WOW TBC Quick Starter guide : World of Warcraft General Discussions

1. What items should I be saving before TBC comes out?

* 100-120 Runecloth: Required to grind your First Aid Skill from 300 to 330.

* Various Potions and Misc Supplies: Not needed but useful for helping up your effectiveness when back to soloing. Things like Health Pots, Trolls Blood, Sharpening Stones, etc all can give you a boost.

* As much gold as you can: Lets face it, the AH is going to be full of new equipment, weapons, recipes and materials that you are going to want, so going into TBC with gold on hand will be a boon.

* Empy Your Bags: Clear your bags when you go to Outlands and only keep the items you are going to need while leveling. For example, the FR Gear you keep in your bags for MC or BWL Runs? Dump it in the Bank. Remember, there are no Auction Houses in Outlands so you want every available slot open to help minimize trips back and forth to Azeroth.

2. I am based in Ironforge, should I move else where?
Many people prefer to be based in Ironforge due to its proximity to Blackrock Mountain and the Instances within. However with TBC, I would suggest moving to Stormwind, due to being closer to Blasted Lands than Ironforge.

I expand on this below in the Hearthstone question.

3. How do I get to Outlands?
Getting to Outlands is easy and requires you to go to the Blasted Lands and then simply walk through the Dark Portal into Outlands. The level requirement on the portal itself is level 58 and you must have the expansion activated on your account before you can enter.

4. Where will I be when I get to Outlands? Where should I go right off the bat?
When you enter Outlands the first zone you will be in is called Hellfire Peninsula and this zone is intended for level 60-63 players and is one of, if not the largest zone in all of World of Warcraft.

After going through the portal, jump down to your left and you will find a Flight Path NPC, talk to him and he will fly you to Honor Hold, which is the main town for Alliance in Hellfire Peninsula.

Alternatively, follow the quest line you get outside the Dark Portal on the Blasted Lands side.

For Horde, jump to the right and jump on the Bat Handler NPC, he will fly you to Thrallmar.

5. Any tips for Hellfire Peninsula?
I could write a book on this zone, but I wont and at the end of the day, it is just like most other WoW zones, so I do advise you explore every square inch of this zone because there are half a dozen quest hub areas in this zone and some are easy to miss if you don't explore it fully, costing you potential XP, Loot and fun from doing the quests. In addition to the quest hubs, there are numerous flight paths here and a second Alliance town by the name of Temple of Telhamut.

To help you in this zone, I have included a Map below: (Source, Original Author Unknown)

6. Where is the Auction House? Where is the Bank?
There is no Auction House in Outlands at all. You MUST go back to a main city in Azeroth.
The only city with a Bank is Shattrath and the bank is tied into The Aldor and The Scryer opposing factions within the city.

7. Where are the Profession Trainers?
There are various skill trainers in Outlands. Alliance Profession Trainers are found in Honor Hold, Horde Profession Trainers are found in Thrallmar. Shattrath, which is the main Outlands city found between Nagrand and Terokkar Forrest and shared by Horde and Alliance players, also has all types of Trainers available.

8. Where are the Class Trainers?
There are no class trainers in Outlands. You MUST go back to the main cities in Azeroth.

9. Where can I learn Master First Aid?
After you get to Honor Hold for the first time, you can ride to the Temple of Telhamut in Hellfire Peninsula and purchase the [item]Master First Aid - Doctor in the House[/item] book off a vendor here. You can also purchase [item]Manual: Netherweave Bandage[/item] (FA-330) and [item]Manual: Heavy Netherweave Bandage[/item] (FA-360) books off this NPC (don't worry, they are cheap).

You then need to grind out 30 skill points by making Heavy Runecloth Bandages and this will use up anywhere from 80 to 120 Runecloth, thus the reason I said to take about 120 Runecloth to Outlands.

For Horde:
The above First Aid Books are found in Falcon Crest for the Horde side. Make sure you grab the Flight Path to get back to Thrallmar. (Thanks to akauankka for that)

10. Any tips on going back and forth between Outlands and a Main City? Where should I set my Hearthstone?
Due to there not be any Auction Houses in Outlands, you will definitly be making daily trips back to a Main City in Azeroth to sell equipment or check the AH. Some people will use an Alt Character for this but I prefer to use my main character so I can do direct equipment comparisons and such.

There are various alternatives here:

* Save your Hearthstone in Honor Hold in Hellfire and then ask a Mage to portal you back to a main city (Don't be a tight !@#$%^&* and forget to tip them), then Hearthstone back to Outlands.

* If you don't want to rely on a Mage, save your Hearthstone in Stormwind and then since SW is relatively close to the Dark Portal, you can fly back to Blasted Lands, ride to the Dark Portal and then fly back to Honor Hold that way. While a bit time consuming, it does give you time to take a pee break while on the mount

* Ride to Shattrath (easily doable at 60) to set your Hearthstone and grab the flight path. Since Shattrath has portals back to all the Main Cities in Azeroth, you can easily fly to Shattrath, portal to a Main City in Azeroth and then hearthstone back to Shattrath and then fly back to whatever zone you were in. The negative here is that you will do a LOT of flying back and forth between Shattrath and whatever zone you are currently questing in.

Playing through 60 to 70 in the Beta, what I did myself was Option 2 to start with while I was doing Hellfire Peninsula quests and then when I moved to Zangarmarsh and Terokkar Forrest I switched to option 3. When I moved to Blades Edge Mountains and Netherstorm, I moved to option 1 and then when I got my flying mount at 70, I went back to Option 3.

The only problem with Option 1 is that it pisses off everybody when you are spamming Looking for a Mage to portal me!, but if you don't mind doing that, it is an option.

11. How does World PVP work and is it worth doing?
I wont go fully into World PVP however to do a quick summary, when you kill somebody OR recover a World PVP Objective you get a Token (Mark of Honor Hold for Hellfire Peninsula and Zangarmarsh or Halaa Battle Token or Halaa Research Token for Nagrand) that is specific to the zone you are in. These tokens can then be turned in at respective PVP vendors in the zone you are in and redeemed for some nice equipment rewards.

Is it worth doing? I think so because some of the stuff is really quite nice at an early level and World PVP is something that people will actually be doing in Outlands so it shouldn't be too hard to get involved in.

For example, for 15 Marks of Honor you can get [item]Band of the Victor[/item] or [item]Circlet of the Victor[/item].

12. Are the Reputation Rewards any good in Outlands?
Yes, unlike WoW Retail, the reputation rewards are actually pretty decent this time around and depending on what you have, actually worth getting. For example, if you are Honored with Honor Hold, there is a decent 52dps 1H Sword you can buy early on, which is fairly easy to get for those of you who didn't get Grand Marshall Weapons or Raid weapons in WoW Retail.