I never played Vanilla... what should I know?

[Kal66]

I'm downloading the installer as I type this. I've just recently discovered the miracle of private servers; I've been playing on Atlantiss's 4.3.4 server for the past few days leveling a prot warrior. I thought about trying out a Vanilla server, but I decided against it as I really wanted to come back to the WoW that I remember the best (Cataclysm). I started my trial version of WoW at the very tail end of WotLK maybe a month or so before patch 4.0.1. I remember walking out into the Valley of Trials with my Troll Hunter and being absolutely amazed.

I was hooked. However, after the dreaded Troll Heroics came in Cata I stopped playing for a while. I only stepped foot in a raid a handful of times during my longest run with WoW, and since then I've played off and on, coming back most recently to MoP when Warlords of Draenor was announced. However I realized why I had been burned out before when I started doing dailies and running around that damned island that I can't even remember the name of off the coast of Pandaria.

Now, I've been watching videos about private servers and doing research and I really want to try playing Vanilla. I'll admit I'm a bit intimidated considering that I was a Cata baby. However, I think this experience will be just as wonderous as when I created my first Troll so many years ago, even if I may be a bit dumbfounded by how different Vanilla was.

Anyway, now that I've shared my general history with WoW I'd love to hear whatever advice any veterans can give me. My main on retail was a Frost Death Knight and I've had a little bit of experience with every class. I had a Ele/Resto shaman and a Prot Paladin that were both around level 60 when I most recently quite playing. What class should I consider playing? How hard is it to find a group as a DPS? What is PvP like compared to Cata? There's more that I can think of but I'll leave it at that. If there's any other advice you'd like to give it will be much appreciated!

[Mr_Rosh]

Welcome to this great and beautiful community! I'm no veteran, but I can give you some advices about Vanilla:
1. play whatever you like, but first roll a hunter and gather some gold.
2. don't bother leveling proficiencies if you don't have plenty of resources or money. Just take skinning and mining/herbing.
3. try to save gold for you level 40 mount or roll a class who gets a "free" one.
4. be prepared for being ganked.
5. get a quest helper like Questie , VanillaGuide and RapidQuestPack.

Good luck!

[bokac91]

Arm with patience.

[schaka]

There are no proper quest hubs in the sense that you finish one and move on to the next (zone). You will have to switch between zones every 2-3 levels to gain optimal XP. This means switching continents too.
You need to finish even the last quests in a zone, as often they will open up way more quests (not necessarily in the same zone). Using Questie and VanillaGuide together will help you to level fast. Expect at least 8-10 days /played time before even reaching level 60.

If your class can heal, it will have to heal. There is no such thing as tanks outside of warriors, unless you are extremely dedicated and find a guild willing to let you tank. There is no such thing as DPS as a hybrid class. This doesn't apply to PvP.

PvP is extremely unpolished and having played later expansions, you'll notice this soon enough. There aren't any arenas, BG maps are different and classes feel wonky at best, maybe with the excetion of rogue, make and warlock. However, having a warrior that is literally pure damage and little to no defensive, useless without a healer etc can be quite fun. Classes actually feel extremely unique.

Gear is very unpolished too. Some green or blue 5man/quest items will be better than a bunch of epics (not in all cases, obviously).

[Lindow]

Patience is the key, really. EVERYTHING takes longer. Leveling takes longer, gearing takes longer... there's a shitload amount of walking that you probably didn't have to do on Cata. So just find a leveling guild with friendly people and take it easy, cause it's gonna be a long journey. The fact that you've never played Vanilla before is quite an advantage, because at least you'll be incentivized by content that you've never seen before.

Some people may disagree, but the greatest thing about Vanilla are the epic 40man raids (and Zul'Gurub, who doesn't like Zul'Gurub). Sadly, the fact that we're all more knowledgeable and somewhat more skillful than before makes it less of a challenge. The beauty of end game PvE was the struggle, the endless wipes before downing a boss. People seem to be easily farming MC these days... However, I'm sure that it's still hella fun, specially for somebody who has never been in a 40 man raid.
I don't think PvP was the best feature in Vanilla WoW, to be honest. It's not balanced, it's pretty much gear based and the honor system, as much as I and probably many others missed it, is just bad. But, then again, that's what we missed about Vanilla. We're romantics, we miss those imperfections that caused struggles and drove us to improvement.

[AverageJoe]

Prepare to die.

A lot.

Those mountains of skeletons you see just outside the hostile mob areas at level 5 to 9? Yeah, Post-Wrath kiddies are finding out just how hard vanilla is.

[Chevejo]

Fun Fact Joe

[Garfunkel]

Don't listen to schaka, he's too focused on endgame hardcore raiding. There's a portion of the player base that believe that every raid should be min-maxed to all hell and if every raid member isn't giving their 100% for every second of the raid, they should go hand their head in shame in the corner. You'll encounter this attitude often, sadly. People list insane numbers of consumables that you're supposed to bring to every raid and use all the time, or that there is only 1 or 2 talent specs that are viable and that only warriors can tank and so on. It's all bullshit that's applicable to merely the hardest PvE encounters - ie latter halves of AQ40 and Naxx.

Paladins and druids can tank well enough through the 1-60 journey and the end game 5/10/20 mans. There's never too many tanks or healers, for that matter.

I would advise against using a guide or a questin addon. It removes all the magic and pleasure of solving things and finding stuff on your own. If you bother to actually read the quest text in your log, you should be able to finish 90% of the quests in the game. Neither do you have to switch zones every 2-3 levels, though there are a handful of quests that take you all over the world.

Group up, leveling with buddies is fun and quicker.

[schaka]

Don't listen to schaka, he's too focused on endgame hardcore raiding. There's a portion of the player base that believe that every raid should be min-maxed to all hell and if every raid member isn't giving their 100% for every second of the raid, they should go hand their head in shame in the corner.

That's exactly what I was preparing him for, this wasn't a matter of personal opinion.
If you think any guild is gonna take a pally tank that hasn't spent an exceptional amount of time gearing up, flasking etc, over a warrior, when the former doesn't even have a taunt - you're just straight up lying to yourself and OP. Raid leaders have a responsibility to get 40 people through a raid now, this isn't a matter of 10 friends in Karazhan.

Nice strawman though, really appreciate your interpretion skills

[Garfunkel]

I wasn't making a strawman argument when I described your post exactly. You seem to think that World of Warcraft as a game has only one purpose and goal - that of hardcore raiding. That's narrow minded and factually wrong. Now you're being a passive-aggressive cunt to cover it up. Good job dude.