WoW Rookie: Training up

Training up your spells and abilities used to be fairly complex -- not the process itself, mind you, but figuring out where to go. Trainers were tucked into obscure nooks and crannies all over the world, a real incentive to go exploring. Several infamous profession trainers were even located inside instances; you had to fight your way in, bags stuffed with all the mats for the next batch of recipes you hoped to train, and skill up like mad so you could buy the next available recipe while your group kept the area clear.
Training is much simpler in today's World of Warcraft, but it's hardly intuitive. We've pulled together a few notes on training for class spells and abilities, professions, riding skill for mounts and weapon skills, to help steer you to the right place at the right time.
Once you've made your way up to the grand old age of level 4, you can anticipate new spells or abilities every two levels until you reach level 60. From 60 onward (The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King content), you'll get new powers every level. Class trainers are normally found in Old World capital cities -- but beware that class-specific idiosyncracies abound. In general, look for your trainer in the capital nearest where your character started life. If you're a rogue or a warlock, look for a cellar, basement or other secretive location. When in doubt, right-click a city guard for directions or right-click the tracking button on your minimap.Class trainer locations
- Death knight Acherus: The Ebon Hold in Eastern Plaguelands
- Druid
- Hunter and hunter pets
- Mage and mage portal trainers
- Paladin
- Priest
- Rogue
- Shaman
- Warrior
- Warlock (Demons no longer require separate training.)
If you are level 40 or above and have purchased Dual Talent Specialization, be sure to change to and train your second spec before rushing off to test your new powers. The trainer only shows spells or abilities linked to your active spec, so switch off and retrain every time!
Your class trainer can also train you for Dual Talent Specialization and can reset your talent specs so you can choose new talents.
Profession trainers
The profession training system has changed significantly since the game was first created. Today's training locations are much more standardized than they used to be. Certain aspects of some professions (Heavy Frostweave Bandages, for example) still require a drop or quest to complete.
In general, you'll serendipitously run across your first profession trainer in a small town near your starting area. Sometimes, you won't run into a trainer until you make it to the big city. Once you're there, though, you can count on finding an Artisan-level (skill 200-300) primary profession trainer. Artisan trainers are found in every capital city now. Field trainers found in remote areas throughout Azeroth now also train up to Artisan level.
At the Master level (skill 275-375, The Burning Crusade content), you'll need to track down a trainer located in the early Burning Crusade areas (usually Hellfire Peninsula). For players who've not yet chosen a faction in Shattrath City or for those who've chosen the Scryers, Loremaster Skosiris on The Scryer's Tier oversees bookshelves that act as master trainers for every profession and secondary skill. (Incidentally, the loremaster is named after the founder of the wowhead.com WoW database.)
At the Grand Master level (skill 350-450, Wrath of the Lich King content), you'll find trainers in the starting towns of Northrend (Valgarde and Valiance Keep for the Alliance, Vengeance Landing and Warsong Hold for the Horde) as well as Dalaran. Riding trainers
Discovering where to train your riding skill and buy a mount can seem somewhat mysterious to new players. Stables and trainers are not located in the main cities. Consult a list of riding trainer locations and read up on all the details in our WoW Rookie mounts guide.
Weapon masters
Also somewhat mysterious to new players are the locations of weapons trainers. When you're a brand new player with limited flight paths (even with the addition of new boats and blimps and connections), hopping over to another capital city can be a big project. While the issue of weapon training can sometimes be left to happenstance for casters, melee characters will want to have the skills to use any weapons they may run across as loot. We recommend visiting wowwiki.com's weapon master page to chart out exactly where your character needs to travel.
Filed under: Tips, How-tos, Features, Leveling, Classes, Talents, WoW Rookie, Mounts






Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Balthezor Nov 18th 2009 9:03PM
ATTENTION MELEE DPS CLASSES.
Skinning takes only an hour to get to max.
DO THIS.
Ronin Nov 18th 2009 9:19PM
Hardly true, since this is a guide for "Rookies".
Turlagh Nov 18th 2009 10:01PM
Yeah, if you're level 70+.
Slaytanic Nov 18th 2009 9:17PM
Great guide, thanks for taking the time.
Mithraeus Nov 18th 2009 9:23PM
What do you do about PAYING for it? I had 10 gold on my paladin at level 30, and spent eight of it on training.
Arbitor Nov 18th 2009 9:43PM
Try buying expert riding, a rare flying mount, paying for training and cold weather flying.
I don't think I could actually afford right away, even with saving up.
This of course was back when all forms of flying required level 70, and there was no way to discount it, so new players in wotlk (and players like me who have been playing since December 2006 and their 1st level capped toon was a dk, yeah I'm bad I know) had to pay an arm and a leg to get them.
Besides the fact that training seems ridiculously expensive as hyrbrid classes.
Man, everythings gotten so much cheap and more accessible (fun) like flying at 60, man this game is easy-mode, godam satanist blizz nerfing price for teh casuals!!!!oneoneone
nieboh Nov 18th 2009 10:01PM
To pay for it: At level 5 get yourself skinning and mining. Skin everything that's skinnable that you kill. Mine everything you see. Make frequent trips to the auction house and put it up for sale. The market may not be great, but even at 50s a stack it will soon pay off nicely. At the very least you should have more than 10g by level 30.
Reuben Nov 18th 2009 10:14PM
I still get the shivers when I think about saving up that 5,000 gold for flying, which, when I achieved it, was really 6,000 because of cold weather flying.
Oppenheimer Nov 18th 2009 10:34PM
Judicious use of the Auction House. I'm levelling my main right now, just hit 40 and had the cash to spare for dual spec (though now I'm down to ~300g).
Get auctioneer and check the value of everything that drops. if you forgo levelling up first aid, just the wool cloth you get levelling 20-35 will probably pay for all your skill and riding training until you start earning enough from other sources. Professions are also a good place to earn a bit of change, especially resource gathering (I'm doing herbalism/inscription, and the 2-3g per glyph I'm getting is nice enough, though you can do much better selling ore/herbs/gems).
Of course this is all moot if you find a guild with some nice people who don't mind kicking you 50g.
MusedMoose Nov 18th 2009 10:40PM
nieboh has it right - taking two gathering professions is a great, great way to make money. I took Skinning and Herbalism with my rogue, and I had enough for my mount by level 10, enough for my epic mount by level 30, and enough to get epic flight before I hit Northrend. Granted, I didn't get epic flight until I'd been level 80 for a while, mostly because I didn't seem to need it and because I picked up a loaner griffin at K3 in the Storm Peaks, but still. Double-gathering really is the way to go if you don't want to have to worry about money.
It's also important to consider the benefits you get from the gathering professions. I went with Skinning and Herbalism for my rogue because the instant self-healing ability and the increased crit rating seemed best for the class. My mage has Tailoring and Mining, and I took Mining because let's face it, mages need all the bonus HP they can get.
Just make sure that you don't take Herbalism and Mining together, unless you've got a macro that lets you swap between the two "Detect" abilities quickly. Otherwise you might miss a few things. *grin*
Hope this helps some rookies out.
Boydboyd Nov 18th 2009 11:45PM
You could also select Herbalism and Enchanting as your profession combo.
Herbalism: not only do you eventually get the ability to heal yourself every few minutes, but (at least on my server) the herbs you can sell will net you a ridiculous profit in most cases.
Enchanting: the obvious benefit here is that you'll be able to disenchant unwanted quest rewards and/or drops of green-or-better quality (with the assumption that said items are not desireable on the Auction House or are soulbound). With these materials you'll get from disenchanting, not only will you receive the benefit of enchanting your own gear (and increasing surviveability and killing power), but you can almost always sell leftover materials on the Auction House for a fine profit as well.
Not requirements, just options. :-)
Crimson Nov 21st 2009 9:09AM
I leveled sever toons to 80
and i gotta say that questing along with gathering professions brings in loads of gold
the old world content doesn't give you a whole lot of money
but selling ore like mithril and thorium still sells for like 50-60 gold a stack
you can gather those as you level through conent and AH it not to mention all the gems you get along with the ore
cloth like runecloth and mageweave still sells nice and you pick it up from mobs
once you reach BC quests award more you get acess to quests that award much more gold then vanilla quests and fel iron adamantite and khorium sell for a lot, as well as gems and and knothide and herbs that you gather along. also frequent drops of green usually sell for a nice amount too especially those "of the bandit" "of the champion" "of the invoker" and so on and sometimes blues that also sell for up to 60-70 gold. wrath quests give even more gold then BC and you get all sorts of mats to sell for money. Questing in wrath alone would grant you around 1500 gold or more. Also cobalt saronite and especially titanium sell for huge money. And rare gems that you get from those nodes also are very high in value. Borean leather sell for a nice amount and arctic fur (even after the addition of vendor) also sells nice. The herbs sell very nice too frost lotuses especially. Greens and blues still drop along the way and you can sell those at a high price too. If you take all that into account you can have around 3000k gold by the time you reach 80 (with the expense of mount training and class training and profession training, even more if you sometimes stop leveling for a bit and just farm the mats in a specific zone (like herbs in scholozar)
QQinsider Nov 19th 2009 7:42AM
How can you possibly only have 10g at level 30 when even stacks of linen cloth sell for 2g these days?!? Either you are vendoring everything, or you are spending your gold on things that you don't need.
Tremelizzer Nov 19th 2009 9:25AM
Yeah. I have some 10 level priest on realm on which I don't play at all. Made it once because my friend plays/played there. I've tried trying to make some gold using experience I've gathered. Haven't done it so actively but imagine: started doing it as 10 level character with maybe 10 silver money. I've got now almost 400 gold and that's all by doing AH. If I had done it like real businessman I would maybe have already multiple thousands :P
alpha5099 Nov 18th 2009 11:49PM
Here's a good tip for if you have dual-spec: double check the rank of everything on your action bars for your secondary spec after training. Although stuff automatically upgrades to the new rank for the spec you are in when you train, you may have to automatically adjust some ranks on your other spec. I recently discovered that I had been healing on my shaman with a low rank Chain Heal for months because I hadn't known I wasn't using the max rank.
Cyanea Nov 19th 2009 4:15AM
THIS
Very THIS
I found that for the longest time, I was using Totems three to four ranks below max. My healing spells were fine because I always used Clique, but there's a maaaaasssive difference between Rank IV of a totem and Rank VIII
Roberto Nov 19th 2009 6:28AM
Happened with me too. I almost dropped my disc priest, I was struggling to kill mobs 4 levels below me.
Jarvish Nov 19th 2009 7:39AM
If you are level 40 or above and have purchased Dual Talent Specialization, be sure to change to and train your second spec before rushing off to test your new powers. The trainer only shows spells or abilities linked to your active spec, so switch off and retrain every time!"
So you mean like the 80 Druid that kept thinking his Wild Growth was very weak?? I just trained up this week after accidentally going to my trainer in resto spec... HC HoL has gotten a lot easier now xD
- Tureni
Hoggersbud Nov 19th 2009 12:35PM
I too admit to having the problem of not updating spell ranks. Though lately, I've seen my action bars remove certain abilities....perhaps this is why?
I dunno. Anybody know of any addons to help with this bug, cough, I mean "feature" ?