Brad Wardell's views about technology, politics, religion, world affairs, and all sorts of politically incorrect topics.
Some suggestions you won't likely read in a manual
Published on March 23, 2004 By Draginol In Misc Games

Over the months I've been playing WoW I've learned a lot of useful things that have greatly improved the game experience. Let me first say that WoW doesn't assume you've ever played a massive multiplayer game. There is jargon in the game at higher levels but by then you know it. And most of the jargon is really just slang.  For instance, "Tanks" refer to fighters who have no ranged weapons who are covered with armor. It makes sense because you start to feel like a tank as you go up in levels. Similarly, "buff" is a term for adding spells and enhancements to a character to increase their traits. So let's go through some tips:

1) Elite monsters see ghosts. If they have a + by them it not only means they're tough. It means they can potentially see your ghost. That means if you die, you're not coming back easily if at all to get your corpse. The most infamous place for that is in the Redwood Mountains in the Orc castle. If you die in that castle, forget it. You won't recover your body and will have to take the XP hit. The orcs will see and attack your ghost as you near and your ghost only has 1 HP. I've lost thousands of XP because of that. So don't mess with the elites unless you really know what you're doing. (on the other hand, elites give vastly more XP to offset this when they die).

2) Get Everything Script and Quest Share. These are wonderful tools. You can find them in the World of Warcraft forum in the interface customization area. http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/board.aspx?fn=wow-interface-customization This tool will speed up things like smelting, seeing how much damage people are doing, seeing what common quests are available in your party (very nice), let you know when someone has completed a quest in your party, tell you how much damage per second a weapon does (very good for dealing with the whole speed versus damage thing).

3) Go with the smallest party you can get away with. 5 people tromping around the world is very safe. But if you're on quests in which you have to collect an item that drop from dead creatures, you could be waiting quite awhile. You also get a lot less XP.  A good group would consist of a tank, a rogue, and a preist (or wizard if the tank is a paladin).

4) Rogues are very useful in parties. The rogue can sap creatures. This is a power that puts them to sleep for 25 seconds and it can make a huge difference when dealing with mobs of creatures. I don't particularly care for the rogue as a lone quest (they're pretty lethal but the XP gained per minute on their own isn't as favorable).

5) Sell high value articles in Stormwind in front of the bank.  If you find something you think it unusually useful, and you think it's worth >1 Gold, you're probably better off going to Stormwind and selling it in front of the bank (in the trade district).  You can typically get 4 to 5 times as much (sometimes more) selling an item to users rather than just selling them in a shop. So if you get something that is worth 30 silver to a NPC trader, you may want to try selling it for 1 gold. 

6) The best items are made by players. It takes awhile but eventually the best items are the ones created by players. I bought, for 2g, a 1 handed mace that does 18 damage per second (that's something like a 2.5 speed mace that does 40 to 50 damage per hit). That's before "buffs". It was made by a player. Of course, to get to that point you have to make a lot of crap. I still haven't broken 100 with my armor smith Paladin yet.

7) If the world's ground is flashing... Find the config file (it's in one of the subdirectiries) and find where it says "specular lighting" and make it from a 1 to a 0.

8) Expand Expand Expand. If you're hanging out in Westfall forever, be aware that there are whole areas of the map that you could do other..easier quests. The higher you go, the mroe quests that were easy become in accessible because of your level. I leveled up very quickly because I didn't stick around in westfall doing every last quest. Instead, I did the ones that were fun and easy and then made my way to Iron Forge and did those quests that were fairly easy which took me to the east and I did those quests that I found enjoyable. Then I returned to Westfall and found myself quite a bit tougher. Sure, I didn't get quite as much XP for the remaining Westfall quests because I was 2 or 3 levels higher than I was, but on the other hand, I wasn't dying because some vulture went after me or because I bumped into some gnoll group.  Same thing happened in Duskwood (darkshire quests). Those are nasty. So I ended up going up to the Wetlands and doing some of the easier quests there. Got up a couple more levels, came back and was able to handle the duskwood missions much easier.

Hope this helps!


Comments
on Jun 13, 2004
I just wanted to drop you a line and say I think the WoW Blog is a great idea and you have some excellent information here. Do you happen to know if there are any more WoW blogs popping up? I would love to get a blog roll going of everyone blogging WoW.

Thnx,
arothis@hotmail.com
on Aug 17, 2005
Finally some advice! I just wish more peeps in the game would help half as much. This will be very usefull to me, due to the fact that I keep dying in westfall! Thnx alot Brad
on Aug 18, 2005
I am a big wow player and just wanted to point out that some of these things aren't 100%.

1) I can't say that I have seen this happen, or have had it happen to me but maybe it does/did exist earlier in the game or I just never came across it.

2) I can't stress this point enough, there are THOUSANDS of mods out there and they will help you fine tune your skills, save time and ultimatley gain more XP/gold per hour. Check out Link for a horde (get it) of mods or goto [linl]http://www.nurfed.com">Link for a great pre-built set of mods.

4) Its not just rouges that can do this, which is called crowd control. Although the sapping is nice it only works on humanoids, has a chance to fail and wastes the rogues opening move. A Mage can Polymorph, Priest can shackle Undead, Druids can sleep beasts, and Warlocks can seduce. Theres also fear, but fearing can be dangerous since it can cause you to get MORE mobs...

5) Certainly its better to sell things to users, but you waste less time and often get even MORE money if you use your factions auction house.

6) The best items are arguably the set pieces for each class, which come from High End instances. Player crafted pieces can be a nice quick boost while you are grinding your way to 60 and can be used to help fill in holes in your armor and such, but the end game instances provide the best, some of them are so good infact that you have to farm for the items and THEN have them crafted from all sorts of epic/superior drops like Sulfuros, Hand of Ragnaros legendary mace.

Just thought users could use a little update and some more tips. And yes I spend too much time playing but I still manage to have a life on some nights and weekends

on Jul 26, 2006
Exactly what lvl are you...?
on Jul 26, 2006
Check the date of this  Almost a year old from the last post - over 2 years since Draginol made this.