little bonuses that are specific to each race. I suggest you don't let starting stats or racial bonuses determine what you choose to be. Instead I would pick your race by what looks best and sounds the most fun to play to you. Your enjoyment of playing the game will benefit from that more than some miniscule advantage you might have by picking a race you dislike. You will be defined by your class and not your race. When people try to find groups they will ask for a warrior or a priest, they wont care if you are a troll or an orc. So make this decision based off what you like.

Humans have a small bonus to sword and mace skills. They also have 5% bonus to spirit. They have an ability called perception which can help spot stealthed targets. It can be beneficial in PVP environments. They also recieve a 10% bonus to faction gains. This becomes more important later in the game, to recieve some tradeskill recipes or patterns you need to have a certain reputation level with them.

Dwarves get a bonus to gun skill and frost resistance. The also have a treasure finding ability. Most people don't use it because it interferes with the the tracking abilities of the gathering professions. Their main claim to fame is Stoneform. It gives a bonus to armor but what i like about it is it's ability to neutralize poisons and diseases. Get poisoned? Stoneform real quick and your cured. It used to slow your walking speed down but they changed that so this ability is quite nice.

Night Elves have a 1% bonus to dodge. A small bonus to nature resistance. The get wisp spirit which makes them move faster in ghost form. Which makes those long corpse runs not so bad. Their big ability is shadowmeld. It allows them to stealth as long as they don't move, cast a spell, fire a ranged weapon etc. Useful for hiding from things when you need to go afk or for ambushing pvp targets.

Gnomes get a bonus to thier skill if they choose to be engineers. They get a small bonus to arcane resistance and a bonus to intellect. Their big ability is called escape artist. It allows them to step out of movement impairing effects. Pretend you are in playing capture the flag and you have the flag and are running for your life and someone snares you with a ice trap, you hit escape artist and voila you are free to run again. They also get the unadvertised benefit of being hard to click on in PVP fights since compared to other races they are so small. It gives them a small edge since they are a little harder to target.

Drenai get a small bonus to jewel crafting professions. A bonus to shadow resistance. They also have either inspiring or heroic pressence. This grants party memebers a 1% chance to hit either melee or casting depending on what class you are. They also have a healing spell which is can come in handy paritcularly for warriors and rogues which have no natural healing ability.

Orcs get a small bonus to axes and pet damage. The also get a bonus to resist stunning effects it says 15% bonus but read the fine print first, It's not as great as it sounds. It means a 15% to your current resist. Not a flat 15% bonus. So if you have 10% base chance to resist stuns your orc would have 11.5% chance to resist, not 25%. They also have bloodfury. When activated it gives a nice bonus to attack power, which means more damage, at the expense that heals will be 50% less effective. Most of the time this is a good trade since most characters don't actively recieve heals. But I have screwed up and used this on a boss when I was main tank. Needless to say I couldn't be healed fast enough and caused a problem for my group. So this can be great, but use it wisely.

Undead, sometimes known as the Forsaken, get a bonus to shadow resistance. They can also be underwater 3 times longer than other races. This can come in handy in certain situations but not enough to say this is a great ability. The can also "cannnibalize" which means they can eat humanoid or undead corpses. It can save money on food or maybe come in handy if your first aid is on cooldown. I primarily used it to mock people by eating their corpse after killing them in PVP. The also get an ability called Will of the Forsaken. It can make you immune to fear, sleep, or charm. It's is awesome in PVP and has it's uses in PVE but not very frequently.

Tauren get a bonus to nature resistance and the herbalism skill. They also get a 5% bonus to health. It doesn't sound like much but I can't tell you how many times I died, where if I had gotten in one more hit I would have lived. They also get warstomp. It stuns up to 5 people for 2 secs. This is a good one for pvp and pve as it can interrupt spellcasting but you have to time it right since it has a casting time.

Trolls have a passive ability to regenerate health. It helps with down time and since it's 10% effective in combat it can help in those close calls but really isn't anything to be proud of. They get a small bonus to thrown weapons, bows, and damage against beasts. They have a beserking ability that increases their attack speed by 10-30% depending on how close to dieing you are. 10% at full health. I'm not sure of the health levels it uses to increase from 10% to the 30% max. It can come in handy in a pinch thats for sure.

Blood Elves get a small bonus to enchanting and to ALL resistances. They also have "mana tap" which drains a small amount of mana from target and gives you a charge of magical energy. This charge is used in the ability "arcane torrent" for classes with mana this gives you a bonus to your mana per charge of mana tap, for rogues it grants energy. It also silences casters around you for 2 secs. You don't have to have a mana tap to use arcane torrent and on my rogue I use this a lot to interrupt spell casting. Good for both PVP and PVE.

Choosing a Class

Classes might also be called jobs. It is the main definition of your characters abilities, skills, and play style. Each class has a function when grouping and when used correctly can make the difference between life and death of a party. I will summarize each class' strengths and weaknesses and their party role.

Druids are a hybrid class meaning they have aspects of other classes and no solid playstyle or position. They have different forms and can mimic other classes abilities. In bear form they are like warriors, in cat form like rogues, in normal form they are casters and have a mix of damage and healing spells. They also have aquatic form which makes you swim faster and breath in water. Also they have a travel form which makes them run faster. It helps ease the pain of not having a mount when you are under level 40. There are more forms but you get the idea. In a party you can do pretty much any role but mainly you'll probably be a designated healer since healers are important and usually the hardest class to come by when making a group. Their strength is versatility and survivability. You can do heavy damage as a cat then when low on health swich forms heal yourself and go back to catform for more damage dealing. Their weakness is that although they are versatile the animal forms aren't quite as good as the real class they mimic. This can be made up for with skill and good equipment. Druids are restricted to leather armor and the learning curve is kind of high since you have so many abilities to learn to use effectively. This isn't really a weakness but they are only available to the night elf or tauren races. I wish there were more races that could be druids.

Hunters are a high damage class. They also get to tame a pet at level 10. Hunters are argueably the easiest class to solo with. You have a pet that can take the damage while you stay back drilling your target with arrow after arrow or bullet after bullet etc. They also can "feign death" so if anything goes wrong they can effectively play dead, wait for things to reset, and try again. You also get a speed boost at 20 that helps you along until you have a mount. Hunters, in general, have a bad reputation in parties. Their have been too many bad hunters in the past and they have a role in a party that can easily be filled with other classes and in my opinion hunters are the least sought after party addition. There are a few instances where hunters can shine but most things can be done without them. In a party your job is to stay back and do damage and maintain a balance so your not doing too much damage that you pull aggro from the person tanking, also you should keep an eye on your healers and casters. If they are taking damage you should draw aggro from them since you can handle it better and your not as important. (Sorry, but true.) Now I did mention bad hunters; so I will give a couple examples of what makes a bad hunter so you don't do it yourself. When grouping you need to be able to control your pet. So many deaths have been caused by hunters having their pet either attacking something it shouldn't, chasing running monsters, or bad pathing by the AI. If you jump of a ledge your pet is going to take the long way around and bring everything along the way with it. Also you are a ranged class. Almost never should you be doing melee damage in a group. Be prepared for groups. Make sure you have lots of ammo. If you run out, you become a waste of space. I ran into this problem so much I started carrying around extra ammo in case I grouped with a hunter. A skilled hunter is definately a great group member though and can bring a lot to a party when used right. Strengths are excellent survivabilty and crowd control. They can kite better than anyone else. They are excellent for pvp in almost all scenarios. Weaknesses are bad melee ability and low priority when it comes to grouping. One thing that bothered me as a hunter was the need to have a bag slot designated for ammo. You can't carry as much as other classes and having a full inventory is quite frustrating. Finding pet food can be a chore at times and also eats bag space.

Mages are also a high damage class. They get some sweet abilities like being able to open portals to capital cities, major time saver. They can also conjure food and water, which saves lots of money. It can get annoying having people begging you to make them food though. Mages have excellent crowd control and are most effective with a hit and run play style. In parties you will mainly be dps but will probably be called upon to sheep different enemies on a regular basis. So strengths are high damage, crowd control abilities, and free food! Weakness is low health and cloth armor. You won't live long if something gets close enough to hurt you. Mages also have no healing ability.

Paladins are like warriors that can heal. They wear heavy armor and can use big two handed weapons. They get different auras and blessing to buff themselves and party members. They can be slow on the dps sometimes and can be slow to level but they can survive almost anything. They are heavily reliant on mana for damage and healing. Paladins are welcome into most groups and are usually designated healers. They can tank if the need arises and are excellent support class. Strengths are ability to heal and wear heavy armor. Great support class. Can ressurect dead party members. Weakness are no ranged ability and mana dependancy. Not quite as good as a warrior for tanking and aggro management and not quite as good as a priest for healing but a great blend of the two. With the right gear and skillful playing they can effectively replace either class.

Priests are the main healers. They have the best abilities to heal and shield party members from damage. If shadow specced they can do enough damage to rival a mage. Probably the most sought after class to group with. Many priests complain of being flooded with requests by strangers to group with them. They also have great buffs. Strengths are healing and damage ability and high demand for groups. Weaknesses are low health and pretty much no melee ability.

Rogues are light on armor and big on damage. They have tons of tricks to get into and out of bad situations. Stealthing is the primary ability that sets rogues apart from the crowd. They have some crowd control with sap. If things are going bad they can use vanish and just dissapear. They also can dual wield, but they can't use two handed weapons. They can also use lock picking to make some extra pocket change. In parties you will be the primary damage dealer. The hard part is learning to balance your damage output so the tank can keep aggro. Since rogues wear only leather armor they can die pretty easy in instances if they are the primary focus of an enemy so it's best to lay off the damage a little to make sure the tank is the one taking the hits. Strengths are their ability to do massive amounts of damage, ability to sneak through hard spots, and great abilities for escaping bad situations. Locking picking is essentially a free profession. I made more money with that than I did enchanting. Also they get to use poisons which make them even more deadly. Weaknesses are low armor in comparison to other melee classes and no way to heal themselves. There is a learning curve to be effective with combos and aggro management.

Shaman are another hybrid class. The main thing that sets them apart are their great totems. These provide buffs, do damage, slow down enemies, or even heal. Depending on how they spend talent points shaman can be really effective doing melee damage or spell damage. They are a blend of a warrior and a mage. They also get a ghostwolf form that makes you run faster and is nice until you get your mount. Shaman are excellent members for grouping. You will often be designated to heal but can easily fill a damage role if healing is already taken care of. Strengths are their great totems and buffs. exellent for pvp. Weaknesses are mana dependancy for damage and survivability. Totems are weak if targetted directly for damage. Poor ability to manage aggro. Would be a godly class if they could be main tanks.

Warlocks are an insane class. They have some many odd abilities. They primarily are damage dealers primarily their damage comes from dots. (damage over time spells) They can change health to mana and have abilities to drain mana or health from their target and use it themselves. They also get pets, but unlike hunters they don't get to name them. They can be incredibly deadly in certain scenarios. They can summon other players to them. They can make soulstones which will save a group probably everytime they are in groups. Strengths are damage output. Convienence of being able to summon, You get a pet. Weaknesses are poor armor and having to manage soulshards which are needed for certain spells. They are also a little hard to start off since most of their better abilities come after level 20 but if you can stick with it they are a blast to play.

Warriors are the tank class. Have the ability to take and dish out high amounts of damage. Have the best abilities in the game to manage aggro. Welcome in every party and are probably the most important member of the group, with the healer being the close rival. My personal favorite class. Strengths are high health and damage, ability to use any weapon and armor in the game with the exception of a wand. Important group role. Great abilities to maintain and control aggro. Very easy class to learn and be effective with. Weaknesses are weak ranged ability and no healing. They have a buff but it expires every two minutes so can be a pain to keep up constantly. They also have no good way to get out of bad situations. Usually it's hamstring then run and hope you have enough health to get far enough away that they stop chasing you before you die.

The Early Levels

Ok you've made your character. Now what? When you log in for the first time you will be greeted with a short "video" introduction to your races background. If you're like me you'll just hit the "Esc" key and get started as fast as possible. When you start you will see a NPC in front of you. NPCs are characters in the game that are not controlled by other players. Notice the yellow ! over their head. That means they have a quest for you. Right-click on the NPC and you will "talk" to them. It will give you some dialogue describing the quest and it's objectives. Their are thousands of quests in World of Warcraft but most fall under a few different categories. Go kill a specific number of monsters. Gather certain items. Or traveling quests which involve making deliveries or talking to people in different areas. The early quests are fairly straight forward and should not be difficult to understand. If you have any problems make sure you try to reread the quest; most of the questions will be answered in the quest description. You can access the quest log by pushing the "L" key. If you still have trouble you can ask other players for help. if you type in "/1 " and then your question it will show up in the chat box of all the players in your area. For example: "/1 Can anyone tell me where I can find the kobold miners?" most of the time the other players will be helpful and point you in the right direction. When you complete a quest the NPCs wil have a yellow ? above thier head. They will also show up on your mini map. Travel around your starting area and do all the quests you can. They will provide you with armor and small amounts of money which is needed to train your skills. Every other level (2,4,6,8....) you will be able to learn new skills from your class trainer. At some point in the starting area you will be given a quest to visit the class trainer. This is who teaches you your new spells or special skills. They charge a fee, but usually it's pretty reasonable and after the first few levels you shouldn't have any trouble having enough money for training. Eventually, you will complete all the quests in the area and be given a new quest that involves traveling to another town, you will usually be level 5 or 6 by then.

Follow the road out of the starting area and you should come across the town after a short walk. In the town you will find new class trainers and a handful of profession trainers. I'll cover professions in more detail later, but if you see something you like feel free to train it. The quests here are a little tougher than the starting area ones. You will start running into aggresive monsters that will attack you just for being too close to them. Also, sometimes when they get low on health they will run away and come back with friends. Just play careully and you'll do fine. Doing these quest should get you to level 10 or higher. When you get to level 10 go find your class trainer. For most classes they will have a special quest for you. This quest will usually give you a nice ability after you complete it. Hunters will get to train a pet, warriors learn defensive stance, druids learn bear form, etc. Also at level 10 you will get your first talent point. Press "N" on the keyboard to bring up the talents screen. Each class has three talent trees. Each tree gives bonuses to different aspects of the class. It's important to think about where you place your talent points. In general it's best to keep your talent points in one tree, so you can get to the better abilities that are farther down the tree sooner. Also, while leveling up it is usually best to put points in talents that boost your offensive abilities. So you do more damage. But there is no set way to do this and picking your talents is what makes you different from other players of your class. If you make a mistake, or feel like trying something new, you can visit a trainer and pay them to reset your talent points but it gets expensive if you do it a lot. The first time is 1 gold piece but after a while it can get as high as 50 gold! Eeventually, you will get a quest that will send you to your race's capital city, For most the races you just need to keep following the same road you used to get to the second town.

Capital cities are pretty big. As a new player I liked to just walk around them and take them all in. Each city is unique and has lots of sights to see. I recommend you visit the inn and set the inn as your home so you can use your hearthstone to warp back to it and have quick access to things you need. It's very handy to be able to hearth back to a big city because they usually have everything you can need. In the capital city you should be able to find class trainers, profession trainers, a bank for storing your extra things, weapon trainers, and the auction house. It can be hard to find things in big cities sometimes. If you right click on the guard NPCs they can give you directions to where you can find things around the city. Also in the city there is lots of chat going on and they have a trade channel where people try to sell things. To talk in the trade channel you need to type /2. It's similar to the general chat I described. What you will notice though is people linking items in their chat messages. If you click on the item, you can see it's stats. If you hold "ctrl" and click you will see what the item would like on your character. To link your own items hold down "shift" and click the item in your inventory. Make sure to check out the auction house. Here you will be able to put your items up for sale and buy items from other players.

After you are done exploring the city go back to the second town and finish any quests you might have left, and you'll get a quest that will take you to another town that will have a whole bunch of new quests and harder monsters to kill. These towns usually have an inn and a mailbox but no class trainers. Aren't you glad you set your hearthstone to your capital now? The town may also have a flight master. Talk to the flight master and you will learn the flight path. You will then be able to fly back to this flight master later on from other flight masters you find as you travel along. Eventually you will have a whole network of paths that criss cross their way across both continents, making travel quicker and more convienant. From here the strategy is pretty much the same. Complete the quests in the area and move on to next area. If you seem to have completed all the quests in an area or the quests seem to be too hard for your level it's best to take a break and go try a new town. You can travel to the starting areas of other races and do the quests there and get yourself up a couple levels before coming back and it will save you a lot of frustration. Just use chat to ask for directions on getting to a new area.

Grouping With Other Players

You will start getting quests for dungeons. They are often called instances as well. These instances are setup to encourage group play, provide different types of challenges, and they give out better than average equipment. You will need a well balanced party of similar levels to complete them. It might seem tempting to have your high level friend take you through these so you can hog all the items and get the quests done quickly but I recommend you try it with a group of players around your same level. You will learn a lot this way and later on in higher level instances you will know what you are doing and it will save you, and other players, lots of frustration. The earlier level instances are easier and give you time to figure things out. If you wait until later to learn party ettiquette and group skills you will often be kicked out of a group so they can find a better prepared player. Before doing an instance make sure your armor is repaired. You have plenty of food and bandages. You have ranged ammo if your class uses it. And you have any needed spell components. Shaman should have ankhs for self-resurecting, rogues should have their poisons and flash powder etc. Bringing along some health potions will always come in handy as well but people won't expect you to have them.

A typical 5-man group is usually one tank, one healer, one melee damage class, one ranged damage class, and one extra that can be any of the above. This is by no means the only way to do it, but this has been a proven formula for sucess. In higher levels you will do groups of 10, or 25, or even 40! But don't think you can slack off in a group. Each member is important. Even in a 40 man raid, each person has a job to do and if they don't do it the whole group will face disaster. In a 5 man group, The tank will usually "pull" the monsters to the group. Then he uses his skills to maintain aggro so the monsters will attack him and not the other members of the party. If he does a good job it makes life easier for the healer since they will only need to focus on healing one person and they won't run out of mana wasting heals on 3 different people. The job of the damage classes is to hit the same target the tank is fighting and do as much damage as they can without drawing the attention of the mob away from the tank. Also as a secondary job, they are to protect the healer. Healing will draw the attention of the mob away from the tank as well. So if you ever see a monster going for your healer, do everything you can to draw it away. If the healer dies, usually the whole party dies with him. If you save the healer even at the cost of your own life you did a good thing. The healer will be able to resurrect you shortly after the fight and you can continue on with minimal downtime. A good tank is the key to a good party though. If the tank is holding aggro well, the damage classes can go all out and the healer won't have to worry about being hurt since the monsters are all focused on the tank. A good healer is key to keeping the tank alive. And good damage classes are important for killing the monsters quickly so they die before the healer runs out of mana and can't heal the tank anymore. Each role supports one another and that's why if each member knows their role and does their job, your party will have an easy time even when things go wrong a good party will survive a catastrophie where an disorganized party would easily be killed.

Some groups will have what's called an "off-tank" usually it's when they have an extra warrior around. The way an off-tank works is they will draw aggro from one monster and keep it away from the group and fight it one on one while the rest of the group kills the other monsters. It's usually a warrior because they need to be tough enough to take a beating while the healer focuses on the main tank. Once the group kills the other monsters they then heal the off-tank and help him finish off his monster. If the off-tank manages to kill it on his own, he would then go assist the party with the other remaining monsters. This really helps in pulls where there are multiple monsters. For example, the tank shoots his gun at a group of 4 monsters and they all start charging the party. The tank can try and hold the aggro of all 4 monsters but with each extra monster it's more difficult to keep each one focused on the tank. Usually with that big of a group the tank takes more hits, which means the healer is healing more, but the tank's aggro is split across 4 monsters and it won't take much for the healer to heal enough to catch the attention of a monster. That monster will start attacking the healer which may end up killing the healer causing the whole group die. But if you have an off-tank they would grab one of the monsters charging the party and lead it away from the group and it gives the tank just 3 to deal with. Meaning less hits, less healing, and better control of the group of monsters pulled. Some classes have what is referred to as crowd control, a way to take a monster temporarily out of combat. Mages can turns things into sheep, rogues can sap, warlocks can seduce, priests can shackle undead. The idea behind this is similar to the strategy of off-tanking. It gives the group one less monster to worry about and once they kill the rest of the group the can go back to the crowd controlled monster. The hardest part about it is getting everyone in the group to leave the crowd controlled monster alone. Because if you attack it while it's sheeped or sapped etc. it will free it to go cause trouble with the rest of the party. Communication is the key to coordinate what is being off-tanked, what is being crowd controlled etc.

We could talk about group strategy all day but it can be summed by saying know your role. Even as situations get harder fulfilling your role will be the key to survival in group enviroments. Most parties will have experienced players that know their role, and someone who doesn't sticks out like a sore thumb. Not filling your role will lead to your parties death and a long run back to your corpse. If you need help let the party know you are new, most players are happy to take a moment out to explain what you need to do or discuss the strategy for bosses. It's a lot easier to help someone than die and get frustrated and waste time running back to the instances, resurrecting, getting buffs, and getting organized again and then discuss strategy so it doesn't happen again. So make sure you ask for help when you need it. It saves a lot of time and energy. Not to mention a lot of times parties fall apart after a "wipe." They will get frustrated and leave the party. Once one person leaves it's usually hard to find a quick replacement and more people leave rather than wait around and eventually you have no party left and you will need to find a new party and start over again. After you have done it with a group, by all means have your high level buddy take you through it so you can have all the money and items. Just don't rob yourself of the chance to learn to do it right. It will pay off in the long run because it will make you a better player.

While we are discussing party tactics we should discuss how loot works in groups. One new thing you will find is when you are in a party some of the better items will ask players to roll for them. You will have a small window come up that asks you if you "need" or "greed" the item.The general rule is to roll need, if and only if the item is usable by you and is an upgrade to your current gear. Most players are very understanding when a player needs an item. But on the other hand it is a big deal if you take advantage of this and roll need on things you don't. Most parties will remove you from the group for doing it and it damages your reputation. If you have a reputation as a "ninja looter" you will find it hard to find people to group with. Some people even get kicked out of guilds for it. If more than one person chooses need the computer will "roll" and it generates a random number between 1-100 for each player and whoever has the higher number will recieve the item. If you don't need an item choose greed or if you are feeling generous you can pass on the item. All players that picked greed will then roll and the item given to the highest roll. If everyone passes then no one recieves the item automatically and it can be picked up by anyone that feels like looting the corpse. In some parties blue items (the extremely good items) will have special rules. Like everyone must pass and then let the group discuss who will recieve it. Either by talking out who could use it most or doing a more organized roll. The winner will then be allowed to loot the corpse to recieve the item. It is important to go over what the loot rules are early on. You'd hate to pass on a blue you could have used expecting to talk it out but have someone else who didn't know roll need and get it without you having a chance. Most blue items bind when they are picked up, so they can't be traded to other players. That's why most groups like to talk things over so mistakes aren't made, people get pretty upset when they lose out on good items unfairly and believe it or not people will leave groups over this. So make sure you are being fair when you choose need and things will work out just fine.

I'm Broke...

Getting money in wow can be frustrating, and trust me high level players will hate you if you beg for money. If you are fortunate you may have a high level friend that can be your benefactor and help you financially until your character can support itself. For the rest of us we have to blaze our own trail and become financially independant on our own. There are lots of ways to make money in warcraft and everyone has their own ideas on how to do it. I'm going to put in my strategies and you can use them or not but I do well with them. Probably the most important thing you need to do to make money is get big bags. I recommend you get big bags as soon as you can afford too. I usually start off with 12 slot bags. They are usually reasonably priced and will serve you well until you can move up to 14 or 16 slots. Being able to hold more will mean you will be able to either sell more since you don't need to pass up items or you will be more efficient since you don't have to run to town constantly to clear your small bags. Either way it's win/win. But to get big bags you need to be able to afford big bags and what's a player just starting out supposed to do?

At low levels the best way to make money is to get two gathering professions. I prefer mining and skinning personally but you can choose other ones. Why do I like mining? Well at early levels copper is pretty easy to find. A stack of 20 copper bars will sell for 1-2 gold on most servers. So while you do the quests early on you mine every copper node you come across. Also, coincidentally most the time mageweave bags (12 slot) sell for 1-2g on most servers. So with my first few copper sales I replace my bags and life is easier when you got bigger bags. After that you can use the money to buy upgrades your gear. I choose skinning because it doesn't interfere with the find minerals radar on the mini map. If you choose herbalism and mining you will have to switch between find minerals and find herbs radars. You can choose herbalism if you'd like to instead of mining. It is still profitable to pick the flowers and sell them. I just feel I make more money with copper. Check your auction house for prices and make an educated guess on what you will make more money doing.

But I want to have a craft you say? I think you should have a craft, I am merely recommending you wait for a while before you do it. Having two gathering professions will give you lots of material to sell and you will get a nice wallet a lot faster. You think selling crafted items is going to make you money? Well you are wrong. Crafting will actually cost you money. Say you are a blacksmith and you want to make a Copper Battle Axe. You have the all the copper and stone you need but you don't have the malachite. Now are you going to go out and mine until you find two malachite? Well some of you might, but the majority are going to run over to the auction house and buy it. Now you just spent money. But I just made this cool axe you say? Well what are you going to do sell it, use it? According to allakhazam.com the average selling price for the axe is 40 silver. Ooooh that's sounds good. But if you think about the materials that went into making it you probably could have made at least 1 gold selling them instead of making them into an axe. This formula is true for pretty much every item you can craft at lower levels. The materials cost more than the item you are making is worth. Sell the materials and use the money to buy items that other people are making. By gathering at first you will be better off. My last character I started on a new server had 700 gold by the time I turned level 40. I easily bought my mount, upgraded armor frequently along the way etc. I then dropped mining and took up leatherworking. I invested 100 gold into buying low level leather and within a couple hours I had my leather working up to a level where I was making upgrades to my level 40+ armor. And guess what. I still had 600 gold I could play with. I may have lost money spending 100g to work my crafting up. I made some of it back by selling things I made, but also I put money into other people's pockets. I most likely helped some other lower level skinners get established with money in their pocket. It's the circle of life. After you have a profession that is that high you will be able to find things you can make for a profit and use your craft to make money. It's just hard to do at low levels so just skip it and wait til you are level 40 or so and catch up easily in one day. And then when you are 60 or 70 and swimming in cash you can drop your other gathering profession and buy your way through another crafting skill if you feel like it.

Here are a few small things you can do to generate money. I like to find a vender that sells shirts. I like to buy Common Gray Shirts and sell them in the auction house. I buy them from the vendor for 4 silver and I stick them up on the auction house for 50 silver. I found they sell really well. The dark color looks good on rogues and I see a lot of them wearing it. Also, tailors don't make these shirts so there isn't going to be a million of them up so you won't have much competition. I guess the other people don't realize they can buy them a lot cheaper. I usually put 1 or 2 per day up and they almost always sell. In Orgrimmar and Stormwind the vender that sells these is just a stone's throw away from the auction house. Also, the meat that drops from low level animals is more valuable than most people realize. Things like stringy wolf meat only sell to vender for a few copper but you can sell them for around 2 silver each. I don't usually have a problem getting 50 silver out of a stack of 20 meat and most people simply sell it off to a vendor for a few coppers. The meat is handy for people that want to raise their cooking profession quickly. And like I mentioned before high level players normally find it a lot faster and easier to buy their way through professions.

The only other thing I want to add is to make sure you are getting a good deal on what you buy in the auction house. Don't update your gear every level. Wait until a piece is about 5 levels below you before you change it out, unless you find a bargain. A penny saved is a penny earned. Well not quite, but the less you spend the quicker you will have higher amounts of money. If you come across a blue item that isn't bind on pickup, I recommend you sell it rather than equip it. the blue item will normally sell for enough to buy 4 or 5 green items at least and you can turn what would be an upgrade to 1 piece of equipment into an upgrade to several pieces of equipment. Once you have a couple hundred gold tucked away it won't matter as much if you decide to just go ahead and equip it, but early on selling it will be extremely beneficial. Also, if you're willing to do a little work you can search the auction house for underpriced items and buy them and sell them for more. There is a mod called auctioneer that helps you find the bargain priced items, but I've never used it myself. It sounds handy though. I usually look the item up using allakhazam.com and see what the average price it sells for. If something is 8 gold and it normally sells for 15 gold I'll buy it and relist it and make a quick buck. This is a riskier way of generating money but it has the potential for big gains.

General Advice

I already mentioned this but get big bags as soon as possible.

Join a guild. Members of the guild are usually more willing to help eachother than strangers. Also if you are able to make groups of all guild members things usually run a lot smoother in instances. It's the easiest way to make friends in the game. And most guilds have crafters that are willing to craft items free of charge if you provide the materials needed. Some of the more generous ones will provide some of the materials themselves. A lot of times people will give you items just to help you out. Or say you need something like heavy leather. Someone in your guild might have or be willing to go farm some for you and will give it to you cheap. Guilds are good. You don't have to be in one but it helps.

Be courteous to other players. You never know who you might be playing with and sometimes simply being nice will be enough that people will want to reward you with a favor.

Be honest. While no one knows who you are in real life. That character on the screen has an identity and people will recognize and remember you. If you have a bad reputation it will be hard to find groups that will take you. People don't buy your auctions because they don't want to give you their money etc.

Make a low level character and run them to a big city and park them there. Then as you get full bags mail the items to them and have them sell them on the auction house for you. It will save you lots of time especially if you're nowhere close to an auction house. Items take 1 hour to arrive. If you ever need the money you can quickly mail it to yourself since money comes instantly.

Stupid Things I've Done That You Should Not

Swim from Darkshore to Desolace. Time spent 2 hours, XP gained none.

Max out your hunter with +Spirit items to get more mana regen.

Raid small villages by yourself.

Raid large cities by yourself.

Walk on the grass of the Tarren Mill.

Perform AoE spells on the boat at the end of the dead mines.

Fall off the walkway to the boat in the dead mines.

Jump off the twin towers in feralas without a goblin parachute

Use the goblin parachute in feralas, and then wait 5 seconds to jump off the twin towers.

Jump over what looks like a small hill between Tanaris and the Un'Goro crater to take a shortcut to Un'Goro but results in a 12 second freefall of doom. (You may or may not be able to reach your body, so you will end up with 10 min of res sickness)

Attempt to Solo deadmines or stockades at level 20.

Try to ride the Horde Wind Riders as an alliance member. (Right click the guy, I dare ya)

Stand there and look at Samantha Swift, while she kills you.

Stand there and look at Stitches, while he kills you.

Train King Bangalash, and keep him in the stable.

Join Arathi Basin when you are in the middle of a quest really far from IronForge.

Spec your warrior to defense at lower levels

Release your spirit when a boss in an instance is not dead yet.

Refer to the Ironforge moat as the "Bitch Ditch" in the forums. I fell into that ditch like a thousand times due to lag back when the only alliance auction house was in ironforge.

Tell people that Chuck Norris talk is annoying.

Make a post on your guild website saying what you sell to make good money in the early levels because no one will believe you anyway. And if they do you just have more competition in the AH. (Seriously copper sells well!)

Make an alt, then decide to delete it and accidentally delete your main.

Fall off The Great Lift near Thousand Needles. You WILL die! But the graveyard was like 10' away, so it wasn't that bad.

Try to figure out if you can jump off Deeprun Tram while it's moving. (Yes, you can. And it's a long walk back.)

Right click on gear icons in an instance and then ask "What happens when I push this?" (It releases all the monsters that just ambushed our group. Thanks nub.)

Join a guild that randomly invites you.

Try to start your own guild.

Sap people in Booty Bay so they miss the boat. Sure it's funny but the guards will treat you like your name is Rodney King.

Use bloodfury while main tanking an instance boss.

Unleash a Infernal into the auction house.

Summon people underwater so they drown. (Account suspended for "harassment")

Decide to twink a rogue. Put Crusader enchant on two swords and realize after that they are both meant for main-hand only and already are soul bound.

Go afk in a instance while you are qued for a battleground. (You will auto join the battleground after a couple minutes. Bye bye group.)

Blade's Newb-No-More Guide

Welcome to the new and improved Blade's Newb-No-More guide. All my previous guides will be compacted into this one, along with other topics I will be adding later. The reason I decided to just make one guide is for convenience. Now anyone who wants to read one of my guides just has to read this one. Plus, my guides won't be taking up space in the Newbie Guides section anymore.

When you are first creating your character, you need to first make the choice of your faction, race and class. All 3 of these attributes will affect how you play the game, whether in war or socially.

Factions
In the World of Warcraft, there are but two factions: The Horde and the Alliance. Neither side is considered good or bad, so don't let that affect your decision. Each faction consists of 5 races. The Horde has Orcs, Trolls, Undead, Blood Elves and Tauren. The Alliance has Humans, Gnomes, Dwarves, Night Elves and Draenei. These races and their classes will be explained soon. Remember that if you are flagged for PvP, any member of the opposite faction can kill you. The same goes for NPCs, but they can attack you even you aren't flagged.
When you are a faction, either Horde or Alliance, you are unable to talk, mail, or in any other way communicate with the other side. The only means of communicating is by the use of emotes and killing. Make sure that if your friends play WoW, you pick the same faction as them if you want to talk to them. Also note that if you have alts in different factions, you can't mail items or money to them, so be careful.
Races
Once you pick your faction, it is time to decide what race you will be. Each race has its own special ability, look and classes. The latter is the most important attribute of each race, but the looks and ability isn't as important.

ALLIANCE

Draenei
The newest addition to the Alliance, the draenei get a small increase to their Jewelcrafting skill, if they decide to get the skill. They also get the Inspiring or Heroic Presence aura, which will increase spell or melee hit chance, depending on the Draenei's class. They get a +10 Shadow Resistance, and their usable ability, Gift of the Naaru, can heal themselves or anyone else. Helpful for classes who can't heal.
Gnomes
Short little buggers, Gnomes can use Escape Artist to break themselves out of a Root or Snare effect. They get a 15 point boost to their Engineering skill, along with a 5% increase of their Intelligence(The max amount of Mana) and a +10 Arcane Resistance. Can be deadly in PvP because they're so damn hard to click on, unless you use Tab to target them.
Humans
These guys get a small increase in their Swords and Maces skills.(1 hand and 2 hand) Their Spirit(How fast you regenerate Health and Mana) and the reputation they earn is increased by 10%. When Humans activate Perception, it is much easier for them to see Stealthed enemies.
Dwarves
Dwarves, the short and stocky race of the Alliance, get a 5 point increase in their Guns skills, along with a Frost Resistance increase of 10. They may also Find Treasure, showing chests on the minimap. When Stoneform is activated, immunity to Bleed, Poison and Disease effect is given to the Dwarf for a few seconds.
Night Elves
These Elves are so quick, they get a 1% increase to their Dodge ability. When Night Elves die, instead of turning into the ghost form of themselves, they turn into wisps, which are 25% faster than normal ghosts. Makes going back to your corpse easier. Nature resistance is increased by 10, and when Night Elves use Shadowmeld, they stealth, much like a Rogue, but if they move or attack, Shadowmeld is broken. Can be used to keep enemies from seeing you.

HORDE

Trolls
Hey mon, Trolls get a 5 point boost in their Bows and Throwing weapons skills. They also get a 5% damage increase against Beasts, plus a 10% health regeneration bonus. When they activate Berserking, they attack 10-30% faster. depending on how hard they are hit. The more damage the Troll takes, the faster he/she will attack.
Blood Elves
The newest addition to the Horde, Blood Elves are quite unique.Their Enchanting skill is increased by 10, along with a +5 increase in all their resistances. When they use Mana Tap, it reduces the enemies Mana, then charges you with energy, which can stack 3 times. They can then use Arcane Torrent, silencing enemies for 2 seconds and with every Mana Tap charged on the Blood Elf, they gain Mana, the amount depending on the Blood Elves' level.
Orcs
Orcs get a 5 point increase to their Axes skills, along with a 15% resistance to stun and knockout effects, but its not that great, seeing as how its a 15% of the resistance you already have. Orc Warlocks and Hunters get a Pet damage increase by 5%. When Orcs activate Blood Fury, their Attack Power is increased by about 4 times the level, but healing effects are reduced by 50%.
Undead
Braaaaaainnsssss.....Undead are quite possibly the race that get's the most beneficial abilities. Underwater breathing is increased by 300%, plus a +10 Shadow Resistance. When an Undead decides to Cannabalize a dead Humanoid or Undead, they regenerate 7% of their health every 2 seconds for 10 second. Will of the Forsaken can be activated to grant immunity to Sleep, Fear and Charm effects, which can be activated while Feared or Sleeped.
Tauren
Big. Bulky. Cows. A Tauren's max health is increased by 5%, along with a 15 point skill bonus to Herbalism and a +10 Nature Resistance. When they use War Stomp, up to 5 enemies nearby can be stunned for 2 seconds. The enemies must be within 8 yards of the stomping Tauren.

Classes
Classes are what really define how you will play the game. They will determine how frequently you will be needed in a group, how you will survive when battling, how you will be dealing your damage, etc. Each race has a set amount of classes it can be, some more than others. In parties, depending on your class you will be back firing from a distance or right next to the boss getting blood on your armor. Make sure you pick a class you will have fun with.

Warrior
Warriors are commonly referred to as Tanks because of their ability to take and give a lot of damage. Warriors are very to easy to learn how to play, mostly because they have one way of attacking, and that is melee. Your life as a Warrior will consist of you attacking the enemy head on, hoping that the healer won't screw up. Warriors have Stances, and most of the Warrior's abilities requires for them to be in a certain stance, such as to use Taunt, you need to be in Defensive Stance. Warriors are excellent at keeping the enemy attacking them, which is another reason they are in demand for parties. Hey, someone's gotta take that damage. Warriors have high amounts of Stamina (Health) and defense, making them hard to kill. Warriors lack the ability to do much damage from afar, and healing is impossible for them unless they use First Aid.
Priests
A Tank's best friend in a party. Priests are by far the best healing class in the game. The Priest will be back healing everybody and shielding them from damage while the Tank just stands their slashing and stabbing at the enemy. Priests are very fragile, though. Their armor consists of Cloth and...wait, just cloth. They have horrible melee, but that's not what Priests are for. But, if a Priest spends their talent points right, they can be deadly in the ways of Shadow damage, but that doesn't mean they aren't good healers if they are Shadow specced. Priests are usually in the highest demand for parties. Priests have low health and defense, so make sure you keep the enemies off of them. Priests, like all other healing classes, get the ability to resurrect other players if they die, an essential ability in tough dungeons.
Hunters
In my opinion, my favorite class. Hunters get pets, traps, ranged attacks, aspects, tracking, and more. Hunters are gods at Ranged Weapons compared to other classes. They are designed to stay back firing bullets or arrows at the enemy. Master at Damage per Second, Hunters can easily dish out lots of damage in short periods of time. When a Hunter reaches level 10, they can tame pets, which can act as Tanks for them when they solo, making the Hunter one of the easier classes to level. Also, Hunters can lay various traps, damaging or slowing, even disabling enemies. Hunters get a line of buffs called Aspects, which increases a certain attribute. Take Aspect of the Monkey. when you use, your dodge ability is increased by 8%. Aspects stay on until you die, take it off or you switch Aspects. Hunters also get tracking abilities, showing NPCs and enemies of the current type you tracking on the minimap. Extremely useful for finding the monsters you need to kill for that quest. Many don't think the Hunter is very important, but I disagree. They just need to be careful of their pets in dungeons and such. Hunters are useless in the 'dead zone'. This is the area where they are too far to use melee, but too close to fire Ranged Weapons.
Mages
One of the coolest classes, Mages get a variety of spells to use. They are primarily damage dealers, what with the dozens of Fire and Frost spells they get. Sometimes in parties they will need to sheep, or in other words use Polymorph an enemy to keep them from attacking. Great at crowd control. Frost Nova freeze all enemies in a certain range right in their tracks, enabling the Mage to run. They can conjure up food and water, so they will never to buy any. When Mages reach a certain level, they can create portals to capital cities, which is very convenient. Mages are fragile with their cloth armor and bad melee, so they stay back with the Priest in the party.
Paladins
Think of a half of a Warrior and half of a Priest together, and you get a Paladin. Paladins are a hybrid Tank and Healer. They have decent aggro managing abilities, along with good healing abilities. Excellent at surviving, as they can make themselves invulnerable for a few seconds while they heal themselves, making them extremely hard to kill if you can't drain their Mana. Paladins get a line of Auras and Blessings. Auras are much like Aspects, as they stay there until you die or switch them. Auras affect everyone in your party if they are close enough. Blessings are just buffs you cast on anyone you feel like, and they usually have to do with raising your stats. Paladins are like Warriors with their ability to wear plate armor and take a lot of damage, and just like Priests with their ability to heal, buff and resurrect, but a Paladin is neither a full Warrior or Priest. Did I mention, FREE MOUNT?! Yes, at level 40 and 60, the Paladin gets a quest to get their own mount, but they are hard, which makes up for them being free.
Druids
If you thought Paladins could be used for different classes, you haven't seen a Druid. Druids are a nature based class, with many qualities. in their regular form, they are decent healers along with some damaging spells and hindering effect spells. Notice how I said in regular form. Druids are able to shapeshift into different animal forms, some used for battling while others are used for travel. In Bear form, Druids are Tanks, with it's high health and armor. Cat form is just like a Rogue, with it's ability to stealth and deal high damage. Aquatic form turns them into some seal/walrus combination, increasing swim speed and allowing underwater breathing. Travel form turns the Druid into a cat, increasing run speed by 40%, an alternative to a mount. Finally, there is the much sought after Flight form, turning the Druid into a bird, allowing flight. This can only be used in Outland. Druids are a great class to have in a party if you need a back-up. Druids in regular form can wear leather and have a bit of defense, so they can last longer than a Mage, but not much. Fun class in general.
Rogues
Sneaky devils, quite annoying in PvP. Their claim to fame is Stealth, where they can walk around without being seen (hopefully). In Stealth, they sneak up behind unsuspecting foes to attack with a flurry of different attacks. Excellent at dealing damage, but they have to be careful. Too much aggro could result in the needing of repair for that leather armor. Rogues can pick locks, opening doors and lockboxes. At a certain level they can brew poison for their weapons, giving them a buff that might cause more damage, slow the enemy etc. Rogues can Dual Wield at 10, which is earlier than most. Rogues can Sap Humanoids at level 10, incapacitating them for a while, which proves extremely helpful later in the game. They can also pickpocket enemies in stealth, provided they have pockets.
Shamen
Most call this class overpowered, and for good reason. The Shaman is another hybrid. Shamen have good healing abilities, along with very good damage spells. Their line of Shock spells does great damage, along with other effects in there. Shamen get the ability to breath underwater, turn into a Ghost Wolf for a speed increase, and...walk on water. What else could a Shaman need? How about Totems? Totems are the distinguishing characteristic os the Shaman. Every 10 levels, the Shaman learns a new Totem, and thy are Earth, Fire, Water and Air, each with its own abilities. Earth totems mainly hinder the opponent and buff you and your party. Fire totems mainly do damage, while Water heals and regenerates everyone's Mana. Air totems have a variety of effects. Easy class to do about anything. They can learn to wield mail armor, making them hard to kill. Easy class to find a party with.
Warlock
A very interesting class. Warlocks are best at doing Damage Over Time spells, so even if you kill a Warlock, it's very possible to die from the DoTs left on you. They can drain souls, creating soul shards. These are used for various things, such as summoning your pets (which are imps, voidwalkers, succubi, felstalkers and felguards), create soulstones, which will resurrect dead players, and much more. They can also drain Health and Mana for the Warlock's own use. Warlocks can also summon missing party members, which is very useful, but the Warlock must get help from 2 other people. Hard to start out with, but fun after you get higher leveled. They, like the Paladin, get a free mount, so that's a plus too.

So that's it for this chapter. Now you know what you need to know about the races and classes of the World of Warcraft.

It's important you know what all the lingo that comes out of a lazy player's keyboard means. Chatspeak is a mean of communication which abbreviates common phrases or words for a means for faster chat. It's helpful that you start using Chatspeak before you start running dungeons. you don't to die because you spent 5 minutes typing, "Hey, could so-and-so, the Priest, please heal me? This mob is attacking me, and I am almost dead, so if you could heal me, I would appreciate it." That's a bit too much. some of the more common chatspeak is:

lol: Laugh Out Loud (What you say when someone says something funny

brb/bbl: Be Right Back/Be Back Later

g2g: Got to Go (Not to be confused with gtg, Good to Go)

lfg/lfm: Looking for Group/Looking for More

wtb/wts/wtt: Wanting to Buy/Sell/Trade

omg: Oh My Gosh/God

wtf: What the Freak/(Well, you know...)

pst: Please Send Tell, means to respond by ways of whisper/tell

Chatspeak is actually a very easy language to understand once you think about it. Of course, it's not all about convenience. In the World of Warcraft, there is a crapload of terms used to describe events happening, certain places, or just plain things.

AoE: Area of Effect, a spell that affects everything in a designated area

Buff: A beneficial increase/decrease in something of yours. ie: Battle Shout increases your attack power by a certain amount for 2 minutes

Debuff: The opposite of a buff. ie: a Disease, Poison etc

Inc: Incoming, to warn about...

Adds: Enemies that joined the battle unexpectantly

Oom: Out or low on Mana

Aggro: Basically, aggro is what you do when you cause a monster who isn't attacking anyone to attack you. Achieved when you walk into...

Aggro Radius: The area in which an enemy aggroes. The lower the level you are, the bigger the radius will be for you for a higher level monster, and vice versa.

Exp: Experience, the thing you need to level

Lvl: Level

DoT: Damage Over Time, a spell that does just that.

DPS: Damage Per Second, the amount of damage dealt out in a second

PVP: Player vs. Player

PVE: Player vs. Enviroment

Gank: In PVP, when you kill an enemy player while they are already being attacked. Can also mean you killed them without them expecting it. Not the nicest thing to do, but it's fair.

Grinding: Commonly done by people who are too lazy to quest, grinding is staying in one area killing monsters for experience.

Kiting: Keeping a distance away from the enemy while causing damage to it. Usually easier for Mages and Hunters, as they can slow the enemy while using ranged combat and magic.

Mob/Creep/Monster: All the same thing, a computer controlled enemy

NPC: Non Player Character, basically a computer controlled character who isn't a monster.

Pat: A patrol

Nerf: To significantly bring down, stat or spellwise such as "The Crusader enchant has been nerfed to X amount of damage"

newb: A person who is new to the game

n00b: Not to be confused with newb, a n00b is a person who knows how to play, but annoys or makes other people mad. Many versions, all ending in 00b. (j00b ch00b, fr00b) Loses its meaning when used so often.

Proc: When somethings activates, like on an item.

Pulling: In dungeons, a person who can attack from a range can "pull" enemies to the party.

Rez/Res: Resurrect

Tap: When a player not in your party damages a monster, that monster is tapped by that player. Only that player gets experience and loot from the kill.

Threat: Somewhat like aggro, threat is basically how much the monster hates you. Whoever has the most threat will be attacked, and keep attacking until a new threat target rises.

Twink: A low level character who is made more powerful from stronger armor and weapons given by their main character or guildmates.

Main: The character you play most often, usually the highest level.

Alt: An alternate character on the same account, usually weaker than the main.

Vendor Trash: Items in grey that are useless are considered vendor trash because they only thing to do with them is sell them to vendors.

Zerg: Attack a place with lots of players.

A short chapter. Just remember not to make up your own chatspeak, no one will understand you.

Tired of doing quests yet? Because there is an alternative. No, not grinding. It is.....wait for it....Running dungeons!
****A quick tip: Another word for dungeon is instance.
First, it helps if you know what a dungeon/instance is. A dungeon is an area, usually quite big, filled with elite monsters and enemies. Elites are much more powerful and are harder to take down, so it is essential you have a party or raid, depending on what kind of dungeon. When you enter an instance, you may notice there is no one else here but who's in your party. When you enter an dungeon, you are actually going into something like a copy. Every party gets their own copy, so they have everything in it to themselves.
I mentioned that a party is essential. The only time you might be able to solo something is when you are about 30-40 levels higher than the average level of the mobs in the dungeon. Maybe you are on an alt, and one of your guildmates are going to run you through the instance. This is okay if you want loot, money and a few quests done easily, but try to complete the instance with an actual party. High levels running you through rob you of gaining instance experience. What I mean by this is, think of it like a test. You can cheat off the smart kid, or you can study and actually try, you will learn something from it. The same applies to dungeons. If you go your whole World of Warcraft life with high levels running you through dungeons, once you get to raids like Onyxia's Lair and Zul'Gurub, you will get kicked out for attacking Onyxia or Hakkar while everyone was eating. Now that my lecture's done, here is an explanation of what classes should be in your party:

Your Party

-Tank: It's important you have someone to be taking the damage. Warriors are most commonly used because they have the highest amounts of health, they can wield shields and plate armor, and they generally have high amounts of defense. Tanks also have abilities which raises their threat, keeping the enemy attacking them. They don't have any healing spells whatsoever, so tanks rely on Healers to keep them alive, while the entire party is hammering damage onto the target. Note that there doesn't have to be one tank. The primary tank will be the main tank, while the secondary tank can be backup.

-Healer: Opposite of the tank, the healer is the last person you want taking damage. Healers are any class who can heal. (Priests are the absolute best, but others include Shamen, Druids, and Paladins if they spend their talent points in Holy) A healer's main healing target is the tank, because they will be taking the most damage, but the healer is able to heal everyone in the party. Healers are usually fragile, so it's important for them not to take damage. Paladins are the exception, but usually they are used for just single target healing, limiting how many people will live. Because they can resurrect, Warlocks usually cast their Soulstones on them, so if the party wipes, the Healer can use the Soustone to resurrect themselves, then resurrect the rest of the party.

-Crowd Control(CC): Crowd control refers to keeping a mob of enemies under control. Go figure. Sometimes, things don't go exactly as planned, whether it's a bad pull, or summoned adds. Either way, it's up to the CCer to keep your party from being overrun. Examples of Crowd Control include:
*Fear: The selected target runs away in fear for a set amount of time. They cannot attack, but they can call for help.
*Sap: The Rogue saps the target, incapacitating it for a pretty well amount of time, but only works on Humanoids.
*Polymorph: Turns the target into a sheep or pig, depending on which kind, for a period of time.
Be careful, as many CC spells/abilities will be negated by any damage taken. Make sure the party knows which target will be CCed before starting an attack. Classes that can CC include Mages, Rogues, Druids and Warlocks.

-Damage Per Second(DPS): DPSers are typically classes that deal out the most damage in a short period of time. Examples are Hunters, Rogues, Warlocks and Mages.These are essential to any party, mostly because they are the main source of damage. DPS classes should watch their threat. A lot of damage comes with a lot of hate, and if you piss the monster off, you better watch out. If a Hunter or Rogue gets aggro, they can Feign Death or Feint, respectively. It's just bad luck for the Mage or Warlock. All they can do is wait until someone pulls the aggro from them.

-Hybrids: Like the filler to your tooth. Not that it hurts, but it can fill in any missing parts of your party. Hybrids can generally play the parts of multiple roles. Druids can be Rogues (Cat form), Tanks (Bear form), Casters or Healers (Normal form). Shamen can be a partial Caster, a Healer or a DPS. Paladins can be a Tank or a Healer. Normally, Hybrids aren't used to be a specific role in the party, but if they spend their talents right and get the right equipment, it's possible for a Druid to be a primary Tank, or a Shaman to be the main Healer.

-Casters: Not much to say about Casters, mostly because they....cast. Casters include Mages, Priests and Warlocks. Druids and Shamen can be partial Casters, as explained above. Casters are generally weak, so they stay back, hoping that their high damage causing spells won't aggro the enemy. If it is unfortunate that you gain aggro, scream to the tank to take the aggro, because you won't last long with that cloth or leather armor. Casters usually have high damage spells, along with some class special abilities which makes some Casters more useful than others.

Now, it's important that you know about the good things and bad things to do in a party. Otherwise known as Etiquette.

Party Etiquette
First, let's go over communication. It's important that EVERYONE in the party communicates with each other, otherwise the whole concept of groups is pointless. Remember that you are playing with humans, not NPCs. Orcs have feelings too...

Anyways...
When you join a party for a dungeon, make sure you get across the things you need to do, whether it's to kill the last boss, or free a prisoner. People aren't psychic, so make it clear what you are there for. Also, know your role in the party. Priests aren't made to tank. Luckily, there are many people out there on their alts who knows theirs, and even other people's roles in the party.
When you're in the instance, listen to each other. Be modest. Don't try to be a leader if you have no idea what to do. Usually the leader is the person with the most experience or the highest level. The leader (The person with a crown on their portrait) gets to decide Loot Type, Instance Difficulty and the ability to reset the instance.
Loot type is basically how the loot is distributed. Loot types are:

-Group Loot: The default, and most likely best loot type around. Parties members take turns looting corpses. If an item better than the threshold* pops up, people roll for it.**
-Round Robin: Much like Group Loot, only when an item thats better than the threshold comes up, whoever's turn it is to loot that corpse gets to loot that item as well without having to roll for it.
-Master Looter: The ML is assigned by the leader. When an item better than the threshold is dropped, the ML gets to loot it. When they loot it, they will see a list of party members that he can assign the item to.
-Free for All: Any party member can loot anything from any corpse.
-Need Before Greed: Basically, everyone rolls for any item they can use. This is accomplished by typing /roll # in the chatbox. This number is usually 100.

*The loot threshold is the type of item that you start to roll at. For example, if the threshold is at rare, then you roll for any item rare or higher, but not for uncommons.
**When an item that's better than the threshold is dropped, a box will come up when it's looted. It will show the item and stats, along with a die, coin and and X. The die is Need, and is usually only clicked when you can use that item and it is an upgrade to what you have. The coin is Greed, and is generally used when you don't Need it, but you could still use it for the money. The X is pass, if you feel no Need (or Greed) for it.

Since we have discussed Rolling, I should warn you about Ninja Looters. Ninjas are people who roll Need on Rare/Epic items when they have no Need for it, and they continually do this on on purpose. Ninjas usually get kicked out of groups, and even guilds if they Ninja loot. Some of the most nefarious Ninjas develop a reputation throughout the entire server. If you are the victim of a Ninja, make sure to warn your guildmates and friends about them.

So what are the dungeons in the world anyway? Haha, you are in luck. Here I have constructed a list of the dungeons in the World of Warcraft (In order of level):
Azeroth Dungeons

Level Dungeon Area

13-22 Ragefire Chasm Orgrimmar
15-28 The Deadmines Westfall
15-28 Wailing Caverns The Barrens
18-32 Shadowfang Keep Silverpine Forest
20-35 Blackfathom Deeps Ashenvale
22-30 The Stockades Stormwind City
24-40 Gnomeregan Dun Morogh
24-40 Razorfen Kraul The Barrens
29-45 Scarlet Monastery Tirisfal Glades
33-47 Razorfen Downs The Barrens
35-52 Uldaman Badlands
40-58 Maraudon Desolace
43-54 Zul'Farrak Tanaris
44-60 Sunken Temple Swamp of Sorrows
48-60 Blackrock Depths Searing Gorge, Burning Steppes*
52-61 Blackrock Spire Searing Gorge, Burning Steppes*
54-61 Dire Maul Feralas
56-61 Stratholme Eastern Plaguelands
56-61 Scholomance Eastern Plaguelands

*Both of these are located in Blackrock Mountain, accessible by Searing Gorge or Burning Steppes

Alright, so those are the different dungeons for PARTIES. Now we have to go through the dungeons meant for RAIDS. (These are all level 60+ raids):

Dungeon Area
Blackwing Lair Blackrock Spire
Molten Core Blackrock Depths
Onyxia's Lair Dustwallow Marsh
Naxxramas Eastern Plaguelands
Ruins/Temple of Ahn'Qiraj Silithus
Zul'Gurub Stranglethorn Vale

Since the arrival of the Burning Crusade, more dungeons and raids have been added. Since I'm nice, I'll add those as well:

Level Dungeon Area
60-62 Hellfire Ramparts Hellfire Citadel (Hellfire Peninsula)
61-63 Blood Furnace Hellfire Citadel
62-64 The Slave Pens Coilfang Reservoir(Zangarmarsh)
63-65 The Underbog Coilfang Reservoir
64-66 Mana Tombs Auchindoun(Terrokkar Forest)
65-67 Auchenai Crypts Auchindoun
66-68 Escape from Durnholde Caverns of Time(Tanaris)
69-72 Opening of the Dark Portal Caverns of Time
69-72 The Mechanar Tempest Keep
70-72 Shattered Halls Hellfire Citadel
70-72 The Steam Vaults Coilfang Reservoir
70-72 Shadow Labyrinth Auchindoun
70-72 The Botanica Tempest Keep
70-72 The Arcatraz Tempest Keep
70-72 Karazhan Deadwind Pass (This is a 10 man raid dungeon)

and the raids:

Dungeon Area
Magtheridon's Lair Hellfire Citadel
Serpentshrine Cavern Coilfang Reservoir
Gruul's Lair Blade's Edge Mountains
Tempest Keep Netherstorm
Battle for Mount Hyjal Caverns of Time
The Eye Tempest Keep
The Black Temple Shadowmoon Valley

Phew, that was tiring. Now, for many of the raid dungeons, you will need to be "attuned". To become attuned (Able to access) to a dungeon, you must complete the attunement quest to that dungeon. These can be one part, or 10 parts.

Raids

Raids are what you will most likely be doing in your later WoW life. All raid dungeons have one thing in common: A boss that you can't kill with a 5-man party. You will have to be much more responsible in a raid because there's a lot more people to keep track of. You will need to make sure you know your role, which you should by now. Since raids are full of people, it will take a while before everyone gets there, so you'll have to be patient. There's a lot of downtime before the raid enters the dungeon due to the distribution of food and water, the leader going over the rules, plans and things like that. Make sure you listen, because even one person can ruin the entire raid and you will all end up dead. It's important that everyone is ready before you take on a boss of a big group of enemies. I've been on raids, and it's hell if that happens. Priests are still drinking for Mana, and by the time they get up, the Tanks and Rogues are dead, and the Mages and Hunters aren't too far behind. Like I said before, communication is the key to a good party.

So in conclusion for this chapter, watch what's happening, know your role, and communicate. Did I mention to communicate?

The reason this is a sub chapter is because there's not a lot of information here, some of it might even be useless, but nonetheless, it will be helpful for those of you not familiar with this game.

First, know what the stats are and mean. There are 5 stats: Strength, Agility, Stamina, Spirit, and Intelligence. Here's a handy-dandy list about each stat:

---Strength: The more Strength you have, the more attack power you have with ranged and melee weapons. It also determines how much damage you block with a shield, if you can wield one.
Classes that benefit: Warriors, Paladins, Shamen, Rogues, a bit to Hunters

---Agility: Increase ranged weapon damage and your armor. Also, more Agility gives you a better chance to dodge and land critical hits.* It also increases melee attack power, but only to Rogues, Hunters and Druids in Cat form.
Classes that benefit: Basically all classes, but Hunters, Rogues and Cat formed Druids get an extra increase to attack power.

*Critical hits are hits that do much more damage than normal hits. You will get them often or rarely, depending on your Agility.

---Stamina: Determines how much Health you have. Also determines pet health.
Classes that benefit: All

---Spirit: Determines your Health regeneration (Out of combat) and Mana regeneration (When not casting)
Classes that benefit: All (Warriors and Rogues don't get Mana regeneration though, of course.)

---Intellect: The more you have, the more Mana you can hold. Also increases critical hit chance with spells and the rate at which you learn weapon skills. If you are a Hunter or Warlock, also determines your pet's Mana.
Classes that benefit: All mana users, but the weapon skill learning rate increase benefits all.

So now you know what the stats are, and what stats you want to raise for your class. Oh, you don't know what stats you want to raise?

Well, if you are a primary mana user(Mage, Priest, Warlock, etc.) Do not plan to get as much Strength as possible, as you won't be up close and fighting with your stick, you will be casting. (Or in a Hunter's case, shooting.) You want Intellect, Spirit and Stamina. Hunters will want Agility though, because it increase attack power with ranged and melee weapons.

Vice versa for Warriors and Rogues. You won't be using any spells, so Mana is quite useless for you. The other stats though, you will want to raise.

Shamen and Paladins are tough, as they can melee and cast. My suggestion is, if you plan be stepping back and healing/casting, try to get more Intellect, and if you prefer close combat, go for Strength and Agility.

So that's all fine, but how exactly do you raise stats? Every time you level up, all your stats will be raised by one. Plus, any green or better equipment* will have at least one + x y. X is the number that the stat will be raised, and y is the stat. For instance, a green chest armor piece could have +4 Stamina, +2 Intellect and +1 Spirit. When you equip that armor, those respective stats will be raised

*Green or better equipment refers to the color of the name of the item.

Item Rarity

Grey name: Useless, called vendor trash as its only real use s being sold
White: Common; Has some kind of use, can be auctioned
Green: Uncommon; many enemies drop these, always have some kind of stat boost, can be auctioned
Blue: Rare; Hard to get, rarely (Hence the name) drops off enemies; Usually very powerful, has stat boosts, can be auctioned
Purple: Epic; extremely hard to get, most likely to drop off monsters in dungeons, very very powerful,can be auctioned
Orange: Legendary/Artifact; Don't hope that you get these, very few per server, some have to be crafted

Note: Green or better items can only be auctioned if their are not soulbound. If the item says Bind on Pickup, then when you loot it, it will be soubound. Bind on Equip items bind when you equip them.
Another note: Greens or better aren't limited to equipment, there are many other kinds of items that aren't armor that are Green or better.

See? That was short. Thanks for reading this sub chapter, you have now wasted 7 minutes of your life reading this.

More chapters to be added.

Guide to taking your Draenei or Night elf to Stormwind/Ironforge - Part I Draenei.

Hey, well I see everyone asking for help to get to ironforge/stormwind from a draenei/night elf and so I have decided to make a guide on how to do it. This is my first guide so bare with me

Draenei:
1. Start at the main entrance for the Exodar. There will be a road on your right as you come out of the main entrance to the Exodar, take it.

2. Follow the road, don't leave it, and eventually you will come to a mini dock with a sign saying: 'Boat to auberdine' or something similar. Wait for the boat, and once it comes hop on and wait. (May take a few minutes for a boat to arrive but not too long)

3. The boat will stop at auberdine in darkshore. You will be on a dock which forks into a few paths. There is a sign at the centre of the docks at the fork, it points to each path and tells you which boat it leads to. You want to get on the boat to menethil.

4. Once you have gotten on the boat to menethil and it has arrived, run up the dock into the proper town part. Get the flightpath at the Gryphon master. Now go down until you see a great stone bridge that when you run over it you zone into the Wetlands. When in the wetlands follow the road east. Don't turn off it, it will start to turn south. Stay on the road. Yes you may die if you arent around level 24, but don't worry. You will come to a tunnel, go through it. You will come to alot more tunnels. Go through them all.

5. You should have zoned into dun morogh. Follow the road south until it forks. Take it WEST. There will be several turn offs as you go along, take none. Stick to the path and don't turn off it. Follow it west still, and it will start to turn north.

6. Turn right, east, up to ironforge. CONGRATULATIONS. You have got to ironforge. Still gotta get stormwind though eh? No problem, read on.

7. Go to the great forge and grab the ironforge flightpath. Ask a guard how to get to the gryphon master if you can't find it (A gold arrow will appear on the minimap pointing in the direction of your destination, the gryphon master, if you aren't familiar with asking the guard for directions) . Next up, go to tinker town for the deeprun tram. You may or may not know how to get there, so ask a guard for directions to the deeprun tram if you need help. Jump through the portal, wait for a tram. Hop on, then when you arrive, hop off.

8. Go out of the portal, you will be in stormwind in the dwarven district. Get the flightpath here from the gryphon master if you know where he is or ask a guard for directions to the gryphon master.

Congratulations! You have reached stormwind! Judging by your level, you can go to different areas here to level.

12 - 20/22 - Westfall. Need no guide here, just get the peoples militia quests and the killing fields and just grind.

20/22 - 30 - Duskwood/Darkshire inside it. Now for this I SERIOUSLY RECOMMEND USING
http://www.wow-pro.com/leveling_guides/duskwood_20-30_%28alliance_leveling_guide%29

Punjabi's Duskwood only levelling guide. The best 20 - 30 guide there is.

-Will
Night elf guide coming soon.

How to group (Lowbie oriented)

This is an excerpt from my noobie guide, but I thought it would be helpful here as well

You will start getting quests for dungeons. They are often called instances as well. These instances are setup to encourage group play, provide different types of challenges, and they give out better than average equipment. You will need a well balanced party of similar levels to complete them. It might seem tempting to have your high level friend take you through these so you can hog all the items and get the quests done quickly but I recommend you try it with a group of players around your same level. You will learn a lot this way and later on in higher level instances you will know what you are doing and it will save you, and other players, lots of frustration. The earlier level instances are easier and give you time to figure things out. If you wait until later to learn party ettiquette and group skills you will often be kicked out of a group so they can find a better prepared player. Before doing an instance make sure your armor is repaired. You have plenty of food and bandages. You have ranged ammo if your class uses it. And you have any needed spell components. Shaman should have ankhs for self-resurecting, rogues should have their poisons and flash powder etc. Bringing along some health potions will always come in handy as well but people won't expect you to have them.

A typical 5-man group is usually one tank, one healer, one melee damage class, one ranged damage class, and one extra that can be any of the above. This is by no means the only way to do it, but this has been a proven formula for sucess. In higher levels you will do groups of 10, or 25, or even 40! But don't think you can slack off in a group. Each member is important. Even in a 40 man raid, each person has a job to do and if they don't do it the whole group will face disaster. In a 5 man group, The tank will usually "pull" the monsters to the group. Then he uses his skills to maintain aggro so the monsters will attack him and not the other members of the party. If he does a good job it makes life easier for the healer since they will only need to focus on healing one person and they won't run out of mana wasting heals on 3 different people. The job of the damage classes is to hit the same target the tank is fighting and do as much damage as they can without drawing the attention of the mob away from the tank. Also as a secondary job, they are to protect the healer. Healing will draw the attention of the mob away from the tank as well. So if you ever see a monster going for your healer, do everything you can to draw it away. If the healer dies, usually the whole party dies with him. If you save the healer even at the cost of your own life you did a good thing. The healer will be able to resurrect you shortly after the fight and you can continue on with minimal downtime. A good tank is the key to a good party though. If the tank is holding aggro well, the damage classes can go all out and the healer won't have to worry about being hurt since the monsters are all focused on the tank. A good healer is key to keeping the tank alive. And good damage classes are important for killing the monsters quickly so they die before the healer runs out of mana and can't heal the tank anymore. Each role supports one another and that's why if each member knows their role and does their job, your party will have an easy time even when things go wrong a good party will survive a catastrophie where an disorganized party would easily be killed.

Some groups will have what's called an "off-tank" usually it's when they have an extra warrior around. The way an off-tank works is they will draw aggro from one monster and keep it away from the group and fight it one on one while the rest of the group kills the other monsters. It's usually a warrior because they need to be tough enough to take a beating while the healer focuses on the main tank. Once the group kills the other monsters they then heal the off-tank and help him finish off his monster. If the off-tank manages to kill it on his own, he would then go assist the party with the other remaining monsters. This really helps in pulls where there are multiple monsters. For example, the tank shoots his gun at a group of 4 monsters and they all start charging the party. The tank can try and hold the aggro of all 4 monsters but with each extra monster it's more difficult to keep each one focused on the tank. Usually with that big of a group the tank takes more hits, which means the healer is healing more, but the tank's aggro is split across 4 monsters and it won't take much for the healer to heal enough to catch the attention of a monster. That monster will start attacking the healer which may end up killing the healer causing the whole group die. But if you have an off-tank they would grab one of the monsters charging the party and lead it away from the group and it gives the tank just 3 to deal with. Meaning less hits, less healing, and better control of the group of monsters pulled. Some classes have what is referred to as crowd control, a way to take a monster temporarily out of combat. Mages can turns things into sheep, rogues can sap, warlocks can seduce, priests can shackle undead. The idea behind this is similar to the strategy of off-tanking. It gives the group one less monster to worry about and once they kill the rest of the group the can go back to the crowd controlled monster. The hardest part about it is getting everyone in the group to leave the crowd controlled monster alone. Because if you attack it while it's sheeped or sapped etc. it will free it to go cause trouble with the rest of the party. Communication is the key to coordinate what is being off-tanked, what is being crowd controlled etc.

We could talk about group strategy all day but it can be summed by saying know your role. Even as situations get harder fulfilling your role will be the key to survival in group enviroments. Most parties will have experienced players that know their role, and someone who doesn't sticks out like a sore thumb. Not filling your role will lead to your parties death and a long run back to your corpse. If you need help let the party know you are new, most players are happy to take a moment out to explain what you need to do or discuss the strategy for bosses. It's a lot easier to help someone than die and get frustrated and waste time running back to the instances, resurrecting, getting buffs, and getting organized again and then discuss strategy so it doesn't happen again. So make sure you ask for help when you need it. It saves a lot of time and energy. Not to mention a lot of times parties fall apart after a "wipe." They will get frustrated and leave the party. Once one person leaves it's usually hard to find a quick replacement and more people leave rather than wait around and eventually you have no party left and you will need to find a new party and start over again. After you have done it with a group, by all means have your high level buddy take you through it so you can have all the money and items. Just don't rob yourself of the chance to learn to do it right. It will pay off in the long run because it will make you a better player.

While we are discussing party tactics we should discuss how loot works in groups. One new thing you will find is when you are in a party some of the better items will ask players to roll for them. You will have a small window come up that asks you if you "need" or "greed" the item.The general rule is to roll need, if and only if the item is usable by you and is an upgrade to your current gear. Most players are very understanding when a player needs an item. But on the other hand it is a big deal if you take advantage of this and roll need on things you don't. Most parties will remove you from the group for doing it and it damages your reputation. If you have a reputation as a "ninja looter" you will find it hard to find people to group with. Some people even get kicked out of guilds for it. If more than one person chooses need the computer will "roll" and it generates a random number between 1-100 for each player and whoever has the higher number will recieve the item. If you don't need an item choose greed or if you are feeling generous you can pass on the item. All players that picked greed will then roll and the item given to the highest roll. If everyone passes then no one recieves the item automatically and it can be picked up by anyone that feels like looting the corpse. In some parties blue items (the extremely good items) will have special rules. Like everyone must pass and then let the group discuss who will recieve it. Either by talking out who could use it most or doing a more organized roll. The winner will then be allowed to loot the corpse to recieve the item. It is important to go over what the loot rules are early on. You'd hate to pass on a blue you could have used expecting to talk it out but have someone else who didn't know roll need and get it without you having a chance. Most blue items bind when they are picked up, so they can't be traded to other players. That's why most groups like to talk things over so mistakes aren't made, people get pretty upset when they lose out on good items unfairly and believe it or not people will leave groups over this. So make sure you are being fair when you choose need and things will work out just fine.

Ram Racer's Noobie Guide

Hello everyone, you may have seen my guides in the past about getting quests for RFC and other instances but in this guide I'm going to teach you about the basics of world of warcraft. I'm making this guide because World Of Warcraft was my first MMORPG other than www.runescape.com and runescape is just kinda strange. Anyway, when I started World Of Warcraft I really felt like a noobie asking questions like RFC? or what does IDK mean?. This guide will tell you all of the things you need to know so you don't feel nooby like I do.

Add-ons

Add-ons can make you're gaming expeirince a lot better. Some good ones are some kind of coords mod and titan panel also take a look at some of the add-ons the leveling guide makers give you for those are probably pretty nice. To get these go to www.curse-gaming.com or go www.google.com and search "WoW UI". Also, some of the leveling guides that give you add-ons will have links that send you to the site to make it easier for you.

World Of Warcraft Dictionary

This is pretty much just a dictionary explaining the chat shortenings of world of warcraft chat and the symbols used in chat.

AFK - This shows that the other player is away from keyboard. You can shpw that you're AFK by typing /afk in you're chat box.

DND - This means (Do Not Disturb). You can show this to other player by typing /dnd but please don't annoy dnd players usually they have dnd to not get annoyed.

LOL - This is probably the most commonly used chat shortening and it means laugh out loud. You can use it in different ways like LOL, lol, LoL, lOl. But, they all mean the same thing.

ROFL - This tells the people in you're chat that you're rolling on the floor laughing kinda the same thing as LoL only this is less commonly used.

LMAO - This tells people you're laughing you're ass off. Some people use things like ROFLMAO to show rolling on floor laughing my ass off.

GTG - This indicates that this player has (Got to Go)

SRRY - This means sorry.

THX - This means thanks.

C - This means see.

CYA - This means see ya.

CYL- This is rarely used but I've seen it before and it means (See You Later)

BRB - This means the player who says it will (Be Right Back).

These are mostly the important ones some people kinda make their own and some use stuff like kool instead of cool just for no reason but these are most of the ones that you would feel like a newb asking about. By the way Noob means non-expeirienced player. There are many different forms of it like Newb and Nub.

Instance and Dungeon Shortenings

AQ - This stands for the instance Ahn'Qiraj.

BFD - This stands for Blackfathom Deeps

BRD - This stands for Blackrock Depths

BRS - This stands for Blackrock Spire

BWL - This stands for Blackwing Lair

VC - This stands for deadminds.

DM - Dire Maul

Gnomer - This stands for gnomeragon.

MD - This stands for Maraudon.

MC - This stands for Molten Core.

OL - This stands for Onyxia's Lair.

RFC - This stands for Ragefire Chasm.

RFD - This stands for Razorfren Downs.

RFK - This stands for Razorfren Kraul.

SM - This stands for Scarlet Monastary and this has three different instances in it.

SFK - This stands for Shadowfang Keep.

SCHOLO - This stands for Scholomance.

STOCK - This stands for Stockades.

STRATH - This stands for Stratholme.

ST - This stands for Temple of Atal Hakkar.

ULDA - This stands for Uldaman.

WC - This stands for Wailing Caverns.

ZF - This stands for Zul'Farrak.

ZG - This stands for Zul'Gurub.

This should definetaly have you down with the chat and the instances.

Factions

Allright now that you know what people say in world of warcraft we're going to study factions. Basicaly there are two factions, Horde and Alliance. They pretty much are completely different especially if you're on a PVP server, this chaptor of my guide will explain why.

Horde

Ok, horde is my main faction just because thats the faction I have the highest level on and because I have many friends on horde. I don't allways play a horde because I also have a level 44 Human Warrior on Alliance.

The following races are all horde.

Blood Elf (Requires The Burning Crusade World Of Warcraft Expansion.)

Troll

Orc

Undead

Tuaren

Each of these have special racial spells and melee attacks and also have different class's which can be either a mage, palladin, shaman, druid, warrior or a priest. These all have special class abbilities that can be learned from you're in-game trainer. Usually every 2 levels you will get a new class spell or abbility.

Heres a pretty basic leveling guide but I'd much rather you use someone else's for this one is pretty just basic.

1-12 Durotar, Mulgore, Trisfal Glades or Eversong Woods.

12-20 Barrens or Ghostlands.

20-30 Hillsbrad Foothills or Thousand Needles.

30-45 Stranglethorn or Desolace.

45-55 Hinterlands or at low 50's Blasted Lands.

55-60 Winterspring Grinding.

I've never been to outlands yet the highest level I have is a 58 Orc Warlock so I hope to be there soon.

Alliance

Like I said I rarely use alliance but I still know some about them only i only have a level 44 Human Warrior so I don't really know the greatest spots to level so, you probably should go with another leveling guide because I aint gonna have a basic one for alliance.

The Folllowing Races Are All Alliance.

Human

Dreani (Only for The Burning Crusade.)

Night Elf

Gnome

Dwarf

Just like horde each of these class's have racial spells and abbilities and class spells and abbilities. Every 2 levels you should visit you're trainer.

Tips for becoming a successful raider

Firstly I would like to say I don't know everything when it comes to raiding. My guild has been on our server for a few months and we're up to SSC, TK and Mag. There are other people who are sure to be more qualified than me to write a guide like this but I figured heck, why not? Some things will just be common sense and this is all mostly stuff I have experience with, things that have happened stuff like that.

1. Join a guild that is right for you - don't join a guild that is raiding Black Temple and Mt Hyjal if you have only just got to 70 that day. Chances are they won't even have Karazhan on the agenda and you won't have much of a chance to prove yourself to them. Join a guild that is already in Kara or starting to move onto Gruul. They will have Kara on farm status (or almost) and they will be able to give you the best advice in regards to what gear and skills you should be working towards. If you join a guild that wants to start raiding Kara be expecting big regular repair bills and be set to enjoy the journey of learning the fights with your guild.

2. Don't comprimise on gear - Get the best gear you can for your class and spec, don't settle for second best simply because better gear will take a little longer. The best geared that you are the easier raids will come and the more time you will be able to spend learning your class. You will also have a better chance of getting into the group the better geared you are.

3. Learn your class - A friend once told me 90% of people use trial and error in the middle of a fight to learn a boss fight. 5% do hardcore thoerycraftying before a fight and the rest do their theorycrafting mid fight. I personally do a lot of reading about my class before a raid, general ideas. My brain doesn't start ticking over into the more complex things until I'm in there doing it. If there is something I didn't understand or something I didn't get the hang of I spend a lot of time talking to people I respect afterwards.

4. Be on time - A lot of guilds complain their biggest downfall is members not turning up to raids on time. My guild failed as a raiding guild on our old server due to this. My best advice is to turn up ready to go half an hour before the raid is due to start. This applies whether your guild has set teams or it decides teams on the night. My guild advises people turn up to a raid at 4:30 (we raid at 5 pm on the oceanic servers), guild invites go out at 4:45 and then we do our first pull at 5 pm. You won't get many raid invites if you haven't been outside ready to go well in advance.

5. Show you have the guild's interests at heart - This is something I have struggled with (unknowingly). Guildies started thinking I didn't care about the group as a whole simply because I spent so much time talking about what gear I wanted, what gear I wanted to drop from that boss we were killing. It took a strong word from the officers to get me to realise my constant talking was a drainer.

6. Be quiet on vent - unless you are specifically being addressed try to avoid talking in a raid. Leave the vent channel clear for the raid leaders to talk. This is another problem I struggle with, my voice is more noticable than others (since I'm a girl). At the end of the day your group doesn't really care that your lagging hard core and aren't shooting.

7. Use all the consumables you can - If its a wipe night use Flasks and food, if you are really gunning for bosses use Elixirs, food, scrolls and stones or mana oil on weapons. It can make a real boost in how you perform your given role in the raid. The daily quests you can do at level 70 should pay for your repair bills, consumables and ammo, this is dependant of course on what armour you use (clothies can afford to forget a day or so of quests whereas plate wearers really shouldn't).

8. Have fun and remember it's just a game - Don't let your real life suffer for the sake of raiding. If you find yourself not eating with your family or something like that find a guild that raids at a more agreeable time. Negotiate with your family as to when you should be raiding and take a step back when you feel its becoming more of a job that you pay to do and less of a time killer after work.

Feel free to make any comments, suggestions or additions below, I know there will be something I have missed out or conveyed badly.

Zac's how to be less of a Noob Guide

Zac's how to less of a noob guide is guide designed to help you figure

things out while playing wow. This is NOT a leveling guide.

This guide will cover:
1. Add-ons
2. Leveling
3. Traveling
4. Abbreviations (wish i had this)
5. Other guides
6. The Auction House
7. Talent Points
8. Class junk
9. Race stuff
10. Base Stats

My two largest recomendations are get a guild and ALWAYS refer to

thottbot when something is not covered in this website.

Thottbot.com is a catalogue of EVERY item, quest, set, ect. in WoW.

Two, get a guild, they are fun and can help you alot, to get runs

through instances or other good stuff. WoW is really fun, and this will

help you not look like as much of an

idiot, or, actualy smart.

1. Add-ons

These are very useful, but some are annoying. As always, i

recommend the atlas mod, the titan mod. Those are the only two Add-

ons i use, they can be found at Curse-gaming.com

There, that was easy, step one is done, you are already less of a

noob, you have some add-ons.

2. Leveling

It sucks. Its no fun. There are ways around that though.

There are many guides that will take you on this very fine website. I

recomend that when you hit 21, use Jame's leveling guide. It is

amazing, just do it. you must level to advance, and it gets better.

3. Traveling

Worse than leveling, it is the worst part of the game.

Wether on foot, or hitching a ride, it isn't fun. There are many modes

of transportation on WoW, and the first is on foot. Most classess have

a Speed boost by level 20, these make it easier, but still not fun.

You can also take a gryphin, or a bat, to your destinating, BUT YOU

HAVE TO HAVE TALKED TO THE WIND RIDER/BAT HANDLER AT THAT

AREA BEFORE YOU CAN DO SO. These can be long and expensive, so

get yourself a rubix cube or 20 questions. At level 40 you can get a

mount, for a really high price. it increases movement by 60%, and by

level 60, a mount with 100% increase is available. There are boats,

Zepplins and trains between the two continents. They go from A to B

and its free. Be prepared to wait for them.

4. Abbreviations

Ahh, i hate these, but here they are:

BRB- Be right back

AFK- away from keyboard

DND- do not disturb

lol- u should know this

btw- by the way

*ok, these are really easy, but useful for noobs (like i once was, yes,

me) and fun to type*

*Major cities*

Org- Orgrimmar

TB- Thunder Bluff

UC- Undercity

SVM- Silvermoon city

these should be all you care about, because its only the Horde FTW (for the win)

RFC- an instance in Org

WC- an insteance outside The crossroads (XR)

pvp- player versus player

AH- Auction House

DOT- Damage over time

AoE- Area of Effect (refers to spells that make a circle and hurts

everyone in that circle.)

Most others can be determined through context, thes are the very

basics.

5. Other guides

The other guides, as mentioned before, are useful for many

different things, such as leveling, proffesions, and honor, which is

gained through pvp. I recommend looking her for guides.

6. The Auction House

A very useful place to get items... if you have money. Sell

your stuff here, and you will probably get better money than selling it

to a merchant, like cloth, a drop, sells very well. Also sell any

green items here. Also, if you have money, buy blue items that are

underpriced, and resell them for lots of gold, this has gotten me lots

of gold.

7. Talent points

These are very useful in boosting your character. You get

one at level ten, then one more to spend at each level you gain. Each

talent point can be used differently, on a diffwerent tree, and each

class has a different tree. Use a talent Calculator to check it out.

8. Class junk

Each class has its own characteristics, here is a breakdown:

Priest- Very weak physicaly, but have good spells, VERY good healers,

are always valued party members.

Warlock- Have pets, each pet differs, they get a free mount.

Warlocks Have very good DOT, but no melee. SLOW levelers

Paladin- Free mount. No long range, ok healers, ok tanks (peaople

with high armor that take up damage), ok melee. Fun to play. Have

annoyed the Horde since forever, but the blood elfs are leveling the

playing field.

Shaman- Cheap. Amazingly powerful. Good melee, for a spell-caster.

Some good spells, ok healers, amazingly useful totems.

Warrior- Tanks. Lots of Armor. Strong attacks, amazing melee, killer

in a group, can solo things very easily.

Mage- Pure spell-caster, Very good AoE combat, if talented to frost.

Very useful because they conjure food and water, also fun to play.

Can teleport to major cities at level 20

Rogue- Sneaky little rascals, can turn invisable and have amazing

melee for only using daggers, also brew poisons and can pick locks.

Often twinked (given amazing armor and enchants for their level)

Hunter- Have a pet. GREAT with a bow or gun and pet tanking. Super

fun to play, and also make good twinks.

Druid- pretty neat class. Have a couple good healing spells, and can

turn into different animals that mimic all of the other classes. Fun

to play.

9. Race stuff

Here is the breakdown of races:

Humans- cool, i guess. The reputation bonus is nice, so is the

increased spirit.

Dwarfs- stone form is very good defense, and they can find treasure,

which is neat.

Gnomes- good because they are so small, they are really hard to click

on. Also, they can escape from traps, which is GREAT. Increased

intelligence is good for spellcasters.

Night elfs- Can turn invisable by themselfs, dont need to be rogues,

make great priests incase the party wipes.

Draeni- other tyhan looking cool, they have an additional healing

spell. Are equaly good with any class.

Orc- 5% damage increase makes good hunters or warlocks. being

anything else would be stupid.

Forsaken (undead)- They can be immune to sleep, which is godly. Are

good with any class.

Tauren- Increased health is cool. good with any class, only class on

horde that can be druid though, so its always cool to be that.

Trolls- Regeneration is good, they are good with any class.

Blood elfs- AoE silence is AMAZING, they are good with any class.

10. Base Stats

Base stats are useful for developing your character, here they are and what classes need them the most.

Strength- Increases attack power and block. Good for Warriors and

paladins.

Agility- Increases critical strike chance (increase of damage for one

hit). Imparative for Rogues.

Stamina- increases health. Any class can use this really, but mostly

tanks, warriors and paladins.

Intelligence- increases mana. Useless for classes without mana.

Good for Warlocks, paladins, shamans, mages, hunters, druids and

priests.

Spirit- increases the rate at which you heal without spells or potions.

Good to have with any class

THE END!!!

Gratz, you are less of a noob. I suck at guide making, so if anyone

has any comments, go ahead, im not afraid, I've been wrong before,

on bigger things.

Zinj's General tips to a better playing experience.

Right, this is a guide to help you not be so overwhelmed by the game when first starting off. (This is my first time writing a guide, so take this with a grain of salt... please?)

As you read through this, remember this one little bit of wisdom,

"It is best to learn from mistakes. Whether the mistakes are yours or someone else's is up to you."

Onward ho!

1. Have Fun!

Yes, it's a game that some people take seriously.
Yes, it's a very vast game with a seemingly endless supply of quests and/or activities to participate in.
Yes, it's a game that could be challenging at times, and unexpectedly boring at other times...
But in the end, it's a game. And games were made for you to have fun!

2. Play it your way.

One (and of course, not the most important) of the beauties of the game, is how there seems to be a minimum of game rules or set guidelines in it. If you like the way your Blood elf looks, but absolutely despise the Blood elf starting area, then you can trek all the way down to Tirisfal Glades and quest about with the rotting carcases known as The Forsaken.

You can choose to be the sneaky, cunning Rogue or you could bash some faces in as a Warrior... OR you could be a sneaky, cunning Warrior.

3. Money

Face it. Business ethics are apparent in the World of Azeroth as well. But, use it to your advantage and you will never be in search of Gold again.

A) Professions

My personal preference for professions on your first character would have to be Enchanting and Skinning. This combination is, in my opinion of course, the most efficient combination of professions.

Considering that, more often than not, your kills will be skinnable beasts; you might as well get everything you can from your kills (I.e. Experience, Loot, Leather/Hides= Maximum Efficiency).

Enchanting on the other hand is also very nice. Mainly due to Enchanting your new gear when you upgrade, Disenchanting your old gear when you get new ones, And/Or selling the materials you get from Disenchanting said items.

The reason why these two are my personal favorites is because both of these can be done while questing and don't particularly need to have time taken out of your questing/leveling to search for Mining nodes, Herbs, etc. Experience has also shown me that Enchanting materials and Leather sell for alot on the Auction House, especially at Higher levels. You can also start up an Enchanting business and earn money that way.

B) Bankers

If you wish to attain the highest level in the shortest amount of time, then you'll have to focus on Leveling and spend less time at the Auction House or at the Bank and so on.

The best way to do this is