Good soloing classes are shaman, hunter, or warlock. Mage can be good, too, but you have to watch your talent spec and specialize in crowd control (yes, buzzwords…sorry!).
I’m partial to Horde, but that’s just me. My main is an orc shaman who’s about to hit lvl 55, so I’ve been playing Horde longer than any Alliance character (though I have Alliance characters).
Two suggestions for tradeskills:
Take all three secondaries: first aid, cooking and fishing. The latter two are synergistic…you can level your cooking purely on the fish you catch if you want.
Take gathering skills for both of your primaries (you only get two primaries). While a crafting skill can be fun, most of them don’t return on the investment necessary (especially engineering). With two gathering skills, you can make money hand over fist and pretty much buy better equipment off the Auction House than you could make at any given level.
(Yeah, I can’t count) The Auction House is your friend. Don’t vendor anything unless the name is a gray color when you mouse-over it. Anything that’s white, green, blue or purple (not that you’ll see blues or purples before you know enough about the game to know what they are), either use, disenchant (if you take that trade skill) or sell on the AH.
Oh, one last caveat…a trial account can’t trade with another player or put up or sell anything on the Auction House. You won’t be able to start using those features until you upgrade your account to a full one.
Herbalism is almost exclusively a gathering skill for Alchemy. Mining supplies Blacksmithing, Jewelcrafting and Engineering. Skinning supplies Leatherworking and (to a very lesser extent) Tailoring. Tailoring gets its cloth supplies from humanoid monsters.
WoW is very good at disguising grinding with quests. There is a series of quests at lvl 32 or so where you wind up killing easily 100 mobs, but because the quests space them out and divide them by mob type, it doesn’t feel so bad.
For a beginner, I’d recommend Rogue for soloing. Shaman tends to be pretty quest-intensive between 5-20 for the totems (and they aren’t optional). Hunter feels like any other melee class until you get your pet at 10, and the training of pets can feel complicated to someone new to the game. And Warlock… Warlock was just a squishy Hunter to me. I didn’t enjoy Warlock at all, though I wanted to. The casting jobs, in general, were fun, but I didn’t like not being able to take a hit. Didn’t like having spells interrupted.
I agree you should keep your secondary trades leveled. First aid will be easy, as many humanoid mobs drop the cloth you need to make bandages. And jayjay’s point about cooking and fishing is spot on-- both my fishing and cooking quickly hit 300~ thanks to being able to cook what I catch.
Taking two gathering skills (mining, herbalism, skinning) is good for making money. Once you get a better feel for the game and aren’t as bent on making money, you can take up a profession that will complement your job better. I’m finding that Leathercrafting/Skinning work really well for my rogue and shaman, since I can make armor for myself. Alchemy/Herbalism would have been useful as well, since there’s always going to be a potion you can use.
I will second getting acquainted with the AH. Knowing the prices of valued items can net you serious profit when people put them up for sale at low prices.
Cooking and fishing are also handy if you’re a hunter: you’ll have a big, hungry beast with you, so having tasty cooked fish for it is v. handy. Also, you’ll find the occasional school of special fish which can be sold for extra money (blackmouth fish, firefin snappers, sagefish) or floating wreckage, in which you can find chests and other non-fish things, all of which can be sold or used.
Hey, quick question: I’ve got a lvl 20 smurf shaman; she’s got her stone totem and is on the quest tree for the water totem, I think. Should I have gotten a fire totem when I did the quest involving the fire elemental? I’ve seen other shamans in their teens with the fire totem and feel like I may have missed something…
I haven’t done the draenei version of the fire totem quest yet, but in the Horde version you have to go back and talk to the guy who gave you the quest, I think.
Yep. I know players who don’t bother to do either. There’s a certain argument for wizards, because they can make their own food and water, or warlocks, because they are their own food and water…
I just downloaded the trial, and I’ll be fooling around with it for the next 10 days. As a total WoW newb, where should I start (server)? Horde or Alliance? I’ll end up being either a Hunter, Rogue, or Warrior. Any suggestions? What should I do for the first 10 or so levels?
More experienced players may have other suggestions, but I would reccomend hanging out around the area where you first start and just do all the quests. It’s a good way to build up exp and gets you a feel for the game. That should get you up to around 10 where you’ll be ready explore more. I’m thinking of starting a hunter, those pets look cool!
I don’t think server makes a huge difference unless you’re trying to play with friends, the only big thing is if you want to be on a PvP or PvE server which is really just a matter of personal playing style. I prefer the alliance side myself, but that’s just my taste.
Start on a “recommended” PVE server or a “new” PVE server. When you first start the game, it will assign you to a realm. You can ignore that and see the realm list and the descriptions will include the terms Recommended, New, Low, Medium, High, and Full. PVE means “player vs. environment” as opposed to PVP “player vs. player”. For new players, PVE is better as you can concentrate on learning the way the game works without having to worry about another player sneaking up behind you and sticking a shiv in your ribs.
Horde or Alliance is a personal call. Read the racial descriptions on the character generation screen and pick one you like aesthetically and generally.
As for the first 10 or so levels, do the quests you’re given. Questgivers have a big yellow exclamation point floating over their heads. Just right click on them to talk to them and then accept the quest. READ the quest…nothing’s more annoying than spamming General chat with “Where Mankrik’s wife?” or “What’s a kobold?”
New servers are nice, as there will be lots of people to group with at low level, and the value of gold is higher. However, any “Recommended” server probably isn’t that old.
My advice? Join the guild recruitment channel and join a guild that advertises itself as casual. As if it’s OK that you’re a newbie. You can learn a lot from others, and making friends on your server really helps. You may have to try a few guilds before you find one you like. Try to find one that is mostly or entirely adults.
Value of gold isn’t really a big deal for a trial account, since they can’t access the variable economy at all. No trading, no AH, (as far as I understand) no mail. They can only vendor.
Just to clarify - I’m a WoW newbie, not MMORPGs. Definitely PvE - I’ve no liking for PvP play. Are there any Dope guilds, like we have for City of Heroes?
Ah…understood now. There used to be a few Doper guilds, but from reading similar threads as this one I don’t believe they’re either currently extant or terribly active. I was never a member of one, since by the time I’d found out about them I already had active characters on other servers than the ones they were on.
As for Mankrik’s wife, find out for yourself, noob! It’s a Horde quest where an orc soldier in the Barrens asks you to find out what happened to his wife. It’s kind of sad…I won’t spoil it for you.
If you like being spoiled though, there are several great websites that give you step by step breakdowns for the quests. I’ve used worldofwar.net and thottbot.com (I think I’m spelling that one right) a couple times when I’ve gotten stuck.
Well, true. But trial accounts often turn into full accounts.
Due to the number of servers, we’re pretty much spread all over. If you’re looking for a home, I cordially invite you to Turalyon. I’m a class leader in a major guild there, and I can hook Dopers up with invites. Email’s in the profile.
It’s a Horde quest where an orc soldier in the Barrens asks you to find out what happened to his wife. It’s kind of sad…I won’t spoil it for you.