Strategies for your World of Warcraft gaming

I believe the best strategies are always found in players who understand the dynamics of the game and can adapt to a wide variety of situations. The first place to start looking for strategies is right in your game manual, the second is at the World of WarCraft Community Site, Blizzard's official web resources for WoW. There you will find a large array of information and details about the dynamics of the game. You can also interact in the community forums and seek strats there. The third source should come from your own intuitions and gaming experience.

Basics

This section is mainly intended for new players to World of WarCraft, although some more experienced players might find it insightful as well.

Choosing Your Race/Class

First off you want to find a raceclass that you can be comfortable with. Although Blizzard has balanced all of the Races and Classes (as best they can) they do not play the same. Here are a few things to consider:

• Do you want to do heavy damage (Mage, Rogue) or be more of a support class (Priest, Shaman, Warlock, Druid, Hunter)
• Do you want to spend most of your time in Kalimdor (Troll, Orc, Tauren, Undead) or in Lordaeron (Humans, Dwarves, Gnomes, NIght Elves)
• Do you want to be able to restore your life (Mage, Paladin, Priest, Shaman, Druid) or need food (Warrior, Rogue, Warlock, Hunter) when soloing
• Do you want to be in a land close to enemy territory (Undead, Night Elves)
• Do you want to use magic to attack (Mage, Priest, Shaman, Druid) weapons (Warrior, Rogue) or support (Warlock, Hunter).
• Do you want to be a jack of all trades (Shaman, Druid) or a concentrated class.

Then of course you must choose the the sex of your character, visual attributes, etc.

Picking a Profession

Professions can be both a personal asset and a great money maker at the same time. WoW breaks trade professions into three groups gathering trades, producing trades, and support trades. Here are some things to consider when choosing a profession:

• Do you want gathering trades that you can directly use for a producing trade and you have control (herbalism, skinning).
• Do you want to just be a gatherer and sell your raw materials (mining, skinning, herbalism best to consider).
• Do you want to use your trade for yourself or to sell items to others, you will probably do both no matter what you choose.

The Economy

World of WarCraft functions on a free-market economy. This means that prices vary based on demand and supply. If you watch prices over a period of time in the auction house and trade channels you will probably notice differences in prices for similar items. You might also notice a difference in prices across servers. Here are things to consider when entering into the market:

• Most likely you will receive all your best items from quests and as rare drops. You can also buy rare drops from other players. For this reason, you probably should not waste your money buying weapons and armor from vendors. They sell prices for four times their buy back rate and they usually only carry white to gray items with few special features. You will almost always get better items from just going out and playing the game.
• When looking through the Auction House(AH) to buy items, see what the items might be going for in the trade channel(TC), or what they sell out as near the end of the bidding process. It's good to go over to the Auction House frequently to check up on items you're thinking about buying just to see the going rate so you do not overpay.
• When selling items in the TC or AH, it's a good idea to start your price a little lower than the other auctions currently on display for the same item. Perhaps even placing a lower maximum bid if you choose to provoke people to bid on your item instead.
• If you notice that an item usually sells for a common final price, place that as your maximum bid in the AH, you'll usually be able to sell items faster that way.
• For items you've never seen before that you're considering selling, place them in auction for the longest period of time, and try to wait until the weekend. This will allow the most amount of exposure and a higher chance of someone buying it.
• Item inflation does exist in the game and sometimes there are so many of a single item available that you cannot sell it. If you already have this item, you can save it until the market changes.
• I suggest if you're creating items through a profession and don't need to level up the skill immediately to only create rare items and items that require a lot of different materials (mats) to make. Also create items you don't usually see being sold in AH or TC or ones that always sell. This way you will only make marketable items and your chances of a sale are hightened.
• Vendors buy back items for 14 their worth. This is a good estimate indicator of an item's value. You can usually sell items for at least 2x the vendor buy price, and it would be ideal to sell an item for 4x the vendor's buy price. Try not to sell anything for less than 2x the vendor buy price though.
• Unless an item is exceptionally rare and hard to get, try not to buy an item for more than 4x the vendor's buy price.
• Sell your materials in max stacks. So if you can hold twenty linen cloth in a single stack, try to sell linen cloth in 20's. Usually with materials, large quantities sell faster than small quantities.
• If you do not know a vendor's buy price, you can usually find out by visiting the ThottBot website.

Questing & Farming

Blizzard has spent a great deal of time and effort to create a game that is actually quest driven and not bogged down by mob killing and farming. Here are some tips to make the game more enjoyable and go by faster:

• Base your gameplay on quests. Complete quests and seek out quests to advance in the game. Usually quests will be designed to bring you to new areas and gain access to different elements.
• Gather your items (mainly armor and weapons) from quests and monsters killed during questing.
• Go back to finish instance quests, but do not continue to farm and kill mobs in areas and instances you've already completed. You will gain less exp. by doing this and most likely you can attain better items in the more advanced quests you now have access to.
• Try to finish all of your green and yellow quests first. The longer you wait to finish lower difficulty quests, the less experience you earn.
• Only attempt to solo green to yellow quests. Orange and above are possible, but you might waste a lot of time dying, going back, and learning all the tricks to complete a high difficulty quest by yourself.
• For the most part, do not attempt to solo mobs that are orange and above and mobs that have multiple monsters patroling the same space.
• You cannot beat Elite quests, especially ones above green. Even green Elite quests have been designed to be almost impossible to solo do to the number of mobs.
• Quest in groups as much as possible, but don't wait around for hours to make a group. If no one is working on a quest at the moment, move on to a different one and come back to it later.
• Unless you like hacking away at the same monsters for hours on end, don't bother farming.
• Remember, there's no way to gain every quest in the game and go through each experience embedded in the world with a single character. If you miss out on quests in one area, don't stress about it, there are always lots of new quests awaiting you and you can play the quests you missed with another character later on.

Parties

This game is Mass multiplayer, so you'll spend most of your game time in groups. There's not much to say about this because the dynamics of a questing party can be as diverse as the quests. Just remember to be polite and fair with your team mates. Your time is precious, your money is precious, and so is theirs, so try not to waste it by causing conflicts etc.

Don't enter into groups for Elite quests when you don't have enough time to complete what the group is setting out to finish. You'll only make things worse for them, and you might not be able to accomplish anything in the process.

Try to build groups with a variety of classes. Usually having at least one tank (Warrior, Paladin), one healer (Priest), one damage caster (Mage), and one damage and magic support (Rogue, Druid) is ideal. But don't be discouraged if you cannot create an ideal group. You'll discover that certain other combinations of classes can work quite well for particular quests.

Items and Attributes

World of WarCraft hosts a wide array of items with all sorts of different attributes and looks. In general, you want to gather items that best fit your needs and your tastes.

Buy and collect items with attributes that cater to your class. For example, if you're a healer that will be using a lot of magic, most likely you will want items with plenty of Int (Intellect). If you're a Warrior you'll want plenty of Strength.

Unless you have buffs that will also increase your resistances, you probably do not want to bother with items that concentrate on resistant attributes. For effective resistance you need to enter very high tiers that most items will barely add to.

Unless you're very hardcore and super efficient, don't bother with multiple sets of armor. This can be a very expensive and time consuming enterprise. Honestly, if you play the game right, you go through items too quickly to even worry about the extra attributes you couldn't get while engaging in specific quests because you didn't buy and switch to this or that item.

In the long run, single hand and two-handed weapons do not matter. If you're a caster and cannot use shields, you benefit little from single hand weapons, even with added empty hand buffs from staves etc. Most staves will come with a load of extra buffs. However, Warriors, Paladins, etc. might benefit from combinations of single and two-handed weapons. Depends on the player and function.

Go for the highest armor type. Cloth Leather Mail Plate. You might finds items with attributes that are better at a lower armor type, but in general you don't gain much from say equipping a cloth item instead of an equal level leather item.