What’s been going on in World Of Warcraft since Wrath of the Lich King?

I know a lot of people had stopped playing World of Warcraft before the expansion came out, and they sometimes wonder how it’s changed. Some have moved to other MMO games and want to know how it compares to the new WoW, while others have reverted back to FPS games and are just wondering if they’re missing anything. Because I hear a lot of the same questions, I’ve compiled a brief WotLK FAQ to quell some of that curiosity.

How was leveling from 70-80?
Certain people are really slow and others are fast, while some are online sixteen hours a day, already leveling a second character to 80. Before every level I would type /played to see how long it took; most levels took me around five hours. The starting areas for 70 in Northrend were horribly crowded at first but aren’t anymore.

Some quests are extremely fun, allowing you ride an elephant and trample enemies or ride a horse to safety, throwing bombs at ghouls chasing you. But there still are those horrible quests that take too much time, with awful drop rates, but you can almost always skip them.

I made about 3,500 gold leveling up one character from 70-80 without selling anything on the auction house, except frostweave cloth because it was extremely overpriced but has gone down a bunch. However, I was very good at picking up everything I looted and selling it to vendors, which I strongly recommend.

Are there like a thousand Death Knights, and are they overpowered?
There are not too many level 80 Death Knights and they are definitely not overpowered for PvE or PvP. They are able to help out other classes with a 10% AP bonus and a 15% move speed bonus (along with other things), and they can dish out a lot of damage, but Blizzard did a good job of not making them overpowered. When it comes to tanking, they are extremely good off tanks because of their high ability to parry and because they have skills that allow them to take much less magic damage than any other class—but their main tanking ability will not seem to be able to surpass Warriors.

What’s the new raiding content like?
So far, it’s been said that PvE raiding is a lot easier than it was in BC. After a few heroics and 10-man Naxxramas runs, you can be pretty geared if you were fortunate with drops. And if you didn’t know, yes, 10-man Naxxramas is the new Kara, but easier, and you can put it on heroic to make it a 25-man, where all the fights are tweaked slightly but still not too hard. At this point, 95% of level 80s are either running instances, heroics, 10-man Nax or 25-man Nax.

What’s the new PvP content like?
There are two new battlegrounds, one is Strand of the Ancients, and it requires level 75. The theme is that the horde and alliance take turns attacking using vehicles to break down walls eventually reaching the last wall that, once broken down, will have something to click on to win and set the time to beat for the opposing faction. It’s extremely fun the first time, and yes, still fun the tenth time, as long as you’re not losing horribly.

The other battleground isn’t exactly a battleground but a zone called Wintergrasp, near the ever-populated new city, Dalaran. It’s similar to Strand of the Ancients, but more epic—involving more people, NPCs, daily quests, item turn ins, and more vehicles (no flying vehicles, though). If your faction wins Wintergrasp (which is open for battle every two and a half hours), a 10-man and 25-man instance will open up with an easy boss that drops Tier 7 PvP gear for specific classes and specs.

I’ve heard people get frustrated during Wintergrasp and say things like, “Warhammer has much better PvP,” but usually once the last wall is almost breached, they seem to forget because they get rapped up in the excitement.

On a separate note, arena is starting in a little more than a week, and lots of people are excited to see what new combinations of classes can team up together. Just with the new crowd control move (hex) that shamans have and the major changes to druids, there would have been a lot of different combinations last season—but on top of that, every class has been tweaked and there is even a new one, Death Knight, that people are still learning more about how to beat and what it can do to assist its team.

What else is there?
Besides fun PvE content and more PvP content to come out, professions have been absorbing a ton of attention as well. There are lots of new crafted items that are extremely expensive and loads of fun, like “The Hog” which is a motorcycle mount (land mount) that is totally badass but costs way more than epic flying skill (the price wasn’t lowered, but instead you have to pay an extra thousand gold just to use your flying mount in Northrend by “unfreezing its wings.”)

There are still lots of complaints on the forums about classes being underpowered, but surprisingly, the only class that probably does need a buff, believe it or not, is warlocks (and no, I do not play a warlock.)
Other than that, I don’t hear of anyone who’s really disappointed after reaching 80 and wants to quit or go play a different game. If there are those people, then they just haven’t been nearly as vocal as people were in Burning Crusade when Wrath of the Lich King was about to be released.