So I’m finally back to playing WoW after a long hiatus. I used to play WoW since its vanilla beta phase back in 2003 and mained a warrior tank consistently through Cataclysm. Then had a small comeback during Legion and quickly stopped playing again as I found it too confusing and grindy. This time around a combination of things like dragon flying, the new areas, vanilla-esque talent trees, amongst other things caught my attention and motivated me to play Dragonflight. It’s been the most fun I’ve had playing wow since back then.
I’ve been taking my time to level, following the story line, exploring areas, and playing very casually. There’s so much new stuff and game mechanics added since I played WoW consistently back then that I’ve found myself surprised and amused - until now. I hit level 70 and ran out of campaign quests or main side story quests. I’m feeling super lost and just wandering around doing area quests or similar. Ever since dungeon finder became a thing I stopped enjoying dungeons since there’s no strategy or point to them. I have a similar sentiment about raids, where everyone is just rushing and expecting you to be a pro. I’m also not really feeling all that motivated to just watch an item level number go up. Battlegrounds also feel way over my head, I was never really a strong PVPer but I would still enjoy the teamwork aspect of it. Unsure what to expect now since I haven’t tried them since then, so that might entertain me from time to time but I’m definitely more of a PVEer.
I’m feeling lost as to what to do at endgame and don’t want to lose the motivation of playing wow since it’s giving me a huge escape from work and other things. I’m thinking of just rolling alts but would want to know more stuff that I might be missing?
Any recommendations what should I do or try at end game as a returning casual player?
Thanks for reading!
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It sounds like you used to do them a couple of times and then were done with them. You can only strategize a few times, and then that loses its challenge. Now they are considered entertainment to keep people playing.
I don’t really have any interest in doing end content, myself. I just do old content.
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Welcome back!
Endgame is pretty much doing the same dungeons over and over (M+) or Raiding.
I don’t enjoy it myself so i just make alts over and over. LOL.
You may want to enjoy using chromie time to explore expansions you have missed out.
WoWhead is the website with the most information. I’m sure it has a good guide on chronological order.
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You may want to level an alt on the opposite faction, to see things from their point of view, like through BfA. And you could also level alts via Chromie Time in expansions you haven’t been through.
There are also lots of collection stuff you can do to acquire mounts, pets, and toys. Plus achievements. There is even an addon called All The Things that helps you track what you’ve done vs. not done.
The major patches of DF have all added a new area or feature, like Forbidden Reach, Time Rifts, Dreamsurges, Fryakk Assaults, and the new area in the Emerald Dream. They all have things to do there, currencies to acquire and items to farm for via drops or currencies, sometimes with rep grinds.
You may want to see about joining a guild, which can be fun. I’m not really much of a raider, but my guild talked me into it and we normally do a once a week main guild night, typically just heroic, and an alt night for alts that is typically normal. Nothing high pressure or super sweaty, but a bit challenging at times and fun with all the regular folks.
Good luck and have fun!
/moo 
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My partner was in the same boat and they more or less cold turkied WoW. Since then I’ve had to slowly back off as well.
There’s no harm in moving on. We were playing Valheim until we hated it and now we’re onto Anno. I still keep my subscription active but I can’t really commit much without sacrificing a disrespectful amount of personal time. Definitely no harm in playing less and doing something else.
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Your sub gives you access to classic wow and wotlk. I would highly advise installing and playing those games vs retail.
They are more simple, fun, and have better communities.
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I don’t do M+ or Raids which has a lot of that content. So what I do is play as close as I can to the raid, then watch the raids and cut scenes on YouTube to see how it all came out.
There has been some talk of people being able to solo raids with helpful bots. Maybe that would be a solution but it’s not clear how that’s proceeding if at all.
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Yeah, a bunch of gdkp dad guilds. The epitome of WoW classic
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Highly doubt the op is under 30 if they played on 2003. XD
So they’ll fit right in!
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what do you enjoy ? casually you can complete every area and quests/renown , at the same time use RDF to complete all raids weekly and start gearing , do small keys 2-7 m+ stress free and gearing completing the vault , find a guild to organize some normal raids and/or achievement runs, pet battles ? , transmog hunt, professions , auction house , so many things. As someone else mentioned all these can be repeated with SOD, Wotlk and vanilla. best $15 of entertainment in the market , sure beats netflix
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To be fair, you kind of limited what people can offer for suggestions by only sharing what you didn’t like and not as much about interests.
It reads like you did enjoy instances, and I understand where your concerns are. Honestly, all i can suggest here is to start on them at the most basic of levels. Normally folks not doing M+ are just blasting through and don’t much care about you provided you aren’t hindering them. I found that the Timewalking stuff was extreme in this.
If you’ve been gone a long time, then you missed a lot of expansions and 100%, man. There is a lot of awesome stuff there. I too am a casual returning player and I love exploring all that old content on lowbies. - I highly suggest lowbies while you get more familiar with the game.
The game has grown considerably. It has a learning curve to it that is pretty big at the beginning. Trying tofind what to digest when you’re trying to digest it all to know how to decide is overwhelming. I feel like a lowbie leveling experience is a great way to “drip feed” the game back into familiarity.
There is a ton ton of farming of Mogs and Skins and what not at 70 that can be done as well as Achievements, which normally leads to some research which always lends to strengthening your familiarity.
My largest suggestion would be to take one step back from what you can do, and think about a few things you’d like to do and start there.
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As a purely PVE player, a few suggestions:
Look for the little quests in the game. If you’re in the area, you’ll see the ! on the mini map but not the bigger map. A few cute little stories if you haven’t encountered them already.
Look at achievements. Some interesting ones to strive for, possibly, depending on your interests.
Alts. I find these are great to change things up. Both in leveling, or just gearing them. Lately, I’ve taken my main, do the weekly and the ED for gearing, then switch to alts to rinse and repeat or just do leveling.
Other zones. As others have said, this is a great thing to do.
Change it up! Try the other ‘versions’ of the game: Lich king, Classic, etc. One of them might catch your interest while you wait for the next patch.
Check out the next patch! Help playtest and try some of the new features that will hopefully be released soon. 
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you can do LFR. all four wings are out.
you could do the world pve stuff like superbloo, dreamsurge, fyrakk.
if you like gathering, mines, herbs, and skins are waiting for you.
If you like random BGs, those are out there.
heroic dungeons now drop pretty good loot if you still in 70 greens (428 i think)
dragon racing is a thing. i bet you could even find a racing club or something.
you could unlock an allied race you still havent obtained.
and the other thing is to find a spec or roll you have never done before and try it out? lots of people are running alts, especially in low mythics (<+5) where the mechanics are particularly challenging.
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I’d try levelling a new class, but focus it towards something different like PvP or a different role. Maybe even pick the other faction and try starting with nothing as a challenge.
With what you said it seems like PvE is going to offer you nothing aside from solo questing, rep, crafting, and collecting…
For what it worth, I sympathise. I also played beta and feel much the same way about PvE. If I were to take my own advice: I played Druid in beta and have often wondered what Druid feels like now that you aren’t expected to buff up and whack things in melee as balance.
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I suggest getting yourself into a few normal raids (or even LFR, seriously) until you can get your 4-piece tier bonus. That will add significant power to your character. You might also find it to be fun once you get more used to the modern implementation of it.
I find mythic+ dungeons to be tedious and get boring pretty fast, however, lots of people enjoy this content so you might give it a try.
Also, do everything in the Emerald Dream so you can have flightstones and crests to upgrade your gear. Come back every week after reset day.
There are also a lot of mounts/pets/toys/customizations/transmogs to get there.
Dreamsurges can still be fun and rewarding.
Work on renown with some factions to earn those goodies.
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Being scared of stuff is fine and all but you gotta dip your toes in to form an actual idea of what you like and dislike now. Find a semi casual guild that does normal and heroic. And get a full set of crafted pvp gear and go try solo shuffle / battlegrounds. Ignore what people tells you and have fun.
Want to be better at xyz ? Look up a guide on wowhead. Good luck.
There’s also hardcore classic and wrath of the lich King wow.
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grats! you beat the game.
go do something else…
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I just went through this a week ago (to the day as a matter of fact) with my hunter.
Didn’t touch her for a few months she was in the 300s for ilvl.
Feeling overwhelmed with all the stuff to do I just focused on campaign quests. If it was a campaign quest I just did it. I played wow more in the last five days then the previous five months.
I don’t know what happened I got sucked in like the old days. Logged a 12 hour (all day) play session then a couple 8 hour sessions, it should noted I was on PTO and my house was in order and I didn’t neglect family.
But yeah it was fun . That hunter is almost 450 ilvl … I know that’s nothing to competitive content players (high keys , mythic raids ) but I think it’s cool for just quests.
Got several new mounts got a few transmog sets some pets it’s been fun.
So just do that if you aren’t sure just follow the campaign quests and branch out to other quests as you go.
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Account wide transmog collecting is coming with the next expansion. Its dress up time
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I second the recommendation for classic/SoD.
Dungeon finder is toxic af, but doing the content exclusively with some easy going people who are here for the same reason is super enjoyable.
Right now SoD seems to be the more popular of the two. If you like pvp at all, highly recommend grobbulous wotlk and chaos bolt SoD servers. I’m not really into RP, but the RP crowd is fun.
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