Xom

Give Opera a try.

I like making different Chat Tabs. World Chat and LFG are in a separate tab than the main chat/trade/party tab area, so when I need to use it I just tab over, no problemo. I usually have a separate Whisper Tab as well, since if I'm raiding of PvPing I miss all kinds of tells.

Top notch guide! Priests are one of my most enjoyed leveling experiences. I enjoyed it so much I leveled one Troll Engineer as Shadow, and then a while later I made an Undead Ench/Tailor as Disc/Holy. So long as you get Spirit Tap, the rest is gravy. And as someone who played a lot of Mage, I used to balk at Improved Wands... until I was on my Priest healing early dungeons getting #1 or #2 in damage done as well as healing the place. Especially if you keep your wands upgraded and get one from an instance, you'll be a beast. Also, Wanding can be a good tactic vs Rogues trying to run behind you too since you automatically turn around.as you Auto-wand them down. Just Shield/DoT/Wand if you get kicked. It's obviously not as easy as all that, but it helps a bit. There's something really satisfying about playing with the 5 second rule as a Priest, becoming more aware and learning your efficient spells in dungeons. I try to only use Renew as a signature on the end of my Heal or GHeals. For example, I wind up a big Heal and tap the Renew key as it's casting so it applies as soon as the casted Heal lands, so you'll be outside of the 5sr only briefly but have landed two spells. Then with the Renew on, it allows you a bit longer to rest in the 5sr and Wand. I do similar things while leveling, in Smite/MB followed immediately by SW:P and then Wand to death. Also something you should always try to do while you are in leveling dungeons, with Spirit Tap, is to try as best as you can to snipe the last bit of health so you can proc the Talent. Learn how fast your party kills mobs and time it so you start casting MindBlast/Smite to get the final blow on as many as possible. The more effective you are at this the faster your run will go since you'll be drinking that much less. Sometimes it makes sense to just DoT everything and Wand stuff, wind up a big heal signed with a Renew, MB something to death, get Spirit Tap, finish wanding the rest of the mobs to death and finish the trash pack nearly full mana ready for the next.

As far as I recall there was a channel to join such as "HordeRP", and I'm guessing "AllianceRP" alternately.

My very first character was a Night Elf Druid. I had come from playing Diablo 2 and really enjoyed the way they could deal damage and had healing as well. But I had absolutely no idea about MMOs. Keybindings were about a year of play away from being used regularly, and Min/Maxing? That was even further away. But who cared? It was a new game and people were so engaged with the story, the new fresh world, and unknown frightening challenges on the horizon. We were all so gleeful and willing to try new things, happily ignorant of cookie-cutter specs or Questie. I remember logging into the game a week before NYE 2005 on my young Druid in Darkshore to see a few Horde and people just losing their фекал. This was a PvP server, and people were roleplaying as if our quiet little home was being attacked by the terrible Horde with shouts of "FOR TELDRASSIL" and so forth. During those first months I remember once many of us were of sufficient level there was attempts to raid the Barrens/Crossroads and I will never forget the feeling of dread and excitement when I first entered The Barrens. I was mostly just tossing buffs on people and healing, since I barely understood how mechanics worked. Oh and I also had mostly Agi/Stam gear because it kept me alive longer - in Bear form. My talents? Almost full Resto.... but of course I had to get Natures Grasp for running away from gankers! Omen of Clarity? What's that? hah, man I was so helpless back then. Of course I was leveling slowly and only made it up to about 50~ before I stopped playing. Then I met a friend IRL who was playing and I watched him and his roommate play. Totally mindblowing to go from playing a game where you're just "getting by" to when you actually understand and look into spells and talents and synergies. And what .. where are you now... a dungeon?! what? Yea.. I leveled up to about 50 in Bear form with mostly Resto talents but I never saw the inside of a dungeon unto ZF. Tired of killing stuff so slowly, I quickly made a Fire Mage on my friend's server and never looked back. But my resistance for fully min/maxing remained for a while. I would spec Fire for PvP and then go Raid in MC casting un-specced Frostbolt resulting in dismal DPS. I spent most of my time burning things in PvP and 5 man dungeons, so I would only respec for really tough progression fights like Nef or Rag. I would even wear items that just "looked better" even though they made my DPS worse. But it's tough to argue against wearing the Circle of Flame on your Fire Mage when you're one of the best known Fire Mages and you've never seen anyone else on your Realm wearing it. When I had that drop for me in BRD just before reaching 60 was my first Epic, and the mesmerizing flames dazzled me for years do come.

Tough battle if you're the Mage. Focus on putting up Flame Ward/Dampen Magic up ASAP and trying to use your Counterspell for Shadow only. Failing this, try to Blink behind while they cast Shadowbolt. You can use Sheep/Fireblast combo to interrupt casts as well without healing them and disorienting them. Main thing is to keep casting since the longer the battle lasts the more likely they'll win. If a Warlock gets a drop on a Mage, fully DoT, a Fear off and free casting? usually spells the demise of the Mage - or really almost any class. Mages shine vs Melee, while Warlocks have many more anti-caster abilities and self-healing methods making them able to soak up damage Mages aren't able to, so Mages have to try to shut the locks from their DoTs while casting as much damage as possible. Killing the Succubus is usually worth it, while if a Warlock really knows how to use their Felhunter the Mage might have some pretty rough going. I see it as being a slightly lopsided battle to begin with, but if the Warlock really knows their фекал then the Mage's best bet is to kill the Warlock and have the DoTs almost kill them if not actually finish them off. It's pretty useful to fakecast your non-dominant spell school to draw out the Spell Lock and allow yourself to freecast your preferred school. Actually if you already have used your Counterspell and you get a Clearcasting proc it can be really useful to try an Arcane Missiles cast, since if you get spell locked it doesn't matter much since you fall back on your better spells anyway - and if they don't stop that full set of Arcane Missiles that's a decent chunk of mana-free damage you just did.

1. Invest all of your early leveling gold into new bags. Get Runecloth bags ASAP. Every time to go to town check to see if there are any on the AH to upgrade from the ones you could currently afford. Priority is picking up EVERYTHING. 2. Whatever tradeskills you decide to pick, get Skinning from 1-40~ (when you buy your mount). The steady income from skinning Beasts is great for the early part when you will literally just vendor everything you skin. Maybe save some Medium/Heavy/Thick for the AH but it's mostly about the extra income per mob you'd be killing anyway. Then respec to your chosen profession after you get your mount - if you don't plan on Skinning at 60. For instance, when I did Engineering I would mail all my ore/stone to a bank alt and when I got my mount I powerleveled my Engi with all the saved materials. Skinning actually came in doubly handy since I could use skins for Engi recipes. I kept Skinning until I was out of Un'Goro since there is such a ridiculous amount of skinnable mobs from Barrens>Shimmering Flats>STV>Tanaris>Hinterlants>Un'Goro. Turtles in Hinterlands and Tanaris are very profitable with Skinning and will give you a great place to grind for the last few gold you need for your mount. 3. Make a Bank Alt. You will get drops and materials which are worth selling on the AH and it saves you some clutter to have all your resources/reagents/materials stocked someplace tidy. This is prettymuch mandatory too, if you're stashing hundreds of stones/ore/herbs for power leveling later. It's much easier and effective to stockpile items in the mail to/from your bank alt and in their bank rather than just having to vendor everything you find. Yes, it is a cost to send items to your bank alt and then AH it, so be aware of which items are worth saving to sell and which are more worth just vendoring right away. Leaving materials in the mailbox gives you more room in your bags/bank. Just keep an eye on the expiration date. A bit of a longer term plan would be using your Bank Alt's professions as well. I was a big fan of making a Priest alt with Tailor/Enchanting and I could just disenchant all the high-level greens and make bags and other items for the AH. You can make a pretty penny selling bags and enchanting materials from things you found with your main as they were leveling - even moreso once you're at 60 getting high level greens. It also helps if you have a hunger for slaughtering mobs.

I can see the draw to wanting to make there be no World chat, since it makes things closer to your idea of a perfectly refined Vanilla experience, but I think it's like putting the genie back in the bottle. Back then, when you returned to the cities, that's where the people flocked to talk to one another. There was a nice warmth to cities when you could zone into a big city and hear babble you hadn't before. It made the game feel like being out in the wild was actually removing you from communication. It really made cities feel like a place you could go to meet people and find instance groups. With World chat there's much less reason to go to cities. It has a certain appeal, but I think people are so well versed with the game these days that you can be sure that if there was no way to make a World Channel in the game they would just flock to alternate ways like discord and skype etc. It's like trying to ask people to "not worry about min/maxing".

Perhaps if you're speaking about level 60 dungeons, there might be some challenge and need for efficiency. But while leveling all you need to know is the basics about the game and it's a breeze. There's no need for min/maxing in leveling dungeons. I have leveled numerous Priests as Shadow Spec and would merely Renew and Vampiric Embrace Heal 90% of dungeons, Wanding, SW:P, with a few beefy Heal or GHeals, or an emergency Shield for a clothie AoEing. Just spec for Spirit Tap and know how to use your healing spells and you're golden. Same thing with Warriors. I've leveled more Warriors than any other class (over 5) and every single time I specced Arms/Fury and had a wonderfully easy time. Just so long as you keep your gear upgraded and you know your class you'll have zero problems. And since you are always desired as someone who is willing to Tank, you will have a blazingly easy time of gearing up during those leveling dungeons. You have the ability to make your own groups and pick the exact composition, meaning you can set it up so you have no gear competition in your dungeon run either. Wait for a dungeon? Never. As someone who is willing to Tank or Heal but can also DPS on the side, Vanilla is your oyster. Truly, one strength in Tanking and Healing classes is in their ability to fill those roles while also being specced differently. We are all so aware of the way to play the game in 2016 that dungeons are much faster, things die in a snap, and people make less mistakes. This makes tanking/healing miles easier. Even back in retail Vanilla it was well known that there was no need to level a Priest as anything other than Shadow. Only once you get into Blackrock Mountain and 60 dungeons does a respec make sense. Efficiency is easy to compensate for with skill and knowledge, and the vast majority of Nost population have more than a passing understanding of the game.

I also noticed the Death Ray was very weak compared to how I remember it on retail. I remember there being a much higher baseline damage amount for when you take more damage. Like if you fired it off and saw yourself taking more than usual damage, you knew that shot was going to be pretty good - but on Nost it seemed every single time was a wet noodle regardless of how much health it drained from you. It was barely worth the trinket slot, where it used to be something which could turn a close-fought battle with an Elite mob or higher level player into your favor.

Hold on, nothing is clear at all. I don't care about Feenix, so mentioning how bugged their server is? not sure why that's relevant. We're discussing original Rage generation from hitting critters, not anything about their model. I liked that forum only to show that others remember Critters being batteries for Rage as well. How is that unclear? It has been a feature in retail WoW since the beginning, and I think it still is there. Private servers is the first place I've seen this feature lacking. http://wowwiki.wikia.com/wiki/Rage (search for critter) "Attacking critters like snakes or rats can be excellent for banking (rage)" I have found a strategy guide dating back from 2007 urging raiders to leave the critters for Warriors to use between pulls for more rage/Threat. I played in Vanilla and remember Warriors being so jealous of the rats/critters, it was a mini-game in itself. I remember it - you hit critters for rage, it was a part of the game. For some reason on Private Servers they don't have this. I thought as Testers/Players we were supposed to give our feedback so that things could be sorted out as to be most like the way things were as possible. Multiple people know this was a thing, so I am flummoxed that there's any resistance to this information. I'm sure others here remember it as well. I know it may seem like a trivial thing, but as a Tank with hungry DPS every little bit counts. I don't see how it's useful at all to have removed this feature of the game. I can understand how having a Paladin sit/crit/Reckbomb might make people cry nerf - it's kind of ridiculous to nerf Critters in general. A little ham-handed. What would you be giving Warriors? oo oh no, some quickly degrading Rage, oh dear me. really it baffles me that this should be anything more than "oh you remember that? okay... does anyone else remember it? yes? oh ok let's get that fixed right away"

What, really? That makes me sad. Critters in dungeons were there specifically as "Rage Batteries" for Warriors. That's a feature, not a bug. What ever happened to interesting use of game mechanics? They always gave Rage back in the day, then on Private servers it's a problem? I don't understand what the problem is. edit - here is a thread discussing rage gen (search for critters) where multiple people mention this being a well known feature which isn't around anymore

Oh you misunderstood me. Warriors are supposed to be able to hit critters to gain rage. This was not the case on Nost. Back in the day when you would get a lucky white crit on a critter before a pull you'd get a huge chunk of rage, it was wonderful. And since they're level 1 and no AC, they gave lots of rage when you crit. I thought this was totally common knowledge - it's even documented in wikis about Warrior Rage that critters are specifically put into dungeons for Warriors to use to bank rage.

I am attempting to address a couple things. I first thought above that you were saying snares from Frostbolts wouldn't reflect but I think you were mentionting Frost reflection. I wanted to post a video first to be sure that was cleared up that snares are reflected. Mostly though - the patch does not say anything about "separate effects" as you put it; and this is an important distinction. It says it will no longer reflect proc effects separate from the base spell. This results in having all reflected spells/effects bound together instead of having a separate chance to land the proc/spell. It is important to notice their wording in specifics. Above you use the term "Talented procs" but that lumps a heap of things in there that shouldn't be. The patch says "triggered effects" or procs which have a chance to happen, not things which are Talented. They never use the word Talent; they're speaking about procs - a very different thing from something like Ignite or Shadow Weaving which are Talents and become baseline in the spell when cast. The patch notes never mention "separate effects" nor "talented..." anything - they are talking about procs. Please be wary of the wording, as it can be misconstrued and other effects are lumped into the proc category. I remember many times having my Fire spells reflected at me and having the resulting Ignite from a crit occur - having a Pyroblast crit you and burn you to death doesn't fade from your memory. But I realize you can't really just take my word for it. I want to make clear that Ignite is absolutely different from a Triggered Proc (their wording) - it happens to all targets which are crit by a Fire Mage. It's akin to Shadow Weaving for Priests, in that if the spell lands (or crits for FMage) the resulting Talented effect is applied. Please be clear: they are talking about Triggered Procs - NOT Talented Everything. Ignite and Shadow Weaving are Talents which are not "triggered procs", they are Talents which give an effect to a spell which wasn't there initially. As we know, Procs are Impact/Blackout type things with a chance to occur. It is an important distinction to note the wording in the patch notes, as they do not say "reflection will no longer reflect triggered effects" quite the contrary: : Effects which cause reflection will no longer reflect triggered effects separately from their base effects (e.g. Impact, Improved Shadow Bolt, Aftermath, etc.) Again, the key way to look at this is the placement of the words "no longer" and "separately from" since they speak to what will no longer be the case (the fact that they used to be reflected separately with two chances to resist, and will now be combined into once chance on reflection).

Wait wait wait wait wait waaaaaaait, please. Let's check that again. The Patch Notes refer specifically to "Triggered Effects" such as Stuns. NOT Talented Procs such as Ignite. That's an entirely different thing. Also, Snares/Frost effects 100% reflect, since they are not Procs at all. The spell reflects and if it isn't resisted, it snares. Please watch at 4:25 of Laintime 2006: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rGdz3PYuwo Reflects Frostbolt, with snare - seen briefly at 4:30 before he puts on Hamstring Effects were possibly being reflected while the spell itself was resisted, resulting in an Impact stun being reflected while the spell itself not landing. This change caused effects to not be separated from their spells while reflected. Note the wording stating that the Again, to restate - the Patch Notes say that the mechanics will no longer reflect Triggered Effects separately from their base effects - meaning that going forward from that patch they are now bound together and not separately reflected (previously resulting in the possibility of Reflecting a Mindblast, having it Resist, but having Blackout Stun proc -- or any Trigger/Proc based spell effect. After that patch, the spell and the triggered effect remain together in the reflect. The wording is a bit vague, and until you get to the word "separately" you're under the impression that triggered effects are entirely off the table, which is the opposite of the outcome of the patch.

I hope they finally fix critters. On Nostalrius the critters gave 0 rage. They used to be great little source of rage generation between pulls, and were wonderful when defending Farm in Arathi Basin. As small an issue as this is, it was one of the first glaring bugs I noticed in the game which I used to benefit from greatly back in the day. Sweeping Strikes was also gimped, but that's a different thread.

Excited!