A friend of mine has talked me into the unthinkable…I’ve reactivated my WoW account and purchased the Lich King/Cataclysm pre-order. :eek: I’m in the process of downloading the client right now and will probably have the monster 10GB client down and installed sometime tomorrow.
My question is, what should I expect? How have things changed? I stopped playing WoW shortly after Burning Crusade came out. My main toons are a leven 65 dwarf hunter and a level 63 gnome warlock. I also have toons ranging from the 40’s to the mid-50’s in everything from palys to shaman.
I don’t even remember what equipment I still have, and am not sure I even remember how to play. My equipment is probably complete garbage now (IIRC, it was mostly honor gear from PvP play…which I don’t even know if you get anymore).
So…what should I expect? What would be my best way to ease back into the game? Should I make a new toon using the new class and start there? How have things changed? And what are your expectations, oh 'doper WoW players, for the new expansion? I understand that some of the changes have already started to go into effect.
Thus far all I can say is that the client is huge, but that it’s cool that you can just download it this way and then activate what you need, instead of having to go out and buy the box editions. I much prefer buying my games online these days.
You can kill some time reading the giant WoW thread on these boards.
You don’t have to start a new toon, but if you do, consider rolling on the Cairne server where there is a Doper guild (Horde-side) called Burning Dog Legion. Insta-guild and usually people around to answer questions and provide whatever help you need.
Yeah, I saw the other thread but I think that’s too advanced for me. What I’m really looking for is some WoW For Dummies stuff. I fired up the game last night for the first time in nearly 3 years (I was in a swamp and was nearly killed when I discovered I had all my talents reset).
I managed to work my way back to a town once I figured out that my mounts had been added to a book and I could activate them by dragging the icon from the book to my now reduced tool bar (I used to use a number of UI mods that gave me a bit more flexibility).
A couple of questions (if anyone is even reading this thread…hasn’t generated a lot of interest so far ;)). What are glyphs and how do I use them? Any advice on respecing my hunter? How does dual spec work? I paid for it last night with a trainer on the advice of a friend, but no idea how it actually works when I’m playing.
That’s the extent of my questions so far. In some respects I can’t believe how much the game has changed. In others it doesn’t seem to have changed at all.
I’d suggest just reposting these questions in the main WoW thread; nobody really expects you to have read the whole 4000 posts or whatever it is, and there aren’t usually more than a couple conversations going on in there at any given time. There are a bunch of experienced hunters who can give you specific recommendations about builds (my highest level hunter is 15).
Glyphs give a bonus to specific skills. At level 65, I believe you have 2 each of Prime, Major, and Minor glyphs. Unless you have the Inscription profession, which takes a LONG time to level and learn all the recipes, or have a buddy who is a scribe, you’re going to have to buy them off of the AH. They’re pretty expensive right now, and they might get a bit cheaper over the short term, but they’ll probably shoot up in price once the actual expansion hits stores.
It used to be that glyphs were one-shot items; you’d buy one, then stick it in your glyph slot on your character (in a different tab off of your talent window). With the new patch, once you’ve learned a glyph you can reapply it over and over again, though you need to get a special consumable to over-write previous glyphs. I can’t give you much info on which glyphs to go with for which spec (though in general you want to glyph whatever spells you use most often); ask on the main WoW thread or check the Elitist Jerks Hunter boards to see if they have a cookie-cutter build to work from. Unfortunately, atm Elitist Jerks seems only to have a Marksmanship build updated. (Also, they tend to be focused towards end-game raiding rather than leveling).
Dual spec is just like it says on the box. Now that you’ve bought it, you should see two tabs on the right side of your talents window; clicking between them will let you see your two specs; if you’re clicked into the window for the spec you’re not using at the moment, there will be a button for “switch to this spec”. Switching takes about 10 seconds and drops your mana to zero (which shouldn’t be an issue for hunters these days); I don’t know if it unsummons your pet if you’re a hunter but it might.
Basically, you just buy your talents in your second spec just like you bought them in your first spec; I’ve only used dual spec on multi-role characters (a priest, a pally, and a DK) so I have a spec for tanking or healing and one for DPS; for a hunter you might want to do two different trees (beast mastery and marksmanship for instance) or two versions of the same tree if you want to have a specialized PvP build. You also have to reapply your glyphs in your second spec, which makes sense since you probably want different ones if you’re speccing into a different tree.
Ok, thanks. It’s quite a bit different than how things were a few years ago. Probably you guys who stuck with the game the whole time it seems natural, but a lot of this was stuff we who were in the FAF alpha and beta were asking for and now are in the game it seems. Used to drive me nuts having to pay to respec all the time.
I’ll lurk in the other thread and maybe ask some questions in there once I know enough to have coherent questions to ask.
There are plenty of newb-type questions in that thread, especially since patch 4.0 reset all the character classes, essentially. Beast Master hunters are really good again, but Marksman is still a fine spec too.
It’s probably fortunate that you’re re-activating after the giant 4.0 patch rather than before it – as Ferret Herder says, lots of questions still flying around about “what does this mean to my class / spec / profession / etc”. Getting used to it all again just before 4.0 would have been demoralizing. (The other good news is that there aren’t further major game interface changes with Cataclysm it’s pretty much all there in 4.0 today).
Quite a few of the changes (generally speaking, not specifically 4.0) have been to make some things that used to require addons more integrated.
Quest tracking would be one – plotting objective locations automatically on the map.
Another example, you can switch on the Equipment Manager – off by default – and set up wardrobe options, say your PVP set and your PVE set (or sets of equipment for different Specs – less important with Hunters and Warlocks probably, but really useful for Tank/DPS or DPS/Healer dual specs). Then one click can swap all your gear and weapons.
Dual spec was an awesome addition (IMHO), not much use for my mage really, but being able to set up my Shammy as a secondary healer, and my DK as a secondary tank suddenly gave me a lot more flexibility in what I could contribute to a dungeon, and really good too for people who like to do both PVP and PVE content – and speaking of which you can get XP for battlegrounds if you fancy that method of leveling.
Some of the 4.0 changes are quite small but offer decent improvements - being able to track multiple minimap dots at the same time for instance… want to track beasts and mineral nodes, and herbs? No worries.
Finally (rambling here), your lower level characters may be eligible for better mounts than they were – level requirement for fast mounts / flying mounts have been reduced, as have the costs.
I gave up on the Hunter for now since I couldn’t figure out what to do with him and instead created a level 55 DeathKnight. Figured that would be a good way to ease back into the game. Of course, I have no idea how to spec him either, so I’m just doing quests and trying to remember how to play. I’ll probably do some research on different spec lines for the Hunter this week and see if I can put together something that will work for me. I used to split my point between mainly Marks and Beast, though I’d go more beast than marks in PvP so it was a pain switching back and forth. That dual spec sounds like the ticket.
I love Equipment Manager. One click switch from PVE to PVP and back is great…and makes sure I don’t forget to swap out something.
Talents have been completely redone. You don’t have as many points to spend, or as many talents to spend them on, as you had last time you played. Also, once you choose a spec, you have to spend 31 points in that tree before you can spend any in the other trees.
For hunters, I recommend wow.joystiq.com and warcrafthuntersunion.com as far as reading up goes. Both are excellent resources for leveling and post 4.0.1 info.
It’s a good fun starting area, very nicely put together (IMO).
DKs changed in the last patch too, around their talents; the current setup appears to be Frost or Unholy for DPS and Blood for Tanking (which meant some mental readjustment for me, who previously had Blood DPS and Frost Tanking specs). In any case I found that it took me right through the starting zone before I had a good handle on the DK’s play style.
One suggestion – get the glyph (? – someone correct me if this has changed please) that resets the CD on Death Grip after killing a (non-grey) enemy. When leveling this means you can just keep on grabbing and whacking them.
Brilliant, isn’t it? Particularly combined with dual spec. “Oh, we need a Healer”, no worries, change spec, change clothes, get some mana and good to go!
And some stuff comes “for free” with the tree – for example if you choose Unholy for the DK you’re playing xtisme, then you will have the permanent ghoul pet rather than it being a talent option (that practically every Unholy DK took).
I have to admit I’m having a good time…much better than I thought. I was so burned out on this game that just the thought of getting back into it made me feel slightly ill, but really it’s been pretty fun so far. I’m definitely going to stay casual with the game, limiting play to no more than a couple hours a week and maybe a few more on the weekend, but I like a lot of the changes they have put in. Started playing my Hunter again tonight…just speced it from a build I got from google for marks and beast and it seems to be working pretty good. My gear is probably crap, since it’s mainly honor gear from several years ago, but so far I haven’t had any trouble with anything around my level. Got a new pet that’s kind of cool too…sort of a white dragon looking thing that is speced like a bear (got the spec for that too from google).
I like how a lot of the guess work has been taken out of questing, and I’m loving the flying mount (never got one before…they were just going in when I quit and were way expensive. Now the first tier ones at least were pretty cheap).
Oh yeah, when it feels like a chore to play that’s a strong sign to stop.
Once you get to 68 or 69 on your Hunter the initial Northrend quests will replace a bunch of gear, you may recall the same “Green is the new Purple” when we arrived in Outland. And the old honor gear might not compare to the new stuff, but then the Outland mobs haven’t been buffed either, so it should be pretty much a wash.
The pet sounds very cool – what is the creature?
Very affordable, and the flight speed got upped from the old +60% crawl to +150%, so while the fast mounts are still desirable the first tier ones are quite serviceable for a long time. (And getting the 5k for the fast flying still takes a while).
Definitely. So far that hasn’t happened, and last night I actually had to drag myself away. The quests were just rolling smoothly and it was a real pleasure to fly around and do the various quests, trying to figure out how to do some of the harder ones with just my friend an I while trying not to laugh as one or the other of us would screw up because we forgot how to play or couldn’t remember how to do something we knew we used to do.
One of the things I discovered is that hunters don’t need ammunition anymore for gun or bow. I had my little quiver and shot pouch filled with crafted arrows and bullets from my bank account and it wasn’t until last night fairly late that I realized that I still had full bags of both, despite depopulating several large areas of the world. :smack:
And the least said about my pet control and pulling skills atm the better…
I’ve already made a level and a half and at this pace will probably be to 68/69 in a couple of days or a week maybe. The quests I’m doing right now are maybe a bubble a quest (including XPs from killing the mobs and such), and with the quest/map system and the flying mount I’m doing 10-15 quests a night easily. So far my gear hasn’t been a concern, nor do I have any idea of how I want to gear up for PvE/PvP at this point (I noticed you can have two different sets of equipment and swap them easily…used to have a mod for this, but now it’s integrated right into the game which is cool).
It’s pretty cool looking, but couldn’t tell you what it was to save my life. I renamed it so it doesn’t say what it is anymore in the name. If there is some way in game to look it up I’d be more than happy to do so and tell you.
I’m not sure it’s as effective as my black lion or my white tiger pets I had before, but it’s certainly interesting to have following me around.
Yeah, going to be a while until I have 5k. I haven’t been spending much on getting gear or anything, but still I think by looting all my other toons I’ve only managed to put together around 1k for operating funds…and I might send some of that to my DK for gear at some point. I’m definitely going to avoid crafting (I had a toon that was a tailor, one that was a miner/engineer for making bullets and arrows which seem to be useless now, and a skinner/herbalist).
Welcome back to the game. I went through what you’re doing, just about five months ago. Now’s a great time to come back, especially to the hunter fold. The new patch is terrific for leveling.
As to your pet, I’d bet dollars to donuts that it’s a warp-stalker- one of my favorite looks, too. My only peeve with the new pet abilities (changed with the new patch) is that they took away the warp ability.
Btw, I’ve always found wowhead to be a great resource, especially daydreaming with the talent or pet-talent calculators.
Yep, that’s exactly what it is…a warp-stalker! It’s pretty cool looking (I named my Ruth :p), though it doesn’t seem to be as good a pure fighter as my black lion or my named white tiger thing. For one thing the tiger can stealth which was great for PvP.
A family (cat/wolf/raptor/warp stalker/bear/etc.) special ability. Some are buffs, e.g. wolves boost party crit, cats boost strength and agility. Some are debuffs, e.g. raptors reduce enemy armor. And some are snares/interrupts/stuns, e.g. spiders have a ranged web.
A ‘class’ talent tree: ferocity boosts damage, tenacity boosts survivability, and cunning boosts mobility/utility.
Wowhead lists all the families that belong to each class. Your warpstalker is a tenacity pet and can be talented to be a nice tank. It will never do as much damage as your cat, which is a ferocity pet. Because hunters now have multiple pet slots that can be used on the fly, I recommend having at least one of each ‘class’ while leveling.
This lets you use:
-Ferocity (cat?) for grinding/questing with high damage
-Tenacity (turtle/warpstalker?) for soloing group quests/dungeons/raid bosses
-Cunning (spider/ravager?) for PvP or grinding low level mobs (if you can 2-3 shot a mob, cunning pets can sprint quickly to the next one).
That’s changed – there are 2 glyphs that modify DG.
Glyph of Death Grip: +5 yds to range
Glyph of Resilient Grip: Resets CD if the targeted mob is immune.
To add to what hdc_bst said, Petopiais an excellent resource and better organized than wowhead’s list of pet classes.
I’ll also point out that cunning pets tend to be worse at holding aggro than a tenacity or ferocity pet which may be a consideration if you don’t have Feign Death and Misdirection yet.
I can’t believe at how quickly I’m leveling and doing quests. It’s a lot different than when I played before. It took me weeks to get from 60 to 65, and it was a grind…which was why ultimately I just quit in disgust. I’ve been playing a few days and I’m up to level 68 and the quests are going super smoothly. Part of that is the fact I have a flying pet, which is still novel enough that I’m having fun just flying around and seeing all the cool sights. The flying mount, from a practical perspective is just SUCH a great tool for questing though that it’s like night and day. The other thing is the questing and mapping system that is in the game now. I just can’t express how different it is from what I was using when I stopped playing. It’s beyond night and day into the realm of another universe.
The only bummer is that the quests still seem the same to me. Go forth and kill a million wolves to get 12 tails, whack a thousand animated trees to get 25 wood mites, go find Zul and kill his ass and get his key, etc etc. I’m still having fun, and it’s challenging to do some of this stuff on my own or with the help of only one other person, but I had hoped that with all the other cool changes that they could come up with something more fun to quest for. They need to take a break from WoW and go play some Fallout New Vegas to get some inspiration.
At any rate, I REALLY appreciate all the good advice and stuff. It’s helped immensely, as I’ve used a lot of the sites linked too here to help me spec my characters. I’m still remembering how to play, and to be honest a lot of the spec line stuff is still over my head…I’m simply following the formula on the screen and then going out and seeing what works. So far everything has, especially for my Hunter.
I’ll probably do some research on different spec lines for the Hunter this week and see if I can put together something that will work for me. I used to split my point between mainly Marks and Beast, though I’d go more beast than marks in PvP so it was a pain switching back and forth. That dual spec sounds like the ticket.