10 Year Comeback

Guides Returning Player Help & Discussions
1

Back in 2009 I finally got WoW for the first time to join my friend and his family in playing together for fun. It was a blast.

I made a Night Elf Druid because I heard they were fun and you had a lot of options. Starting zone was awesome, soaked in all the experience and lore. I still remember the first time I died and seeing my floating spirit. I didn’t even know I needed to find my body, I just wandered around aimlessly for an hour or so.

After several months, I hit level 80 and finally unlocked some gear! However at that point it seemed like everyone else had been 80 for a year and had most of the top tier gear. I tried gearing up, but never went raiding because I didn’t know how. Soonthereafter, I started college and put the game on the shelf.

10 years later, here I am. Quarantined and looking to have fun, I reached out the my same friend. THEY STILL
PLAY. I reinstalled, made a new character in both Classic and retail. But, as you could imagine, I need some help.

It seems like virtually everything about the game has changed and I’m feeling a bit stuck knowing where to begin. This is why I made a new character. Leveling has been insanely fast (in retail) so in 3 days I’m up to 61 playing only about 15 hours total. Despite that, I have a few different items I’d like to request the community for help with:

  • Heirlooms: Everyone tells me to get heirlooms for new toons, but I have roughly 600g which I thought was stellar back in the day. What’s the best way for a returning player like me to get the gold needed for that?

  • Auction House and Addons: I used to use Auctioneer addon back in the day but it doesn’t work for me anymore (I run a Mac). I learned that Curse changed to Twitch for peace of mind installs, but can’t find a single AH addon that works. Yes I have TSM and yes I installed their little client for it. Do I have to install someone’s profile? What other addons are a must?

  • Professions: What is a good choice at this point in the game? I know they may be obsolete by the time I max them out, but still curious. I’ve read in various places that certain professions have died because of “multiboxers” or problems with server economy. Keep in mind, the last time I played was when making the hog in engineering was far and away the best money maker.

  • Gear/Items: I’m so scared to play my Druid because I think that if I do, I will be seen as an absolute stump for not knowing my class. All talents seem to have been replaced and I don’t even remember what spec I was last running or why I have the gear that I do equipped. Where should I go for gearing a higher level character and/or relearning the class?

  • Finding a guild: All of my toons are on Gnomeregan and for some reason it’s very hard to find a guild that wants to help. I’ve run into a few nice people that somehow are in guilds of like 500+(???). Wasn’t the max like 100? Anyway, I join up and they either don’t discuss the game at all or my questions are just ignored.

  • Missing Content: I think at one point I bought cataclysm which is why I am able to make blood elves… but I’ve heard that unless you buy the other expansions you will be missing out on a lot of content. Is this true? I can’t currently afford the $49.99 for BfA so I’m hoping I can still experience a majority of the game.

  • Twinks: I heard that twinking is back and is viable again. I twinked at levels 19, 29, and 39 in the past but it was ruined for me when they made twink brackets because let’s be honest, I wasn’t that good. I didn’t have the time to put into getting all the BiS items either. Now I hear that those brackets are changed, but I’m wondering if it’s even possible to get the best twink gear at those levels with my type of account that doesn’t have high level characters / gold resourcing?

There’s dozens of other questions I know I’m forgetting to ask, so I’ll append those later if I think of them. Thanks in advance to everyone in the community that’s willing to help!

ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS

  • Battle.net and in-game chat: How do you use the new Battle.net app and WoW at the same time? I see the messages are linked with whispers, but if I want to voice chat with key-toggle while in game I don’t want to have to keep switching to the Battle.net app.
2

This was your first mistake.

Night Elf Mohawks are INFINITELY more fun.

Edit: Ok, here are my serious answers:

Yes, you should get some when you have some gold, but until then, just level with what you have. Keep in mind you can only buy certain pieces if you are in a guild that has them unlocked.

Yeah, they revamped the AH and now the mod makers are trying to navigate the new code. Auctioneer is working on it, but they haven’t come up with anything yet.

Twitch/Curse is your go-to for most addons now (there are a few on independent websites, but the majority are on Twitch now.

For you, until you get high enough go Herbs, and either skinning (and just vendor the skins) or mining and AH the stuff you mine. Results may vary on mining, but herbs still sell fairly well.

This is nonsense, ignore it. Just gather as you go. You get XP for gathering now, so that will help you level faster.

At 85, I wouldn’t worry about it. To be honest, I would give Balance a go. I switched when I hit 60, and leveled straight to 120 and it was a blast… literally!

Server tech has improved, so guild sizes have increased. You can also have ALL of your toons on a single server now (50 on a server, what a time to be alive!). There are services you can buy to switch servers if you feel yours is too “dead”. This may improve your guild finding.

With your sub, you get everything EXCEPT the current xpac, BfA. so you can play everything up to 110 with just your monthly sub. Just update your game and have fun.

Eh, I did this back in the day, and it was fun for a while. PvP isn’t as fun as it used to be, honestly.

You can still do everything on your account up to 110 content that anyone else can do, include gearing them, so you do you there.

Good luck, and welcome back.

3

Thanks so much for the quick reply, all of that helps!

4

One thing I didn’t mention: Auctioneer has a Patreon page now where they are posting Alpha and Beta builds.

https://www.patreon.com/norganna

It hasn’t been updated in a while though, so I don’t know the current status of the addon.

Edit: I also recommend the addon WoW-pro (with the addon Tom Tom in use as well) which you can find here:

wow-pro.com

Some people recommend “Questie” but I think wow-pro is a little better.

5

I used to be able to see icons for vendors, trainers, etc on the map (not just the minimap). I have TomTom installed but can’t seem to figure out how to get that? Didn’t map addons used to have a search function, too? I’m realizing I forgot where everything is. Took me 15min in SW to find the AH :sweat_smile:

6

In any city you can just talk to a guard, it will give you a WP on your map.

Click on your mini map and a menu should pop up with check boxes for various things.

Make sure you’re keeping your addons up to date regularly as well. Blizz likes to change back end code on the sly, which will occasionally break addons.

Sorry, I was wrong about the WP thing and TomTon. You have to enter your coords like this:

/way (coords)

That will give you a WP for that point.

7

Heirlooms are really designed so that you get one character to max and use that character to buy them for alts. They changed them in Legion so that they are more equivalent to green gear than blue. Between that, the stat squish, and improvements in questing gear itemization, you really won’t see a significant power increase by using them. (They can be useful early on for some of the harder to fill slots like jewelry and trinkets, but there are a lot more of these at lower levels than pre-cataclsym.) So, their main use if for the XP boost, which is nice, but with the current 100% XP increase hardly necessary for fast leveling.

Also be aware that the base heirloom gear only works to 60, and you’ll need to upgrade to work past that. (And those upgrades cost a ton of gold.)

Okay, so with that out of the way, here are some options if you still want to get some:

You can throw real money at it by buying a wow token and using that gold to buy heirlooms. (Not what I’d recommend, but it’s an option.)

The Darkmoon Faire started up today. (It starts the first Sunday of the month and runs for a week.) Various activities there can earn you Darkmoon Prize Tickets which can be used for a variety of stuff, including heirloom gear!

The safest choice to start with is gathering professions. They will be the most reliable money-makers, and you lose a lot less dropping them later if you decide you want to do something else after you have a better feel for the game.

The biggest issue I have with the gear crafting professions right now is that they have a stupid number of hoops needed to craft the “best” gear. As a casual player, by the time I could make them, I’ve got better from other content.

That being said, tailoring is still useful for making bags (and since it now includes first aid bandages, a lot of the expansion tiers are stupid easy to level.)

Alchemy has been a pretty consistent moneymaker at end game. (And if you raid end-game, saves you some gold with the double flask duration.)

Engineering has lots of fun stuff, including the ever awesome loot-a-rang — seriously, most of my new characters are engineers just for that one item. I think you need Cataclysm Engineering to make it, but once you have, it’s a toy you can learn account-wide that any of your engineers can use at Engineering level 1.

There have been some significant changes to druid gearing since Wrath (no more Strength for bears!) However, generally, the gear changed with it. (So, you won’t find strength leather outside of an odd BoE green.) Most gear will also swap it’s main stat with your spec. (You’ll see greyed out stats for primaries that aren’t for your current spec.) So, most leather will have both INT and AGI, but the INT will only be active in Balance and Resto, and the AGI in Feral and Guardian. Basically, less to think about while leveling. (At max level, you’ll also care about secondary stats, which can still mean carrying multiple sets of gear, but it’s overkill for leveling content.)

If you want a bit of practice in a “safe” environment, you can try out the proving grounds. I think they become available at level 30 and can be accessed by talking to your class trainer. This will let you do various challenges to get a feel for things. There’s even a healing scenario with a full NPC group. They’ll even stand in the fire for you! It’s not perfect, but it’s a great place to get some muscle memory with your keybinds and fiddle with your UI without worrying about real players getting annoyed.

The way druids work now is that you’ll have your spec, which will have it’s main form for it. (Which is no form for resto — tree is now a cosmetic thing if you want it.) You’ll have very limited abilities outside of that role. However, the level 45 talent tier is “Affinities” which let you pick one more “spec” to get a halfway decent toolkit for. Each spec also has a passive bonus, which you’ll get a version of with the affinity. (Guardian gets damage reduction, Feral gets movement speed, Balance gets extra ability range, and Resto gets a weak passive heal over time.)

8

Thanks so much! So at level 86 do I just queue random dungeons?

Also, what’s up with world quests? I heard they give great XP and rewards but not a clue how to begin.

9

You can queue for random dungeons whenever you feel like running a dungeon. Once you get to level 90, though, the XP from dungeons is pretty low. They’ve moved to the questing content being important to unlock some basic stuff — like world quests — so the WoD+ dungeons are designed not to be a great way to level. (Although for Legion and BfA you will get quests for dungeons to cap off the zone storyline.)

World quests are mostly an end-game activity. There is some limited access for alts once you’ve already unlocked them on a main. So, unfortunately, it won’t be available to you on your first character. FYI, the 110 boost comes with Legion world quests unlocked, and the 120 has BfA world quests unlocked, but not the Legion ones. So, the boost can be a shortcut to getting account access to the world quests while leveling. I wouldn’t use a boost just for that, though. Regular questing through both Legion and BfA zones is pretty quick on it’s own.

For alts doing Legion, they get access to the invasion world quests while leveling which are really good XP. On a set schedule, the Legion will invade a random zone, and 6 of those special world quests will be active. With the 100% bonus, each set of invasion world quests is probably worth 2+ levels and only takes 20-30 minutes. There’s a similar setup for the BfA incursions, but they aren’t nearly as good XP. They do give you an XP bonus for one hour after you complete one, so they aren’t useless, but they aren’t worth waiting around for like the Legion ones.

10

Any chance you could explain some of the shorthand? I’m still learning and behind. For example, what’s WoD+? What’s legion? 110 boost?

11

WoD = Warlords of Draenor (the expansion after Mists of Pandaria, currently the level 90-100 content.) This takes place on an alternate version of Draenor (Outland in the current timeline) about 30 years in the past. Don’t think too hard about it, it was mostly a way to bring back some of the old characters of the original Horde.

Legion is the expansion that follows that and covers level 98-110. This mostly happens on the Broken Isles, what remains of the area around the Tomb of Saragas.

Towards the end of MoP (Mists of Pandaria) they added in the option to level boost a character. The original one was level 90, and as we’ve moved through expansions, they’ve upped the cap on them. You can buy the current one (which is 120 right now) for $60. More importantly, buying expansions gives you one boost for free. Right now, you can still buy the Battle for Azeroth expansion and get the free 110 boost. (You can no longer buy the 110 boost on it’s own.) Pre-ordering Shadowlands can come with at 120 boost. (The cheapest option for Shadowlands doesn’t come with a boost for those who have no interest in them.)

The 110 boost starts with gear equivalent to someone going into the last patch of Legion. It also gives that character credit for opening up Legion world quests and opening up the Broken Shore (a zone added midway through the Legion expansion.) The 110 boost starts off with a quick character tutorial followed by the opening scenario for Battle for Azeroth.

The 120 boost does not have any Legion stuff completed, but does have some Battle for Azeroth (BfA) stuff unlocked. You’ll start with credit for the first part of the War Campaign (a mostly max level quest chain that threads throughout most of the BfA story, friendly reputation with the main BfA factions, and BfA world quests unlocked.

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12

You wouldn’t believe how helpful this is. It’s all starting to come together for me now, thank you so much!

Back to professions again… I started leveling Herbalism (to 150) on my now level 78 mage I rerolled with from scratch this week. However, it seems that the “herbalism skill requirement” for picking certain herbs is gone now. I can pick virtually anything I want it seems without worrying about the skill level.

Some players have told me that you now have to “level each profession for each Xpac (expansion pack?).” What does this mean? Is it worth leveling herbalism or enchanting or anything if I only have the Cataclysm expansion?

Keep in mind I did read your post on another thread…

Again, my main question is: is it worth leveling professions to max if my latest purchase was only Cataclysm?

13

For gathering, you can gather (most) stuff with a skill of one, but you get a better yield the higher your skill is. (Generally maxing out at the equivalent to the old skill level for an item.) Especially for gathering, it’s worth making sure that you’ve learned the basic skill for that expansion, so you can start getting skill points for it even if you aren’t focused on maxing it out. You can learn it from the trainers on the appropriate continent. (So, Vanilla and Cataclysm will be in the faction cities like Org and Stormwind, Outland will be in Outland, Wrath in Northrend and so on.)

Mists of Pandaria, Warlords of Draenor, and Legion are now also part of the base game, so you’ve got those as well now. They’ve been rolling the current expansion into the base game when a new one comes out so that it’s not prohibitively expensive to get started (or come back from a long break.)

Gathering is worth XP so gathering while you level can speed up the leveling process a bit. It’s probably not necessary to level each expansion all the way up beyond any mats you find along the way or need for other professions. (And you can always go back and fill in those levels later if you feel the need.)

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14

Couple of additional comments regarding recipes:

The Darkmoon Faire offers profession quests each month that allow you to earn 5 skill up points in the highest level xpac you have learned the profession in. However, in order to be eligible to get the 5 point quests, you must be at least 75/300 in the classic base level of that profession. For some xpacs, gining the last 5-15 points in a profession is expensive and time consuming so being able to grab 5 points for practically nothing is helpful.

For some xpacs, you will outlevel the xpac long before obtaining the currency needed to obtain all the recipes. WoD is particularly obnoxious in this regard. Just concentrate on obtaining the most immediately useful recies and don’t worry about either maxxing out the profession for that xpac or even obtaining all the recipes.

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15

Thanks again for all the help! I’m at level 104 approaching level cap (for Legion since I don’t own BfA) and all of this advice really made a difference.

Not bad for starting at level 1 last week!

Edit: 110 :slight_smile: