I haven't played since Panderia - This is a whole new game

Guides Returning Player Help & Discussions
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…and I am very confused!! My husband bought me the newest expansion and I am just sideways right now trying to figure out how to play the game again. I’m looking for friends who are similarly confused so we can figure this stuff out together without feeling too stupid. I’m sugarpants#1934.

I even discovered I had a guild. (It’s called Therefore The Horde) and fellow old and confused people are absolutely invited to join it. Anyone else, too.

Undercity is gone? You can do dungeons by yourself with AI characters? What’s with these crazy flying controls? If you have similar questions then let’s be friends. And if you’re patient and have answers…let’s be friends.

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I just re-upped not quite a month ago. I too stopped with Pandas. Prior to that, I was playing around with trials and the like. I’ll send a request from my tag starting with Dif.

Things that have helped me:

  • Up to the point you get your first 60, you have access to the Newcomer’s channel. I found that to be incredibly helpful. The best way to get that channel is to create a new character and use the new (non racial) guided leveling experience. Folks in that channel are VERY helpful. (Once you get a 60, it’s gone forever, as a heads up.)
  • The plot twists on this game are a lot. They use time phasing (there’s several other names) to address the soap opera level shifts. When you make a new character (highly recommended), you get directed to Chromie and pick a timeline. Rec is Dragonflight and I can confirm that it’s overwhelming but it helps to catch up. You don’t level through all the expansions - you may barely get thru a part of one, depending on how you level.
  • Leveling is freakishly fast compared to what we remember - you’ll cycle thru a ton of gear in a few hours. Warning: there’s a big shift after 60 since you’re out of the phased timeline at that point. If you remember getting your face crunched in Outland, it may feel like that or worse. There’s a MASSIVE spike in gear stats. Be sure to quest a few levels at 60 and maybe find a friend.
  • The new flying can be very overwhelming. If you can stick it out or work towards including as often as possible, it will help. There are skills that come on-board with higher levels (every 10) and some with quest chains. This skill is exponentially better if you with a max level character.
  • I leveled when they had a campaign to buy the War Within that threw in a free level 70. That helped exponentially as it brought some key features in without having to navigate through it all (flying stuff in particular). They’re selling Midnight now. You might consider trying to get to at least 60 (or a point where you’re invested in the game and comfortable losing the newbies channel) and then buy the xpac. The free 80 will open up a ton of features. I’d still park it and level up to learn.
  • This game is (even more so) less about leveling and more about end game content. You can absolutely level and quest to your heart’s content. Just know it’s extremely fast to level.
  • If you had any heirlooms from before, they’re hidden in your Warband and you create the item. They cap out (mine were at 35 because of Pandaria) and are obscenely expensive to level up (I have not). WOW has a level up system for gear that I suspect they’ve experimented with while we were away. Heirlooms require outside pieces that start at 500G to move up 5 levels. It wasn’t worth it to me, but YMMV.
  • The overwhelm does get better, but it’s slow. Having a great guild goes miles.
  • Edit to add: holy cosmetics! Transmog started when we left. It’s become a whole different beast and if you level in Dragons, you’ll get a ton of these. I candidly ignored them (and still do), but it may add to your joy. You can have all kinds of costumes.

To wrap, I’m currently raiding already and engaging quite well with end game content. I went from 70-80 in 2 days and within the week was in a raid. It helps to have a great guild.

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Thank you so much! That is so helpful! I am pretty sure my husband bought me the pre-order of Midnight, so I am set on that. I did get a level 80 boost and I parked that character because i made the mistake of creating a level 1 BM hunter and have no pets…go me.

I have been leveling my toons that were already there and it’s been quite educational, and yeah, i am riding the struggle bus at times but I’m also learning.

My guild is currently just me and a bunch of ghosts, so I’m hoping in time that people will join and we can help each other and then get going with some raids and such. I’m still learning the game, tho, and I’m in no real rush…yet.

My biggest problem right now after mostly figuring out the gear drop issues while leveling is just where everything is, what it is, and how to access it. But I’ll get there.

Thanks again you are awesome!!

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I commend this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnzdeoSMkvM

It’s targeted at new players, but it may also help you.

It is massively long, but divided into sections of 1-2 minutes each, so you can skip straight to the bit you’re interested in. There’s a Table of Contents in the description, if you show the Full Description.

Also, you want to bookmark

wowhead.com which you probably remember, and
icy-veins.com for information about building and playing your Class

and I find that the site

Perplexity.ai

is actually very good at answering WoW questions. It DOES sometimes get an answer wrong because the answer was right two expansions ago, and it doesn’t know that it needs to get more recent information. But it is still an excellent resource.

And of course, please do ask here if you come across a problem or question that isn’t solved quickly. :+1:

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Grainne has tons of amazing answers. You can look at their replies to questions and get amazing answers.

Pet taming is a lot easier than we remember and you get multiplies. It doesn’t hurt to make a second hunter and level it thru the guided experience. Since you have an 80, you won’t be able to get the newbies in-game channel (unless they changed it). Really, don’t hesitate to let this character be parked for a bit.

My priority on returning:
Figure out game mechanics again. Talent trees are more complex. Initially, you can run with starter build to not worry about it. You can also add builds, swap specs, etc with no penalty. The days of having to level multiple characters to play all the specs are done and you don’t have to kill gold to respec. I really like this feature.

Mobs level with you (up to a point). I initially didn’t like this, but now I do. I still don’t entirely understand the rules, but it keeps things fresh.

The shielded quests are the big ones you must do to advance the story. Dragon isles seems more rigid here and you get buried in cosmetics (I did not love this). If you get overwhelmed, just focus on the shielded quests (story / campaign are other terms that show up).

The AI dungeons can be great to learn the new mechanics. There’s more stuff to move from, more things on the ground, and PUGs can sometimes move obscenely fast. I used these to get comfortable and go at my own pace. If you’re learning tanking or healing, these can also help.

The flying really does take some time to get used to. I’ve stuck with it, even tho it annoys me because it really is faster and eventually the dynamic nature becomes fun (until you screw up and just need to wait for vigor to come back). The dragon characters also get it early and I like the soar feature (I also main a druid, so flight form over all).

I’ve accepted there’s a level of story that I may never fully catch up on. Lore walking can fill in some gaps. I’m an impatient leveler, so I’ve only now gotten into that a bit. YMMV.

Undercity and Darnassus have phased versions you can still access, but the short of it is they did the Banshee Queen dirty and she blew everything up. Make sure to hit the time -warped version before going there - they do try to guide you but I’ve ended up dying there a few times. Take the portal, not the teleporter in Silvermoon.

There’s a 1 button DPS button you can use to learn rotations, as well as highlighting. If you drag the button out somewhere, you can also use it if playing off spec or dealing with overwhelm. It’s pretty reasonable. Again, dungeons have more stuff to memorize.

I still cannot find certain things and still do a LOT of googling. It does get better, but it’s a lot. I’m also learning Korean (one of the hardest languages for an English speaker to learn) and the difficulty of that and re-learning this game do feel on par. It’s just going to take time and patience helps a lot.

I intentionally level alts along the same path right now to reduce overwhelm. I found that helped me. Again, YMMV.

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Thank you for this video, i have a feeling it will help a LOT!! Since I haven’t played in 12 years, I do feel like a new player.

Icy Veins has been my go to through this and I basically keep it open on my other monitor while I am playing to figure stuff out. It really is so helpful.

Thank you for the info you really helped me a lot.

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I’m leveling a new hunter right now to get the gameplay down and I have started doing dungeons with the AI and it has been really helpful. I did one with my hubs in a regular PUG and I thought I was going to get kicked. It was terribad. I’m going to get way more used to doing those things before I people again.

The flying…it is so hard. LOL…but I will persevere and get it under control too…eventually.

Thank you so much for your info it is really helpful.

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What I do with the flying right now:

  1. Set my destination on the map, so the arrow shows in the mini map.
  2. Get really high - point and look up and hit the lift off button at least once. You can the either use that or the other options to go higher. People have lots of opinions here around best way. It’s still 6 of once, half dozen for me currently.
  3. If you’re getting low on vigor and have the thrill of the skies ability (with the 80, you should) angle down to build it back up. You may have to play with angles to figure it what pops it without going too aggressively down.
  4. Focus on just going to that destination and not derailing for herbs / ore / etc. Initially, you won’t make it. Then, eventually you will.
  5. Use it for pops to places where you’re questing. On a druid, this is much easier because you shift forms (no, not biased in any way here). The dragons can also soar.
  6. When you get tired, give yourself a break as needed and then try again
  7. Use flight paths as needed. I did because I just needed the break.
  8. Co-ride with people when you can to see their rhythms.

It’ll come.

The pugs are… Yeah. I’m super conflict adverse right now, so the AI works for me when guild is not available.

When you get to 70+, delves play with this concept and I also find them very likeable. You’ll ultimately get your best / easiest gear from questing until you can hit delves.

When you get to 80, there’s a quest to go to K’aresh (something about back to the market) that you absolutely want to do and prioritize. That will make your level 80 experience SO much better.

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Thanks for the info. I’ve been switching to classic slow flying at times that i can, and just smelling the roses. I run out of vigor so fast it’s crazy. And am I wrong or can you not switch flight modes til level 20? I couldn’t on this character that I’m using now, and I still can’t, I don’t think. I looked it up and there wasn’t much info about it. I’m about to do the dragon riding quests now, though so maybe I’ll get that answer soon.

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I honestly don’t know what;'s going on with flying unliocks at low level these days. I did all mine during Dragonflight, and they changed everything with the new expansion,

I think you should get Skyriding at level 10, if another character on your account already has it, or level 15 if you never got it before, but you should certainly get it when you do the Dragonriding quests in the Waking Shores.

According to Icy Veins

https://www.icy-veins.com/wow/skyriding-guide#when-will-i-unlock-skyriding

If you already unlocked Skyriding on your account, your alts will gain access to it aumatocailly at Level 10 and the option to Switch Flightstyle will be available at Level 20.

So you would not be able to switch to Steady Flight till 20.

As for Vigor, do you have, and have you assigned, Talents for your Skyriding? AFAIK, you don’t have to collect Runes anymore for it.

Skyriding should be called Sky-Gliding. Sometimes people call it Dolphin Diving. The process is to get as high as you can, then glide fast in a very shallow descent until you need altitude again

What I do is

  • point myself almost straight up
  • hit Skyward Ascent 2 or 3 times, with maybe a second and a half, or two, between hits
  • level out and point my nose just the tiniest bit down. You don’t need much down-angle; barely enough to see.
  • Glide while Vigor refreshes through the Thrill of the Skies talent
  • repeat forever.

I rarely use any key other than Skyward Ascent.

This video demonstrates. I have teed it up to the relevant time

https://youtu.be/RW_JmRv89cY?t=441

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Oo that is very helpful info, I’m going to try that, thank you.

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At level 20, you should be able to switch. I think the one exception might be if you’ve in the middle of the dragon riding quest chain. I felt like I landed there about level 20, so check if you have the learn how to sky ride quest in your log. If you go back to the area where you learn it and you have circles and arrows, that’s definitely it.

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Yeah once I hit 20 I was able to switch it. And that makes no sense to not be able to and be stuck with it before level 20…bleh.