The Burning Crusade - Guide to Surviving your First day in Outland

1. What items should I be saving before TBC comes out?

* 100-120 Runecloth, so you can get your First Aid to 330

* Various Potions, to help with your next 10 levels of soloing

* Various misc supplies like Sharpening Stones, to help with your next 10 levels of soloing

* As much gold as you can - Lets face it, the AH is going to be full of new equipment, weapons, recipes and materials that you are going to want, so going into TBC with gold on hand will be a boon

* Clear your bags when you go to Outlands, you don't need FR Gear and other misc equipment on your guy. Remember, there are no Auction Houses in Outlands so you want every available slot.

2. I am based in Ironforge, should I move else where?
Many people prefer to be based in Ironforge due to its proximity to everything (it is closer to most high level content than Stormwind) however with TBC, I would suggest moving to Stormwind, due to being closer to Blasted Lands than Ironforge. I expand on this below in the Hearthstone question.

3. How do I get to Outlands?
Getting to Outlands is easy and requires you to go to the Blasted Lands and then simply walk through the Dark Portal into Outlands. The level requirement on the portal itself is level 55 and you must have the expansion activated on your account.

4. Where will I be when I get to Outlands and where should I go right off the bat?
When you enter Outlands the first zone you will be is called Hellfire Peninsula and this zone is intended for level 60-63 players and is one of, if not the largest zone in all of World of Warcraft.

After going through the portal, jump down to your left and you will find a Griffon NPC, talk to him and he will fly you to Honor Hold, which is the main town for Alliance in Hellfire Peninsula.

5. Any tips for Hellfire Peninsula?
I could write a book on this zone, but I wont. I do advise you explore every square inch of this zone because there are half a dozen quest hub areas in this zone and some are easy to miss if you don't explore it fully, costing you potential XP, Loot and fun from doing the quests. In addition to the quest hubs, there are numerous flight paths here and a second Alliance town by the name of Temple of Telhamut.

To help you in this zone, I have included a Map below: (Source, Original Author Unknown)

6. Where is the Auction House?
There is no Auction House in Outlands at all. You MUST go back to a main city in Azeroth.

7. Where are the Profession Trainers?
There are various skill trainers in Outlands, many of which can be found in Honor Hold (explore the town a bit) and others that can be found in Shattrath (the main Outlands city which is found between Nagrand and Terokkar Forrest).

8. Where are the Class Trainers?
There are no class trainers in Outlands. You MUST go back to the main cities in Azeroth.

9. Where can I learn Master First Aid?
After you get to Honor Hold for the first time, you can ride to the Temple of Telhamut in Hellfire Peninsula and purchase the [Master First Aid - Doctor in the House] book off a vendor here. You can also purchase [Manual: Netherweave Bandage] (FA-330) and [Manual: Heavy Netherweave Bandage] (FA-360) books off this NPC (don't worry, they are cheap).

You then need to grind out 30 skill points by making Heavy Runecloth Bandages and this will use up anywhere from 80 to 120 Runecloth, thus the reason I said to take about 120 Runecloth to Outlands.

10. Any tips on going back and forth between Outlands and a Main City? Where should I set my Hearthstone?
Due to there not be any Auction Houses in Outlands, you will definitly be making daily trips back to a Main City in Azeroth to sell equipment or check the AH. Some people will use an Alt Character for this but I prefer to use my main character so I can do direct equipment comparisons and such.

There are various alternatives here:

1. Save your Hearthstone in Honor Hold in Hellfire and then ask a Mage to portal you back to a main city (Don't be a tight !@#$%^&* and forget to tip them), then Hearthstone back to Outlands.

2. If you don't want to rely on a Mage, save your Hearthstone in Stormwind and then since SW is relatively close to the Dark Portal, you can fly back to Blasted Lands, ride to the Dark Portal and then fly back to Honor Hold that way. While a bit time consuming, it does give you time to take a pee break while on the mount wink

3. Ride to Shattrath (easily doable at 60) to set your Hearthstone and grab the flight path. Since Shattrath has portals back to all the Main Cities in Azeroth, you can easily fly to Shattrath, portal to a Main City in Azeroth and then hearthstone back to Shattrath and then fly back to whatever zone you were in. The negative here is that you will do a LOT of flying back and forth between Shattrath and whatever zone you are currently questing in.

Playing through 60 to 70 in the Beta, what I did myself was Option 2 to start with while I was doing Hellfire Peninsula quests and then when I moved to Zangarmarsh and Terokkar Forrest I switched to option 3. When I moved to Blades Edge Mountains and Netherstorm, I moved to option 1 and then when I got my flying mount at 70, I went back to Option 3.

The only problem with Option 1 is that it pisses off everybody when you are spamming "Looking for a Mage to portal me!", but if you don't mind doing that, it is an option wink

11. How does World PVP work and is it worth doing?
I wont go fully into World PVP however to do a quick summary, when you kill somebody OR recover a World PVP Objective you get a Token (Mark of Honor Hold for Hellfire Peninsula and Zangarmarsh or Halaa Battle Token or Halaa Research Token for Nagrand) that is specific to the zone you are in. These tokens can then be turned in at respective PVP vendors in the zone you are in and redeemed for some nice equipment rewards.

Is it worth doing? I think so because some of the stuff is really quite nice at an early level and World PVP is something that people will actually be doing in Outlands so it shouldn't be too hard to get involved in.

For example, for 15 Marks of Honor you can get [Band of the Victor] or [Circlet of the Victor].

12. Are the Reputation Rewards any good in Outlands?
Yes, unlike WoW Retail, the reputation rewards are actually pretty decent this time around and depending on what you have, actually worth getting. For example, if you are Honored with Honor Hold, there is a decent 52dps 1H Sword you can buy early on, which is fairly easy to get for those of you who didn't get Grand Marshall Weapons or Raid weapons in WoW Retail.

Here are some examples of Reputation Rewards (Thottbot Beta Site, so may change before release):
Outlands:
The Consortium
Cenarion Expedition
Honor Hold
Kurenai
Sporeggar

Shattrath:
Lower City
The Aldor
The Scryers
The Sha'tar

13. I hear I have to choose between two factions in Shattrath City, what is this and what should I do?
For a change of pace, Blizzard added two competing factions in Shattrath City and you can only join one of them. They are called The Aldor and The Scryers and the choice you make will affect the reputation rewards you can purchase and some of the quests you can do. (See above for the reputation rewards).

At this time, I recomend making your decision based on the Reputation Rewards available for how you play the game while taking into account all the recipes/formulas they are selling, but just realize that this is an important decision to make and shouldn't be made lightly.

14. Should I bother with Instances or just go level up via quests?
Instances have great equipment, quest rewards and are also really good XP plus they can be fun to do, so I would never advise people to skip them. As well, Blizzard has also finally woken up to the fact that we don't want to be doing 14 hour instance runs like Scholomance either so every instance out there can be done in less than an hour and a half and if your group is working well, you can can do many in less than an hour.

My memory might be a bit hazy here but I do find that Outlands instances are more challenging overall than past instances were in Retail so I think this will affect things a little bit. On the flip side, with WoW having been out for 2 years, 1 month and 22 days by the time TBC goes live, I think people should have learned how to play their characters by now and the increased challenge shouldn't be an issue.

15. How long will it take me to level up?
As long as you want it too. Those of us who race through the game to 70 will probably do it in 120-150 hours. Those who prefer to take their time will probably be anywhere between 150-200+ hours to get to 70. The number really depends on your play style.

16. Do you think Socketed Items will have an impact?
For me, the value of Socketed items comes down to one question:
Do you currently find Enchantments to be of value to your character?

If you don't bother enchanting your equipment today, then Socketed Items will be of dubious value to you, because as a whole, Gems boost your stats the same way that Enchantments do.

17. Are there any other links to maps and such available?
Blizzard's Outland Map
Blizzplanet Maps

18. How much money will I make by level 70?
You should be able to make about 1000+ gold by level 70, which should make it easy for you to get your Regular Winged Mount at 70. However, there will be tonnes of new equipment, recipes, materials, etc on the Auction House for you to buy as well and I expect that there will be quite a bit of inflation initially due to supply/demand so how much you have at 70 could really vary...On the flip side, the same market forces mean you can sell your wares for good money.

19. What do the new Mounts cost?
These are current prices (they were recently changed) from the TBC Beta as of Dec 31, 2006 and subject to change as Blizzards whim. I believe that Faction Reputation DOES affect the prices though I am not 100% sure on this!

Flying Mounts can only be learned in Wildhammer Stronghold at Shadowmoon Valley.

Skill
* Journeyman Riding Skill (Epic Horses-100% Speed) is 600 Gold (540 at Honored/Revered?)
* Expert Riding Skill (Regular Flying Mount-60% Flying Speed) is 800 Gold (720 at Honored/Revered?)
* Artisan Riding Skill (Epic Flying Mount-280% Flying Speed) is 5000 Gold (4499 at Honored/Revered?)

Mount
* Regular Flying Mount is 100 Gold (90 at Honored/Revered?)
* Epic Flying Mount is 200 Gold (180 at Honored/Revered?)

20. Are flying mounts worth it? How about the Epic Flying Mount?
YES! Flying is extremely useful and not to mention, fun. Gathering Herbs and Mining is much easier with a flying mount. PVP is also a blast when you can drop in on somebody and kick their !@#$%^&* from above. Plus, there are areas in the game that are only accessible via flight paths. Basically, if you are level 70 you will need a mount. As for the Epic Flying Mount it is incredible fast while expensive, I think it is worth the cost.

21. Is it going to be hell competing with other people for Spawns? I heard there is a new method of spawning mobs, is this true?
It is my opinion that Outlands is going to be an over camped and over populated land of angry and rude gamers for the first... oh, 6 months of expansion happy That being said, hopefully everybody can remember to try and not be a !@#$%^&* to other gamers and wait their turns for quest mobs and GROUP UP so you get credit faster because it just makes the game better for all of us.

Now for those who think it "wont be that bad", I want to stress that the initial retail release of WoW had people spread out between two factions and almost a dozen starting areas for all the races. Outlands puts everybody in the same starting zone so yes, it will be that bad.

The big news though is that Blizzard has introduced new dynamic spawn rates for Outlands that changes the spawn rate for a Monster based on how many people are in the immediate mini-zone. So when there are 493 people camping the same named quest mob in Hellfire Peninsula on Jan 16, there will be an almost instantaneous respawn of the mob when it dies.

22. How do Heroic Instances work?
Heroic Instances are supposed to be the equivalent of 5 Man Raids so people should not expect them to be level 70 versions of a lower level instance, they are actually harder. ALL current 5 Man Instances in Outlands can be done in Heroic mode and you must be of Exhaulted Status in the corresponding Reputation Faction to be able to do an instance in Heroic Mode.

The last "wing" for most Instance's also require a Key to enter and all the keys are updated for Heroic Mode, requiring you to get new keys.

Lastly, killing Bosses in Heroic Mode drop tokens that can be redeemed in Shattrath for the following items off of G'eras, the Token Vendor. I don't know if the Heroic Mode bosses drop other forms of loot or if basic green/blue loot off the trash mobs is upgraded for Heroic Mode, though it stands to reason they would be...

23. Should I group up with people?
Definitely group up with people who are on the same types of quests if you can. Take regular "Kill Quests" that require you to go out and kill X amount of Mobs. It will simply benefit everybody if you group with a few other people while doing these because it will not only go faster, it will help limit competition between people for the same mobs, especially when doing Named Quest mobs.

24. I have PVP, Tier 1, 2 or 3 armor, is there anything worth while out there for me?
Well, if you have Tier 3 armor you are probably going to be set until level 70 for the most part (there are some exceptions). For the rest of it though, it really depends on how many instances you do and your own personal luck. You can theoretically replace all your Tier 1 by level 63, but I doubt you will find the equipment to do so, unless you have a horse shoe up your !@#$%^&* in which case you should go buy a lottery ticket. wink Tier 2 can be replaced by 65-66 but again, are you going to get lucky and get the drops you need? Probably not.

It is the same case for weapons. Take a Grand Marshall Quickblade which is 1h 59DPS Sword at level 60. To match that, you need a level 66+ Green Sword or you need to find some of the Blue/Purple swords that drop off of earlier instances (good luck).

When all is said and done, how fast you replace equipment will depend entirely on your own personal luck and the way you do instances.

25. Are Mobs harder in Outlands?
All the statements of "harder mobs" in Outlands came from Alpha, when they were much harder. Today, a 60 Mob in Outlands is pretty much identical to a 60 Mob in Azeroth.