Rogue Leveling Guide for The Burning Crusade (60-70)
It's been a long time since I have made a contribution to the rogue community in
the forum of a guide. I wanted to do one a long time ago but with our talent
review, I decided to hold off. By then BC was right around the corner and it
didn't make any sense to write one that would become completely obsolete in a
couple of months.
This guide is an early Burning Crusade leveling guide. In other words, it is
written for those who level in Burning Crusade within a few months of its
launch. I will update it to be a guide not specific to launch and it will go
into version 3.0 of my general rogue guide. This guide is also intended for
rogues. However, most of this guide applies to all classes. I'm not an expert at
the alliance aspect of BC but I have written this guide to be class agnostic.
As for my qualifications, I was in closed beta and took a rogue and a mage to 60
there. I almost got another to 60 in open beta, which was really just a short
stress test. In retail pre-BC, I took 5 characters to 60 including a rogue of
course. I'm the Guildmaster and raid leader of The Unholy Legion on Kalecgos
(transferred from Tichondrius). We had more than half of Nax completed prior to
the launch of Burning Crusade. I was in the alpha and beta test of The Burning
Crusade and took my rogue to 70 and leveled some of my other toons to about 65.
This is not a walkthrough. I'm not going to micromanage your path to 70. I'm
just going to provide you with a lot of information and you can decide what
paths to take.
GEARING UP IN BC
The rules have changed a bit in The Burning Crusade, but rogues stick with the
AEP system:
1 agility = 2 strength = 2 attack power = 1 stamina = 1 AEP
You will gain an insane amount of hitpoints as you increase in level. This is
far more than we got before. This will devalue stamina in the AEP system but
frankly for grinding, more stam=less eating or bandaging, so let's stick with
the original formula for grinding. The AEP system also varies now by build but
let's not get that granular for the grind.
Many will ask how important crit and hit are. You should definitely maintain a
decent amount of hit. Crit isn't key for leveling but it always helps. One
percent to crit is worth about 20 attack power.
Don't buy any pre-expansion gear. The worst greens in Outland are better than
Shadowcraft and Darkmantle. These greens won't fall out of the sky, so don't
think that you will be upgrading everything overnight, but you will be picking
up new pieces. Use the AEP system formula I listed above.
For example:
Darkmantle Boots: 24 agility and 10 stamina = 34 AEP
Level 60 Green Boots of the Monkey (Outland): 18 agility and 18 stamina = 36 AEP
The green boots are better. It's only 2 AEP though. If you have a 7 agility
enchant on your Darkmantle then they will still be better. I absolutely don't
recommend enchanting every new piece you get. In beta, not everything was
itemized yet and I had replaced 9 pieces of gear before level 70 including the
second best boots, 3rd best cloak, and the best rings in the game (all pre
expansion). A lot of your gear will come from quests. Most of the blue quest
rewards are up to par with the AQ40 set and even tier 3.
Most green swords, fists and maces are better than Krol and Sacred Charge after
about level 63. I think they start at close to 146 max damage and quickly get to
160 before level 64. The first instance you go in can drop a blue sword that is
better than Brutality Blade.
A NOTE ON STEALTH
Many of you are going to feel like stealth got nerfed. Even with MoD, I found
myself getting busted out of stealth a LOT. Now before you go screaming about
this on the boards, keep in mind that before BC it was rare for you to ever
sneak up on and solo mobs that were 60-62. Without MoD, if you walk up to the
front of a mob, spamming cheap shot on the way in, you will agro them 100% of
the time. But only about one in 50 will nail you before you get your CS off. Don't
feel like you need to make big circles around mobs or feel like you need to put
MoD in all of your builds. It's no big deal, just keep it in mind.
Vanish served me well in alpha and beta. Has it been fixed? I don't know, I
honestly never thought it was broken. But I'm also very good about gouging, then
running, then vanishing rather than just standing there while 5 mobs beat on me
and upset because vanish isn't an invulnerability button.
GENERAL LEVELING
DO NOT level in Azeroth. A level 58 mob in Winterspring or Eastern Plaguelands
will give you about 300 XP per kill while a level 58 mob in Outland will give
you 500 XP per kill.
Green is good. Whether it be questing, grinding or instance runs, the best XP
per hour I was able to muster in BC came from killing mobs that were 3-5 levels
below me. This is the best advice that I can give you. I saw this a lot in BC
beta. Everyone wanted to do stuff 3 levels above them. This is a tragic mistake.
Can I handle mobs 3 levels above me? Heck yes. I can handle mobs 7 levels above
me. But the rate in which you kill them is not worth the minimal XP bonus you
get. You all have to heal yourself more often, you will die more often and you
will level incredibly slowly. From 69-70 I solo grinded on mobs 5-6 levels below
me and I was one or two hitting them. It was 100K XP per hour unrested.
You want to know my personal strategy? I'm going to be sitting at my trainer in
Org ready to train anything that I need to. I will immediately head to Outland.
Once I get to outland there is a flight path right by the dark portal. In beta
you already have the flight path to your first town so there is no need to run
through all of the giant elite demons who will all one hit you.
Once I get to my first town (Thrallmar for horde, Honor Hold for Alliance) I
will head straight to Hellfire Citadel with 4 of my guildmates who are ready to
lay waste to stuff for the next 12 hours straight. I will run the first two
instances (ramparts and blood furnace) until I hit level 63. When I hit 63, I
will head to Terokaar Forrest. There are enough quests there at 63 to get me to
64. If I see so much as 3 horde in town, I will turn around and go back into HFC
for more instance grinding. If that happens I will hit 65 in those instances and
skip to Nagrand. My goal is to stay way ahead of the curve. Ganking and kill
stealing won抰 be an issue for me.
Easy for me to say, right? I got to enjoy every single quest and really got to
enjoy the immersion. I have a guild of 350 that I can level with. I realize that
this doesn't make sense for many of you. I just wanted to share what my strategy
is. I hate the idea of skipping some of these zones. There are quest rewards
that I really want, but there is a major problem in front of us. 10,000 other
people will be in those zones too. If any of you have ever been there for launch
day of any server, you know what I mean. The level 1-5 noob zones are crowded.
It's not so bad, once you break out of the first zone, things fan out fast. Once
you hit level 20, there are very few people in your area because there are a ton
of different places that a level 20 can quest or grind.
Now imagine the 1-5 zone but everywhere from 60-70. I kid you not. If you are on
a low population PvE server, you will still find yourself competing with
hundreds of people in the same spot. It was like this in late beta and the
population there was nowhere near what it is on my medium population retail
server. The only zones that are equal in level are Netherstorm and Shadowmoon
Valley. Every other zone will be stacked with people your level.
This is not a guide to roleplaying. I wrote this guide for those who want to
level efficiently. Level as quickly or slowly as you like. But I warn you, the
questing experience isn't so fun when you have hundreds of people camping
spawns. It's up to you.
I realize that my personal leveling strategy will keep me from killing mobs 3-5
levels below me, but I will do what I must to stay ahead of the curve. Hopefully
by the time I get to 67, I will be far enough ahead where I can kill stuff 3-5
levels below me. What I won't do is try to go into zones where mobs are 2+
levels above me.
LEVELING IN INSTANCES
The fastest XP per hour possible can be earned by running instances. I don't
care how good your gear is or how aggressive you are, a good group in an
instance will earn nearly twice as much XP per hour than solo grinding. Key
words here are 揼ood group? If you are going to join pugs that don't know how
to assist, go afk a lot, wipe a lot and put little effort in, you will do
horribly. I tested this thoroughly. With a well-geared but incredibly ragtag
group (druid tank, shadow priest, no shaman or paladin and no mage) I
consistently earned twice the XP per hour that I was able to earn solo grinding
and I'm extremely efficient at grinding.
The smartest thing you can do to get good XP per hour in instances is keep them
as low as possible. If the mobs are mostly green then you should be able to
crush that place in record time. I plan to do the first instance until I'm level
63.
The nice thing about grinding in instances is that you will never run out of
them. There are so many, they completely overlap. You all never run out of
content.
I do warn you though, if you do not have a good, driven group, you will waste an
insane amount of time. I do not recommend running instances for many who read
this guide.
A lot of my guildmates have asked to form static groups. In other words, they
want to have 4 of them and I in the same 5 man group for instances while we
level to 70. That won't make the most sense for me as I work from home and can't
commit to set blocks of time. This might make sense for those of you in small
guilds or those of you who choose to run unguilded but have a few friends
running around.
If you really want to do well in instances from an XP per hour standpoint, chain
pull as much as possible. Get everyone in the mindset that they need to sit and
drink and eat the moment they get out of combat because another pull is on its
way. Don't be reckless, just try to be as aggressive as possible.
QUESTS
There are endless quests. I have never been a big fan of questing to level, as
they can be a time suck if you don't complete them quickly. It抯 no different
in BC. But there are so many, you can just run around killing everything in the
zone and complete a ton of them in the process of your grind. Many quest rewards
are excellent.
For those of you who wish to immerse yourself into the lore of the game, feel
free to use quests to guide you to 70. You shall still have to grind, but not
nearly as much as you did from 1-60. But again, I warn you, it will be crowded
at launch.
I will say though that questing in BC is easier than in pre-BC. The quest
descriptions are better and the objectives are easier to find in general.
Questing will be a really good way to level after the rush dies down from the
initial release.
Like I have said in the past before BC, if a quest objective isn't clear and you
can't look it up, dump it and move on. Searching for quest objectives often
turns into 10K XP per hour.
SOLO MOB GRINDING
This is how I like to level. Quests and instances are cool but I like to go into
autopilot for 12 hours and just wreak havoc on everything in my path.
One good thing about grinding in BC is that Blizzard implemented code that
increases the spawn rate of mobs based on the number of people in the area. This
doesn't scale enough to justify grinding in the same spot as 20 other people,
but it helps if you have no other options.
I warn you, if you come into BC with full Shadowcraft, you will get pounded hard
in BC against mobs your level. If that's the case, I recommend grinding with a
group and doing quests in the process. Either that or keep the mobs levels low.
Don't try to kill level 67's when you have 65. You can do it but you won't do it
quickly.
For rogues, the trick is to find a good mob to grind. I love humanoids casters.
They have soft and never get a spell off against me because I interrupt them. I
take 2 dps and dish out 800. Some mobs hit insanely hard. So try and steer clear
of mobs that force you to eat or bandage every 3-4 kills. I shoot for 10 kills
per heal. There are two ways to do this. One is by stunlocking them to death.
This is a bad idea. You shall end up doing 300 DPS instead of 900 DPS. The
second is to pick good mobs. Don's be too picky but don't be stubborn about
mastering tough mobs.
Buff yourself as much as you can when questing or grinding. Instant poison on
both hands (unless you have specced mutilate) and if you can afford it, an
endless supply of potions that boost your AP and crit. Don't waste an hour
looking for a druid to buff you, but use every advantage that you can. Don't
ever leave town without at least 40 instant poison.
Use your cooldowns!!! Evasion, blade flurry, adrenaline rush, cold blood, etc.
Use them constantly. I don't care if the opposite faction might jump you at any
time, focus on the timers. It's not painful when it becomes second nature to
you. If you use your timers whenever they are up you can grind more than twice
as fast.
TALENT BUILDS
The number one question that I get from people has always been and will now even
moreso be, that is the best build.
It's a viable question. My biggest advice is for you to pick a good build and
stick with it. Don't try to be an innovator. Let someone else blaze the trail
for you. I have spoken to THOUSANDS of rogues (I'm not joking) who have taken a
standard tested build and made gigantic changes to them. A sprinkle of this and
a sprinkle of that to cater to your gameplay, fine, but don't put together some
wild build and then ask someone later if it's any good. I'm not saying this
because I'm irritated with any factor of this because I simply am not. I'm just
trying to save you folks some time and gold. Others have blazed the trail for
you. Enjoy the game and benefit from that knowledge.
You have going to want to test all of the new skills and talents. Try to refrain
from doing so. You have going to get pounded out there and will want to respec
to minimize this. Just try to be better at the build you have unless it's
horribly flawed. If you don't know whether or not your build is horribly flawed,
then it probably is.
Before I get into builds, let's cover talents that are good and bad for
leveling.
First off, I don't like most of the survivability talents. Reduced chance of
being stunned, feared, extra HP, chance to resist spells, all have their
applications. Grinding isn's one of them. I might have some of this stuff in my
builds but only because there are no better options. I don't like MoD except for
daggers where I kind of have to get it for improved ambush. But even then
Camouflage has served me much better in my grind. Improved ambush is an
excellent talent to max out. Open with big crits and end it fast. Also, if you
are a dagger rogue, remorseless attacks is your best friend. While I don't
really need it to get a lot of ambush crits, it guarantees it and keeps me
driven to move from mob to mob.
Also note that these builds might change at the last minute before BC comes out
as they are constantly changing things.
Combat Swords
At 60:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/...10552100050150
To 70:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info...000000000000000
I actually did a Mace version of this because my maces are a lot better than my
swords. Claws are fine too; just stay away from combat daggers. It's great for
raids but rough for grinding. Save daggers for SF/Mutilate.
I warn you, you will take a lot of damage with this build. You will open with
CS, get 2 SS's in, will have 4 combo points, the mob will no longer be stunned
and you will take a pretty heavy beating for 6 seconds while you wait for enough
energy to gouge or continue on doing damage.
Use this build aggressively. Every two minutes you should be fighting two mobs
at once with blade flurry. Every 5 minutes you should be fighting 3 mobs at once
using blade flurry and adrenaline rush at the same time. Just be careful when
pulling multiples, BF and AR are amazing but they don抰 make you Superman. The
combo should be CS, evasion, AR, BF, SS, SnD, spam SS.
This build feels slow and clunky when you have not using BF or AR. Those of you
who used a heavy subtlety build to grind to 60 will especially feel this way. CS
seems to last a split second because of its energy cost. You find yourself
waiting and waiting while you just do white damage and wait that seemingly
loooooong 4 seconds to do another SS. My advice is to muscle up and just pump it
out. You have going to take damage. Just bandage once every 5-6 fights if you
have to and trust the fact that this is probably the best DPS leveling build.
Mutilate
At 60:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/...00000000000000
To 70:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/...00000000000000
This build isn's for everyone but for me it was the hands down best solo
grinding build possible. Mutilate is fantastic for grinding if you are
comfortable with daggers. I don't know if I'm killing faster than I did with a
combat build but I certainly had more fun with it. It's very efficient. I take
very little damage and the mobs drop fast. Here's a common combo: Ambush, wait,
gouge, wait, KS, mutilate, mutilate, evisc. I know that抯 a lot of waiting, but
those pauses are also followed up with some monster hits. With improved ambush
and remorseless attacks you are pretty much guaranteed a crit opener. When you
ambush and gouge you will almost always have 3 combo points. If you put smart
pauses in after ambush and after gouge, you will have a full energy bar when
dropping that KS.
Note with these mutilate builds that I made some changes to what you probably
had in your pre-BC mutilate build. First off, I have instant poisons maxed out.
This isn's absolutely necessary but getting your target poisoned early is
important for efficiency.
Yes, I have improved SS in this build. It's not a must, but it's nice to have
when both your gouge and kidney shot miss/dodge/parry/block. It doesn't happen
often, so there's no crime in spending your points elsewhere.
Some people like to grind with mutilate by opening with cheap shot. This is
perfectly fine. I'm a bigger fan of the big ambush crits. Both are pretty
equally effective.
Avoid using fast daggers. Core Hound Tooth is a bad mutilate weapon. It's better
than nothing, but try to use slow daggers with high max damage. Other than that,
don't worry about what gear is best for mutlate.
Most important: ALWAYS have crippling poison on your MH. Mutilate does fantastic
damage against poisoned mobs. Against non-poisoned mobs, it's terrible.
Hemo
At 60:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/...00000000000000
To 70:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/...00000000000000
I don't like this build. I even less like posting it in my guide. I tested it
thoroughly and I know some of you will go with a hemo build no matter what
anyone says, so this is what I consider a good hemo grinding build.
The reason I don't like hemo is that it doesn't do very good damage. I have a
ton of AP and I used Misplaced Servo Arm to test it. Against ogres my level I
had to do 3 full combos to finish them in some cases. I felt like I was hitting
every mob I fought with a pillow and Servo is a better hemo weapon than anything
I saw before 70.
The plus side is control. You can do almost two full combos before you get hit
once: CS, hemo, gouge, wait, KS, hemo, hemo, hemo hemo, gouge, evisc.
Unfortunately, that won't finish most mobs your level and you have still going
to take a lot of damage.
If you decide to go this route, load up on the attack power. A lot of gear that
you will get from quests will give you a ton, so that will help if you didn't
come in with good gear.
Build that I Didn't Include
I stayed away from a Shadowstep build. I used this to grind extremely low level
mobs from 69 to 70 and did really well with it, but against mobs my level I got
crushed. I also stayed away from hybrid builds where you switch from swords to
daggers as appropriate. Why torture yourself with weapon swap delays? I also
tested and did not like combat Hemo and Seal Fate swords. SF swords seemed
interesting but your crit is going to drop as you level, so it just didn't proc
that extra point enough. Combat hemo wasn't as good as I had expected.
Adrenaline Rush is so good for leveling and you don't get lethality maxed until
level 68. Plus you don't get Deadliness or Sinister Calling.
ZONES
Hellfire Peninsula
This is the first area that you will come to upon entering the Dark Portal.
There are about a million quests here. There are quests in 3 different towns and
in about 5 other locations where you can find groups of quest NPCs. I don't like
this zone. Have you ever quested in Eastern Plaguelands and been frustrated with
the big cracks in the ground in how you have to navigate around them? You shall
hate that about this place. I don't like most of the mobs. They put nasty dots
on you, have a ton of armor, burrow underground and do just about everything
that rogues hate.
What I do like is Hellfire Citadel. This has two instances in it that you can
run immediately (Ramparts and Blood Furnace). Make sure you get the quests in
town that are related to these instances as the quest rewards are really good.
Both of these instances are easy to do. Most of the bosses are a simple tank and
spank and only a couple of the pulls are tricky.
Zangramarsh
This is the next zone that you will get to east of Hellfire. There is a neutral
town full of quests and a couple of faction-specific towns also full of quests.
Most of the mobs here are non-humanoids but no elementals. There are some
fantastic mobs to grind on and 90% of them are quest related. Some of the quests
are tough to figure out but you can plow through a few levels here if it's not
too crowded.
In the middle of the big lake is a structure you can swim to and in the middle
is a tube for you to swim down. There are more instances in here with quest
givers outside. I don't consider these instances ideal for instance grinding but
they can be done for some good XP. Lot's of heavily armored mobs though.
Terokaar Forrest
I love this zone. It's south of Zangrmarsh. You can get quests here as early as
63 but if you don't have good gear, you might find it a little tough. There are
about a dozen quests that you can get here at 63 and almost all of them are
mindlessly straight-forward. There are another 10 or so from completing quests
and there might be a few at 64. The first thing that you will want to do here is
go to Shattarath City. It's the only major city in Outland and is what is called
a sanctuary. You don't even have the option to attack other players here. You
should find another 10 or so quests here.
South of Terokaar is an area called the Bone Wastes. In the middle is Auchindoon.
More instances. Some of them are really good for grinding but the difficulty
level definitely goes up here, so bring good players. This is really the last
zone that you will be doing instances in until you hit 70 unless you want to go
all the way down to Tanaris for Caverns of Time at about level 67+. But the
instances in Auchindoon range from 64 to 70.
Nagrand
This is my favorite zone. It's west of Terokaar and south of Zangramarsh. There
are endless mobs that are good to grind on and a massive number of quests, many
of which give good items. Don't forget to find Nessingwary. He has a new camp
here. You should start working this zone at level 64. Some quests aren't
available until 65. You could easily get to 70 in this zone, 67 from quests
alone.
There are no instances in this zone.
Blade's Edge Mountains
Lots of Ogres but not a ton of quests that I like. Not bad as a quick stop on
the way to Netherstorm though.
There are no instances in this zone.
Netherstorm
This is an awesome zone. There are a ton of great quests and some good mobs to
grind on. Some of the quest rewards are fantastic. Don't miss out on them.
There are instances here but you have to be 70 and have a flying mount.
Shadowmoon Valley
This is about the same level as Netherstorm. It's smaller and probably has just
as many quests. I went in there with an empty quest log and still couldn't get
all of the quests. The mobs are pretty tough. There are some that are good for
grinding but not as many as Netherstorm which, despite what the map says, is
much bigger.
The only instance here is a raid instance.
PROFESSIONS AND LOOT
Why both of these in the same section? Almost all of the world loot table in
beta that is rare or epic comes in the form of a pattern. Blacksmith,
weaponsmith, tailor, enchanting, etc. No Krol Blade types of loot, just
patterns. All professions are extremely viable now. That includes
leatherworking. All professions can be extremely profitable. All patterns found
in the world are BOE and can be sold on the AH.
AFTER 70
Time to gear up. At this time, the level 70 PvP rewards are mediocre at best.
Many quest items and a ton of instance drops are better. This is with the
exception of arena rewards, but be ready for some serious competition in there.
Believe me it is nothing like the easy loot that you can get from running AV,
WSG and AB at 60 for the rank 14 epics.
The best way to get gear is to run instances. There is blue gear in BC that
rivals tier 4 but that gap will again widen as tier 5 and 6 become available.
Head back to Tanaris and run Caverns of Time. There are some fantastic rewards
there. Also run Auchindoon. The last boss in Shadow Labyrinth drops amazing
stuff for all classes including a 174 max damage dagger.
You抣l find instances in general to be a lot shorter with a couple of
exceptions. Most of the pre-70 instances can be done in less than 20 minutes
with a good group. Tempest Keep seems long but so did Scholomance when we were
in green gear.
If you raid, work on getting your factions to revered so you can get keys to the
heroic modes of all instances. They have extremely hard. It's like doing Onyxia
with a 5 man team at 60. These are moreso something to do on your free time when
you have not doing 10 and 25 man raid instances than they are for gearing up.
Trust me, it won't be a walkover for anyone.
I DO NOT recommend doing old raid instances. You will not crush through Nax at
level 70 as easily as you are think and the rewards are garbage in comparison to
what you can get in 5-man instances on normal. Nax bosses, with very few
exceptions require that everyone play a key strategic role. You have not going
to group up the Four Horsemen and AOE them at 70. Yes, Patchwerk will drop
faster because of the extra DPS but believe me, if you don't have serious people
working hard to heal and be in position, you will not take him down at 70.
I'm not going to list all of the factions and their rewards, but you will
probably want to grind a lot of them as the quest rewards are pretty good. Don't
focus on them during your grind but keep in mind what factions you want to grind
and try to do their quests.
ALTERNATIVE ROLES
This doesn't apply to rogues as the idea of being a healer or a tank is
ridiculous. Yes, we can offtank for short periods of time in blue instances if
people assist you. What I'm talking about is druids, shaman, paladins and
priests taking on alternative roles.
Be weary of this. You will find some people who are good at these roles but not
many. I know some druids that are fantastic tanks for 5 man instances. I have
seen priests put up some decent numbers but it's pretty rare. I have yet to see
a shaman put up fantastic numbers. The lack of DPS will hurt you some, but the
big pitfall is when you have you plus 4 healers in your group and none of them
are specced for healing nor wish to play a healing role.
I'm not going to tell anyone how to spec or play this game. You have paying your
$15/month not me. But if you find yourself in a situation of not having some
solid crowd control, tanking and healing, I highly recommend that you politely
leave your group and find something else to do. Pick flowers, grind some
faction, but these groups will suck you down.
The truth is that no one will be specced ideally in the grind to 70. A priest
would be a fool to spec holy in his grind to 70. But someone does have to heal
and that means getting out of shadowform and healing. A warrior would be a fool
to spec protection to 70, but it's easy to put on tanking gear and do a decent
job of tanking. Just look out for warriors who want to tank in berserker. After
the grind to 70 you will find a lot of people want to stay the same spec that
they were before. All I am saying is that you should know what you have getting
into before joining a group. But be polite. That DPS shaman isn't a jerk for not
wanting to heal even though he does half your damage as a rogue. That's his
choice.
For those of you who play hybrid classes, my best advice is to make your mark at
70. If you have serious about it, bust your tail getting exceptional gear and
make your case when you have sure you can be a serious competitor on the damage
meters.
PREPARATION
I wanted to close with this section because I want it to be fresh in your minds
when you have done reading this guide and I have a lot more to add.
Hopefully you put together a decent bankroll going into BC. There aren't a lot
of money sinks unless you grind professions in the AH.
Empty your bank. You will no longer need your resist gear. Get rid of everything
that you don't absolutely need. Most people are terrible about this (myself
included). I still have that stupid neck that turns me into a draknoid. You will
need the bank space. Crafting mats will be very valuable. Drop this stuff off
into your bank until the market settles and you can determine what it is worth.
You will loot a lot of items that you can't decide on. I had a hard time
determining which of the 4 blue shoulders I had was best. If you made a lot of
potions, you will need space to put them. Even with the extra bag slot you will
run out of room. Trust me.
I抦 not listing any addons right now because none of them will work at launch.
Keep it simple. You don't need much to level. You won't need raiding addons or
PvP addons to get to 70, so don't make your lives difficult by loading up with a
bunch of garbage that you don't need. In alpha I was forced to level with no
addons at all. I got used to it very quickly and my performance was excellent
because of it. I will install Fubar and Perl and that's it until I start raiding
and PvPing. Scrolling combat text and a lot of other addons are going to do
nothing but lag you out.
You will make a lot of money looting corpses in your grind but it won't be
anywhere near what you will need for an epic flying mount, which trust me, you
want. It's not like pre-BC where your rides are relatively short. You will find
yourself flying on your mount instead of taking flightpaths. No, there aren't
many places that you can't go to without a mount but the flying mount is faster
in many cases. The wyverns and griffons fly faster than epic flying mounts but
they take crazy paths, so you will save yourself a lot of time just flying to
your destination yourself. Plus it's too cool to fly in WoW.
Again, I remind you to stock up on potions. Any consumables you have will make
your grind easier.
Go into BC with a plan. Do you want to stop and smell the roses by immersing
yourself in the lore? Do quests, but keep in mind that you will be fighting for
spawns a lot. Are you going to level with a friend or two? If so, make sure that
the time that you plan to put into leveling is compatible with theirs,
otherwise, consider an alternative.
Is The Burning Crusade going to be a train wreck lag fest on January 16th? Of
course it is. Know this going in. I know a lot of people who are taking vacation
that week. That's not a bad idea, but keep in mind that server stability might
be an issue that week. I'm not saying that you should pass on that week but all
MMOs have problems upon releasing expansions, so you should probably get
mentally prepared for it.
In closing, get ready for an amazing expansion. I don't care how much you have
read or what your friends in beta have told you, there is more content in this
expansion than you or I will ever do. I know that's a bold statement but trust
me, there are instances that I will barely get to appreciate and bosses on
heroic mode that I will never kill. The Burning Crusade is more like WoW 2 than
an expansion by any other MMOs standards.