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WoW Rookie: Know your interrupts
You're probably familiar with the idea of spells in the Word of Warcraft. These are powerful abilities whose use takes a few seconds to complete. This represents "casting time." If a character gets through the entire casting time for a spell, the unleashed ability will do significant damage to its target (or, in the case of heals, will restore a significant number of hit points). Whatever the purpose of the spell, when the casting time is complete, big things happen. It is therefore attractive to opponents to stop the spell from casting. Sure, killing the boss will keep the spell from finishing. But that's far from the only way to stop a spell's completion. Abilities that stop a spell's cast are called interrupts. This is because they interrupt a spell cast. (See? It's not just a clever name.)
WoW Rookie: Reforging 101
New around here? WoW Rookie has your back! Get all our collected tips, tricks and tactics for new players in the WoW Rookie Guide. WoW Rookie is about more than just being new to the game; it's about checking out new classes, new playstyles, and new zones. As the story goes, the ability to reforge magical items was introduced to Azeroth by the Highborne. We don't really know the in-game lore of how, when, why, or where, but we do have it fairly clearly that the knowledge came from the Highborne. Reforging allows you to customize your magical items by substituting one secondary stat for a different secondary stat. The stats that are eligible are the ones in green text at the bottom of an item, such as critical strike, mastery, expertise, and so on. (We'll do a full list behind the cut.) You can only swap about 40% of a single secondary stat, and the item must be at least item level 200 or higher. (Items have levels similar to player characters, and those levels help determine how much of each stat bonus that item can provide.) The stats that are not eligible to be reforged are stamina, intellect, strength, and agility. These stats are considered set in stone and have very little variation in the amount of each stat, even on different items of the same item level. Since that's the case, you can probably see why you're not able to re-allocate those points.
WoW Rookie: A primer on Cataclysm reputations
There are eight new reputation factions in Cataclysm. Six of those reputations are available to the Alliance or Horde, respectively. Each of those factions offers different items or gear to adventurers who work their way through the reputations. Many offer epic gear to players who have achieved exalted reputation. You can pick up well over 1,000 reputation by wearing each faction's tabard into a level 85 dungeon; heroic dungeons grant a little more, of course. Some factions have daily quests that will help you fly through the ranks even faster. But the tough part can be deciding which reputations to work on first. Let's take a tour of those factions and see what kind of epics or notable gear is offered by each. If you see something that's especially appropriate to your class or role, that's probably a good hint that you should start there.
WoW Rookie: Effective crowd control basics
New around here? WoW Rookie has your back! Get all our collected tips, tricks and tactics for new players in the WoW Rookie Guide. WoW Rookie is about more than just being new to the game; it's about checking new areas, new styles, and new zones. Ladies and gentlemen who run dungeons in 2011, if I could offer you only one tip for the successful instances, crowd control would be it. The healing and tanking benefits of crowd control have been proven by thousands of PUGs and guild groups, while the rest of the internet's sea of elite advice is the theoretical ravings of armchair quarterbacks. They will dispense that advice daily. Some is true, some is probable, but not all of it is absolute. But trust me on the crowd control. There is very little you can do to improve your dungeon experience than execute crowd control and not stand in fire. Today, we will focus on crowd control. In the days of yore, crowd control mostly meant Sap and sheep (which is to say, Polymorph). But as content patches and expansions grew over the years, the concept of crowd control has grown as well. Now, you have slows, snares, traps, debuffs, fears, and every combination you can imagine. Every class has some form of crowd control. Essentially, the job of crowd control is to slow down or keep a mob from doing the damage it wishes to your group.
WoW Rookie: Dungeoneering 102
New around here? WoW Rookie has your back! Get all our collected tips, tricks and tactics for new players in the WoW Rookie Guide. WoW Rookie is about more than just being new to the game; it's about checking new areas, new styles, and new zones. Last time in WoW Rookie, we talked about some of the basics about grouping for instances. The advice really applies to any type of group, but these were the most fundamental things you need to know. This week, let's start taking a look at the next level of knowledge that you should have. We might reinforce some of the old points along the way, also. Kill the one in the dress It's important to establish your team's kill order. We talked about it last time, but the idea of a kill order bears repeating and reinforcement. Since every group is a little different, you should take the few seconds at the start to establish your kill order. While I'm used to killing skull first, cross second, square third ... there was a time when square was the designated symbol for hunters to trap a mob. The important thing here is communicate. Make sure you're all on the same page. Following the kill order is incredibly important. For one thing, tanks can't just phone in their threat generation. They have to work to make sure DPS doesn't pull aggro off the tank. If you're attacking mobs out of order, the tank will be especially challenged to keep control of the enemies.
WoW Rookie: Dungeoneering 101
New around here? WoW Rookie has your back! Get all our collected tips, tricks and tactics for new players in the WoW Rookie Guide. WoW Rookie is about more than just being new to the game; it's about checking new areas, new styles, and new zones. Successful dungeoneering is about more than just getting a group together, although that is admittedly the first step. When five people descend into an instance, there is a level of coordination and role execution that doesn't exist in normal questing. These are the things you need to know before entering in an instance. You will hear people refer to the random dungeon finder as the LFD or LFG tool. This refers to the function in game that allows you to randomly be grouped with up to four other people, providing you enough players to go do an instance. You access the tool on your interface or by pressing the key "I." You can use the dungeon finder to queue a specific instance for which you are eligible. Eligibility is determined by your character's level and overall gear status. Alternatively, you can just tell it to queue for a random dungeon. The first time you queue for a random dungeon, you get a bonus to your usual rewards. This is an important incentive to keep people using the dungeon finder, which itself is key to all of us easily finding groups.
WoW Rookie: Top 5 tricks for grouping in Vashj'ir
New around here? WoW Rookie has your back! Get all our collected tips, tricks and tactics for new players in the WoW Rookie Guide. WoW Rookie is about more than just being new to the game; it's about checking new areas, new styles, and new zones. This week, it's also about playing with the people you love. Have I ever mentioned that I'm incredibly fortunate to play WoW with my wife? It's a subtle, wonderful thing. And because I worship this wonderful creature, all of my journey to level 85 on my paladin is being spent in a group with her. Our first foray into Cataclysm's new content was the underwater realm of Vashj'ir. It seemed like a romantic way to spend time: dodging sharks, making appropriate crab jokes, and exploring new content. The thing you need to know is that Vashj'ir is a three-dimensional zone. You don't only run around on the ground; you can also swim up and down. That's not a terribly complicated issue for instances like the Oculus, but those three dimensions turn into pains in the neck when you're trying to do a hundred quests as a pair. If you're leveling in a group with more than one person, it gets even more confusing. It's easy to lose track of where groupmates are hiding out and where quest mobs are swimming. And many areas of Vashj'ir have an "upper" and a "lower" level. If you're doing all this as a group, you'll need coordination. Here are our top 5 tricks for working as a group in Vashj'ir.
WoW Rookie: Cataclysm dwarf starting area
Note: This introduction was performed on a dwarf shaman. Some details may be a little different if you play another class. When you begin a brand new dwarf, you see a rugged-looking dwarf opening a can of buckshot all over some Rockjaw Invaders. As soon as you talk to him, he congratulates you on being a stout, tough example of dwarven kind. Joren Ironstock tells you that he needs your help to Hold the Line! An earthquake in Coldridge Valley has riled up the troggs and they're attacking the dwarves. Kill six of the Rockjaw Invaders. Once you've accomplished that, it will be your task to visit the trogg leaders and Give 'em What-For. The Rockjaw Goons down in the valley are the closest thing the troggs have to leaders, so you need to go kill three. Doesn't take long. While you're doing that, though, Sten Stoutarm wants you to also provide Aid for the Wounded. You do this by right-clicking the bandage provided by the quest. It's not immediately obvious that this is the technique, since the bandage in your backpack doesn't explicitly say so.
WoW Rookie: Cataclysm troll starting area
Editor's Note: This walk-through was performed on a druid. There will be small differences if you play a different class. Additionally, there are spoilers contained herein. When you begin the new troll starting zones, the narrator warns you that Vol'jin knows that Garrosh could tear the Horde apart. It will come down to cunning trolls like you to keep things on the straight and narrow. As you begin the game, Jin'thala tells you that the Darkspear have always been outcasts. But this time, you're being led by the wisdom of Vol'jin, and it's time for the Rise of the Darkspear. Vol'kin sends you off to Zen'tabra to begin your training. Zen'Tabra likes to start things simply, so she'll help you cover The Basics: Hitting Things. All around the Darkspear training grounds are tiki-themed target dummies. Blow up six of them, using your favorite method for blowing up stuff. After this impressive display to skill, you're off to A Rough Start and have to go kill enough cats to bring Zen'Tabra six Wildmane Cat Pelts. Go kill some kitties. If the starting area is busy, it can take a while to find enough cats, so take your time.
WoW Rookie: Cataclysm gnome starting area
Spoiler Alert: This post includes many details about the gnome starting area in Cataclysm. As a new gnome in Cataclysm, you begin with the debuff Irradiated. You've been exposed to dangerous levels of radiation and risk being turned into a leper gnome. You are located in the heart of Gnomeregan, surrounded by equipment and other survivors. This is because beginning gnomes in Cataclysm are not the gnomes who've been sleeping on Ironforge's couch for the last half-decade; these are the gnomes who have been surviving in Gnomeregan for years. The action starts when you talk to Nevin Twistwrench, who warns you there will be more time to talk once you're safely on the surface. Don't worry, though, Nevin has a plan. After all, he is the leader of S.A.F.E., the Survivor Assistance Facilitation Expedition. Your questing starts when he asks you to kill 6 of the attacking leper gnomes because if you are all Pinned Down. As you cut down the marauding lepers, pay attention; you'll hear the awesome ray guns being employed by S.A.F.E operatives.
WoW Rookie: An empire of alts
One of the most satisfying things about the World of Warcraft is the ability to have a small army of alts. Usually, you hear about folks playing a main character full time and then having one or two alternate characters. The alternate characters are a distraction, or perhaps a way to kill a little time. I even know a couple people who play alts expressly to learn more about other classes for PvP purposes. But for those of us who find ourselves with very limited time to play, alts offer the opportunity to play WoW in a whole different way. We can play almost every class and every race, often all at a same time. Grouping for raids and heroics can be difficult, but if we are playing a half-dozen characters, it's almost like we're a raid unto ourselves. Playing a group of alts is rewarding, but there are some important tips that can make life a lot easier. To be truthful, it isn't as if there's much you can do wrong while leveling a group of alts. And while a lot of that playstyle is a simple matter of personal choice, there are still little things you can do to smooth your way.
WoW Rookie: Finding information about the game and Cataclysm
New around here? WoW Rookie has your back! Get all our collected tips, tricks and tactics for new players in the WoW Rookie Guide. At the WoW Insider reader meetup we threw at BlizzCon 2010, I was asked a simple question. "Mike," an eager attendee asked me, "what the best way to get caught up on the information for Cataclysm?" I was obviously a bit surprised, but the question resonated for me. After all, in a lot of ways, Cataclysm is completely rewriting the world as we know it. Classes are changing, talent trees are changing, and there will be a whole series of new raid bosses. Of course, none of these are things that we haven't encountered before in previous expansions. But then again, even the landscape of Azeroth is going to be irrevocably changed, scarred by the passage of Deathwing. Things will never be the same again. So if you're new to the game or even returning from a hiatus, it must feel like an immense amount of information to try and understand. Even more, once you've logged into the game and started playing, you need resources at your fingertips to understand what's happening around you. So this week in WoW Rookie, we're going to take the time to talk about where you can go to get information.
WoW Rookie: Finding your guild home for Cataclysm
New around here? WoW Rookie has your back! Get all our collected tips, tricks and tactics for new players in the WoW Rookie Guide. Deathwing's about to ... ahem ... take wing and wreck Azeroth as we know it. After this Cataclysm, the game is going to be almost brand new. The world will shudder and change. New characters will attempt new quests, and everything old will be new again. With that in mind, you might find yourself wanting traveling companions with whom to explore this strange, new world. Where can you find those players? A guild. Guilds are the fundamental social building block of the World of Warcraft. There are many different types of guilds. Casual guilds are usually mostly about leveling, hanging out and going whichever way the wind blows them. While many casual guilds raid successfully, groups who define themselves this way aren't motivated by progression. Raiding guilds, by comparison, take their successful raiding very seriously and consider their PvE success an important part of their fun. PvP guilds tend to focus on battlegrounds and arena. But for all that these definitions are common, they aren't absolutes. I've seen few raiding guilds that completely ignore PvP, and some of the most skillful players I know claim they are "casual." Labels just aren't useful in this regard. But with Cataclysm, guild perks will go a long way toward encouraging us to join up with guilds. If you decide you want to take the leap of faith and hook up with an extant guild, here are some tips for finding just the right home.
WoW Rookie: Patch 4.0.1 for rookies
We were the happy recipients of patch 4.0.1 this week. A lot of what we know about the game changed on Tuesday, and many of us are even still recovering from all the confusion. If you're relatively new to the game -- or maybe just don't groove to keeping constantly daily contact with WoW news sites -- then you might not have been prepared. Or if you're mostly a weekend player, a lot of this is going to be brand new to you. Patch 4.0.1 is a prelude to Cataclysm. The patch contains most of the basic mechanics and ruleset changes for Cataclysm. These are mechanics changes such as the redefinition of spirit, which is now a healer-only stat. Guild reputations are in place, even though there's no way to actually generate that reputation. This buffer period gives Blizzard developers time to adjust the servers and various back-end systems. The gears can get oiled up real well, and the developers can handle issues before they wreck the launch of Cataclysm.
WoW Rookie: Dungeon and world travel tips for Cataclysm lowbies
New around here? WoW Rookie has your back! Get all our collected tips, tricks and tactics for new players in the WoW Rookie Guide. Classic WoW might have been pretty revolutionary for its time in terms of ease of leveling, but looking back, it was kind of terrible. It was just a lot better than what we had at the time. Thankfully, Cataclysm has fixed a lot of the original game's leveling issues, and I can say from personal experience that bringing a character from 1 to 60 is more fun than anything I've ever done in WoW before. And that's with no heirlooms, no gold from my main, no auction house, no nothing. Let's talk ways to maximize your fun while leveling in Cataclysm.
WoW Rookie: What is Cataclysm?
Sites like WoW Insider have been absolutely buzzing with information about the new expansion to the World of Warcraft. While we bloggers, journalists and fans are so accustomed to hearing about the upcoming Cataclysm that we don't think twice about it, a brand new player probably has no clue what the heck is going on. So with that being said, let's take a week and catch up our rookie brother and sisters by answering, "What exactly is Cataclysm?" First things first. Cataclysm is the third expansion to World of Warcraft. The first two expansions were The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King. So far, we've seen a new expansion about every two years. In between each expansion, we get tons of free content like new dungeons, raids and world events. But it's really the named expansions that rewrite the game's genre and endgame for the player base. We don't know the release date of Cataclysm yet. However, it's safe to assume it's at least a month away as of the time of this writing. There will be several prologue events before the release, however, that will serve as the lore and story transition between Wrath and Cataclysm. There is a Collector's Edition of Cataclysm that includes some neat toys associated with it, so if you want that boxed set, you'd better pre-order now.
Cataclysm beginner tooltips option simplifies abilities for rookies
Are you planning on rolling a spec that you've never tried before when Cataclysm hits? (Shadow priest, perhaps?) Well, good news -- Blizzard is introducing a new feature into the game called "beginner tooltips." This optional feature, which you can toggle on and off through the interface menu, reduces the complexity of the information in tooltips. While most of these new tooltips have yet to be implemented, the few that have been provide a basic level of instruction aimed at new and younger players. For example, the tooltip for the druid tanking ability Growl normally reads, "Taunts the target to attack you, but has no effect if the target is already attacking you." With the beginner tooltips feature turned on, the tooltip suggests it be used to "protect friends with less health and armor than you."
WoW Rookie: How to choose a new realm
New around here? WoW Rookie has your back! Get all our collected tips, tricks and tactics for new players in the WoW Rookie Guide. Back in the day, I never would have believed that players would be so willing to up and transfer realms. It's not just the $25-per-character fee -- it's the loss of your alts and all their skills, as well as your friends and social circles. Yet here we are, with players hopping from one realm to the next at the drop of a hat. This apparent willingness to pay to move from realm to realm in search of an optimal play experience has forever altered the solidarity of the realm community experience. Today's players are much more likely to view a fresh start on another realm as merely one more way to chase down the precise playstyle they're after. In the face of such a massive list of available realms, how on earth can you start whittling down the choices? Read our basic article explaining the different types of realms. Join us after the break for more specific tips for realm-hopping players.
WoW Rookie: These darn kids today need to learn ...
New around here? WoW Rookie has your back! Get all our collected tips, tricks and tactics for new players in the WoW Rookie Guide. Some of the most interesting, informative posts at WoW.com start out as rollicking debates in Pandora's Box of Geekery and Chaos (aka the WoW.com staff chat room). A screenshot of the transcript on any given day would show a couple of links to pending articles ready for editorial review, a .jpg of something completely off-topic (usually veering toward the truly bizarre), and clips from the current crop of post comments and Twitter stream, all vying for attention amidst a lengthy, heated argument over game lore or some new beta feature -- and (in regards to the latter debate) capped off with an exhortation from Editor-in-Chief Dan O'Halloran (almost certainly in LOLcat form): "Who's writing this up?" So I wrote this up. What piece of sheer new-player obliviousness causes WoW.com writers to snap? Find out what sets off the rage (plus links to some handy resources that'll help put out the fires) after the break. Be sure to drop by the comments to share (and solve) your own most dreaded rookie pitfalls!
WoW Rookie: More Cataclysm changes for newbies and leveling players
New around here? WoW Rookie has your back! Get all our collected tips, tricks and tactics for new players in the WoW Rookie Guide. We've told you how to get ready for your first raid -- and now, we're going to help you actually get your hands dirty, in a new series for beginning raiders in Ready Check. We fired things up last week with Raiding 101; look for additional installments in future weeks (including today!). Beta access being what it is (up and down -- and when it counts most for deadlines, the latter), we were unable to complete the Horde companion piece to last week's Alliance newbie zone revamps in Cataclysm. We're still working on that for you ... In the meantime, since we've got you revved up for Cataclysm news, we'll round up more rookie-centric details found scattered across the site over the past month. Spoiler No. 1: Cataclysm spoilers ahead; proceed at your own risk. Spoiler No. 2: This week's content has been posted previously, elsewhere at WoW.com. If you're an assiduous reader, this week's content will not be new news for you.
