WoW 101: Wrapping Your Head Around World of Warcraft

Von kovu401 Letztes Update: 13.06.2019 Änderungsprotokoll Patch: 8.1.5

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WoW's Many Learning Curves

Buffs and debuffs -- To continually monitor buffs and debuffs along with your health -- and know what you're seeing -- is in itself a feat.
Targeting -- Figuring out how to target whomever it is you need to fight or otherwise interact with -- just picture trying to find the healer with old-school clicking on people to target them and see what they are is too slow a process. You'll die. All the time.

Active and passive spells -- Know how they can work together or against each other.

Rotation -- Know your rotation of spells to cast (aka which buttons to push in what order) while in combat, which spells to focus most on, how to arrange each spell by cooldown but also not so far away from your focus that you never see it, and so forth.

Instance interfaces -- Raid and dungeon user interfaces are not intuitive.

Settings and key bindings -- Looking through these takes a long time and you don't know what's there until you read them.

Macros -- These are as easy or as complicated as you and/or Blizzard allow.

Lingo

Term

Meaning

Aggro

Akin to threat, "aggro" refers to the moment when threat reaches the threshold necessary for the mob to attack you.

Alts

This stands for "alternate," as in alternate characters. People who have more than one character call their main one a "main" and any alternate characters "alts."

Burning Crusade (expansion).

Burning Legion

Lead by fallen titan Sargeras, the Burning Legion is the evil force (think demons) behind Burning Crusade and Legion in particular, but also features heavily in Warlords of Draenor and to a much smaller extent WotLK.

Belf

Blood elf

Bubble

Divine Shield makes you invincible for awhile, as do enchantments on bracers that allow you to hearth while in a bubble.

Bubble hearth

An enchantment on bracers that allows hearthing while invulnerable.

See Cooldown.

Cata

Cataclysm (expansion).

Classic

The re-release of the original World of Warcraft game before the first expansion Burning Crusade (as distinct from "Vanilla," which Classic emulates).

Clothie

A character that wears cloth; mages, priests, warlocks, and so forth.

Closet

A warlock can summon party members with what is called a warlock closet.

Cooldown

When you use a spell it is then said to be “on cooldown” until you can use it again. You can set the game to show a number in the spell's box counting down until it's available.

Cow

A semi-derogatory, semi-affectionate term for tauren of any stripe. Indeed, all tauren can type /moo to actually moo.

Don't Stand In The Fire!

Stop killing yourself ... usually by standing in fire or some other vile substance on the ground.

Drinking

Chances are, the person is not sharing their inebriation status with you if they say this during combat; rather, they are drinking a potion so they can get more mana to heal your butt.

DOT

Damage Over Time. These spells and effects do damage every second.

DPS

Damage Per Second.

EFC

"Enemy carrier of YOUR flag," not the flag carrier of the enemy's flag.

Flight path.

Hearth

To use your hearthstone.

Hero class

There are technically two hero classes, which were actual new races with their own class. The first were Death Knights that came as part of the assault on the former master the Lich King, and the second hero class appeared with Legion, the Illidari, who were followers of Illidan in his battle to fight the Burning Legion and keep them from taking Azeroth and destroying it. You need a character of at least 55 to be able to start a DK and you need a level 98 character to be able to start an Illidari. In any case, the term isn't used for that massive body of land that no longer exists anymore, so confusion potential is naught.

HOT

Heal over time. These spells heal you for a bit each second.

HPS

Healing Per Second.

Kalimdor

“For Kalimdor!” is akin to "For Pangea!" only we didn't live on Pangea as a race, whereas all but orcs did live on the pre-sundering continent of Kalimdor. The west-most continent retained the name after The Sundering.

Khaz Modan

The dwarves often refer to this location, but it's not one per se, it's a region including Aerie Peaks north to Grim Batol, west to Wetlands, east to Twilight Highlands, and south to Loch Modan.

Legion

Expansion (as distinct from the Burning Legion demonic forces).

LFG

Looking for group.

LFM

Looking for more.

Lordaeron

A region encompassing Tirisfal Glades, Eastern and Western Plaguelands (before the plague), Silverpine Forest, Gilneas, Dalaran (when it was in the ground it was in Hillsbarad Foothills), Hillsbarad Foothills itself, and Arathi Highlands.

LOS

"Line of sight." If there is a wall between you and your healer, you can't be healed. If there is a wall between you and your enemy, you can't cast most spells on it because they are out of sight.

Main

Your currently focused character that you play constantly or a character you cherish above all others.

Mob/Mobs

Enemy or enemies. Because they usually mob you, the term’s origination isn’t hard to assess.

MoP

Mists of Pandaria (expansion).

Nelf

Night elf.

Nerf (as in “to nerf”)

Nerfing means to make something less punishing somehow, just like a Nerf football doesn’t hurt when you get hit in the face with it compared to a real pigskin.

Ninja

In the modern game, this basically means to steal a base while in stealth.

OOM

Out of mana.

Org

Short for Orgrimmar, the Horde capital in Durotar.

Proc

Originally the term probably stems from "processes," but what you should read it as is "activates" in verb form or as another name for the effect itself when used as a noun. Verb usage: "This trinket procs Timewalk." Use X trinket to proc whatever proc." Yes, you see that you can confusingly use "proc" as the verb and a noun, but what it means is " Use trinket X to activate Y effect, and that actually does make sense.

Quel-Thalas

A region including Ghostlands, Eversong Woods, Silvermoon City, the nearby Blood Elf starter zone, and the Isle of Quel-Danas. Also refers to an unused zone that at some point may be folded into the Plaguelands, somehow, because it is and remains an unfinished zone accessible only via traveling east on the northern coast of Tirisfal Glades. Because the zone is so small and because Stratholme used to be a port city, chances are that region may go to that city at some point, as it wasn't large enough for what they wanted to do with it as was evident when they didn't use the zone but instead started over with the other zones that are now considered part of what was Quel-Thalas before WotLK.

Roll

As in "I want to roll a priest." In Dungeons & Dragons as well as other genuine role-playing games in which you had to roll dice to determine your traits, these dice that are absolutely not used in WoW are what is being referred to. In early video game RPGs, you would still have to click a Roll button to roll your stats, and could roll over and over again until you got lucky and got a good roll. This is not the case in WoW, so people who say this are just trying to sound "old school."

Rotation

The buttons that you press in combat. You might hit "1" when entering combat and then another key, and so forth, each time.

Squishy

To be "squishy" means to look at your health bar when someone, even you, are trying to heal yourself and just cannot get to 50 percent, much less higher, most of the time. If you're always near death, you're "squishy" as far as your healer is concerned.

Stormwind, capital city of the Alliance.

Threat

When you get near an enemy, you generate threat. Related to aggro.

Toon

A name for character probably stemming from the word “cartoon.”

Troll

Someone who just wants to harass others or start a fight in chat, be it in a major city like Org or SW, or in a PvP battleground, or wherever.

Velf

Void elf.

WoD

Warlords of Draenor (expansion).

WotLK

See Wrath.

Wrath

Wrath of the Lich King (expansion).

Zerg

Actually a creature type in StarCraft, this “zerg” means to rush forward with no thought to what is on your sides or behind you. If someone says “zerg x,” they mean everyone should rush to (and if possible fight) whatever X is.

Invite me (to a group) or summon me (via a warlock closet). People usually type "Type 1 to be invited," or some such, to warn you, but if you see others typing "1" randomly, scroll up in your chat and you might see why.

Choosing a Class and Race

Druid may as well be the first hero class as complex as it is. Druids are complex to set up properly, as each form has a different base action bar and various forms share various spells and not others; playing one is a massive learning curve in itself. It's a good idea to either immerse yourself in druid to start or avoid one until you get the game down on a less intensive spec, because the druid class has a learning curve far and above others in terms of complexity. Note also that it's hard to set up a druid properly without using at least most of your optional action bars.

It can be difficult to set up a hunter properly without use of all action bars; Marksman alone has a ton of different shots and getting them all on "1"-"=" doesn't happen.

Use your racial spells and know what they are.

Read through your spell book and know your passives. You'll never know that by hitting a certain spell first you might seriously increase the effectiveness of a typically weaker spell or the like if you don't read them; for example, Kul Tirans have a racial passive effect that heals them for 2 percent of damage they take, for example; if you feel squishy (easy to kill) as a night elf bear, you will find yourself less squishy as a Kul Tiran bear. You don't know this unless you pay attention to racial passives.

Allied races must be earned and unlocked, and the same is true with flying starting with Warlords of Draenor through Battle for Azeroth (as of this writing). Certain achievements must first be earned to do this.

Combinations come to you as you use spells together; for example; for example, a shadow priest void elf can put out a , which stays put, and then use his racial to to the other side of the enemy, resulting in the enemy taking damage from behind from the as well as from the front from himself, and damage from behind hits harder. These things become evident by continually trying out new stuff.

Every Azerite level gives you stamina to live longer and more attack power. It's Blizzard's way of allowing leveling to sort of continue after reaching 120, with the caveat that they will end the expansion by nerfing you (making you much less powerful) by taking away your artifact item (in BfA it's a necklace; in Legion it was a weapon) so that they can again make you stronger and more powerful in the next new expansion of the game.

The game makes a lot of default choices for you that may make no sense for you; they had to settle on something. Until you go in and make changes to your default keyboard shortcuts and such, you may not be able to play very well. For example, as a fat-finger poster child I turned off all of the shortcuts like "i" to bring up whatever, the volume keys, etc., because I was doing all sorts of things that I didn't mean to do all the time.

Statistics Used in Armor and Characters

Stamina lets you live longer no matter who you are.

Agility lets some characters move faster.

Intellect makes some characters smarter, allowing them to cast faster and more powerfully.

Haste makes you attack/play faster.

Critical strike makes your attacks sometimes hit a lot harder.

Mastery makes you a better master or craft in general.

Versatility makes you hit harder and heal more.

What/Who to Watch

What your enemies are casting.

Your own health.

Your enemy’s health.

What direction your character is facing.

Whether your cooldowns are nearly cool.

What your buffs and debuffs are at a given moment.

InterruptingItem Level (iLvl)Player Versus Player (PvP)Suit Up, THEN Show UpUse ModifiersFläschchen des weiten HorizontsKampfgezeichnete VerstärkungTargetingNotes on Toxicity

Empty your /ignore list when it gets full, except for anyone you actually remember. Chances are you won't play with them again, and if you do and have a problem, you can always add them back to your /ignore list later.

You can right-click the main chat tab and click "Settings" to tweak what you see in chat; turn off emotes if you don't want to see people /spitting on you.

Role-playing servers have folks on them who want to talk and act like the character whether in chat or not. You're less likely to deal with general nastiness and political gibberish on those servers, but you're not immune either.

If you want to avoid toxic conversations, stay out of Stormwind or Orgrimmar chat if you’re sensitive. Or, consider removing the trade chat from your chat window altogether, because with today's political climate, anything you can imagine is being thrown about out there.

Many guilds you see aren't real; anyone can make a guild if they can get five signatures on a guild petition, and PvP players (player versus player) will often use guild names as bumper stickers to say bizarre, filthy, or otherwise distasteful stuff. If you want less of this, a role-playing server might make sense for you.

Consider Swiftness or even Lightfoot potions to increase run speed in many, many cases where you want/need to move quicker. Some classes are really, really slow and can even get kicked from dungeons by impatient folks who won't wait for you. You can also get locked out of bosses in raids by getting too far behind.

Certain servers have a reputation; Moonguard (and Goldshire Inn) are the sexual deviant realm of WoW, whereas the demon realms (Tichondrius, Bonechewer, etc.) were formerly hardcore PvP realms until the designation went away with the introduction of war mode in Battle for Azeroth.

PC Hardware

* Your PC being able to do a view distance of 10 with no lagging is a must if you intend to play raids, PvP battlegrounds, or other instances. The view distance isn't necessary necessarily in dungeons and raids, but it does help immensely in your being able to see a long distance. Also, instances tax your computer because the game has to show spell effects for all players and enemies, and that is a lot of loading power your PC needs to keep up. If you can afford it, upgrade if you need to; it really makes the game a lot prettier and a lot more fun to play.

If you use your mouse, consider a Naga Trinity (or similar) mouse that has a 12-button side panel. You can't imagine how incredibly awesome it is to be able to hit "Tab," "1," "5," etc. via your thumb whenever you need to -- you can play without your keyboard except in intense situations if you do this.

Consider a keyboard that has extra buttons you can use for macros.

User Interface

Turn your back to as few enemies as possible at all times. Damage taken from behind hurts more.

You have far too many spells to be able to fit them all on your screen on the "1"-"=" buttons. Period. If you want them on your screen you will have to enable action bars.

If you play alternate characters, do yourself a favor and normalize your rotation spells between them as much as you can. For example, many classes have an interrupt spell: put it in the same place on each character’s action bar so you don’t have to wonder where it is.

Other Tips

Until communities offer half the time to hearth home that guilds do and until they are searchable and findable in-game, guilds are really the social structure for WoW. If you don't want to be in one, you can look into making your own with five guild signatures. People will usually cough up and alt for you if you beg in trade chat and it doesn't take that long if you offer a bit of gold per sig, as well.

Alts can benefit from things your main character does; for example, heirloom armor offers new alts higher experience when leveling, the Draught of Ten Lands offers its own five percent boost, and so forth.

Each zone is potentially in its own time period, regardless of those around it. Every place you visit in the WoW universe is or was a moment in time; expect it to be consistent within itself and that's it. Blizzard has said they update Azeroth as they can, essentially, as story dictates. They are aware some of the zones are "ten years old," but Ion Hazzikostas says it wouldn't be in the best interests of players for Blizzard to shift resources from building new places to rebuilding old ones. That said, Ion H. says they take every opportunity the story lets them to recreate zones that were problematic. For example, Battle for Azeroth essentially "fixes" what Cataclysm did to Darkshore, which was make it un-navigable but for flying in a starter zone. As a result, though, if you visit the Ashenvale Front in the south of Darkshore you'll see today's gorgeous Darkshore forest up against 2004's hideous Ashenvale trees and want to cry, but know that they'll redo it eventually and because they didn't do it now it will have the benefit of additional technologies when they do. (To see what Ashenvale should look like, do the newly visually redone Warsong Gulch battleground).

You can't get everything everyone else has. One reason WoW still exists is specifically this -- if someone's exclusive mount was suddenly available to everyone, why would people who spent the time in the first place not be angry and go play something else? Sony Online Entertainment killed Star Wars: Galaxies by making Jedi a starter class after Jedi had been nigh-impossible to unlock -- everyone left and I was crushed. And here I am playing WoW, which obviously hasn't made the same mistake.

Although I don’t like mods in general, there are a couple you might want. DBM tells you what to do and when in raids, dungeons, and other instances and can help you stay alive more. Battleground Enemies for PvP lists out all of your enemies, the healers, and classes and other information you really need and Blizzard doesn’t give you.

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WoW 101: Wrapping Your Head Around World of Warcraft

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