Woo, just tried Arathi Basin for the first time. Considering it’s the first time I ever PVPed in WoW, I think 31 kills and 81 honor isn’t too bad. 
Horde kicked our butts soundly, but I was just in there for the experience. Chaotic as heck, but fun.
I might give the BG a spin tonight. I just want to try and bust 51 tonight. Any drops or loot in the BGs?
I see that with the latest patch you can make a death Knight on any server as long as you have a character thats 55 on one of them.Hmmmm…methinks there will be a ton of new DKs around.
Not yet. Apparently they changed their minds for now.
They must have changed them again. I created a DK on archimonde and my highest character there is only 50.
OK, goddammit this is pissing me off. I decided to get a gorilla pet to see what its like, butr since he doesn’t eat meat or cheese i can’t find food he likes. None of the inns sell anuthing foodwise but meat so fat. what the hell does a gorilla in game eat and where can i get some?
Gorillas eat bread, fruit and fungus.
From Thottbot:
"there is a gnome in the mystic ward at iron forge…she sells apples(5) and bannas(10) and watermelon (15) and a bunch of other fruit…i dont know any horde ones sry " – thehappysnowman
"There is another place to get gorilla food (alliance). Food Vendor in town of Astranaar (Ashenvale). " – OneManTX
Thanks. They also eat fungus, i picked some up in the undercity.
On PvP in general:
If all you’ve done is quest and fight monsters, then be prepared to die horribly quite often your first few forays into PvP. The skillset is completely different, as is ability usage. So is the gear. Many people carry around two whole sets of equipment – one for questing, and one for PvP. It’s also possible that the best talent build for questing is also the worst talent build for PvP. You can’t be great at both simultaneously (unless you’re a Death Knight or something, those bastards need nerfing!)
Having said that, there are three things to focus on in order to win against another player (in no particular order):
- Burst damage – this means high crit rating, high +damage (though not as important), and quick- or instant-casting abilities. You want to do the most damage possible in the smallest span of time as you can. Abuse your cooldowns. Yes, the ones you reserve for emergencies. Consider fighting another player an emergency.
- Fight control, or resistance to – Stuns, charms, polymorph, snares, roots, silence, spell interrupts, fears. If your opponent(s) can’t damage you because they’ve lost control of their character, then you’ve got a huge advantage. Conversely, if your opponent can’t control you because you have abilities that negate control, they can’t gain this advantage. Well-timed crowd control abilities can turn a 3-on-1 encounter into three seperate 1-on-1 encounters, increasing your odds of victory. Undead [will of the forsaken] and Humans [every man for himself] have an advantage here.
- Survivability, mainly health – stamina, stamina, stamina. Resilience at the higher levels (though at 80 res is pretty worthless). No matter how high your burst damage, you won’t win if you die in 2 or 3 hits. Stack those stamina items! Yes, even at the expense of other stats (in Battlegrounds – don’t do this when you’re questing).
That’s just the quick and dirty. It goes much deeper than that, but it doesn’t sound like anyone here is going to be a serious Battleground junkie On PvE servers, I don’t bother with PvP gear sets or talent builds. On my PvP server, I quest wearing half-and-half, and will sacrifice a few lesser PvE talents for more PvP utility. If I’m doing minimal questing and am just running around gathering materials for crafting, I’m in full PvP gear, as we fight over the scarce resource nodes quite often (and to the victor go the spoils bwahahah!).
Oh, let me add something:
3.5) Quick reflexes, and not panicking – learn how to steer, turn, and move with just your mouse. Your other hand should be on your hotkeys, with some WASD used for finer correction in movement. On some characters, I have a totally different hotkey bar for PvP than I do for questing, as the abilities I use are different. I can switch quickly between them with Shift+1 or Shift+2 as the situation merits. Keep a cool head, and don’t start mashing buttons in a panic. Look at what’s happening to your character, know how to counter it and gain the initiative over your opponent. This takes lots of practice. And lots of dying. Tons of dying, actually.
This is all assuming you’re facing opponents of similar level and gear. If your opponent grossly outlevels or outgears you, then you’re more than likely toast, unless your opponent is really horrible at PvP. I routinely kill people 5-8 levels higher than me if it’s one-on-one and they’re not very good. Against a mediocre opponent at +5-8, it’s pretty even, and if they’re above average skill or higher, then I’m pretty much toast no matter what.
Pro tip: if you’re an engineer, generally your opponent doesn’t expect an exploding sheep to the face. This is not only great for laughs, but for winning as well Not very effective at higher levels, but in the 20-35 range, it’s PvP gold!
On Battlegrounds:
Foreword: In the level 10-19 or 20-29 bracket, you’re going to get annihilated by twinks. I wouldn’t even bother (unless you’re a twink, too).
Warsong Gulch: 10 vs 10. Capture the Flag, played to 3 points. It sounds quick, but I’ve been involved in some 90-minute stalemates before, when neither side was able to score at all. You can start at level 10. See above note regarding levels. mobility is very important, particularly snares and roots (or the ability to negate them). Druids rule as flag runners here, as shapeshifting cancels movement-impairing effects.
Arathi Basin: 15 vs 15. Node control. 5 Nodes, 15 minutes. Each node rewards your team points per 10 seconds. First team to 2000 wins. Simplest way to win is to grab 3 nodes and defend them the entire game. Some teams like to go for 4- and 5-node victories, but if they’re not skilled enough, this generally leaves their defense exposed everywhere, and I’ve seen some sure-fire wins turn into losses because of this. I don’t remember the minimum level, it’s either 20 or 30. Stealthers like to sneak up to undefended/poorly-defended nodes and tap them when nobody’s looking, so be on the lookout for that! Fight on the flags, so that sneaky people can’t tap the flag while you’re fighting someone else a few yards away – it takes just a single damaging strike to interrupt the flag tapping (I believe it takes 10 seconds). For this reason, don’t over-pursue. Better to let them run, heal, and come back, than to get that killing blow but lose the node because their buddy circled around while you were chasing.
Alterac Valley: 40 vs 40. Domination/Leaders. Each side has a keep with a general inside, surrounded by guards. If your general dies, you lose instantly. Each side has a series of graveyards, and you spawn at the nearest one. As you advance, it’s important to take over enemy graveyards so your slain can rejoin the fight quickly. Each side has a series of towers. Each tower destroyed will gain your team bonus honor, as well as kill one of the general’s (very tough) guards. Good teams can kill the general with 2 guards up – most teams won’t even go for the general until all towers are destroyed. For the graveyard and tower flags, it takes 10 seconds to turn them, making them contested (nobody can spawn at a contested graveyard). The defenders have 5 minutes to turn it back before the graveyard turns fully, or the tower burns. Each side starts with 600 reinforcements. Every death costs one. Each tower burned costs 80-ish (maybe 85?). Each side has a special leader that occasionally buffs the entire team – losing this leader costs 80-ish reinforcements, as well. Each side has a mine. Having control slowly (very slowly) replenishes your reinforcements. Controlling both mines is good, just to keep the enemy from replenishing. In games where neither side is able to kill the general, the first team to hit 0 reinforcements loses. Pro tip: never leave a contested flag undefended. A single defender (stealther) reclaiming a tower or graveyard at a vital moment can easily cost you the entire game. It may be boring defending a flag for 5 minutes just to have nobody show up to attack it, but the alternative is just plain silly. Usually it’s ~30 attacking and ~10 defending. The defenders die a lot, but also rack up a LOT of kills (unless they’re all awful!). Sometimes nobody defends at all, and then it’s just a race. Sometimes it’s better to leave the enemy a forward graveyard, so their slain attackers spawn behind your attackers, instead of back in a defensive position where they’ll halt your forward progress (at which point the battle becomes a long, drawn-out murderfest with neither side able to end it until one side racks up 600 kills).
Things you can do in AV but have become pointless: You can collect various items off dead players and turn them in at your fort to upgrade your units. You can kill various animals for their hides and tame other various animals in order to spawn cavalry. You can rescue your wing commanders, feed their mounts, and have them bomb the heck out of the enemy (this has some use still in slow murderfest games, but most games are races now, during which attempting this is a waste of time). You can summon an elemental avatar to storm your enemy’s fort (requires 10 players working together, and is a great spectacle, but usually bugged and not worth the effort). Back in the original AV, which took anywhere between 2-8 hours, these things made a big difference. In today’s AV, which lasts on average 15-30 minutes, it’s simply wasted time that keeps you doing something other than attacking/defending, which is a detriment to your team. Every once in a while, an entire guild will make up the bulk of an AV team, and is coordinated enough to do these things quickly and effectively, and is great fun to participate in, but that rarely ever happens. My recommendation: unfortunately, forget about it – you probably won’t be able to achieve any of those before the game ends.
You may start playing AV at level 51. In fact, there’s a lvl 51 quest at the battleground entrance to win just one game – and it rewards an excellent piece of blue gear. Heartily recommend at 51 grabbing this quest, and queueing a few games until your side has won once (if you’re lucky, you’ll win the first game after only a short queue!).
Eye of the Storm: 15 vs 15. Flag running + Node control. 4 Nodes, 1 flag, 20 minutes. Flag captures are worth immediate points. Node control rewards points over time per node. Winning strategies: control 2 nodes + the flag area, or control 3 nodes. The math has been done – if you have 3 nodes and are in the lead or even, there is no way the opponent can with with just one node + flag captures. Many teams consider the flag a distraction and just hold 3 nodes, ignoring the flag. Sometimes, the teams are too evenly matched, and each side ends up with 2 nodes and a lot of back and forth on the flag – the most exciting and fun games go this way, in my opinion. Nodes are turned via proximity in this game, as opposed to flag tapping, which changes the mechanics a bit. It’s hard to explain, but you’ll know what I’m talking about once you’ve seen it for yourself. I believe you can enter this BG at level 60.
Strand: Haven’t played it yet. From what I understand, it’s a timed assault on a fort while the other side defends it, and then you switch roles. If both succeed, then the side with the best time wins? There’s siege engines involved, so it’s bound to be insanity.
Wintergrasp: This is open-world, instead of instanced. One side controls the fort, the other side assaults the fort. You may make use of turrets, tanks, and rocket launchers – or you can run around on foot (or your personal ground mount – no flying). Controlling more vehicle depots allows your side to have more siege engines out at once. The assaulters have a certain amount of time to breach the walls and claim orb inside the inner fort, winning the round – but if the defenders can hold out, then they win (once I was defending, and the timer ran out just as we lost our last defensive position and they were about to turn the orb – 2 more seconds and we would’ve lost!). Once a round ends, the side who controls the fort receives a faction-wide buff across all of Northrend and is able to participate in the 10- and 25-man raids on the boss beneath the fort. Control is kept for 2 or 3 hours, I’m not sure, after which the battle starts again. It’s open-world and in Northrend, so I’m not sure if there’s a minimum level requirement. Ironically, it’s also the best place to mine titanium. Oh, and there’s nothing cooler than burning a gnome to a crisp with your tank’s flamethrower
Afterword: Aside from the twinks, you’re not going to encounter a lot of PvP min/maxxers until you hit the level 80 BGs. So don’t be discouraged if you’re not a PvP spec or don’t have a decent PvP set of gear – most people in the BGs are in the same situation – they are just taking a break from questing, just like you, in similar mishmash of gear and PvP skill. Most serious PvPers do arenas. I hate arenas. BGs are casual fun, as hardcore as they may sound above. As mentioned before, you don’t take equipment damage, so the only thing you can lose is your pride 
Don’t be afraid to get in there and die a few times (or a lot). It’s all part of making yourself better at it, right??
Oh yeah, and mostly ignore BG chat – unless it’s someone calling out enemy movements, then it’s mostly trash talking and egos. Once in a while a good leader will take charge and guide the team to victory – more often than not, a couple poor leaders clash over the best way to win and end up bickering and trash talking if not giving downright horrible instructions. Once you understand the mechanics of that particular BG, you should be ok to ignore the douches.
On Auction Houses:
Use them. Love them. If you’re poor, don’t shop, just sell. If you’re rich, buy all you want, preferably the stuff I post for sale
Raw materials sell like mad.
Finished products generally cost more than they make, until you max out.
I recently discovered an old high school friend was playing, so I started a toon on his server. From scratch. Level 20, and already have over 200 gold, just from selling herbs, and nothing else. While I’m out questing, I gather every herb I see. When I come back into town to train/sell/bank, I’ll post what I’ve gathered on the AH. Shortly afterwards, there’s money in the mail!
Here’s an example: I have a stack of 20 silverleaf. I search the AH for Silverleaf, and the cheapest stack of 20 is selling for 3g, while the most expensive for 5g. I’ll post mine for 2g 90s, and it’ll sell within 10-15 minutes. Rince, lather, repeat! This works for ore, too, obviously. Leather isn’t quite as lucrative, but since you get 2 major professions, why not skin your kills as well?
Then again, I’ve already had characters with all the crafting professions, so I feel no need to do anything but gather on this new toon. So if you’re trying to craft as well, you’ll have to either spend extra time gathering so you can sell some raw materials for gold or experiment with AH searches until you find your cash cow product (of which there are very few).
Blue-quality and Purple-quality items that you’re lucky enough to randomly find off monsters and can’t use yourself (or maybe craft, but that’s SUCH a pain) also generally sell fairly well (but still not as well as raw materials – seriously, if you want gold, provide raw resources, and you will never want for money).
Is it worthwhile to sell fish on at the AH?
Also, aside from “The Old Gnome and the Sea” achievement, is there any other benefit to fishing from a school?
Some fish. There are certain kinds of fish that are used in alchemy, and I earned the money for my first mount (back when they were EXPENSIVE) by fishing for Stonescale Eels off the docks in that port village to the east of Gadgetzan in Tanaris. I have no idea if that’s still a viable proposition, given that the added content since then may have made the alchemy recipe they were used in more or less obsolete.
And if you’re going to fish, you may as well fish from schools…they’re the only areas that you’re guaranteed to get at least 3 fish of a particular kind. Also, keep an eye out for wreckage or debris or any kind of flotsam…you can fish up some interesting stuff out of those nodes.
GAAAAAAAAH! Now here’s exactly what I’m talking about! I finished up my (now lvl 33) paladin’s quests in Duskwood, then finished up my quests in The Wetlands, and from there was sent to Refuge Pointe in Arathi Highlands. I spoke with Captain Nials there, who cheerfully handed me a level 31 quest (to go kill 10 Syndicate Highwaymen and 6 Syndicate Mercenaries). Finished the quest and returned to Captian Nials, who then handed me a level 37 quest! Arathi is a level 30-40 area. Where the hell is the incremental progression of quest levels? GAAAAAAAAH!
On the other hand, I miraculously survived my own boneheaded move while traveling. You know that gang of Forsaken Bodyguards (and whoever it is they’re guarding) that strolls up and down the highway there near Stromgarde? There are about 8 of them, all level 35 or so. Their color is not unlike the color of the armor worn by the human soldiers in the area … I rode my warhorse right through the middle of them. They promptly knocked me off my horse and then stunned me. So I did the only thing I could do: I desperately held down the W key and kept walking as fast as my stunned condition would allow, hoping to get as far down the road as possible before they killed me (on the chance it would make the run back to my corpse shorter). Then, when I was was down to about 20% health, they just broke off their attack.
Oh yeah. I spent enough time fishing around Menethil to catch around 70 fish, and from the schools I “caught” two “Watertight Chests” and a “Message in a Bottle”. The chests had some coins, some cloth, and a couple green items (useless to me, so I disenchanted them) and the bottle had a Scroll of Intellect II (which I put up at the AH).
About fishing trainers: are trainer abilities tied to the fishing level of an area? My fishing skill is pegged at 150 (as a Journeyman), so I went to the fishing trainer in Menethil Harbor to get my next level (Artisan?), and he wasn’t offering it.
I noticed one of the fishing achievements involves catching something in Ironforge. Um, where does one fish in Ironforge?
From memory the next level of fishing is via a book (I think in Booty Bay). Fishing is incredibly painful to level, but worth it regardless.
All three secondary professions require a book, sold by a single vendor each, to break through the 150 point limit to the 225 point limit, and then a quest, given by a single person each, to break through to 300.
At the back of Ironforge, between the Mystic Ward and Hallf of Explorers, is the Forlorn Cavern, which has a fishable pool. Also, you can apparently fish from the lava in some spots, although I don’t know where exactly.
What with the new patch removing the race limitations on mounts, I’m looking to get one of them thar robo-chicken thingies for mah night elf hunter. What’s a good way to grind rep with the gnomes?
Certain fish are wonderful for selling on the AH because it helps people level their cooking. And some of the recipes made through cooking give buffs that stack on top of potions and scrolls.
So look up what certain fish make - and you might find it selling quite well. I know that Golden Darters used to sell like hot cakes in TBC because they gave a nice casters buff when cooked - which was great for people doing raids.
Running Gnomeregan quests and probably the cloth turn-ins.
Anyone else having issues with TitanPanel since the new patch?
Everything seems to work correctly more or less, but when I right-click on the bars to bring up the TitanPanel menu, I can’t get any of the sub-menus to open up.
(For example, I right click and bring up the menu, then click on “Options -->”, and instead of the Options menu displaying, the entire TitanPanel menu just closes).
There’s a Stromgarde-aligned patrol that will do that to Horde too. I can’t remember if their leader is an elite or not.
Not an elite, but pretty high level for the zone - 38 or so, I think, with 2 37s.