World of Warcraft MEGA-FAQ

Raids —–

Raids are the step above heroics, but depending on the raid group and their  gear, mainly of the tanks and healers, perhaps any scrub 80 can jump into a  raid group and not make it a fail.

The heroic standards can be around the same, but it always helps to have the  43k health tank and 3.5k dps in the group here and there.

*NOTE: To set a 10 man vs 25 man, just have that number or less in the raid  as you enter. All raids have the same two settings, I think.*

There are 10 man and 25 man raids in Northrend. ALL raids require that every- one in the raid know the bosses, very few bosses are just tank-and-spank, or  near that. 10’s are intended to be easier than 25’s, but lesser-quality players can hide in 25’s better if the others are great. Also, for the most part you can just do the heroic versions of raids, unless no one has raided before and everyone’s gear is blue.

Vault of Archavon – Located in Wintergrasp Keep to the winning side, this  raid is almost entirely intended as a one-boss raid of Archavon.  Emalon, added in a recent patch on the east wing, requires an Ulduar raid to down. Just kill the few enemies, head straight to the back, and make sure the tank moves Archavon away from the smog, that’s  about it.

Obsidian Sanctum – Located underneath Wymrest Temple in Dragonblight, this  raid has a few mobs, 3 sub-bosses, and really just the one main boss in the middle. You really should clear everyone around the main boss of they all help if you engage him. However, I believe you can clear all the trash, but leave two drakes alive for some improved loot and increased difficulty.

Naxxramas – Located in eastern Dragonblight, Naxxramas is only reachable  with a flying mount or being summoned. Naxx is “main” raid of Northrend in that it has four wings, tons of trash mobs, and one final boss.  You probably need to raid the other two raids instances a few times  before you’re ready to down Naxx. Feel free to do this one on normal difficulty.

Eye of Eternity – Located as the third part of The Nexus in Borean Tundra, this is the fourth raid because you must acquire the key from a boss drop in Naxx, the second-to-last boss Sapphiron (the reg version gives the reg key and the heroic drops the heroic key, and the heroic key  can open both). EoE is a one boss raid, and not to be taken lightly, it’s not something you just get a raid together and down like that.

Ulduar – As of a recent patch, Ulduar is the pinnacle of difficulty in  World of Warcraft. You can only do this once you have fully cleared  Naxx and if everyone knows the fights. Trust me, most of us won’t even play this place until the next expansion and hit it with level 90s.

The point of raiding is for the boss drops, but also the drops that allow you to buy tier 7 loot from a quartermaster in Dalaran. I believe you can even  spend emblems of valor for the same equipment. Again, most of us will only hit up OS or VoA.
Gold —-

It’s very simple, either quest or work the AH/trade. There are about 8 dailies for 80s to complete for about 150 gold a day; was about 15 with the WG quests until they were made weekly.

Other than the dailies you can also do normal quests. Assuming you did almost everything in Borean, Howling, Dragonblight, and Zul’drak to reach 80, that will leave Icecrown, Scholazar, and the Storm Peaks for normal quests. There  are quite a few, but they will dry up quickly. All of these quests net about 12-13 gold a pop, and with great gear you can do these very quickly.

The AH/trade for gold option is either using your professions or stuff you farm/find. Professions are hit and miss, what with the cost of frozen orbs and other mats you may not make much profit, just depends. You’ll be far better off farming mats and selling them, however, the amount of time spent farming may be more than it seems. Another option is getting item drops and turning them into enchanting materials, but you prob need to pay for the disenchanting, and if you use them for enchantments you have to pay again.

Basically I’m just saying to do that dailies and quest for gold, it’s the  easiest option for the time put in. Here are the dailies I speak of:

Dalaran – Cooking, fishing, heroic dungeon, normal dungeon, and BG. Argent Tournament (Northern Icecrown) – Target dummies, kill 8 scourge, collect wood, collect stone, and weapon quest. Shadow Vault (clear the quest chain to open it up) – shoot down 15 drakes, burn 8 buildings in a drake, and plant banners in 15 vykrul corpses.

There are more dailies, all over Northrend, and even the fishing and cooking dailies in Shat, which are essential for those titles.

You can see that the Dalaran dailies require effort in your other areas, including at least secondary professions.
Professions ———–

You may think I mean max your main professions, which is good, but I mean you need to get your cooking and fishing up ASAP to get in on those dailies ASAP.

Cooking is not too hard to max up. Start by travelling the few towns below level 40-ish for recipes, then hit up Tanaris, it’s port, Feralas, and Felwood; feel free to pick up doubles of each and sell them for 5 gold in the AH too,  hint hint. Then you basically just need the buzzard recipe in Hellfire and then the ones in Nagrand. I had enough meats saved from questing that I just had to go all out and I was open to train in Dalaran for the final leg of  cooking.

Fishing is a much different story. There’s a +3 fishing rod in Auberdine and a  +20 rod from a kid in Shattrath. You can also get several worms and other baits to increase your skill for a short time, and it does help. As of a patch you can now fish anywhere, but you increase your chance to get stuff if your skill is close to the level of the area you are in. Just keep fishing, really nothing else to do. Don’t pick up the crap of course, and keep all but the lowest of fish. The skillup rate of fishing decreases as you level. One fish at a time  will skill you up at first, then 5 for a time, and as high as 10 casts just to skillup near 300. Needless to say, it takes a lot of time to level this up. But as I said, your skill can be inflated and all it does is increase your chances of catching stuff, it’s not a restrictive skill.

I should also mention riding, but it’s really more about gold. It’s assumed  you earned the 500 gold for the level 60 riding skill, and with the much  increased gold from quests you can easily get the flying mount for Outland, but of course all that’s good for is exploring Outland. To get that “the Explorer” title you’ll also need another 1000 gold for cold weather flying, which is not too hard to get – props if your character is named Dora. Finally, 5000 gold and another 1700 or so gets you fast flying. Yeah, it probably takes a month and a half of pure dedication to a fast flying mount and the training to get it, of course you must not spend gold on anything else during this time. So you only get this after you’ve gotten all purple gear, enchantments, and you don’t  have any alts.

And yeah, your main professions are very important too. Gathering professions are guaranteed gold. Creation professions require Frozen Orbs, which drop from heroic end-bosses, bought with 10 emblems of heroism, or bought from someone else (anywhere from 70-120 gold). It is not easy to max out any of your  professions, but it can net you nice gold and in most cases powerful buffs.
Achievements ————

Yep, just like those stupid things from the Xbox 360, these are pointless and offer no real bonus to you. Some offer titles, one I know of offers a mount, but they are really no more than official declarations of your progression.

You can open up the shield icon on your toolbar to see all the achievements in the game. Most server-first achievements get wiped off the books, so don’t be surprised if only a few people walk around with certain titles you can’t get.

Titles and achievements can be tracked by shift-clicking them just like  objectives. Not all achievements for a set are required for some titles, I can’t stress that enough.

Titles:

• Holidays – usually not all the achievements for that holiday, should just be a select few that net you the title. Be sure to check your calendar from time to time to see these coming, or of course just pay attention to chat.
• Jenkins – I’m guessing Little House on the Prarie. Simply kill about 50  dragon whelps in Upper Blackrock Spire, in the room where there are  about 100 of them, and you get this easy title, but everyone knows how easy it is so it isn’t THAT special.
• the Explorer – Just explore every place listed for that region. I say that  you should get all the Azeroth places as you are in them questing. Not the same for all of Outland, as only Zangarmarsh can be explored without a flying mount. Not only that, you must also have cold weather flying to fully explore Northrend. There is just one high up spot in  Scholazar, while Storm Peaks and Icecrown are almost completely left to flight.
• Ambassador – This one is simple once you realize you can do the starting  quests for good rep. Each faction has 5 races, but two are tied  together; meaning you really only need to raise rep with the four starting zones to hit each race. If you played to level 60 in Azeroth then you’ll have at least two maxed out with little effort, while the others just require a few trips into their starting zone quests. Yes, one-shotting level 1 and 5 rats is a little embarassing, but once you get the title it may be the only one you need.
• Black War Bear – This really depends on your server, your faction, the time of day, and of course the quality of the raid. The achievement is “For the Alliance/Horde”, and all you do is raid each major city of the  other faction and kill the boss/leader. Part of it is also just knowing who you are killing and where they are. There are sometimes a few  boss level NPCs in a city. Kill all four of the bosses on the list and  in the mail you get your free mount; there is a creative way to make this your first swift mount, by riding in a motorcycle during.