New Player Tips, Warcraft Movie Edition

With the Warcraft movie making its debut soon in the States after relatively decent success abroad, there will likely be a sizeable influx of new players and with it, many questions. While I've written some articles intended to help newbs, many are out of date to the point I've tagged them as legacy articles and have no plans on updating them. To compensate for lack of updates, I will go over some tips I have for new players in this short article. With that said, here are the tips:

World of Warcraft: A Primer on Enemy Mechanics

In games, there are often strategies to play optimally, mostly to get through a rough patch. Many games, such as RPGs and shooters, use enemies, particularly bosses to represent these hardships that a player must deal with to progress. World of Warcraft's enemies follow this formula and for each boss in the game, there are many resources that guide a player through the encounter. These encounters themselves also have a specified formula in the form of common mechanics that the developers use in some form. These mechanics are typically familiar in nature but can take many forms, not to mention that their interactions with other mechanics, including new ones innovated over time, ensure that short of intentional design, no two encounters are completely alike, thus allowing for continuous progression.

World of Warcraft: What Class Should I Choose? (Warlords of Draenor Version)

When browsing the forums and watching chats for questions, I often try to look for a pattern of common questions that get asked. These questions are typically treated as "stupid questions" because of how often they are asked to the point other people get tired of them and the people who they think should've looked up the answer to previous inquirers to begin with.

While I personally gave my views on the idea of handling stupid questions in an enormous rant, I don't think prosecuting the people who disrespect people for asking such questions is necessarily the way to go. By providing informative resources like the LFR guide and, to a point, the various analysis articles I have written, and keeping them open for commenting, I hope to create an environment where people can freely ask their questions and have them answered.

This particular article is a direct response to this post, since it makes sense to create a resource that answers a frequently asked question. However, the topic this article covers is not the question of whether a player should come back to World of Warcraft. Instead, this article will cover the following question, which I believe to be one of the most frequently asked:

What class should I choose?

This question can be presented in many forms. Sometimes it's a general question that asks which of the 11 classes is most suitable for leveling up and playing. Other times it's a choice between a few classes that the player may already have or express an interest in playing.

While I previously made a guide in an attempt to answer this question when writing a guide series for newer players, it was far less detailed than I would've liked. Thus, in an attempt to answer all forms of the question above in a detailed manner without telling people to flip coins or roll dice, I have ranked each class choice based on their roles, leveling efficiency, and other factors such as provided utility and class abilities. The ranking will also assume that a player is creating their first character and will not account for boosting, though since boosting does affect the rankings a little I will mention when the level 90 boost affects rankings. An explanation will follow each ranking to explain the reasons for my ranking choice.

This list will not account for game balance such that classes that perform well on a damage meter automatically rank higher. I will attempt to account for factors such as personal preference by concluding each section with recommendations and statements not directly related to my reason for ranking a class choice. These rankings are opinion-based, though I will try my best to make the rankings as objective and factually-rich as possible.

With that said, the rankings are as follows:

This chart serves as a quick point of reference to determine which class is the best to level. See below for a more detailed explanation.

Note: (To reiterate) If this helped you out and you see someone else asking about what class to choose or boost, please consider sharing this article!