Strange thing happened in the guild: someone applied and he read the rules and wrote like a sensible person. After he got in, I inspected him and found no enchants. It's not that strange. But after a short conversation it became clear that he has no clue about enchants on level 80. I mean he did not know what they are, how can you get them and why should you. He was a genuine newbie. The guildmembers sent him to EJ which was a completely useless advice as he surely understood nothing there. In lack of a guide that introduces WoW endgame to new players, defines the basic terms and concepts I choose to write one.
The endgame: You could reach lvl 80 without any kind of strategy or knowledge about the game, playing solo. The endgame starts at lvl80. You can't level any more, the task is to defeat very strong monsters called raid bosses or get high in the ranked arena PvP matches. Here I describe the raiding, though most statements are true to arena too. The endgame is played in group. For 5-man dungeons you can get random groupmembers, but to raid, you need 10/25 players in a pre-made group. You can find such group by joining to a raiding guild. There are pick-up-groups (pug) too, but they demand gearscore and achievements that you don't have. The raid bosses, and even their buddies (called trashmobs) are much-much stronger than anything you encountered.
The holy trinity: In the PvE endgame there are 3 roles, tank, damage dealer (often wrongfully abbreviated to DPS) and healer. They have very different jobs. The tank keeps the attention (aggro) of the enemy. He has strong armor, lot of HP and abilities to decrease damage taken. The damage dealer tries to maximize his damage on the target without getting aggro and getting damage from avoidable sources. The healer heals those who got damage and remove harmful effects. If you are a new player and was directed to this guide, you will play as damage dealer, simply because it's the most tolerant kind of play. The other damage dealers can pick up your slack. It's much harder for a healer and impossible for a tank. There is one more job for damage dealers: CC. It originally means "crowd control", and practically it is using a spell to turn one enemy into something harmless like a sheep, or frog, or frozen into a trap. CC does not kill the enemy but gives time until other enemies are down.
Spell rotation: Before the endgame it did not matter what spells you used. You could kill everything simply by autoattacks. Autoattack damage or randomly used spells (facerolling) are way too small for a raid boss. If everyone would use that, the boss would "enrage", meaning the team runs out of time and everybody dies. So every sensible raid leader has some damage meter addon and kick those players who do little damage. If you don't want to be that one, you must have a decent spell rotation. It means you use just a few spells and you use them in a proper order/priority. For example, the easiest spell rotation is the arcane mage. He casts Arcane blast 4 times, than arcane missiles. Of course a really good arcane mage does more things, but just 4xAB-AM will take you to 90% of the possible DPS. No decent arcane mage would cast frostbolt, fireball, ice lance or cone of cold on a boss. Nor he would cast 1AB-2AM rotation. Every single class/spec (for damage dealers) has such rotation, you must learn it. These rotations were designed by the best players who wrote it down in sites like Elitist Jerks.
Talents and glyphs: As lvl 80, you have 71 talent points and 3 major glyph slots. You can spend them several ways, but not all are good for damage dealing. You must have 51 (or more) points in one tree to gain the top ability and that tree defines what you play. For example I have 51+ points in resto tree, which means I'm a healer shaman. You can't just put 51+ talents to one tree randomly and you should never put 71 to one tree. Again: the best players figured out the top damage talents. You can use different specs but only if you know what you are doing and did your own research. Until then do as suggested, especially since the talents and glyphs are designed to the spell rotation. Scary example: as a healer shaman, I can do 2000 damage per second (DPS) alone on a dummy. If I change my talents to elemental, it gets over 4500 (and I'm a terribly bad elem shaman).
Stats: Your spells are affected by your stats that you can check on your character screen. If you are spellcaster (mage, warlock, elem shaman, balance druid, shadow priest) you should check the "spell" tab, if you are a hunter, the "ranged" tab, if you are a melee (rogue, fury warrior, DK, retri paladin, cat druid, enhancement shaman), the "melee" tab. If you gather stats written there, your damage will increase. Not all stats are equally good, but each are good. The stats of other tabs like "spell power" for rogue or "defense rating" for any damage dealer is useless, and everyone will consider you a moron for having these. Also, the main stats (strength, agility, intellect, spirit, stamina) has different usefulness. Stamina is on all gear. Strength and agility are for melee and hunters, intellect and spirit are for casters, but there are exceptions (hunters use intellect but elem shamans don't use spirit). Again: good players researched the proper stats for your class/spec.
Gear: on your character pane you can see different slots from head to trinkets. You can place gear there. Gear is the most important source of stats. You can get strong gear from raid bosses or from emblems that you get in raids and 5-man dungeons. Before buying/needing a piece make sure it has correct stats. The best spellcaster item is worse for a rogue than a random green with agility and attack power.
Gems and enchants: you can place gems to the slots of gear and enchants on them. They have stats. While not having good gear is something you can't help in the short run, but not having enchants and gems is simply being lazy or dumb. You can get gems in the AH and enchants from enchanter players. They will need materials (dusts, essences, shards) that you must buy in the AH.
Consumables: you can get temporary stat bonuses by drinking a flask (endless rage for melee/ranged, frost wyrm for spellcasters). You can also get bonuses from food. You shall always have flask and food since it's a quick and easy way to increase your stats when you need some extra.
Choosing the proper ones: Now you know the basic concepts, you know that you need gems for example, but which one? As I told, the best players have researched it. But their work is highly complicated like "you should gem for arp if you are hitcapped but only until the softcap, then gem for str". You need some starter advice like "if you are a DPS warrior, gem for strength, it can't be too bad". You can get this advice fast from other players of your class. Most people won't help to random strangers, because there are many immature morons wasting their time. So you should offer them gold for their help. I would say 500G for a half-hour quickstart course is a fair price. It seems a lot of gold to you. But it worth every copper. Just go to the raid chat or /trade if you don't have guild (or no kingslayers in your guild) and say "I'm a new [your class/spec], looking for a kingslayer of the same spec to help with basics. I pay 500G for half an hour". If one whispers to you, that he would help you, just invite him to party. He will know how to set your talents, glyphs, where can you find easy gear upgrades (it's important if you have green/blue gear or wrong gear), what to gem and enchant. He most probably has an enchanter guildmate who will do the enchants for you, for a price of course.
Boss strategies: The raidbosses, unlike random monsters has more abilities than just attack the highest threat player and hit him. They do special tricks like mind-controlling a player who should be CC-ed, has cannons that must shoot certain monsters, throw spores that must be collected, places frost mark on you and you must run away from the raid and so on. Every boss is special and has some tricks. Even the best DPS is useless without knowing how to counter the tricks of the boss. You can read their strategies on wowwiki and you should never go to a raid without knowing the tricks.
-----------------
Kalvicton of US-Dalvengyr bumped into this wonderful specimen:
The endgame: You could reach lvl 80 without any kind of strategy or knowledge about the game, playing solo. The endgame starts at lvl80. You can't level any more, the task is to defeat very strong monsters called raid bosses or get high in the ranked arena PvP matches. Here I describe the raiding, though most statements are true to arena too. The endgame is played in group. For 5-man dungeons you can get random groupmembers, but to raid, you need 10/25 players in a pre-made group. You can find such group by joining to a raiding guild. There are pick-up-groups (pug) too, but they demand gearscore and achievements that you don't have. The raid bosses, and even their buddies (called trashmobs) are much-much stronger than anything you encountered.
The holy trinity: In the PvE endgame there are 3 roles, tank, damage dealer (often wrongfully abbreviated to DPS) and healer. They have very different jobs. The tank keeps the attention (aggro) of the enemy. He has strong armor, lot of HP and abilities to decrease damage taken. The damage dealer tries to maximize his damage on the target without getting aggro and getting damage from avoidable sources. The healer heals those who got damage and remove harmful effects. If you are a new player and was directed to this guide, you will play as damage dealer, simply because it's the most tolerant kind of play. The other damage dealers can pick up your slack. It's much harder for a healer and impossible for a tank. There is one more job for damage dealers: CC. It originally means "crowd control", and practically it is using a spell to turn one enemy into something harmless like a sheep, or frog, or frozen into a trap. CC does not kill the enemy but gives time until other enemies are down.
Spell rotation: Before the endgame it did not matter what spells you used. You could kill everything simply by autoattacks. Autoattack damage or randomly used spells (facerolling) are way too small for a raid boss. If everyone would use that, the boss would "enrage", meaning the team runs out of time and everybody dies. So every sensible raid leader has some damage meter addon and kick those players who do little damage. If you don't want to be that one, you must have a decent spell rotation. It means you use just a few spells and you use them in a proper order/priority. For example, the easiest spell rotation is the arcane mage. He casts Arcane blast 4 times, than arcane missiles. Of course a really good arcane mage does more things, but just 4xAB-AM will take you to 90% of the possible DPS. No decent arcane mage would cast frostbolt, fireball, ice lance or cone of cold on a boss. Nor he would cast 1AB-2AM rotation. Every single class/spec (for damage dealers) has such rotation, you must learn it. These rotations were designed by the best players who wrote it down in sites like Elitist Jerks.
Talents and glyphs: As lvl 80, you have 71 talent points and 3 major glyph slots. You can spend them several ways, but not all are good for damage dealing. You must have 51 (or more) points in one tree to gain the top ability and that tree defines what you play. For example I have 51+ points in resto tree, which means I'm a healer shaman. You can't just put 51+ talents to one tree randomly and you should never put 71 to one tree. Again: the best players figured out the top damage talents. You can use different specs but only if you know what you are doing and did your own research. Until then do as suggested, especially since the talents and glyphs are designed to the spell rotation. Scary example: as a healer shaman, I can do 2000 damage per second (DPS) alone on a dummy. If I change my talents to elemental, it gets over 4500 (and I'm a terribly bad elem shaman).
Stats: Your spells are affected by your stats that you can check on your character screen. If you are spellcaster (mage, warlock, elem shaman, balance druid, shadow priest) you should check the "spell" tab, if you are a hunter, the "ranged" tab, if you are a melee (rogue, fury warrior, DK, retri paladin, cat druid, enhancement shaman), the "melee" tab. If you gather stats written there, your damage will increase. Not all stats are equally good, but each are good. The stats of other tabs like "spell power" for rogue or "defense rating" for any damage dealer is useless, and everyone will consider you a moron for having these. Also, the main stats (strength, agility, intellect, spirit, stamina) has different usefulness. Stamina is on all gear. Strength and agility are for melee and hunters, intellect and spirit are for casters, but there are exceptions (hunters use intellect but elem shamans don't use spirit). Again: good players researched the proper stats for your class/spec.
Gear: on your character pane you can see different slots from head to trinkets. You can place gear there. Gear is the most important source of stats. You can get strong gear from raid bosses or from emblems that you get in raids and 5-man dungeons. Before buying/needing a piece make sure it has correct stats. The best spellcaster item is worse for a rogue than a random green with agility and attack power.
Gems and enchants: you can place gems to the slots of gear and enchants on them. They have stats. While not having good gear is something you can't help in the short run, but not having enchants and gems is simply being lazy or dumb. You can get gems in the AH and enchants from enchanter players. They will need materials (dusts, essences, shards) that you must buy in the AH.
Consumables: you can get temporary stat bonuses by drinking a flask (endless rage for melee/ranged, frost wyrm for spellcasters). You can also get bonuses from food. You shall always have flask and food since it's a quick and easy way to increase your stats when you need some extra.
Choosing the proper ones: Now you know the basic concepts, you know that you need gems for example, but which one? As I told, the best players have researched it. But their work is highly complicated like "you should gem for arp if you are hitcapped but only until the softcap, then gem for str". You need some starter advice like "if you are a DPS warrior, gem for strength, it can't be too bad". You can get this advice fast from other players of your class. Most people won't help to random strangers, because there are many immature morons wasting their time. So you should offer them gold for their help. I would say 500G for a half-hour quickstart course is a fair price. It seems a lot of gold to you. But it worth every copper. Just go to the raid chat or /trade if you don't have guild (or no kingslayers in your guild) and say "I'm a new [your class/spec], looking for a kingslayer of the same spec to help with basics. I pay 500G for half an hour". If one whispers to you, that he would help you, just invite him to party. He will know how to set your talents, glyphs, where can you find easy gear upgrades (it's important if you have green/blue gear or wrong gear), what to gem and enchant. He most probably has an enchanter guildmate who will do the enchants for you, for a price of course.
Boss strategies: The raidbosses, unlike random monsters has more abilities than just attack the highest threat player and hit him. They do special tricks like mind-controlling a player who should be CC-ed, has cannons that must shoot certain monsters, throw spores that must be collected, places frost mark on you and you must run away from the raid and so on. Every boss is special and has some tricks. Even the best DPS is useless without knowing how to counter the tricks of the boss. You can read their strategies on wowwiki and you should never go to a raid without knowing the tricks.
-----------------
Kalvicton of US-Dalvengyr bumped into this wonderful specimen:
45 comments:
I'm not sure if it's on purpose, but you appear to be mixing up 'shall' and 'should quite often.
For example: "You shall always have flask and food since it's a quick and easy way to increase your stats."
That's not true. I won't always have flask and food on hand. But I definitely should, if I want to up my stats.
Or: "Most people won't help to random strangers, because there are many immature morons wasting their time. So you shall offer them gold for their help."
Again - I can offer them gold for their help, and perhaps I should, to compensate them for their time. It doesn't mean that I 'must' solicit their help in the first place.
Just saying.
Anyway, I'd like to revisit one of your earlier posts a couple months ago:
http://greedygoblin.blogspot.com/2010/07/m-vs-beginner.html
No enchants, no/poor gems, bad rotation, the newbie you've cited this post bears all the hallmarks of what you previously described as 'typical M&S'. So how would propose to tell the difference between the newbie and the M&S in a short period of time (eg, raid formation), without the conversation to work it out?
You don't have to. No unenchanted player belongs to any raid. It doesn't matter if he doesn't care or if he is SO newbie. He will suck. This guide is to genuine newbies who don't want to suck (but currently do)
@Squishalot: it doesn't matter whether a person is M&S or genuine new players. Both are not accepted to proper progression raid. That's why there are 80 dungeons, heroic dungeon, and (to a certain extent) lower tier raid. New players will have to work their way from the bottom, learning new stuffs until they are competent. While M&S believe that they are good enough, hence always being rejected.
It's also possible that the guy is a to-be-M&S new player (new player that never researchs will eventually become M&S).
And if you're talking about new players not getting a chance, I'm pretty sure Gevlon wrote a post about that too. It's about efficiency. RL or good players can't just help everyone, because there are more M&S than genuine new players. So non-M&S will just have to prove themselves help-worthy.
Good guide.
A little nitpick: "Strength and agility are for melee and hunters..." can be easily interpreted as an advice for hunters to collect strength. Perhaps it should be clarified: "Strength is for plate-wearing melee, agility is for rogues, ferals and hunters, etc."
Level 80 Newbies?
You don't begin learning at lvl 80. You start at level 1. If you get to lvl 80 and do not know the basics you have been seriously boosted by other players.
If someone finds your guide very usefull I would suggest they level another character as they have missed alot of the game leveling their character.
@Bobbins: that's how people level today. Either questing using faceroll on the world monsters or doing less than the healer in dungeons and no one cares.
Please don't advice people to Wowwiki for boss tactics. It is one of the worst sources for this. I understand your post as a "not optimal, but easy to grasp and better than nothing" advice. I know tankspot, etc. may not be for your audience, but maybe at least use wowhead, since it lists the abilities correct at least.
I just rerolled a character an using the instance finder a lot to level my holy priest.
What I see their is a mess. I have seen a warlock using only his wand. I pointed out in the group but nobody cared.
So I started also wanding and throwing an occasional debuff on the mob. At the middle of the instance I was even with him, while still healing. This got im finally kicked from the group.
Another time, I came across a druid tank, that has no situational awareness and lost aggro like a chicken.
Thanks to the hunter doing a little bit to much aggro at least it was not me being the target.
But still both groups easily survived. Since a good healer can outheal both a hunter under attack and a tank with serious bad mitigation, like beeing punched from behind.
I for sure see the reason here, why we get more and more player to the level 80 without a clue.
My friend and I decided to level togheter as tank+healer, we join queque and go for random dungeon, most of the time (95%) tank+healer deals 55-65% of total dmg, dps rarely beat tank on damage meter, that's true in aoe fight as long single target fight. Most of the time you can't kick them due to kick cooldown, so sometimes best thing could be not to ressurrect them when they die or not to replace them when they leave. My favourite dps was a BM hunter with no steady shot in rotation, I suggested him to use steady and he sayd: "steady shot sucks lol". But he started using it and in the end he was doing twice the original dps. So, even with bad behaviour, suggestion can be useful.
@Anonymous
Wowwiki is good enough to get through all but the hardest of hardmodes. Definitely enough for a newbie.
Signed,
Tank with 10/12 in ICC HM, using mainly wowwiki for reference.
I'm sorry I have to ask but English is not my first language:
I don't get what the "moron of the day" is trying to say with "cause I woulld of but u had to say that". What is the meaning of this?
P.S.: Although I knew what a "pug" was before, only through reading your article I understood where the abbreviation comes from. Thanks for that. To complete my vocabulary for the day: Can you also tell me that M&S stands for?
Yes if you level in instances you will se a myriad of players being bad, sometimes to the point of absurdity. It's obviously a design choice by the developers to make this possible. Yesterday with my lvl 58 mage I had a hunter in group who did damage done equal to the healer (who used wand and holy nova).
I find this guid pretty useless. It doesn't give any information beyond the basic. Also, you said it yourself: "You can get this advice fast from other players of your class.". I would add: "or from your guildmates". Since, in theory (often proven wrong), all the members of your guild aren't M&S, there should be someone to help him out. Instead, he can read this "guide" and, in the end, he learns that the only real help comes from the advices of other players.
'why do they always have such names?'
Because using their imagination to come up with an original name would break their brain.
Yngvede: the moron of the day is saying that he would have paid 100g, but because the guy asked for payment, he would not. This is of course bullshit. He wouldn't have paid a damned thing.
The definition of M&S is on the blog's 'about page', here:
http://greedygoblin.blogspot.com/2009/07/about-page.html
I keep telling Gevlon he needs to put it somewhere more visible, as not everyone checks the about page the first time they read. :)
There have been some efforts to help out genuinly new players in a more accessable way than EJ. Raiding 101 was one of those projects, even though I'm not sure if it's updated anymore. There are some class-specific forums which you might want to point people to. For mages I think The Mana Obscura Forum http://www.manaobscura.com/forum/
seems to turn out pretty well. but of course sources like this change quickly over time. One day it's lost and gone and maybe you want your guide to be more timeless.
I like your approach to this. It's a little hard to really put on your newbie glasses and you might want to re-read it to make sure you're not using too much of inside words. One example I found of this was "gearscore". Considering the level of the rest of the document I think you might want to explain what that is and how it's measured. I don't think it's evident for someone who is new to the game.
Yesterday with my lvl 58 mage I had a hunter in group who did damage done equal to the healer (who used wand and holy nova). I have seen a warlock using only his wand. I pointed out in the group but nobody cared. My friend and I decided to level togheter as tank+healer, we join queque and go for random dungeon, most of the time (95%) tank+healer deals 55-65% of total dmg, dps rarely beat tank on damage meter, that's true in aoe fight as long single target fight. Most of the time you can't kick them due to kick cooldown, so sometimes best thing could be not to ressurrect them when they die or not to replace them when they leave.
might also include a couple of my favourite sites for information.
http://www.wowpopular.com/
- spec, gem, enchant, glyph popularity for every class / spec
http://www.wow-gem.com/gems.aspx
- gem finder by stat and color slot
http://www.guildox.com/templates.asp
- loot comparison site by spec (might be a bit advanced)
Someone should make website... "learn your class in 2 hours."
Basically, provide a single build for every class that can do progression level damage in progression level gear. Provide the gem information, talent spec, glyphs, and rotation.
The difference between this and EJ is threefold:
1. You can target the instruction to beginners.
2. You can choose just one spec per class, expecting beginners to change specs to what you select by assuring them that once they get decent at this spec they can branch out.
3. EJ threads are often pursuing the "min max" rotations and playstyles. Honestly, I bet there different talent specs and rotations that are much simpler that can do 75% of the dps of the EJ builds. This is actually fine; in an ICC10 group, people really should be topping 10k dps with the 30% buff, but even if everyone hits 7500dps, you're still going to comfortably clear it.
Again, you don't want to hit new players with super complicated rotations and priority lists before they've learned how to handle the mechanics of a boss fight. It can scar them.
One more thing to mention is that the official world of warcraft forums all have places with guides for every class. Simply go to the [classname] subforum and look at the threads that are stickied (permanently at the top for the newbies). There are usually quick and dirty intro guides to playing the class as well as some fairly in depth information for a non beginner.
That said, I liked your beginner guide because it explained a few concepts that every other guide I've ever seen assumes you already know, like terminology without always abbreviating everthing.
There are no newbies at lvl 80. The amount of information available to players through a simple google search has never been greater.
Did this person never think to google "wow + [their class]"? Or ever bother to click on a link in trade when someone is either asking for or trying to sell enchants?
What you have found is someone who lacks the basic curiosity to even see if there are resources outside the game. By your own definition, this person is M&S.
@ duskstorm
http://www.maxdps.com/
fits pretty much all of your requirements
This is a great intro guide. I remember when I hit 80, I was an enhancement shaman with 18 hit rating, specced toughness, and using water shield. What a lot of the "You just hit 80" guides forget is that, when someone, especially with no mmo experience hits 80. They don't necessarily know what they're goal as a dps/healer/tank is. The dps might spec survivability talents for example, simply because he doesn't know that speccing all dps talents is what's expected of him. One of the worst parts of the game for me was hitting 80 and realizing I have to basically re-learn the game. Blizz should reduce this sharp rise in the learning curve somehow.
You should add a paragraph explaining what a damage meter is, and how to install one. This is fairly essential to improving your dps, but a fresh 80 may be completely clueless about how to find and install add ons.
Also, instead of paying 500g to a kingslayer, I'd send someone to web sites like raider101.com, wowhead.com, wowpopular.com, or even maxdps.com. Just because someone has a title doesn't necessarily mean they can explain for shit. Even if they can, it is unlikely that they will have information that is significantly different. Somewhat better, possibly, but you don't need to pay a hefty fee to be told "gem for strength". Web sites also have the advantage of being available a day or seven later, when you are ready to learn more or want to check your progress.
I think it's important to also point these people towards resources like:
http://thottbot.com
http://wowpopular.com
http://wowhead.com
http://www.wow.com
http://mmo-champion.com
http://justmytwocopper.org
http://worldofraids.com
http://elitistjerks.com
These are great for getting your teeth sunk into things like news, gearing, gemming and the auction house.
@Larísa: impostor removed (and your comment refering to him)
@Wilson: the problem with newbies is that they have lot of questions as they lack basic ideas. While a kingslayer does not know better than the guide, he can answer to questions like "how can I change a stance" or "can I summon other pets than the imp". Also, he can notice that holy pala helm he's wearing (hey it's plate and has +crit).
"damage dealer (often wrongfully abbreviated to DPS)"
Does the majority of english players even understand dd? Every german player knows that dd = damage dealer, because, obviously, that is the first abbreviation you think of for Damage Dealer.
But when I used it on the Beta to search for group members the english players asked what it ment and I really couldn't believe that we had to explain to them this abbreviation.
Kingslayer not needed. You don't need someone with a PhD in abstract mathematics to learn simple algebra. You go to a high school teacher, who is FRIENDLY & HELPFUL (shudder).
Gevlon, you're scaring me with all this niceness towards those that may need help.
And your qualifier that they pay someone 500G is just ridiculous. That transaction would never work in WoW. Think of the ninja's that would swarm over a /trade request like that, Kingslayer or no.
I think your post is actually suggesting that some people playing this game (like in life?), might benefit from something like...a social program?
You might want to add that newbies paying Kingslayers should also demand that they reach ~2000 DPS on a dummy before paying, otherwise Kingslayers might just mess around with them.
Good guide. Ignorance in this case is quite understandable. I levelled my first character from 1 to 70 during Burning Crusade. There is not much within in the game to suggest that there is anything beyond soloing quests and grouping up for dungeons. There is nothing in the mechanics of leveling that even begins to suggest what is required of a raider to be considered competent. I was not told when I started the game that I would either have to heavily research the work of others or have a strong background in mathematics and a lot of free time to determine the optimal method of doing damage.
I have always had a mind capable of handling the endgame, it just took me at least a year to become aware of all the intricacies. Understanding triggered a paradigm shift. I didn't just learn how to play a feral cat druid late in Burning Crusade stretching into Wrath; I can now pick up any DPS class I haven't played (which there are still many) and be competent with them in a short amount of time. Many players as ignorant as I was develop into strong players once they fully realize that they are getting into a different game.
In a sense, I can easily imagine situations in which an up and comer might be frustrated by the elitism of established players-- I am guilty of it myself, although it usually goes unspoken (I often dismiss poor performing players without a second thought). While that jadedness is a valuable defense mechanism against morons and slackers, the shield should be lowered for any player exercising any degree of humility; it's a tell-tale sign of potential.
If someone offered to pay me 100g for a bit of help, i would help them out. Most people don't even have the courtesy to say "hey this person time is worth something and they are helping me." Just like the level 20's that beg me for a gold for talents, if they take my advice about the boars outside being able to pay for the repairs and i follow them there, i toss them 100g just for taking the effort to do stuff for themselves.
I like to think of it as promoting none m&s in the game.
A 'helpful' guide from you is like a guide to surviving heat exhaustion written by Satan. "Stop whining, Sinner! You deserve what you get! The End"
When I come across someone who is obviously playing the character wrong (Like a druid trying to tank in Cat Form and thinking its totally viable) I try to help by telling something that I know... because that's what someone did for me once upon a time. You talk as if you don't remember at all a time when you didn't know the optimal configuration of your chosen class, and anyone who does not is completely inferior. I learned to play by PLAYING, not by reading... admittedly I learned how to fine tune my playing by looking a few things up which helped, but I'm not going to spend hours slogging through walk-throughs of every raid before I enter it for the first time. Who does things like that? Even the most hardcore fan goes into those new dungeons blind the first few times, because that's why he/she loves the game in the first place!
All that said, I've gotten much good info from your blog about gold and being asocial... this particular post just seems very out of character for you.
There are a lot of people who I know that start playing and have no real guidance. In my first guild the arms warrior(our gm) told me druids don't need to cc just outheal and run away... this is just one of many bad examples that a lot of people get from the infection that your"M&S" spread. A lot of baddies aren't bad just misinformed. I was also once told that a 71/0/0 arcane spec was better dps gemming plus resistance gems because you can stand in fire and do more damage.
A lot of the bad could be fixed if more people trolled less on mmochamp,wow forums and such since it runs off a lot of people from bothering to ask questions but that most likely will never happen.
So grats gevlon...looks like the tinman actually has a heart.
You shall make another pass at this Gevlon. Your guide can be summed up in your first paragraph plus the recommendation to find a class/spec-specific expert. Since the second part is key, the lack of external resources is striking.
A simple list of resources by class would be more helpful for many new players than trying to describe what makes a good talent build in general terms. A hunter asking for help on a hunter forum or from a helpful hunter in-game will back into what an enchant is as he's advised to get a hunter-appropriate one.
Is there any raiding at level 60 or 70? If not, what happened with the old instances? just empty? Can you visit them with your lvl 80?
@Bobbins: "If you get to lvl 80 and do not know the basics you have been seriously boosted by other players."
This is absolutely not a given.
It is perfectly easy to reach level 80 and not know many of the basics, because you did it all solo, never getting a boost from anyone nor even maybe talking to anyone!
You certainly won't know anything about the trinity if you never grouped.
Your spell rotation, talents, glyphs, gear choices etc. could be all over the place, and it won't be a barrier to successful solo questing and levelling.
If you didn't take enchanting as one of your professions, you may well not know anything about how enchants work, or even that they exist!
@Anon
To me DD means Direct Damage (as opposed to a DoT, Damage over Time). This is more of hold over from EQ where there were DD damage classes and DoT damage classes. Still true in WoW, but less important.
@Melanthor
I agree with the instance experiences, only it didn't usually bother me so much. Often the tanks that were having agro problems knew it, they were just learning. Some of mine even improved significantly in the fights. You're right though, there are plenty of morons who want to stay morons.
I have to agree with the official forums too. While the information there is sometimes wrong, it's a great place to start. There is usually a (outdated) guide stickied at the top of the class forums that gives a nice overview of what's going on. As a balance druid it was where I got my information (from some of the top balance druid theory crafters) before I found/could understand sites like graymatter.
Finally, not everyone who levels to 80 does so in a way most endgame players expect. My boss is a 60+ attorney who has played a few hours a week for years. He only recently hit 80. He never grouped since he usually only played for 30 min or so before bed, and didn't know what a raid was. To him this was just another video game. He was amazed that there were sites out there devoted to the game and how to play it. Googling would have only taken him seconds, but you have to expect the information to be there first. It's not second nature to everyone.
Ditto Nathan regarding DD meaning direct damage to veteran MMO players.
DPS is the defining trait of that role in the trinity, which is why most refer to it as such.
Gevlon, please dont implie to hunters that strength is good. I have a hard enough time as it is beating melee out of some of them. On the subject of paying for advice, I remember when i tried to go mm and my dps fell. I couldnt figure out the how or why. I had an ensidia talent spec, the right glyphs the right rotation. It just wasnt happening. So I spammed trade for 2 hours for a good mm to comne help me, offering gold of course. Was mocked and laughed at by the trolls and ignored by everyone else. I eventually gave up and I raid as survival. Still havent made that jump and yes I have tried. No idea what I am doing wrong.
Another thing to add for new dps might be how to react when they do get agro. Your new player might not be pulling agro of the tank, but he might still hit a non aggroed target. All to often a tank will taunt a non-agroed mob of a dps’r to see it go back to him, simply because he keeps going all out on it.
If you get agro, stop dps’ing that particular target so the tank can get it of you. Move closer to the tank so his aoe threat will include that target. (go stand inside that death and decay, desecrate, etc.)
You can however use some defensive skill, crowd control the mob, or use a skill that lowers your threat.
Another pointer might be that when fighting multiple enemies using aoe damage skills will not only do more damage in total, they will also lower the chance of you pulling a mob of the tank than when you single target a in a big group. Pulling threat of the tank is less likely to occur when you target the same enemy as the tank. (Use assist on the tank to select your target.)
These are general pointers for new dps that apply to all classes imo.
As a long time reader of your blog, I commend you on this post. Its generally overlooked that there are "new" players in this game and not every new 80 is an alt.
I'm currently beta testing cataclysm, and one of the viewpoints I have is ; how friendly the game is to new players.
As I say not everyone is a number cruncher or an alt.
@Anon 01:58-
The level 60 and 70 raids are still there, with the same mobs and bosses as always, except for the original Onyxia and Naxx (ZG will disappear completely in Cataclysm). If you haven't seen them, it can be fun to get some friends together and spend an evening rampaging your way through. A few of the fights are actually even interesting, with mechanics which can't simply be overpowered.
I hope that most players already know most of this by the time they hit 80, but yes, there are morons out there, or player who just doesn't know yet.
There is a huge difference between a newbie willing to learn and S&Ms that thinks they are good. The difference is immense. I see it every week at the gym, where I work out. The concept is the same, and those "lo ldwag im stud check this out i gained dis much weight bro" who's just started don't realize that this is the easy part.
You're far from good. In fact, you've only just begun.
And that's how WoW is. From level 1 to 80 is a introduction to your class, but most people doesn't understand that. They RAF (steroids where?) and generally gets boosted. Benchwarmers.
I agree in alot of what you are saying Givlon, and I am far from a clever being, but what makes me more competent than other retards, is the fact that I am willing to learn and I know that there's always something left unlearned.
You've inspired me to start writing a blog in dedication to help new rogues in endgame content, and hopefully, it will. I also hope that you'll read it at some point.
//Greetings from nobody.
I think this post is something that could easily be referenced by the broader community, as it is an excellent summary. kudos Goblin.
The folks who just reference the Urls of resource sites and expect a major increase in understanding are forgetting that the new player does not understand the fundementals, or the context of the information, so won't appreciate the dedicated resources. They have no way to access the level of detail. Posts like this one really help.
This also holds true for plasyers that level an alt slowly, and therefore never really get absorbed in the perfect performance intil they reach max level. My Priest was an example of this.
As for the idiot who was looking for free crafting, he represents the sub-set of the community who we'd be better off without; and its no coincidence that his name is something plainly superficial.
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet..or as foul in this case.
I hear references to daily and weekly dungeons. What does that mean? Is theer a special event that a player can only do once a week?
Thanks
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