5punkywow Beginner's Guide

[friznit]

I use Chatter, which does the same as all the others chat mods but also supports links in custom channels (assuming everyone else is using it too).

It's listed in WoWMatrix for easy keeping up to date (WoWMatrix is kinda the replacement for ACE Updater when that went defunct, and is really rather good).

Also, Enter key is the default chat key in case you were wondering...

[FatherJack]

I've been using the Curse Client to install mods and keep them updated since Cosmos died, they seem to be introducing a 'premium' version you pay for but I think the only difference is auto-updating instead of clicking 'update all'.

Probably worth us standardising on Chatter if it does the job so we can see each other's links and do AH data queries, etc.

[Dog Pants]

Works for me. Spunkchat came into its own tonight when I replied to a lonely hearts on Trade that turned out to be a guildmember of Friz and Wiggy. Small world innit?

[Lateralus]

Chatter has been installed. 5punkchat seems like a good idea to me.

[Dog Pants]

I'd like to stick some info in each class about the end game roles each class can fill, to give people an idea of what they'll end up doing when they start. I don't know a lot though, so I need help.

Shaman/Resto: Raid heal - Secondary healing for the rest of the group. Chain heal will effectively AoE heal 3 or 4 targets, while the main healer concentrates on the tank.

I think Enhance Shaman are good for 1 on 1 DPS. Compared to DKs, Soncho will out-DPS them on a boss, but lose out on big fights with lots of trash mobs.

[centerededgedesign]

IntroductionGetting Around
World of Warcraft is a big game. You can get pretty much anywhere on the planet by foot, as well as a few places not on the planet. Indeed, the fisrt time you go anywhere it is generally by foot, but repeating the journey again and again would be tiresome. To avoid this, most encampments have a taxi service in the form of flying beasties that will take you to places you've been before for a small fee.
The flight points only link up camps in the same area. To get between continents you need to catch a ride on a ship or zeppelin. These are set routes between two places that are free and don't require you to have visited the far end.
A cheap and fast method of travel is the hearthstone. This sets an inn, found in quest hubs and cities, as a home location and allows you to teleport there from anywhere in the game. This is generally used to head back into town in order to sell up and restock, as it has a lengthy recharge time.
Later, at level 30 players have the opportunity to get mounts of their own which will increase movement speed by a good amount. Mounts too jhave various levels, with higher levels being faster, or being able to fly, or both.

(I believe with the newest patch that this was lowered to 20, and the costs of mounts GREATLY reduced)

With the newest patch, the lower levels were greatly 'dummied down'. It's now insanely easy to get through the first few levels, my daughter can get a toon to level 3 in under 30 minutes! There is increased healing and mana recovery that begins to taper off at about level 10, so if you think your toon is 'slowing down', it's actually just growing up and those teenage hormones are dissipating.

Useful Stuff
As already mentioned, there's a wealth of information out there. Every quest, item, NPC and location in the game has information available from Wowhead, making it virtually impossible to get stuck. Thre are thousands of addons to make the game more suited to how you want to play too. QuestHelper is popular as it gives you an arrow to follow and marks quest objectives on the minimap, and Auctioneer gives you an idea of what items are worth on the auction house. Check out the addons thread for more details.

***Please contribute specific guides to your main class(es), or correct information in the first post***

Another bit of new useful info is the ability to group with randoms from across servers to enter dungeons. You can either have a group and request a random or two to help fill out your group, or you can group with a whole bunch of randoms. One AWESOME factor in this is that you don't have to travel to the dungeon to do this! You just request the dungeon you want to complete in the 'dungeon finder', select which role you can do, (it won't let you pick something you can't do), and voila! A few minutes later, your party is assembled, and you're teleported to your dungeon!

[centerededgedesign]

Requires a rune stone iirc. Mages can also conjure water and food, which can come in handy.

This as well is handy in the new random dungeon grouping function. When in a cross-server grouping, you can't trade food/drink between party members, unless it's been conjured. Warlocks are able to trade healthstones though, since they are conjured. You can trade green and blue loots though, up until you leave the dungeon and everyone goes back to their home realms.

Also, being a lock and Soulstoning the healer has been well received on every random group I've done thus far. It's even saved us from being wiped a few times.

[Dog Pants]

I really need to update this thread I suppose, things have changed a bit.

[HereComesPete]

Well you could poke amblin, wiggy and friz until they do. That's good delegation skills that is.

[Dog Pants]

Yeah! Good idea.

[Wiggy]

I shall consider myself poked.

[centerededgedesign]

Learned an awesome little tidbit about the random dungeon matching. Say you find yourself with an excellent group, and you're all a little sad to get to the end of the dungeon because you're all from different servers. YOU CAN RUN ANOTHER DUNGEON TOGETHER!!! We did run into a bit of glitchiness about it doing a random at the first go, so we ran a specific dungeon instead. Worked fine! Our healer was a little low to get into the Scarlet Monestary, so we worked to level him up, then ran SM. We ran 4 dungeons in a row, it was AWESOME!!

We still had the issues of not being able to trade bits that we didn't get in the dungeons, but it was another new perk to the random system that keeps WoW a fun game to play.