First 30 levels, my impressions so far...

So I hit 30 the other day with 2 1/2 days played. Yeah, I've been playing alot, mainly due to being out of work with the flu for a few days.

So right now my hunter is level 30 and specced mainly BM, with the exception of lethal shots, if u want to go into specifics see here:

The World of Warcraft Armory (http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Uther&n=Omgimsoquick)

I originally bought the game to play with my brother, but I've since surpassed him (he's 24 atm) and I haven't decided to keep going at my pace, roll a horde character, or screw around and try to make gold in some craft while he catches up. The problem is he enjoys all aspects of the game, crafting, and so forth while I just like to level. So far the game is fun, a massive time killer which will sometimes makes me bored grinding. It's cake to solo a hunter, grouping with one is tough; I constantly have to watch my pet and make sure he doesn't pull any more aggro.

Some questions I have are;

What is the best way/craft to generate gold?

My friends at work play horde on a pvp server, and I may roll there but I've heard horror stories of lowbies getting ganked 60 times in a row, etc. I really dont want to deal with that. Coming in late to the game I have to contend with a 90% server population of level 60+ players. Can I start on a PVE and then transfer to PVP?

So I'm a clicker, I guess, but what exactly is a non-clicker? more specifically, how do players play without a mouse? I use the keyboard to select targets and attack, but click for most tasks. However watching the mobs and where your cursor is causes problems. I'd like to remedy that.

My initial impressions are:

- I've done my fastest levels grinding; this partially due to the fact that its my first character and I'm not 100% familiar with the wow environment and areas. However questing is alot funner.

- The game seems to be centered around soloing. Because of quests, it just makes more sense for everyone to solo. Seems like grouping isn't as efficient as it was in DAOC. I'm assuming this was done to prevent powerleveling. I dont necessarily think this is a good thing; but it is what it is. I try to group with my brother and it seems to slow us both down, which really stinks.

- Players in the game dont know how to group. Maybe I'm setting my standards too high, but it seems like most players dont understand simple concepts of grouping. Things like crowd control, pulling, and support are lost on many players. I've seen priests tank, warriors just run straight into a mob. Hopefully it gets better as I level.

- The types of players in the game are very diverse. You get alot of egotistical shooter types who are geared towards arena, goofy roleplayers, and people who do nothing but work on either trades or do epics. This game hit the mark appealing to the masses.

- I'm going to have to set my macros! there is no way I can do all the things I need to do in certain situations. I didn't set macros yet because I thought it better I learn the intracacies of my class, however when I group/duel there are things I can't use because things go too fast and I dont have time to do them all.

- I dont regret rolling a night elf. For the few duels I've had, Shadowmeld has won a few for me. Once the player gets out of my line of sight, Shadowmeld guarantees me first strike. I do sorta regret rolling a night elf hunter. Hunters are fun but I really wanted to have a unique race/class in the game, and statiscally, night elf hunters are the most common. However, in wow I dont think there are any rare combinations.

Anyway, thanks for everyones advice getting me to this point, I'm having fun and will keep you posted.

Jame's Alliance Leveling Guide | World of Warcraft Pro (http://www.wow-pro.com/leveling_guides/jame%2526%2523039%3Bs_all iance_leveling_guide)

A little outdated but if you follow this guide you'll be 70 in 3 weeks tops.

It's really, really easy to level 20-60 now.

Can I start on a PVE and then transfer to PVP?

No, you can't xfer from PVE->PVP.

If you don't like to be bothered don't roll a pvp server.

If you want gold, go enchanting/mining.

Selling the lower mats in bulk will net a large profit but especially later on, when you hit the Outlands, selling all your excess enchanting mats and ore is big, big money.

Don't even worry about gold until you're 70.
Get enough for your mounts , and that's it. Don't blow money at the AH on "sweet new gear" , because that gear will be replaced in a matter of levels.

At 58 get into Outlands instantly , and the money will roll in.

get a bar mod (I use Bongos2) , and then keymap everything.
If you have more than a 2-3 button mouse , even better.

Using Shift on my 7 button mouse , that gives me 14 options there.
Shift + 1-2-3-4-5 keys , even more options.
if i use a spell more than once in a duel , encounter , it's key mapped.
Macros are great as well , although i only use them for certain things (I'm a frost mage. So my Water Elemental and my Mana stones basically) every thing else is taken care of using Key maps

you'll meet 75% retards , and 25% good people to group with , add them to your friends list and try to weed out the idiots.. Get into a guild at 60 and get to know some people to play with regularly.

don't start raiding

I bind almost EVERYTHINg to keys.
If you are going to use it in combat, have it keybound.

I play with ESDF for movement.
That gives me `, 1-6, q,w,a,z,x,v,g,t plus mouse buttons 4-5, scroll wheel up and down. Along with shift + any of those and ctrl + any of those.

When you are fighting something you need to mouse for moving and selecting people, can't be bothered with also clicking spells and such.

Don't forget to make focus macros and get a better UI than the out-of-box default. Tsetse has threads on these things if you need help figuring out what they are/do.

Certain class combos make leveling faster. As long as your partner is competent. However, as a hunter your pet is really all the party you need for most things.

1. Don't bother crafting yet. If you have a mature economy you can make bank on selling ore/herbs/leather. Enough for your training, mounts, and some gold leftover to spending. There's no real reason to sink money into crafting yet.

2. Soloing is more efficient and you are correct. People made attempts to "powerlevel" each other when the XP was more of less split between party members. Take a lvl 10 into a lvl 40 - 50 zone, kill 2 things and boom, they're level 20. Blue did away with that long ago by implementing crippling reductions on mob kill XP for grouping. It can get tanked as little as 10% from normal if your group-mate is a lot higher level than you are. Most people dungeon-grind. The fact some monsters are elite provide a slight buffer for that XP hit, but it's nothing to write home about but it is enough to warrant people just grinding on dungeons with a babysitter.

3. Honestly, Horde have less leveling gaps than Alliance do. You hit Westfall you get quests from 12 - 14 or so, then they shoot up to lvl 18 - 20. Same for Duskwood and Redridge. When you're Horde you can get 10 - 26 easily in the Barrens alone, and from there you can hit 1K Needles. Not a lot of Alliance are there so it's easier to quest there on PvP. The main gank zones are Hillsbrad, STV, Stonetalon, and Alterac for both Horde and Alliance. Actually Stonetalon is pretty much horde only, Alliance FP and the quest areas are entirely too far apart to justify questing there. Which means any alliance you find in Stonetalon are usually there simply to gank.

4. Player competence is not going to change. The thing that made this game the most popular MMO is also it's crutch. It's so easy to pick up and play people usually don't care about learning group mechanics pr playing their class. Almost all the time nowadays they have high-level friends to run them through dungeons for loot and quests. If you want to try though, group when you can and keep note of players who know what they are doing and try to quest with them more often. It's not much but that's all it is.

5. Hunter can be a bit boring, they are lacking in a lot of class content compared to others. They get some to tame their pet at 10 and that's about it until lvl 50. Most other classes like warriors, warlocks, and mages will have class-related quests from 10, 20, 30, and on that usually award class abilities. The problem there is it can be aggravating to to because most of the time they are group quests requiring you to kill things out of your league.

6. And they are right, no PvE -> PvP transfers. It was made specifically to keep people from safely leveling to 70 and getting great gear and then transfering over and ganking lowbies. If you want to play PvP you have to roll there from scratch.. And if you plan on doing hunter on PvP, it's better to go BM. Beast Within = 18 seconds of immunity to everything while you open fire on your target. That's pretty hard to beat while questing/leveling, but most change to raid/arena-centric specs when they hit 70.

At 58 get into Outlands instantly , and the money will roll in.

A lot of people run out of things to do in HFP if they go at lvl 58.

You might want to consider going at lvl 60, or close to it. Especially if you're not in a helpful guild or don't have enough friends to instance grind.

I play with ESDF for movement.
That gives me `, 1-6, q,w,a,z,x,v,g,t plus mouse buttons 4-5, scroll wheel up and down. Along with shift + any of those and ctrl + any of those.

I'm way too used to Q-E being strafe and having my mouse wheel set to zoom. I need to train myself to use ESDF, though.

The only reason to go to Outlands at 58 is for the first set of gear upgrades. Do the first few quests for some items, then go back to finish off stuff in the pre-BC world. Levelling 58-60 is nowhere near as painful as it once was (especially with some BC items), and you don't waste the large XP boosts for when you're going to need them.

Plus you should really stick to instance levelling/bonus XP levelling once you hit outlands anyway. The quests are better saved for when you hit 70 so you can get a shitload of cash and rep. People who cry about the grind for epic fliers are the ones who went to Outlands at 58.

A lot of people run out of things to do in HFP if they go at lvl 58.

You might want to consider going at lvl 60, or close to it. Especially if you're not in a helpful guild or don't have enough friends to instance grind.
.

that's crazy talk. the EXP you get at 58 and 59 is unreal. You'll get to 60 in a matter of hours from 58.
Sure you might need to run Ramparts and Blood Furnace a few extra times , but the speed at which you level though 58 and 59 is unreal.

And I agree Feannag about skipping crafting , but if you're going to do any gatherer type professions , start now. It's tons easier than going through all the newbie zones at level 70 , trying to level mining/Herb/etc from lvl 1.

Just gather as you level , and sell whatever you get.

that's crazy talk. the EXP you get at 58 and 59 is unreal. You'll get to 60 in a matter of hours from 58.
Sure you might need to run Ramparts and Blood Furnace a few extra times , but the speed at which you level though 58 and 59 is unreal.

At level 58 you earn about about the same as you would in pre-bc with the 30% increase in xp, it's not "crazy talk".

You'll regret going at 58 and wasting all that XP when you're 61 and out of quest. Be prepared to run Ramparts a lot more than you need to. The XP difference between the updated pre-bc and bc quest is marginal.

At level 58 you earn about about the same as you would in pre-bc with the 30% increase in xp, it's not "crazy talk".

You'll regret going at 58 and wasting all that XP when you're 61 and out of quest. Be prepared to run Ramparts a lot more than you need to. The XP difference between the updated pre-bc and bc quest is marginal.

I started post BC , and haven't leveled since the EXP Boost in the last patch , but i leveled 2 70's starting in HFP at 58 , and had no problems. In fact i had all of netherstorm and most of SMV to quest in after i hit 70.

with the new EXP boost ...maybe waiting is ok , but even if you don't , and head to Outlands at 58 , i still don't think you'll have a problem.

depends on how many dungeons you run really, if you just quest then you could probably run out of stuff when you close in on 70


on my 67 druid I have only done the quests in hellfire and zangar and have every thing else left

The bonus to doing 58 - 60 in Azeroth versus Outlands far outweighs the "time saved" froin Outlands quests.

1. 58 in Outlands with a normal mount = the suck. You aggro a lot of shit and get knocked off way too much. You'd pretty much need a babysitter for those two levels and if you need one of those you shouldn't be playing the game.

2. BECAUSE all the fucktards bolt for Outlands at 58 the large majority of 58 - 60 Azeroth zones are by and large dead. Leaves you free to quest with a lot less ganking than in Outlands and less competition over quest mobs.

3. XP boost helps this significantly, I scarcely remember 56 - 59 anyway they went so fast.

As for money for epic flyer it's not so bad. Both the 70s I have I did the same path. Did all of Hellfire, did all of Zang, did all of Nagrand and maybe all the non-group BEM. By that time I was 68.75 or so so I did some greens in Terokkar and I was 70.

I guess I'm just better than you, Procell.

Sorry :(

Level-wise HFP and Zang are roughly the same. The only difference being Zan doesn't have 58 - 59 mobs, they are strictly 60 - 64ish.

I also think it's pretty impossible to get from 60 - 67 just doing HFP and Zang. The only way I think that would be possible is having full rested, use it all up, park for 10 days to get full rested again, rinse, repeat. All of the HFP and all of Zang normally playing you get 65.5 or so, 66 if you did all the dungeon quests.

enchanting has been my big money maker. I get about 10g a piece for greater nether essence and they arent really hard to come by.

enchanting has been my big money maker. I get about 10g a piece for greater nether essence and they arent really hard to come by.

Yeah they're around there on my realm too, that's the 225 mark one. Probably why it goes so well. I have have 2 stacks of Large Mystic on AH for a solid week now and no sales though, pretty odd.

The only real problem with making money on mats like that is it can sometimes take a lot of green-breaking to get them, so it's a bit less consistent than selling ore/herbs.

Level-wise HFP and Zang are roughly the same. The only difference being Zan doesn't have 58 - 59 mobs, they are strictly 60 - 64ish.

I also think it's pretty impossible to get from 60 - 67 just doing HFP and Zang. The only way I think that would be possible is having full rested, use it all up, park for 10 days to get full rested again, rinse, repeat. All of the HFP and all of Zang normally playing you get 65.5 or so, 66 if you did all the dungeon quests.

My Druid is 68.5 and I've only done HFP/Zang and half of TF. Full rest is the only way to level an alt anyway. Dumb to do it any other way, you lose so much cash.