My current main is Thorlingus - the Dwarf Rogue (Pictured is Thorlingus (Thor) astride his flying mount Zoar*)
Thor is my current main. That means that he is the toon I play the most and will be my first toon to level 80. Right now he is in Northrend grinding through quests and ice trolls.
Thor is actually my third high level toon on the server I play on. I ran through two other high level toons including a Dwarf warrior and a Troll Hunter before I started playing Thorlingus and developing him as my main toon.
The History of Thorlingus :
So anyone who has played WoW knows that it takes sometime to get your feet under you and figure out what the hell is going on inside the game. My first toon was a Dwarf Warrior named Dwildin. Dwildin suffered from a variety of problems since he was my first toon. He was not trained in any of the minor professions (Cooking, Fishing, or First-Aid which is an absolute MUST HAVE for any warrior). I took Mining and Blacksmithing as my main professions (WoW note - you can have all 3 minor professions but may only have 2 main professions on your toon at any one time). That was really a mistake because in retro-spec I think Herbalism and Alchemy would have been a better choice since I spent most of my gold on healing potions.
Dwildin never really seemed to get to a point where he was specc'd properly or geared properly for that matter. I think it has more to do with my playing style than it actually had to do with the toon but Dwildin was created with little thought or regard to how I was going to play the game since he was my first toon and as such suffered from my unfamiliarity with the game.
Here is a list of the mistakes I made when starting out in WoW, I hope anyone who is starting a new toon finds this helpful.
1. I assumed that a warrior class toon was the equivalent of the Barbarian Warrior class from Diablo II. Nothing could be farther from the truth. There are no paralells between the Barbarian class of the Diablo series and Warrior class of WoW. Playing a Warrior in WoW requires a lot of thought and strategy. You have to plan a couple levels ahead in terms of skill points and gear. You are always going to need a healer class to accompany you at some point in the game, and no other class is as gear dependant as a Warrior.
2. I assumed that the auction system was an optional part of the game and just like in Diablo II... I could make most of my gold from selling my unwanted items to vendors. Nope. Turns out that the Auction House is a game within the game and if you really wanna make some cash you have to become very familiar with the auction house in the game and how that translates into cash for you to spend on new items. Go to www.wowinterface.com and download the Auctioneer Suite Addon. Learn, use it, Love IT!!! If you try to figure out the inner workings of the WoW Auction House system without this mod you are going to be poor, constantly reposting your auctions, and basically be behind the 8 Ball constantly when it comes to the Auction House.
3. Speaking of Addons... did you know that using addons in the game will NOT get your account banned as long as that Addon does not bot some part of the game for you. A bot is an addon that automates some part of the game that should not be automated. For example... there are bots that go around killing mobs for you and attempting to skin them... all without any interaction from the player... in fact the player may not even be at his/her computer. Botters are assholes who break the games economy and cheat by trying to earn experience and crafting material without actually having to put forth the effort. If you get caught botting you are going to be banned from the game... sad face.
That being said here are list of mods available from either www.wowinterface.com or from www.curse.com that will enhance your gameplay experience in WoW - all of these addons work with Wrath of the Lich King (patch 3.0.2).
Lightheaded - this is an in game quest mod that automatically downloads quest information and comments about quests from WoWHead.com. If your ever stuck on a quest of can't find a quest mob this addon adds a window to your quest log where all of the information about that quest from wowhead is displayed including coordinates and sometimes really good strategies... no more alt-tabbing out to the desktop to open up alakahzam or thottbot for quests.
QuestHelper - when used in conjunction with Lightheaded you have the ultimate in quest helping addons. What Lightheaded can't figure out QuestHelper normally does. This adds mob locations and quest object locations to your game map. If you want to level through WoW without running around in circles looking for mobs then this is the mod for you. Everyone should have this mod... everyone.
Cartographer - this is a map addon. It gives you way more customization of the games map and it also uncovers all of the areas that you haven't explored yet (you can turn this option off in the mods settings) but I appreciate it because I just want to know where to in a zone to find what Im looking for. It also integrates with QuestHelper and Lightheaded. This allows you to make the map smaller, larger, transparent, and also to add notes to the map.
Auctioneer Suite - Auctioneer is actually a series of addons that help you scan the Auction House, determine the market value of your sellable merchandise, whether you should auction it, disenchant it, or vendor it. It will also help you determine the moving price of items so that you can sell them for the maximum profit without having to repost items that won't sell constantly. Out of the box auctioneer comes with a data table with information about most of the items in the game. The more you scan the auction house the more auctioneer learns about the economy on your server... the better its advice and price points get. If you don't use this then your gonna be broke and everyone in the game is going to take advantage of you.
4. My final mistake and I think my biggest mistake was operating from the perspective that WoW can be played as a single player game... which it can be... you can level all the way from 1 - 80 without interacting with another player; however, WoW is best enjoyed when you are grouping with your guild mates or friends and doing a dungeon run or trying to complete a quest that requires more than one person. I don't do a lot in terms of grouping or dungeons but I can assure you that the game takes on a decidedly different flavor when you group up. In fact some of the best content in the game is found in groups.
The creation of Thorlingus:
Thorlingus was my first planned toon. That basically means that every aspect of his creation was planned by me from his race to his current spec - everything was mapped out in advance to help me achieve the highest level of playability.
I chose a dwarf because of their racial ability... they have the ability to turn themselves into stone which negates all diseases, bleed, and poison effects from my toon. At lower levels its not really that helpful... however... from level 70 - 80 when you get poisoned... by anything... bad things happen... so it seems like I use it whenever the cool down on it is up. It has saved my butt on several different occasions.
I decided to play a rogue because of their high damage output, and because of their ability to sneak around the game world. Throw 3 points into Master of Deception and you can sneak past almost any mob in the game. This is great for when I decide to run a lower level instance on my own and I only want to whack the bosses and not the trash mobs. Rogues also have a combat kit full of stuns and sneak attacks which increase their DPS (Damage Per Second) and ability to break and run.
I knew from experience in the game that I was going to have to stack gear with agility bonuses and then focus on stamina bonuses, chance to hit, crit rate, and armor penetration... all in that order. I also knew to avoid gear with only one bonus type on it... so that really helped me focus on what gear and item enhancements to purchase. That being said I really haven't purchased that much from the Auction House (AH) because most of the quest rewards in the game are as good if not better than most of the shiny things in the AH. Controlling my spending also helped me focus on purchasing other necessary in game items - for example when I turned 70 I was able to purchase my flying mount, and when I turned 77 in Northrend I was able to purchase cold weather flying... both of which cost around 1,000 gold.
I know that previous to the Wrath of Lich King expansion that my chance to land a critical strike was capped at 19% in world dungeon instances and 39% in the regular game world. I found this information out by researching several different websites before I even started my toon so I knew what the chance to crit was going to be (Rogues live and die by their ability to proc crits... the more... the better)... I have no idea if that's changed... and at this point I really don't care because I'm still leveling through to level 80 (as of this writing level 77)... when I get to doing end game dungeons and raids I will worry about what the caps are as I start to pick up epic gear.
I am a big fan of toon planning... but that's because I am an asshole and very anal retentive. I recommend doing some planning for anyone whose starting a new toon and wants to know what they are getting into before they jump into the game.
Finally you may have noticed that my caption notes my flying mounts name as Zoar... and yes that is a shameless plug for the 1980's version of the He-Man Cartoons... I did it because I can. Later.
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