[WoW] Thinking on coming back, how much has it changed?

[Auren]

So let me ask you guys. I was away from wow for a while and never really got into the arena stuff. Now I've been playing with a couple buddies doing 2v2 and 3v3 stuff but obviously there's a learning curve not to mention we all have to get used to playing our characters after months off so our rating is pretty terrible. I figured I would grind honor for decent s2 stuff and just save my s4 points for the weapon or something. Then I noticed that the weapon and just about all the armor pieces except gloves require like a 2k rating to wear. So what exactly am I supposed to do with my saved up arena points if I can't get to a 2k rating?

[Antoine]

spend them on gloves, offhand, idol/totem/throwingweap/libram/wand, and then as you slowly learn and get better you'll be able to pick up the rest of the set pieces. you won't accumulate points alll that quickly at low rating so it shouldn't really be an issue but if you do get capped out at 5000 you can pick up s3 gear, only the weapon and shoulders have rating requirement for that.

[Lejina Bloodbath]

Buy the gloves, then whatever else you can get your rating at, which would be legs, bp and hat (they are in that order of difficulty to get I believe). I'd buy the higher rating item you current rating can get, as you never know what can happen of your arena teams and future ones may get your worst rating than you can get atm. If for a reason or another your rating never get high enough for the rated items, you can go with S3 for those slots.

Weapon and shoulders are the stuff you want to spend your honor on first since they are out of reach for most people and as such you aren't likely to upgrade them. Especially the weapon, since it's likely as good as it will get even for your PVE outfit.

[Auren]

Let me see if I understand correctly about rating. Are you required to have the rating listed to buy the item, wear the item, or both? Like let's say we have a fabulous week and I get 2k rating or so and buy a 2k required item. If the next week we suck ass or I go on vacation and cannot play arena all week am I not going to be able to wear that item when I get back?

[spronk]

Remember as well you can bank up to 5000 points for next season. if you play 2v2 at 1500 ratings it'll take months to bank up 5k points, but if you do you can level up in WOTLK and instantly buy new top of the line gear the second you hit 80. Assuming of course they don't reset arena points when expansion is out, but there's no reason to think they will.

Really at this point WoW is just about screwing around and having fun, I've heard the WOTLK beta may start in under a week so I'm just waiting to see if thats true before re-activating my account. None of the gear you are going to get between now and leveling up to 71 is going to matter that much, get what you think you'll enjoy. A full set of PVP gear is great for leveling, and the the difference between s2, s3 and s4 in "leveling power" is minor. You are better off making sure you have a full set of gear for every spec (tank/heal, dps/tank, etc) , especially if WOTLK allows 2 talent specs at below 80.

Rating is for purchase only. If an item is 2k required, you cannot purchase it unless your team and personal rating is 2000. Once you purchase it, its yours forever and you can wear it no matter what your rating drops to. The old, old rank 14 PVP grind system originally started out as you gotta have the right ranking for purchase AND wearing, which was insane (lol).

[Tholan]

You just need the 2k rating to buy the item, not to wear it.

[Genjiro]

I'd probably give WoW another shot just to try out a DK, but my characters are trapped on some shitty low pop server (Darrowmere) with what used to be very bad guilds and I don't feel like transferring just to go through the "find a great guild" process all over again.

In the words of Danny Glover, "Im too old for this shit."

[Kreugen]

Save up welfare points, buy rating, enjoy.

[Laek]

For the casual solo player are "creation" tradeskills useful? I'm leveling up a horde warlock and thinking of trying tailoring. I'm not sure what other skill to take or if I would just be better off with herb/mining/skinning and selling what I collect.

[Vinen]

Originally Posted by Laek

For the casual solo player are "creation" tradeskills useful? I'm leveling up a horde warlock and thinking of trying tailoring. I'm not sure what other skill to take or if I would just be better off with herb/mining/skinning and selling what I collect.

Yes, as long as you choose the one that augments your class. For certain classes the crafted gear is pretty decent entry level epics.

[Brikker]

As a warlock/shadow priest, you would be stupid not to take tailoring (and spec Shadoweave when the time comes). The frozen shadoweave set is better than most of what you'll see until T6 level content. Plus, I'm sure the expansion will have plenty of nice goodies in all the creation tradeskills.

[Laek]

Whats the best skill to go along with it then? Tailoring will be different as I've only done Alch/herb before.

[Kais[]]

except leatherworking! (and don't talk to me about armor kits/drums)

[Azzikai]

Originally Posted by Laek

Whats the best skill to go along with it then? Tailoring will be different as I've only done Alch/herb before.

A lot of people take enchanting to be self sufficient. It works as a combo and you can DE the lower level stuff you make. However, I'd hold off on enchanting until you were 70. Level tailoring with a gathering profession and just sell what you get (mining is great for cash) and then go back and power level your enchanting when cash isn't an issue. The only downside is missing out on a few of the rarer enchanting recipes from the lower TBC instances when you're level appropriate (not like the damn things drop anyway, you'd have to run them a lot unless you're "that guy" who gets everything first time through).

[Ronaan]

Originally Posted by Laek

Whats the best skill to go along with it then? Tailoring will be different as I've only done Alch/herb before.

I leveled my warlock with tailoring / skinning. Was nice to have cash off leather as a newbie (the AQ collecting stuff was going on while I was mid-level), and some bags you make also use leather (not really an issue).
At 60, I farmed leather in winterspring for the darkmoon faire necklace. That's not going to be something you need though, it's fairly outdated by now.

As I went into raiding, I got pissed off enough to drop skinning and pick up herbalism instead. Gather your own flask/pots ingredients, sell what you don't need.

Though enchanting would have been a good idea as well.