Breakfast topic: Why didn't you tell me...?
by Amanda Dean 
Jan 6th 2009 at 8:00AM
Every time we log into WoW, we find ourselves greeted with trivial, non-helpful bits of information. We learn quite a bit on our own and sometimes from helpful players. These little gems do little to actually help learn the nuances of the game. There have been countless times I've been taken by surprise, causing wasted time and sometimes costly repair bills. Here are some of the things I had to learn on my own, the hard way, that I wish someone would have told me:* You don't have to wait for a portal, summon, or level 74 to get to Dalaran. Battle ports* work just fine, but you do have to get connecting flight points to make it useful.
* If you wait until 74 to go to Dalaran, don't run there to get the flight point. There is a quest that takes you there. If you do run to the Crystal Song Forest to get there you, will find yourself looking forlornly at a teleportation device that is no help to you at all.
* On the subject of teleportation, If you're Horde, you should really save the Goblin Transponder that you use to port from Booty Bay to Gnomeregan. It can help for raiding Ironforge.
* Beware of the Animal Blood debuff in Borean Tundra. You will be killed on sight if you go into the D.E.H.T.A. Encampment if you have that debuff. It took me two deaths to figure out why I couldn't turn my quests in.
* I'm relatively new to tanking, until about a month ago I clicked to set my marks. I had no idea that you can hotkey your lucky charms.
I'm sure there are still many nuances of the game I still don't know. Share your wisdom, what's something you wish you'd been told?
* To battle port, group up with a player who is already in Dalaran that you are of an appropriate level to do battlegrounds with. That kindly person queues you up for a battleground. When you finish the battle or AFK out, you will magically find yourself in Dalaran. It's like ghetto hearthing**, only better.
** Ghetto hearthing is used when your hearthstone is on cooldown. You group up with another person and run into an instance (such as RFC or Stocks) and leave the group. Since you are no longer part of the group, you will soon be forced to your home inn. It resets the cooldown on your hearthstone, but it gets you where you are going.
Filed under: Tips, Tricks, Odds and ends, Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 9)
Tib Jan 6th 2009 8:12AM
Bank Chilled Meat when leveling - you will need it later.
Why oh why did I throw so much of the damn stuff away :(
Cyanea Jan 6th 2009 8:18AM
Bank ANY meat you pick up. I leveled three characters before Wrath, and never knew just how amazing Cooking became in TBC and beyond.
Now I wish I hadn't thrown away so much Clam meat...*mutters*
Microtonal Jan 6th 2009 8:21AM
Seconded, hard.
I neglected cooking until the achievement system came out (damn me for being an achievement whore), but I figured out right quick that banking meat (of any kind, not just chilled, although that's one of the biggies) is a big old help.
oldwisemonk Jan 6th 2009 1:41PM
Rhino Meat can pay for your epic flying. It's used in a cooking daily and sells for a boatload.
But, yes, Chilled Meat is good, too, and is used in at least 2 or 3 cooking dailies.
Scott Jan 6th 2009 8:12AM
You can remove the animal blood debuff by taking a swim.
Geoff Jan 6th 2009 6:09PM
wow. why did I never think of that!
Nefernet Jan 7th 2009 4:07AM
Yes, it's writen on the tooltip of the debuff...
dro Jan 6th 2009 8:14AM
I didnt know that you can piece valorous and heroes set items to get their set pieces. All along I've thought they're mutually exclusive, until I inspected a friend with valor and heroes pieces to get set bonuses.
Aubrecia Jan 6th 2009 8:14AM
God, how I wish I had saved that stupid transponder. I cleared it out when I was aching for bank space in about the 50-60 stretch, and I have regretted trashing it ever since. There should really be a way to recover it.
(Perhaps there is one, and someone can tell me, wouldn't that be a nice "login tip" to get during maintenance!)
Gnosh Jan 6th 2009 9:37AM
You can. Talk to the goblin next to the teleporter and ask for a new one, takes 2 seconds.
Make sure your other one is GONE, not just in the bank, or the speech option won't appear.
Mister K Jan 6th 2009 10:44AM
I use an addon Quickmark 1 click marking without using up any macros or keybindings
Aerei Jan 6th 2009 5:22PM
Unless it's been fixed, talking to the goblin won't work if you're a draenei or blood elf. :\ I found that out to my dismay.
schmots Jan 6th 2009 8:15AM
you can macro marks?
Microtonal Jan 6th 2009 8:24AM
You don't have to macro marks. You can assign them plain old keybindings in the appropriate subsection of the ESC menu, just like you would with anything else.
GrayElf Jan 6th 2009 8:27AM
Press Escape, click on 'Key Bindings', scroll down to the Raid Symbols section (4+ screens down - I think that's what it's called), and voila! I have mine bound to Alt-keys, so Skull is Alt-1. Whatever bindings work for you...but for a tank or other group leader, it makes life SO much easier.
h8rain Jan 6th 2009 8:39AM
I use a G11 keyboard and use the "G Keys" for setting marks. But since I am on a Mac, I have to use the Controllermate program and it sends this command
/script SetRaidTarget("target", #)
0 = No icon
1 = Yellow 4-point Star
2 = Orange Circle
3 = Purple Diamond
4 = Green Triangle
5 = White Crescent Moon
6 = Blue Square
7 = Red "X" Cross
8 = White Skull
I think that is correct (I am not at home to verify for sure). If something is marked 'skull' and I press the 'skull' key again, it clears the mark.
Cyanea Jan 6th 2009 8:42AM
There's an addon called OPie. I think it was featured on WoWInsider a while ago. It's great.
CTRL+R brings up a spherical menu wherever my mouse is, and then it's just a matter of moving the mouse in the direction of whatever symbol I want to mark the mob with.
sheepe Jan 6th 2009 9:24AM
I prefer using the numberpad 1-8 for different marks and 0 to clear. Fairly easy to reach with either hand but not in the way of any other buttons i use.
Harmeister Jan 6th 2009 9:25AM
That's the simplified script h8rain. try this in one macro:
/script c,a,t=IsControlKeyDown(),IsAltKeyDown(),function(i)SetRaidTarget("target",i)end
/script if(IsShiftKeyDown()) then if(c) then if(a) then t(1) else t(5) end else t(7) end elseif(c) then if(a) then t(0) else t(2) end elseif(a) then t(3) else t(8) end
looks like a bunch of gibberish, I know, but it's really cool.
If you have something targeted, and click on the button, it puts a skull there. hold down the shift key, click, you get the red x. hold down control, another, alt, another, shift+control, another, shift+Control+Alt, yet another. All in all, there are seven different things this macro can mark with (well, 6 + one that removes the icon)
That pretty much covers it for me when tanking an instance.
Plastic Rat Jan 6th 2009 9:53AM
People still use marking? I thought we just AOEd everything now?