Wow, is this the first WOW thread in GR? It’s kind of hard to say what leveling is like these days, as I was 60 when the expansion came out, so I did most of my leveling during the rush. It was a bit different later when I came back from some time off, everyone else was already 70, so I did a lot more soloing and PUG runs to level.
My first question is, are you in a guild? Figure out what you want to do, and try to find a guild that focuses on that aspect. Do you look forward to smaller raids (KZ and ZA), maybe you want to eventually do the larger 25-man raids or do some PVP or level a bunch of different alts? If you don’t have any real life friends that play, it’s a bit harder to find a guild you’ll like and fit in with otherwise.
I found getting in a good guild to be a major aspect of improving the enjoyability of the game. We joke around, people are helpful when we want to do heroic runs or group quests or need help farming mats. We do have scheduled raid times that tend to be a little more serious, just because it requires more focus when we’re learning a new boss. We also sometimes group up and do PVP.
As for PVP, it’s moderately fun when you join a queue solo, but having a pre-made makes it an enormous amount of fun. FOA, I know everyone I’m playing with is skilled and well geared. We also have quick and effective communication (thanks to Ventrilo) and we play well together. The best part of PVP is testing reaction and real-time strategizing. For instance, in Arathi Basin, they launch an attack on one of our resources, do we send reinforcements? If so, where do we pull them from? Do we instead just try to hold them off long enough to flank them and take one of their resources instead?
Beyond that, for instancing, particularly with leveling nerfed significantly, you’re going to run into a LOT of people in PUG runs that just don’t know what they’re doing. I’ve been playing the same class for over two years now, and I’m still constantly learning new things to improve my play style. I can’t imagine a tank able to get to the 50-60 level range in a week or two will really understand how to tank. Especially as a healer myself, I can’t imagine a healer being very good without that little amount of practice, particularly considering most healers level with more damage friend specs (Priests tend to level as Shadow, Paladins as Ret, Shamans as Elemental or Enhancement, Druids as Moonkin or Feral, etc.). Even worse, for a lot of experienced players, they get use to getting guildies or friends to twink them through instances, so they get even less practice with their class. Countless times I’ve run into brand-new 70 tanks who don’t know how to hold aggro or refuse to use a shield. I’ve run into DPSers who don’t understand the concept of aggro management. When I’ve run as DPS (when grinding rep, and with my gear I can DPS better than most 70s as healing spec anyway), I’ve seen healers who don’t know how to prioritize their healing targets and manage their mana.
Anyway, to get back on topic, try to find a guild you feel you fit into and whose players you like playing with. Spend some time reading about your class; I find playing much more enjoyable when I discover newer, more advanced techniques that keep me challenged. And, of course, try out the different aspects of the game and figure out what you want to do with that character or even if you want to try another class altogether. Finally, make sure you’re having fun, if the game starts to get tedious or boring, just stop or take a break. For example, sometimes I enjoy doing lots of heroics and other runs, recently I haven’t, but I still enjoy raiding, so I only really log on to raid and do what I need to to keep up with raid costs (reagents, repairs, consumables, mats, etc.).
(kidding, not snarky)