12-10-2007, 03:44 PM
Quote:I've finally succumbed to temptation and am currently downloading the 10 day trial. Assuming nothing too horrible happens, I'm probably going to get the full game, which leads me to a few questions:
Should I get the original game first, or get the Burning Crusade expansion as well? Is there any content from the expansion that I will see right away with a new character?
I'm going to be playing an Undead Warlock because it seems the class most like the D2 Necromancer (curses and a pet), which I still remember with nostalgia. Any tips on the class? Any tips for a new character in general? I'm looking to mainly solo first to experience the game at a slow pace.
What exactly is the difference between PvE and PvP servers? I've been trying to do a bit of research on this but it's very confusing. Battlegrounds who?
How about servers? Which have good populations and least amounts of doushbaggery?
Should I know anything else now? Things that aren't obvious, to watch out for, etc?
Treat me like a WoW-dummy. Talk slowly, explain things as if to a child, I don't mind. Any advice is appreciated!
On PvP vs. PvE servers: on a PvP server, once you reach certain game locations ("zones", usually around level 20ish and up), you will be automatically flagged for PvP. This means that any member of the opposing faction can come up and attempt to kill you (and vice versa). A few terms related to this are ganking and corpse-camping. Ganking refers to a high-level character of the opposite faction killing you. Corpse-camping happens when the opposite faction stands around your corpse waiting for you to resurrect ("rez") so they can kill you again.
On a PvE server you do not get automatically flagged- you have to do it manually. Or attack certain PvP-flagged targets. Both of the main Lurker guilds are on PvE servers, so you can see where our preference lies.:) Some prefer the excitement of a PvP server though. Personal preference, really.
Battlegrounds are special PvP zones where specific objectives must be completed to win. You're flagged for PvP automatically. You win tokens and honor (kind of like an alternate currency that you gain by killing the opposite faction) which you can then spend on various items. You join a battleground with the intent of doing PvP. It is completely optional and can be both very fun and very frustrating. Battlegrounds is a great place to learn how to play your character and react to different critical situations quickly.
I wouldn't be a Lurker if I didn't recommend one of our guilds. You're playing horde, so check out the Lurkers guild on Terenas. We're a great group of folks if I do say so myself.:)If you ever decide to roll a dirty Alliance, there's a guild on Stormrage. As I said above, both are PvE.
You picked a great time to start levelling a character- the latest patch made levelling easier by reducing the amount of XP needed between levels (for levels 20-60) and increasing the amount of XP rewarded from quests. Also a lot of tough monsters ("elites") were reduced to non-elite status, which makes doing a lot of quests that previously required a group much easier to solo.
In addition to what the above posters said re: warlocks, they're a lot of fun to play. The playstyle can be as simple or complex as you want. One of your main tools will be a spell called Fear, which sends a monster running away for a period of time. A lot of your damage spells work over a long period of time, so one strategy you can use as a warlock is to cast all of your DoT's (Damage over Time, refers to your spells that do damage over a long time as opposed to a lot of damage all at once), fear the mob, then wait for it to die. You can solo pretty much any type of enemy (assuming it is fearable) this way, whereas for some tougher enemies other classes would require a second class or some heals. You can take this a step further once you are higher level, and DoT up multiple mobs, then cast Howl of Terror which is a fear that affects multiple enemies. Fun!
To expand on what Lissa siad about drain tanking: mana is VERY rarely an issue for warlocks due to the spell Life Tap and a few of the self-healing spells you get. Life Tap converts health to mana, which on the surface looks bad, but you can gain health back via Drain Life, which is a spell that damages an enemy and converts that damage to health for you. So adding Fear into the mix, you can cast your DoT's, Fear the enemy, Life Tap to get mana back, and cast Drain Life on the feared enemy to get your health back. Voila! Dead enemy, full health & mana!
Once you reach level 10, you start to accumulate talent points. These are kind of like the skill trees in Diablo 2 in that points spent in these trees will improve your existing spells, give you new spells, add various affects to your spells, or improve your stats in some manner. I'm a big fan of Wowhead's talent calculator- it's a bit quicker than the one on the official site (and actually gets updated a bit quicker also, it seems). Check out the talent trees for your class and see which one suits your fancy. Many warlocks will tell you that the Affliction tree is best for levelling, and I would agree. Unlike Diablo 2, you can re-do your talents whenever you want for a fee. The fee starts at 1 gold and goes up the more you re-do them. It caps out at 50g. If you go a long time without respeccing, the fee gradually goes down.
Whoa, wall of text! Hope that helps.:)