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Old 01-18-2005, 02:57 AM   #1
SecretMaster
Apophis
 

Join Date: October 19, 2001
Location: New York
Age: 37
Posts: 4,666
Massive Compilation on Everything WoW

For starting out WoW players on IW, I thought it'd be nice to have nice compilation of everything WoW, ranging from money making to class making. This will be continously updated (I am currently working on an auction house report).

If anyone has any problems, modifications, or suggestions, just PM me. If you want to add something, just PM me. Instead of just posting it, I think everything should be organized topic by topic so new players can find exactly what they want. Future pieces will be added on later. Such topics include the Auction House, Instance Dungeons/Raids, and Magic. Any help would be appreciated.

Overview on Professions

Professions are a key aspect in WoW, there is no denying that. Professions are just one of the ways that make your character "unique" and stand out in WoW. They can lead you to riches, or give you the best darn equipment out there. Either way, you must choose wisely. WoW only allows two major professions. However, these can be unlearned but only do so if a) you know its the right choice and b) try to unlearn it early on so you don't waste time and money training up one skill all for naught.

Alchemy- Uses herbs and ingredients found from outside to make powerful potions that can restore mana, health, and buff up your character.

Blacksmithing- Use that ol' hammer and anvil to forge ye some fine weapons or armor. Mail&Plate only, and most weapons. Uses ore and occasionally gems.

Enchanting- Unenchant good items to get raw magic materials, then use those materials to enchant any unenchanted items you possess. This can almost guarantee you have an edge over other players of your level.

Engineering- Make all those high tech gadgets and such. Can also make guns and ammunition, something most gun wielding Hunters crave. A very interesting profession to take.

Herbalism- What's wrong with going out into fields and picking flowers? Well, these flowers are magical and can sell for a ton of cash, both to vendors and other players. Also good to learn if you are an alchemist.

Leatherworking- Use hides and such to create some very nice leather armor pieces. Great for rogues, shamans, and hunters. As long as you are not a vegetarian that is...

Mining- Grab that pick of yours and go mining. Most zones contain pieces or ore lying around, just begging to be mined. A great profession to learn if you are a blacksmith, or engineer.

Skinning- Going out into the wilderness, killing beasts, and skinning their hides. You'll often find many a beast to skin, and will find that this is one of the easier gather professions for making quick money. Great for leatherworkers to have too.

Tailoring- Nothing is finer than making that sweet tuxedo out of fine linen. A great profession because a) you can make bags for holding extra items and b) players kill for a nice outfit. Seriously, non-tailors will find that there really isn't anything good to wear.

These nine professions can be categorized into two groups. Gathering and manufacturing.
Manufacturing- Leatherworking, Tailoring, Alchemy, Blacksmithing, Engineering, Enchanting.
Gathering- Herbalism, Mining, Skinning.

Secondary Skills
In WoW, there are three "secondary skills". All three skills can be learned. However, don't expect these skills to be as important as your primary professions. These just supplement character flaws, such as the inability to heal and cure poisons. They also make the game much more fun and enjoyable [img]smile.gif[/img]

Fishing- A great leisure activity that you can spend hours doing in WoW and not be bored. The best part is, you can sometimes catch old treasure and such. Now how cool is that? The only thing you need is a fishing rod (bait is optional).

Cooking- Make all sort of delicious foods to replenish health/mana. All you need is certain animal parts (dropped on death) and you can be having a nice roast or stew. Come on, nothing sounds better than charred wolf meat. You only need a fire and your set.

First Aid- When your out in the wilderness or in the middle of a war, nothing is cooler than ripping your shirt in half and making it bandage for that wound on your leg. While you literally cannot rip your shirt, you use linen cloth and such to make bandages and such to cure poisons and heal health.

Classes and Profession
Obviously at some point in a game where you discover the basic trainers for all professions, you will be asking yourself what should you pick. Well really, the choice is yours becasue this is a roleplaying game. So don't be afraid to choose something. However, below is a compilation of classes and comparing them with ideal professions.

Druids
Druids are one of the best soloing classes out there. The ability to heal themselves and shapeshift for up close and personal combat while being able to weaken an enemy down at the distance is more than appealing to many characters. So with all these great things, what are the best professions to choose.
Skinning/Leatherworking make a great combo. Melee druids who tend to cast less, fight more are often drawn to this duo because of what it offers. Leatherworking allows you to make top of the line leather armor (and around skill level 60 or so) you can start making armor with stat bonuses. Thus, it is perfect for protecting and enhancing. The skinning provides you with all the raw materials needed for this profession.

Herbalism/Alchemy is another great choice for a druid. Caster druids will often find this a more vital role in surviving. Buff potions are great for anyone, and can help them for when they do engage in melee. You also can create numerous health/mana replenishing potions, to keep your mana plentiful to cast all the spells you want.

As for secondary skills, nothing really aids the druid except for pure player enjoyment. Healing is already covered by spells (and by potions if you choose that path).

Hunters
Hunters are a favorite among WoW players. You start off with being able to use guns or bows (but mainly GUNS!!!!!!). You can tame animals, making powerful companions. While warriors are down in the frontlines, taking damage, you are in the back, sending a flurry of arrows towards your enemies while they are helpless to stop you (unless they charge at you). You can't get any better than that.

Engineering/Mining works very well for hunters using guns. You can make yourself some top notch guns, and better yet, create lots and lots of bullets. Hunters will often find themselves spending coins after coins supplying themselves with the best of the best in ammo, but why spend when you can make? Mining will also give you all the raw materials needed for engineering.

Skinning/Leatherworking is vital if you want the best of the best in terms of armor. You can't beat a top of the line suit of armor for your hunter, especially when your fighting in melee. Skinning, as mentioned earlier, will supply you with all your leatherworking needs.

The value of secondary skills cannot be ignored. If you are to have a pet with you, it will require lots (and by lots I mean truckloads) of food to make it say happy and healthy. Thus said, take up fishing and cooking ASAP. The better the earlier.

Mage
Everyone loves the mage because of their ability to wield devastating magics. They can obliterate single foes or nuke groups of multiple people. They are ticking time bombs ready to go off with an armada of fireballs, frost novas, and flamestrikes. Sheer destruction in a nutshell.

Tailoring is something common amongst most mages. First off, they can make cloth armor, the only armor available to mages (as smart as they are, they can't seem to figure out how to equip a full suit of plate). Secondly, you can make some nice looking robes (every mage prizes their robes). Thirdly, you can make bags and sell them for a profit. Not to mention tailoring requires no gathering skill (cloths only, dropped from numerous humanoids).

Enchanting is yet another great profession for mages, and works especially well for those with tailoring. You make the armor, then you enhance it. Nothing better than that. On top of that, players will come rushing to you, looking for you to enchant their items (done via trade window). Or, just enchant items and put them up for sale, making the money you need to cover training expenses.

Herbalism/Alchemy is a good, solid choice for all spellcasters. Especially for mages, since their only line of defense is their horde of spells. And that is the problem with mages; their most frequent problem and reason for dying is that they waste all their mana away fast. These spells ain't cheap in terms of mana, and once your out, those few seconds it takes to regenerate the mana can end up killing your character. Thus, it is always good to keep an abundant supply of healing and mana restoring potions at your side. And better yet, that speed potion for running away...

In terms of secondary skills, not a good choice. Its better to save your money up for training in your abilities. If your soloing, cooking might be considered. First Aid is a no if you are a tailor, since it takes linen cloth away from making tailoring objects.

Paladin
Paladins, the no good pansy class of the alliance, (I kid, I kid) is often a popular one. Paladins are simply great when it comes to their specialty, protection. A paladin suited with the best armor and a strong shield is nearly impenetrable, especially armed with one of their aura's and seals. And with high health, it will be hard to take down these bad boys. Groups of high level paladins are practically invincible, especially when each paladin is using a different aura. When stacked together, they are a force which only the toughest can stop. A great soloing class too!

Mining/Blacksmithing- Obviously a common profession for paladins, nothing beats wearing the best of the best armor for aiding you on your holy quest. That is the great thing, not spending money on armor. Mail armor and good mail armor at that (along with plate), is incredibly expensive. So why waste funds when it is suppliable by you. Mining will supply you with all the ore bars you need.

Engineering is surpringly useful in terms of PvP combat or soloing. Nothing is scarier with a paladin armed with a nuclear warhead capable of taking down Northshire Abbey. On a serious note, engineering is a blessing in a wrench. Spellcasters are a problem for most melee classes, they will be torn apart by the massive amounts of fire and ice. When fighting in PvP battles, no one is focused on the casters in the distance. Since paladins can't do much in terms of stunning/disrupting mages and their spells in the heat of battle, why not bomb them? That ensures a spell disrupt, buying precious time. Don't underestimate the abilities of this skill, especially in PvP servers.

Herbalism and Alchemy are yet another great combo for your paladin. It guarantees instant healing for near death encounters, or restoring your mana to heal others or smite those blasted undead. It can also turn you into a massive defensive juggernaut. Imagine a paladin with devotion aura (armor bonus), best armor available for his level including a shield, and his high health. He is already difficult to take down. Now add a couple of armor and melee enhancing potions, and just imagine what you are dealing with.

Secondary skills aren’t as heavily recommended due to the fact that you’re main focus for healing will be in combat. However, it can reduce downtime, which is always nice.

Priests
The first thing all players must understand about priests are that they are very frail. Just one mistake in combat can cost you a resurrection. They are poor contenders in terms of combat (cloth armor, poor weapon slots), while the majority of their spells are meant for buffing and protecting other players. Thus, this by far one of the worst solo classes out there. Priests are a supporting class which everyone loves; they can make any party a massive machine of death. However, when faced with combat they have some nice damaging spells.

Alchemy/Herbalism- This duo is a great choice for any priest, but it depends on which angle you are playing your priest. If you do decide to solo your priest, a quick healing/mana restoring potion can make all the difference in battle. The same applies to a party where you are the main healer. Your party relies on you to keep everyone up and running, so if you run out of mana you can quickly restore your potions.

Enchanting/Tailoring- These two skills complement each other perfectly. Since both of them don’t require a gathering class, you are free to choose both without having to pay for resources. The first and foremost things priests need are decent protection. Since they can only use cloth armor, it is a blessing to be able to produce top of the line equipment. Another thing priests will lay heavily upon is stat bonuses from their items. It will make all the difference if you are able to choose what stats to increase to make your priest the most efficient.

For secondary skills, First Aid is great for any priest. On one aspect, it seems like the suitable secondary skill for a priest, almost in their nature to patch up wounds and such. Secondly, patching up wounds out of combat will save up mana for when you actually do need to use it.

Rogue
The great thing about rogues is that they know how to dish out the damage. They are the real damage dealers in WoW, and they can be one of the most deadly. Rogues are great for taking on single enemies, but must always keep on the watch because if they are jumped by two people, they can die just as easily as they kill others.

Skinning/Leatherworking is a nice choice for any rogue because of the whole armor factor. Skinning is obviously by far, an easy profession to gain in which supplies you with loads of leather. In turn, your leatherworking will skyrocket, enabling you to create the best of the best armor for your character. It is especially nice at higher levels when you get stat bonuses to those primary stats such as agility and stamina.

Engineering- If you want your rogue to dish out the damage and do it in a stylish fashion, go all the way for engineering. The key thing to look for here is the ability to create bombs. Bombs will stun enemies, and throw some nice damage numbers in. If you get the jump on any individual character, they are crippled considerably. What is even worse is getting jumped, then not being able to retaliate or run away to recover. You can see some serious damage being dealt with engineering.

For secondary skills, its great to have cooking or fishing. Rogues can be knocked down easily, and may have to retreat. It is great to quickly heal up and jump back into battle.

Shaman
Shaman, the horde only class, is one of the best hybrids out there, and it is essentially the paladin equivalent. The great thing about Shaman is they are a magic oriented hybrid, so essentially they can work great in PvP parties or work just as well soloing. What is even better is how you play them. Shamans can be tanks if they want (especially with mail armor at level 40), they can be healers, or they can be support (think totems).

Skinning/Leatherworking- The great part about leatherworking for shamans is what comes at higher levels. Early on, yeah it’s nice to have good armor. However, once you get mail armor, I’d highly recommend Dragonscale leatherworking at skill level 225. While tribal lends itself towards shaman with all the buffs, mail armor will be used excessively and Dragonscale can produce some great bonuses. It may be hard to get all the supplies, but the end result is worth it.

Herbalism/Alchemy- Also another great choice, and you will find yourself making a decision as to pick this combo, or the skinning/leatherworking combo. Well, herbalism/alchemy is more of a PvP oriented skill for the shaman. You will constantly find yourself in battles, and you need to keep your mana (or health if you are tanking) up constantly. If you choose this path, you will find yourself using potions constantly to buff and heal, and it often makes you strong. Throw in healing potions with restoration spells and you are one tough cookie.

Cooking (fishing also) is great for a shaman. It reduces downtime a lot, and saves up your mana for either the damage or healing spells. Invest in this ability ASAP.

Warlock
Warlocks are one of the more difficult classes to master, but the end result pays off greatly. First off, warlocks have many tricks up their sleeves, and that is what throws off most people. They can cripple any opponent with their line of curse spells. Their demonic companion often serves as a tank or someone to remove aggro. Their shadow spells offer a variety of DoT (Damage over Time) spells. They can bring back dead party members with their stones, or heal up mana or health. Juggling all this is difficult, but it is worth it.

Tailoring/Enchanting- Warlocks go great with this duo. Casters are always drawn to the ability to make some cool looking robes that give off decent protection, while enhancing all your items to create maximum efficiency makes your character the best he/she can be.

Cooking and First Aid are great for any Warlock, to not waste precious mana to create health stones (or using stones for that matter). The downtime you save is worth it.

Warrior
The warrior is everyone’s favorite class nowadays. They are naturally the best tanks with huge reserves of armor and health, and deal a steady flow of damage. They are especially great in parties because of their ability to draw aggro away from other party members, saving the weaker classes. But just remember, warriors aren’t the class that deals out the most damage. Look towards mages and rogues to be the powder kegs.

Mining/Blacksmithing- Obviously the epitomized warrior profession, but don’t skimp on the good stuff. You will be able to craft yourself the best in weapons and armor, saving you a ton of money. Speaking of money, did I forget to mention warriors are the most equipment oriented class, which means they are going to be low on cash? Another bonus for taking these skills right here.

Mining/Engineering- Once again, a PvP profession combo to take, mainly because of the extra damage and stuns. It is great for taking down the weaker classes quickly, and then making your way to the big boys.

Money Making and the Auction House
Obviously, a crucial factor in making your character the best is to have a nice load of cash on you. You want to buy the best of the best, while affording money for all your new class skills and professions. So you need to know how to make money, what gives you money, and how to spend it.

Obtaining Money
The first thing all players must know early on is that the road to financial success is a difficult one. If you are expecting to be walking around with 5 gold at level 10, think again. Players will often find themselves getting all this money, and then having to spend it all away on class training, profession training, and buying equipment. After this is all done, you may only have a fraction of what you had before. So how does one make money?

Money is divided into three coins.
Copper
Silver (100 copper)
Gold (100 silver)

First off, know the level:money ratio. While it isn’t an actual game defined ratio, there is a guideline as to what levels have what kind of money. Starting levels (1-5) will probably never break a silver piece, unless they continuously hunt and hunt for animal parts and such and trade it in. Early levels (6-10) might get that silver, probably around 8 or 9. By the late early levels (11-20) you should have at least gotten silver coins, and definitely by level 15 you will be raking in around 40+ silver. That is of course, if you sell to vendors only. You might even see a gold piece pop up momentarily, but by level 18 you will have definitely seen a gold piece.

From there are on, you will be raking it in. Levels 21-30 will see a steady increase in gold and silver, but then a decrease to beef up your character with abilities and such. By levels 31-40, you will most definitely have had enough money to make the mount requirement (100 gold, 20gp training, 80 for a mount itself). The pattern is now noticeable.
But the thing to understand with this standardized ratio is that you should have this much money if you only stick to questing and selling to vendors. If you tackle that auction house and continuously hunt outside for nice items and trade items to sell, you will be making much more money. However, the money shortage still remains after you buy all your skills and such, but that can be easily recovered. If you spent a whole day devoted to treasure hunting and such, and you’re around level 15, you might see some very nice coinage going on.

The second problem is finding the right places to hunt/make money. There are some key tips right here to know- Humanoids drop lots of coins, along with cloths and the occasional weapon/armor piece. Beasts drop that occasional rare but extremely valuable animal part such as cracked bills or (disgustingly enough) thunderlizard intestines. Sometimes, you will find hunting beasts can bring in more cash than humanoids. Humanoids however, bring in a steady reliable source of money, while beasts are much more sporadic with their drops.

Secondly, it is all about your personal preference. This fact cannot be stressed enough in WoW, find the area that is right for you. When you go out to hunt, there are just certain areas that naturally appeal to you for whatever reasons. Stick with those gut instincts, and you will not only have fun while hunting, but also be happy with your earnings. Also, form at least 2-3 different hunting grounds, in case other intrude upon you excitement. It is also very fun to switch from beast areas to humanoid areas, to give you variety in terms of enjoyment and loot.

What to Spend
Marketing companies crave the impulse buyer, but luckily there are no shopping outlets full of frivolous items for your disposable. Blizzard gave WoW (like any old game) all the items to support classes and professions, and nothing more. However, people still end up overspending and wasting money.

If you are going to buy items from vendors (this is especially important for the earlier levels) you need to be a smart consumer. Don’t buy an axe and then decide two minutes later that you want a hammer instead. Know what you want ahead of time, so you can go directly to business.

When buying a certain weapon or armor piece, look at the pros and cons. You are level 10, and want to buy a nice looking mace. The speed factors and damage factors are just a bit better than your current weapon that you found as loot. It costs 10 silver. However, the next weapon above that is a weapon requirement of level 12, and greatly beats out both weapons. That weapon costs 20 silver. What do you do? I’d recommend waiting until level 12 for two reasons.

First off, if you have found a mace from loot that is slightly under par from an item you can buy, don’t buy the better mace. You have just gotten a really good item for free, without wasting those precious silvers. In the long run, the damage difference won’t matter. Thus, you can expect to find a similar mace if you continue to loot and won’t have to waste money on spending that slightly better mace. The dividends pay off.

Secondly, if you buy the slightly better mace, you have wasted all your money. You will have to regain not only 10 silver, but obtain an additional 10 silver if you want that level 12 mace. You are better waiting two levels (which will pass quickly) and gaining an extra 10 silver for that really good mace.

However, equipment is the third most important things in terms of spending when leveling. The first and foremost priority is to train everything you can for your class. Buy all the spells you can, learn all the battle shouts imaginable, master the art of using auras, etc. Class abilities are first priority, memorize that fact. Generally, you can learn or improve class levels every two levels. So the first thing you do when walking into a city after leveling is head to your class trainer. Often the new abilities you gain will supplement for your low ranking mace.

Profession skills are the second priority here. Whenever you raise that skill level enough to get a new blueprint (recipes, patterns, etc), buy it only if you have enough money, or have just bought out all your new class abilities. If you are running low on cash and are about to level, wait till you buy class abilities before going into professions. The good thing about professions however (especially crafting), is that they can often save you money by selling trade goods or creating your own items.

The Auction House
The Auction House is everyone’s best friend in WoW. It is the target of every major raid on cities, and the first choice in terms of shopping. In this section, everything you need to know about the auction house (AH for short) will be gone over.

Buying
Being a smart consumer is the most important thing when browsing through the auction house. First off, apply what was mentioned before about stat comparisons and money costs. Don’t pay an outrageous price for a weapon slightly better than yours.

Now when searching for trade goods, you need a sensible and organized approach. You should filter results by auction time remaining when it comes down to trade goods such as cloths or leather (Simply click the time remaining box at the top). Look at the auctions with the shortest time first, and work your way up to the longest time. There are several key things to look for here, and those are: the standard buyout price for a complete bundle (10 leather, 20 linen etc), the going auction rate for each complete bundle, and the buyout and going auction rate for an incomplete bundle.

Buyouts are essential in auctions. If you want to be extremely fiscal with your funds, you need to examine each individual auction with care. Look for the standard buyout price, usually 20 sp for linen cloth and leather. But if you see a buyout of 15 for a complete bundle, flag that one as a maybe. The lower the price for the higher the amount, the better. If you examine every price individually, you are always bound to find the best buy. But most people are too lazy to search through or act on impulse and just auction for a really bad auction. Never impulse buy or be too lazy if you are in it for the money.

When auctioning for weapons and armor, it comes down to a battle of the bluffs. Who is daring enough to raise higher than the other, and who will bail out at the last moment leaving you with a huge price for an auction. The first thing to know is that you have to keep your cool.

Another tactic you should follow when auctioning higher than another is don’t place a huge amount of money on it (unless you desperately want it). Intimidation may work, but it will leave you a poor man.

Once again, always examine each of the items for buying. Always make sure that the item you are going to buy is well priced compared to others (in terms of buyout and current auction price). If it is rather high for the going rates, it probably isn’t worth buying. If it is lower, definitely put some money down for it (or use the buyout, lower priced items always sell quickly).

Selling
Selling off your items in the auction house is the real thrill in World of Warcraft. It is like a beautiful science or art. The good thing is anyone can learn how to master the auction house.

First off, always examine the auction house, always. Whenever you are in Ironforge, Ogrimmar, or Gadgetzan, stop by the auction house and just browse the items. Get a feel for what the current trend is in item selling. The point is, before you can really make money, study the auction house. Get a feel for the general price range of different level items and weapons. If you do this often enough, right off the bat when you can a good item to sell, you will be able to say “This would definitely sell for 30 silver”. That is the beauty of studying the auction house, you know what sells and for how much.

Secondly, when actually auctioning off an item, look at the category that your item falls under. If you have a mail chest piece, go under mail chest pieces and see items that are similar in level to yours (+3 or -3 levels). Get the feel for the general pricing range and then make your move. It is even better if your item is also up for grabs at the auction house, because the simple thing to do is make your buyout and opening bid lower than the others.

Once you are ready to create your auction, factor in everything. If you create your auction before peak hours with a decent item, along with no buyout price and put short auction duration, you might see your auction skyrocket. If you want each of your auctions to sell, make your buyout and opening bids lower than other items so it acts as more of an incentive. You can get away with keeping with the norm, but I tend to aim lower for profit reasons.

However, the key thing to know about the auction house is that it is an extremely fickle place. Your auctions may not even sell, after three or four times. Quit while your ahead; if the item is not selling don’t auction it. You are just losing silvers on deposit fees, and if you get lucky on the fourth try, your profit margins will not be as great because you are really just making up for your losses. It also takes time to get a real feel for the market. You won’t really feel comfortable your first few auctions, but as you get used to it, the art of selling well becomes easier.

Lastly, always know what sells right off the bat. Higher level recipes without any buyout price will often end up in bidding wars where you profit. Trade goods are cash items but they come at a price. There are thousands of the same trade goods up for auction, and if they are all at the same buyout price it’s a slim chance that you will be picked. So lower the buyout price, but make sure your buyout price is still higher than what normally sells at a vendor.
Ex: Silk cloth per 20 sells for 30 sp at a vendor. Don’t make a buyout of 25 sp unless you don’t care as much about the money.

[ 03-06-2005, 01:54 PM: Message edited by: SecretMaster ]
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