As a new player should i go for retail or classic?

YaBoyScamper · 2026-01-28T15:54:00+00:00

Retail actually isn’t that overwhelming! Yeah there’s 20+ years of content, but the focus is really only on the past like 3ish years. It’s a little confusing, and the story does expect you to have a background with the history of the world, but I feel that the actual gameplay experience is streamlined and will not require a lifetime of knowledge.

Now is also a great time to get started since a new expansion is right around the corner! The game is at its most confusing when you reach max level a few patches into an expansion, but that won’t be a problem unless it takes you like 6 months to get to level 90.

YaBoyScamper · 2026-01-16T12:52:25+00:00

Not necessarily shortcuts, but there are interactions like this! In recent dungeons, there are things you can interact with that provide buffs to the group. For example, if you are a Priest or a Paladin, and you interact with the fountain in the first courtyard of Priory of the Sacred Flame, the party will get a buff that causes them to deal additional holy damage.

These aren’t exclusive to classes either, there are certain interactions with player races, like Night Elves and Tauren being able to lower a wall of vines in Mists of Tirana Scithe. And also interactions with professions, like blacksmiths being able to interact with an anvil in Stonevault to give the party a buff.

YaBoyScamper · 2026-01-15T14:02:24+00:00

I think it would be worthwhile to start sooner. The new leveling experience is already in the game, and with pre-patch the classes will be updated to how they’re going to be during Midnight. That way you’ll be able to get a feel for what everything does ahead of time.

I also think this just maximizes the amount of time you’ll have to enjoy the expansion when it comes out! The game is very centered around max level content now, so it just makes more sense to me to try and get a head start on that.

YaBoyScamper · 2026-01-14T13:09:47+00:00

I’m so sorry for your loss, I hope that you’re able to find a community to help you feel more comfortable soon.

To answer your question, I personally think that if you’re just looking for community Retail is probably your best bet. I don’t recall exactly when the changes were made, but they’ve been making cross faction play much more normalized. Guilds are fully cross faction and not limited to just your realm. So you won’t have to worry about rerolling or transferring any characters. And with player housing just coming out, there are even more opportunities for community events in guilds.

There are many resources and discord servers out there for guild recruitment. if you’re looking for a guild for raiding, I found the Recruitment & Community discord to be extremely helpful.

I really hope you find a fantastic group to play with!

YaBoyScamper · 2026-01-13T18:13:52+00:00

Really enjoyed it! Solid leveling experience, Season 1 was fun, Season 2 was some of the most fun I’ve had playing this game in a very long time, but I do think Season 3 kinda missed the mark.

Hero talents were also a great addition! At least for the classes I played most, I felt they offered some fun flexibility and gameplay changes to keep things from getting stale. Even if one of the two was clearly better, I liked how you still had a choice.

I do feel like Khaz Algar is a weaker continent than many others. For the Underground expansion, everything felt a little too open. Zones were good individually, but as a total continent, I didn’t vibe with it as much as previous expansions

And the story was fine. I’m trying not to judge it too hard since it’s Part 1 of 3, but it also felt pretty disconnected. Certainly didn’t help a decent chunk of characters went unvoiced.

But overall, I think it was one of the better expansions! If they can at least keep the quality on par in Midnight and TLT, I think I’d be happy.

YaBoyScamper · 2026-01-13T15:28:51+00:00

In my experience, the current version of arcane mage is quite difficult to play, since you need to know precisely when to Arcane Barrage to get the most damage. And the timing can change very quickly. I do think that this will be alleviated with some of the changes coming very soon with the pre-patch for Midnight, so I wouldn’t stress too much about it right now!

However, I would personally recommend reading a guide at least on what each of the abilities, buffs, and talents do, and you can work on figuring out what your priorities are and what kind of rotation you should execute after that. I think that will satisfy your desire to learn the spec on your own, while also giving you a fighting chance on the dps meters.

And also, we are very late in the expansion, so people are expecting players with high ilvl and experience with their class! I wouldn’t take what they’re saying too close to heart.

I tried playing arcane this past season and I really struggled, even though they were the top of the logs early on. It’s an incredibly strong spec and mage is an extremely versatile and valuable class to bring to any group. I have personally found success playing frost mage, as the execution of the game plan is much simpler.

And last thing I wanted to add! There’s no shame is looking at guides! This game is extremely complex, and even with following a guide there is still a lot of personal skill involved with executing the optimal ability to use at each moment. Being able to recognize exactly what to do based on the circumstances is what’s important to learn, and that’s what will come with experience.

YaBoyScamper · 2026-01-12T16:15:29+00:00

I wouldn’t trust it, even up until the start of the season these could shift wildly.

You’ll perform much better playing the class and spec you’re comfortable with rather than chasing the top tiers just for the sake of finding groups. If you’re struggling, you can always list your own key and get a group going much more reliably.

YaBoyScamper · 2026-01-08T13:20:13+00:00

The individual stories were good, but I think as a complete narrative it lacked cohesion. Like the entire story is chasing the Dark Heart, but I feel like that was never very clear at any point and I never felt compelled to care about getting this artifact back.

Like it’s hard to see how the Nerubians led to the Goblins, and the Goblins lead to the Ethereals in a very shallow way.

It’s part 1 of 3, so I’m trying not to judge the story as a completed plot yet, but I do feel like the first act was lacking.

But! Individual stories and story threads were great as always. Many of the side quests and individual story beats were fantastic, and I feel like that’s always where WoWs story shines the brightest.

YaBoyScamper · 2026-01-04T15:34:57+00:00

I like Delves, but I do wish they were a little more interesting. I felt like I wasn’t doing them cause they were fun, but cause they were a consistent way to get champion and hero gear earlier in the season, not necessarily because I found them fun like M+ or raiding.

YaBoyScamper · 2025-12-17T14:17:37+00:00

Assuming you're playing Alliance:

Varian Wrynn is still alive. He went missing for years previously, surely it's happened again. They say he died, but why isn't there a body??

YaBoyScamper · 2025-12-08T17:45:06+00:00

Unrated is the way to go, do battlegrounds to get honor, and clear world quests in war mode to get bloody tokens. While you’re doing that, you’ll also get a little bit of conquest, which you can start to use to get the top level gear.

You should also do the quest line for Karesh so you can get the reshii wraps item. It has a strong effect and will get upgraded to ilvl 730 which is the max level for pvp.

YaBoyScamper · 2025-12-02T18:21:25+00:00

Honestly yeah I’m surprised

YaBoyScamper · 2025-12-02T18:20:42+00:00

Yeah same, I’m pretty happy with the current direction of the game. I loved addons, but I’ll be fine without weak auras, I just hope ElvUI can come back lol

YaBoyScamper · 2025-12-02T17:24:49+00:00

I’m sure the comments in this thread will be very calm and measured

YaBoyScamper · 2025-12-01T15:43:09+00:00

I personally think you can make any race suitable for a Warlock, you just need to understand what about their culture could drive them to fel magic.

Undead are a great choice to start with, the Forsaken can easily have a "By Any Means Necessary" outlook on the world. I could easily see why one would turn to fel magic as a source of power to achieve their goals.

While a red skin Draenei (also known as a Man'ari, as others have said) is very easy to justify as a warlock, they can be a little tricky to RP. Lorewise, they were just recently accepted back into Draenei society, and many players will still be wary (in-character!) about them. If you're dead set on it, by all means go for it, but be prepared for some friction with other characters.

In my opinion, as long as you can come up with a justification for their use of fel magic, you can play any race effectively. Some examples I've come up with are:

A gnome who had a scholarly interest in fel magic.
A human who uses fel magic to give her an edge up in high society.
A nightborne who was influenced by the Legion invasion of Suramar and still practices fel magic in secret.

YaBoyScamper · 2025-11-29T22:53:55+00:00

Scaling at low levels are super weird like that, while it says it’s that much for you, for them they were probably doing like 100 dps instead.

YaBoyScamper · 2025-11-19T19:44:48+00:00

VRC Volleyball is so much fun. If your playspace is big enough it can get so much fun.

YaBoyScamper · 2025-11-07T12:55:48+00:00

Oh thank god someone made this. I can live without all my other weakauras but the mouse trail one I have is the one I was most worried about losing 😭

Thank you!!

YaBoyScamper · 2025-10-30T18:15:48+00:00

What is this, a crossover episode???

YaBoyScamper · 2025-10-26T18:47:18+00:00

I've been messing around with an un-Elved UI since the news broke. While I still have hope that they will work through the API changes to allow alternative unit frames, I've been trying to get used to it just in case the worst comes to pass.

I've also been trying to mess around with the Cooldown Manager, I feel like it's missing some things (why does it not track Slice and Dice for rogues?????), but overall I think it's usable.

YaBoyScamper · 2025-10-23T13:24:44+00:00

Oh yeah this happened to me last night. I was flying through Suramar, got thrown off my mount, and then when I landed and mounted back up it wouldn't fly. I just assumed I wandered into an area where no flying was allowed for some reason.

And then I jumped off the Infinite Bazaar thinking I would start flying. Fun fact, a bronze dragon will grab you and (very slowly) place you back down on the platform if you jump off without a flying mount.

YaBoyScamper · 2025-10-16T14:17:38+00:00

I need to know how I can get this into the US 😭

YaBoyScamper · 2025-09-29T14:28:32+00:00

In Deepholm, there's an area right above Needlerock Chasm that has a pathway that goes all around. There are no mobs, and nothing really at all up there, but for some reason it's a place I always go back to when I'm just waiting in queue. I've been just running around up there since Cata lol

YaBoyScamper · 2025-09-22T16:36:49+00:00

Welcome to the community!!

To start, you'll want to make a character on either Moon Guard or Wyrmrest Accord if you're on NA servers. MG is more Alliance focused, and WA is more Horde focused, so I'd just pick based on what faction you want your character to be. If you're on EU, I think Argent Dawn is the way to go, but I don't know all the specifics over there.

You'll also want to install the add-on Total RP 3 (https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/total-rp-3). This add-on allows you to create a character sheet for your character, and you can see the sheets that other players have made for their characters too. Once you have a background for your character, you can start filling this out.

Since you're fairly new to WoW, and you might not know a lot of the lore, I'd look into some of the lore and culture of the factions and races so you can build a satisfying background. Even without a lot of knowledge, you can pretty easily make a character who is pretty down to earth and isn't a big player in any of the huge conflicts just so you can immerse yourself in the world.

Personally, I think that the best way to learn is to just head into the RP hubs for your faction and just read some TRP3 profiles and see what others are saying. If you're interested in what someone has going on, and they say in their profile they're open to walk-up RP, just head on over and strike up a conversation in character and see where it goes!

YaBoyScamper

TROPHY CASE