I take time every day or so to drop by
WOW Insider's website. I came across October 1st's
Breakfast Topic, which was "What would you tell your level 1 self?" and started wondering, what
would I tell my warlock at level 1?
After a bit of thought, I came up with a list of five bits of knowledge I would pass on to young Mandaconda, and they are as follows:
1. Read the tooltips. I don't know if it was just me being completely stupid, or if anyone else had an issue with it, but reading the tooltips was not something I did. WoW was my second MMO (after Guild Wars, and goddess knows I had no idea what I was doing there), so I didn't understand the basics of combat and the nature of the skills my warlock possessed, or eventually would possess. For instance, I did not understand the concept of "damage over time" spells, or
DOTS as they are also known as. So, I would end up casting Curse of Agony over and over and over again. Yep. Go me!
2. Don't be afraid to leave guilds if you don't like them. I did eventually learn this lesson myself when I finally turned level 70. I only wish I had learned it sooner. I joined a guild lead by a person that we shall name "J" for the sake of being nice for once. I joined the guild, which was fairly active and had quite a few people in it. A few people in the guild were fun, and I forged friendships with them, but the rest of the guild seemed very cold, and the guild leader was not very friendly. She was actually sort of a bitch.
Eventually I did leave, and decided to take up making my own guild. I didn't ask them to, but the friends I made in that other guild came with me, and J ended up harassing me because of it until she eventually quit playing WoW. I do remember the sense of dread I felt, while /gquitting. I think I was standing in The Valley of Heroes in Stormwind when I finally did.
3. Don't tolerate annoying people, and USE /IGNORE. If I could, I would be beating that into my lvl 1 self's head with a mallet. People asking for money, asking for runs through instances all the time, telling creepy stories about their deepest fantasies for some reason, and people taking personal grudges against you for /spitting back at them. These are all things to avoid. People are able to earn their own money, they're able to do instances with groups, creepers talking about doing their cousins can be remedied with a simple /ignore command, and the same goes for people who continually infiltrate your guild for no reason other than to be annoying. Use /ignore. Use it often as the situation requires it.
4. Read about your class. This goes hand in hand with my creative use of DOTS, but definitely look over information about your class. Don't put all your points scattered across all the trees, follow suggestion 1, read the abilities, and make some sense out of them. If you can't do that, then look it up online and see what other people are doing. Figure out what sort of play style you like (Destruction, by the way. You can thank me later.) and look it up. Read everything you can, and it will help you get better. I would also like to take the opportunity to tell this to my current level 80 self. Why is your DPS so low? You should be pulling out 3k more than you're doing right now, dummy!
5. Definitely show up in the Arathi Highlands around July 10th, 2007. Yes, I know it sounds weird, but do it. You'll meet the most amazing person in the world there, and you will fall head over heels for each other. Even if the times get rough, if his internet craps out for a while, or if you get bored of the game, still stick it out and keep him in your heart. You'll move to Australia someday to marry him.
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(¸.·´ (¸.·`¤Mandaconda¤
