What Every World of WarCraft Alliance Player Must Know

I have compiled a list of the most important things every WOW player on the Alliance must know and have narrowed it down to five. Read them below.

1.) If you want to go solo, get yourself a Night Elf Hunter or a Warlock.

While there isn’t any one particular character template that works perfectly for soloing, this is about the best that there is on the Alliance side. First, there really isn’t any equal level monster in the game that a properly tricked out Hunter can’t tackle one-on-one without breaking a sweat. While Warlocks are a bit more fragile, they have an excellent complement of damage dealing spells that will let them survive – albeit while taking more damage. Unfortunately, many creatures will attack in groups if they notice one of their buddies getting pounded on (Elite creatures are particularly nasty with this).

That’s where pets come in, Any “Pet” class can use their animal (or demonic) companion to do what’s called “crowd control” – basically pulling one creature away from a group and a time and killing it. The Warlock’s Void Walker is particularly good at this. Night Elves quest lines at low levels are also pretty self-contained within the geographically isolated Teldrassil, meaning you never have far to run to reach a quest destination or to retrieve your corpse.

2.) Gnomes have the best (worst) dancing emotes.

Trust me on this one. Simply typing /dance into the game while playing as a gnome will show you what I mean. Gnome dancing is the most offensive thing in Azeroth – rumor has it that the Horde offers 10 gold pieces to anyone who can actually manage to kill a Gnome in PvP during a dance. This makes Gnomes perfect for role-players who want to annoy other players and have a good laugh.

3.) Everyone loves a Human Priest.

This is the perfect class for players looking to group. Humans’ racial talents help a Priest hold his or her own in combat and there isn’t a group alive that isn’t thrilled when a Priest shows up just before heading into an Elite dungeon or an instance. Priests are also pretty rare in the game, there aren’t really all that many players who enjoy taking on the social/support roles, so your skills will always be in demand – and you’ll level pretty fast.

4.) You don’t have follow the quest lines for your own race!

One of the biggest misconceptions that new players have about World of Warcraft is that quests are restricted by race – in other words, that if you’re playing a Human, you must take the “Human” quests in Elwynn Forest when you start out. That’s simply not true. Players can take any level-appropriate quest regardless of their race. For Alliance players looking to level up a bit faster, there is a bit of a shortcut. Simply head to the hub cities of Ironforge or Stormwind as soon as you’re strong enough to get out of the newbie zone (around level 5). From there, find the passage to Teldrassil, the Night Elf homeland and start collecting quests. Teldrassil is very small, contains the hub city of Darnassus that offers every service, and players rarely have to run far to complete quests. You’ll find yourself at level 10 or even higher in no time!

5.) The Alliance means more content, but more people.

For whatever reason, the Alliance races as a whole (Humans, Night Elves, Dwarves, and Gnomes) are more popular with players. This can often mean severe crowding in popular regions along with what we like to call “mass extinction events”. That basically means that several quests in the area that require players to kill a particular animal may make it hard to find that animal for a while – and that you may be racing other players who are standing around waiting for them to spawn. The good news is that the Alliance has a lot more quest-based content than the Horde. While this isn’t noticeable at the earlier levels, many Horde players often find themselves running low on quests around level 25-30 and being forced to just “farm” random creatures for experience.

Mark MacKay is a researcher, marketer, and an avid online gamer, including World of Warcraft and also the creator of the World of Warcraft Gold Price List Guide, a web site setup to help WOW players find the cheapest place to buy their gold.