official World of Warcraft

[obiwong]

Some classes are more gear dependant than others, that's definitely a gold drain.

i don't know where you get your gear from

but i get mine for free when i'm raiding :p

[Sethos]

i don't know where you get your gear from

but i get mine for free when i'm raiding :p

Yeah, but you don't raid when leveling, do you :rolleyes:

Read the original question.

[obiwong]

never saw the need to be constantly upgrading my gear when leveling

you get what you need from quests and whatever dungeon you do here and there

[Joey Ravn]

Thanks, Obi Wong. I didn't realise my question was so puzzling when I first thought about it. It seems that a straight answer is impossible in this case... No, really, thanks a bunch. Now we all know I'm a WoW-illiterate.

Sethos, that was exactly what I was talking about. I wanted something that could stay on its two feet without the need of constant upgrading and money-spending. I'm trying the Warlock Xilo had suggested, and so far, so good.

[Slane]

Every class can be leveled without buying or purchasing gear. Hell only time I do buy gear is when I wanna power-level an alt, otherwise I don't buy anything, drops/quest rewards is all you really need. Obi's more right than Xilo. While some classes may benefit more from gear than others, none is super-dependent on gear to function, not leveling anyways.

[Prosidius]

Well I saw/killed Bloodboil, Gorefiend, RoS and Archimonde. I love BT.

[Xilo]

He said "I want something that can stay alive for itself" and wants a magic-based class. Mage is a bit harder to stay alive with and requires lots of drinking. That leaves druid, shaman, paladin, priest, and warlock. Paladin is definitely a lot more gear dependent than the others. Druid and shaman IMO are more gear dependent than priest and warlock just because of the several different roles you can fill and aren't pure casters. Don't know if he cares for a hybrid. That leaves priest and warlock. Both of which can hold their own and solo/group fine, and keep themselves alive.

On a whole, it doesn't really matter too much. You can generally level as any class with just quest rewards. I'm just going with the most optimal option according to what he was looking for.

Edited July 7, 2008 by Xilo

[the evn show]

My experiences with the caster classes:

Druids

Ballance just doesn't work without gear and compared to feral it's just not an effective way to level up. If your goal is to play a caster at end game a druid may work, but it's probably best to level as a "pseudo-rogue" because it's several times more efficient. I gave up on my attempts to level a druid in the high 30s: I don't care much for melee classes.

Priest

Leveling a priest is down-time central. Mana efficiency sucks compared to any pure DPS class until about level 65 (where gear+shadow fiend make you self sufficnet). At low levels without spell push back resistance talents, and a risky way to get mobs off of you (fear) it's hard to die during typical grinding but I remember needing to run away when things got sketchy and I had a hard time soloing elites because damage drops to nil if you try to heal attacks.

You'll level shadow because you don't need to spec holy unless you want to raid-heal at 70 (you can do every 5-man with random quest blues/greens and shadow spec).

Once you get a reasonable amount of spell damage things pick up considerably. I spent 65-70 mostly quest-grinding killing 2-3 mobs at a time non stop. Between VT mana returns, shadow fiend, and spirit tap you can pretty much kill forever though not so fast as other classes.

I currently raid Sunwell with my priest as a main character - though he's a healer.

Mage

I started a mage to kill time waiting for the AQ gates to open: over time I leveled her to 70 and have farmed up the lower-tier raid gear (Full tier 4 + ZA loot, and a few trips through Hyjal/BT/SSC/TK when my guild needed extra CC)

A mage will drop mobs fast. If you level as fire you'll kill mobs before they get a chance to touch you, frost does the same though typically with a little more kiting. Going 2 or 3 at a time is pretty survivable but you'll tend to burn a lot of mana without the gear to be destroying mobs that come your way. Specing frost offers substantially more survivability and lets you play with AOE grinding. AOE farming (killing 10-15 same-level mobs at a time) is a play style that is immediately available to mages and is a fairly unique way to level. Frost makes you a tiny god, it was very rare for me to die spec'd that way. Over-all I found I had less down-time on the mage than the priest and I rarely had to drink if I juggled mana gems and evocation. Typically after every 20-30 kills I'd stop for some water.

On the whole I find ranged DPS to be a reasonably fun mini-game, but compared to healing it's just not as challenging most of the time.

This character is my primary alt: when I play with less progressed friends, it's probably on this character.

Warlock

So far I'm able to juggle 2-3 mobs at a time (leveling as affliction) with fears and the occasional void-walker tank+sac or seduce. I never stop to drink, rarely bandage, and can't remember the last time I died. When things get out of hand you can always howl of terror and run away.

Going 1v1 with other mobs is much slower than the mage-- roughly on par with my priest--but the ability to kill multiple things at once cancels that out. While my mage would burn mana very quickly juggling 3 mobs, my warlock can do it without breaking a sweat.

On the whole I don't find the play style very different from my shadow priest. A few more dots and a little more fear juggling, but the basic play style isn't different enough for me to stick with this character. I'll probably farm up some season 2 and leave her to rot until I'm bored in WoTLK again.

(Note: My warlock is low 40s, my other characters are 70, I started her a few weeks ago to pass time with my girlfriend)

Shaman

Much like druids: the most effective way to level is as a melee class. Keeping a pair of slow 1 handers makes the process much quicker. I'm not a fan of the melee play style at all: it consists of waiting for procs and refreshing storm strike whenever you can. I mostly raided as restoration on mine (Tier 2 pre TBC, a few kara runs post TBC) but I did a few runs as elemental before retiring this character again. As Elemental you just pretend to be a mage, Lightning Bolt replaces Fireball, chain lightning replaces scorch, and bloodlust replaces icy veins. Sadly, you don't get any of the cool tricks that makes playing a mage fun (snares, stuns, reliable CC, etc). The play style doesn't vary enough to be interesting -- knowing you have the most overpowered healing class but you're raiding as DPS also isn't very appealing to me. I'm very min-max oriented: I'd feel like I'm wasting my time when I DPS'd on it.

On the whole, I've never liked the way shamans play -- it's the reason I re-rolled a priest in the first place.

Take that for what you will.

[Prosidius]

OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!

illidan!! w00t!!!

edit: as predicted I wiped the raid in P2. I got hit with Eye beam shortly after the phase started. It was either eyebeam or infernal charge.

Edited July 8, 2008 by Adamb10

[Slane]

OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!

illidan!! w00t!!!

edit: as predicted I wiped the raid in P2. I got hit with Eye beam shortly after the phase started. It was either eyebeam or infernal charge.

Noob. :p

Grats on illidan, and grats on being hit with the Eye Beam. I wonder if I can ever be hit by it. :(

[SMELTN]

OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!

illidan!! w00t!!!

edit: as predicted I wiped the raid in P2. I got hit with Eye beam shortly after the phase started. It was either eyebeam or infernal charge.

Awesome!! Gratz on that.. I just hope you don't have the same curse as my guild.. 29+ Illidan downings... 0 Warglaives.

[Minifig]

Heading off to the next of my quests :]

I freaking <3 my custom UI.

[Slane]

http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/3569/wows...08182509yr8.jpg

That is a sexy UI. Too bad it's only a WIP, minor things I would change, but the damn author will not release it. :(

[Minifig]

Anyone here know how to activate Dual Screens so I can drag my map to my second screen?

[Minifig]

Hmm.

I figured out how to do this on my own.. but the problem is.. my 8800 doesn't have a "Horizontal Span" option to turn my desktop into one long spanned horizontal desktop in its control panel. :(

Edit:

Ultramon doesn't support Horizontal Span.

I figured I'd try it, but no dice. :(

Edited July 9, 2008 by Andrew-DB

[+longgonebn Subscriber²]

Seeing some of these screens and custom stuff makes me want to pick it up again, but not untill I have completed LOTRO lol

[the evn show]

I wonder if I can ever be hit by it. :(

That's what makes this game great: stupid things for people to die to no matter what their level of gear or content

• Void Zones (Level 61)
  
• Burning Nova (Level 62)
  
• Fire Nova Totem (63)
  
• Foul Spores (Level 64)
  
• Dark Shell (Level 65)
  
• Focus Fire (Level 66)
  
• Arcane Explosion (67)
  
• Lightning Cloud (68)
  
• Sonic Boom (69)
  
• Whirlwind (70)
  
• Cave in (Tier 4)
  
• Flame Strike (Tier 5)
  
• Doom fire (Tier 6)
  
• Fog of Corruption (Tier 6+)
  

The amazing thing about all of these abilities is that you survive them the same way: GTFO. and yet despite 10 levels and 4 tiers of raiding practice (not counting the stuff done at 60) people still manage to completely fail at not being dead.

Case in point:

Seeing some of these screens and custom stuff makes me want to pick it up again

(and also because this thread needs more screenshots)

Edited July 9, 2008 by the evn show

[Golferjim]

Hot UI Evn..

I just started a Mage a few hours ago on account I got hacked a few days ago :s , Im really really loving it cant wait till Im 70 :D

Any tips for a Mage?

[Minifig]

Hey evn, can you zip that UI up? :)

[Slane]

The amazing thing about all of these abilities is that you survive them the same way: GTFO. and yet despite 10 levels and 4 tiers of raiding practice (not counting the stuff done at 60) people still manage to completely fail at not being dead.

Ya, but I want illi's lazer beams. Not gruul's cave in's. :(

O well, maybe I can convince 10 people from my guild to level super fast in King, and start 10 man raiding quickly, and hard. Maybe get a server first(omg i can dream), but mostly just to get further in content than 10-25 man jump. So tired of ZA already.

[the evn show]

Here's a list of the addons I use (plus one called "instanthealth" that I've been snagging from curse.com)

I'll get my WTF directory cleaned up and posted in a little while

[maeby]

Hot UI Evn..

I just started a Mage a few hours ago on account I got hacked a few days ago :s , Im really really loving it cant wait till Im 70 :D

Any tips for a Mage?

heh same here, account got hacked, made a new one, started a mage aswell. started like a day and half ago, already at 21, not to bad. hopefully by the time im at 30, the patch will be out!

a few mage resources ive been using....

http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/05/31/arcan...your-mage-1-20/ kind of tutorial for leveling 1-70, lot of good info. wow insider = the best!

http://girlmeetswow.blogspot.com/2007/10/s...ing-builds.html speccing info. im going with frost, im following her info

[Berserk87]

I JUST started playing WoW, anyone who plays on hyjal pm me :D

[Prosidius]

We got Illidan into Phase 3 our first time and what happens? The guild disbands. Now I'm stuck on a dead end server. I'm cursed.

[Ash]

Druids

Ballance just doesn't work without gear and compared to feral it's just not an effective way to level up. If your goal is to play a caster at end game a druid may work, but it's probably best to level as a "pseudo-rogue" because it's several times more efficient. I gave up on my attempts to level a druid in the high 30s: I don't care much for melee classes.

Yeah leveling up a non-feral is a pain unless you are always teaming with someone. I loved Feral Druid, it's been my favorite class, I am even considering rolling another one next time I rejoin playing wow.

Priest

Leveling a priest is down-time central. Mana efficiency sucks compared to any pure DPS class until about level 65

If you are talking about Shadow Priest, I have to disagree big time. You just need to figure out what combination of attacks to use and at what point to swap to rod to finish the mob off so that you start regaining mana. Usually it would take a while before I needed to drink, unless the **** hit the fan and I have to juggle several mobs at once. Also I was leveled my S. Priest, most of the time I was able to out damage most other players I saw... except of course some rogues and any fire mage.