Things you wish you knew earlier in World of Warcraft


/ Commands

  • /tell <player> <message> (alias '/t') - Send a player a private message. You can scroll through all the people that whispered you recently by typing on the tab key./w <player> <message> - Send a player a private message. You can scroll through all the people that whispered you recently by typing on the tab key.
  • chathelp (alias '/chat') - List of chat commands
  • /em <message> (alias '/me') - Creates an emote
  • /exit - Quit the game
  • /follow (alias '/f') - Target a player and type this. You will follow that player.
  • /ghelp - For a list of guild commands
  • /ignore <player> - Ignore player
  • /unignore <player> - Turn off ignore player
  • /invite <player> (alias '/inv') - Invite a player to your party.
  • /logout - Log out of the game
  • /party <message> (alias '/p') - Sends a message to party chat
  • /played - Reports the amount of time you've played the game with that character.
  • /pvp - Enable your character to be attacked by other players in Player vs. Player combat.
  • /random <X> [Y]: Generates a random number between X and Y, if Y isn't specified, then it will generate a number between 1 and X. This is very useful to determine who's going to have the right to loot a chest or harvest a resource.
  • /r - Reply to the last tell/private message. You can scroll through all the people that whispered you recently by typing on the tab key.
    /say <message> (alias '/s') - Send a message to people near you
  • /sit - When standing, your character will sit. Your character regains health more quickly when sitting.
  • /stand - When sitting, your character will stand.
  • /who - Lists the players online.
  • /yell <message> (alias '/y') - Yells a message to the area around. Many players consider this to be "spam" so use it sparingly.
  • /cast allows you to cast spells by name. Type /cast (spell subtext) - Example: "/cast Fireball (Rank 1)". To add spell casting to a macro you can type it manually or shift-click a spell in your spell book to add the proper /cast line to the macro.

Add-Ons

  • Titan Panel :
    • A Must have UI Mod - Displays 2 thin, streamlined status bars (or "panels") that work with Titan's vast array of plugins: interactive modules that display handy information for your character.These panels may be set to "auto-hide" when the mouse cursor is elsewhere on the screen. Plugins for Titan Panel are widely available, so if you do any modding whatsoever, Titan Panel is hard to live without.
  • TenTonHammer Database Mod :
    • Help build Ten Ton Hammer's gold ad-free quest database by installing this special information gathering mod! It works in the background gathering information you upload with a single click whenever it's convenient for you.
    • Populates the TenTonHammer Quest Database and the TenTonHammer Census Site
  • CTMod
    • A comprehensive set of hotbar, quest journal, map, and general interface mods (not to mention a wealth of extra standalone features) in one handy, integrated package.
  • Damage Meters
    • DamageMeters is a more stable and more compact (yet less comprehensive) alternative to the popular Recap stats mod. DM keeps track of the damage you and nearby players do and graphically displays the total damage as meters in a small window. Damage dealing comparisons between different members of a party or raid are a cinch, and DM will also report fighting effectiveness to the chat window. Support for Titan Panel is included, but Titan Panel is not required to run DamageMeters.

Auction House

  • In the auction house there is an option to “filter” different words. Keep this in mind while searching for specific items. This filter can also be used for specific types of items, such as rare and uncommon items.
  • All Faction auction houses are linked. There is no need to go to a specific city, any auction house will have the same items.

Combat

  • If you start to cast a spell and then find that you don’t need it or need to change it before it is completely cast, you can cancel it by moving OR by pressing the escape key. This is very useful when stuck by a movement prevention spell or effect.
  • The colors on the level of a Mob will indicate how hard it is. Red being the hardest while gray means you will gain no experience from killing it. Mobs with ?? for their level are mobs you want to avoid fighting at all costs (they’ll hurt you lots).
  • On Player Vs Player servers, you can only attack enemies if they are in a contested zone or in a zone that belongs to your faction. If an enemy enters your zone they cannot attack you unless you go aggressive against them.
  • If you are hit in the back there is a possibility of being dazed; an effect that will reduce your speed and make enemies catch up with you quickly if you are running. When possible engage enemies directly.
  • Being in neutral cities such as Ratchet and Booty Bay do not guarantee protection from enemies in PvP. If you attack an enemy in a neutral town you will lose reputation with that town.
  • Mobs with a gold or silver dragon border around there name are considered “Elite” and have considerably more hit points then standard monsters their level. Silver borders denote “Rare Spawn” monsters that spawn ever so often in specific areas of the world.
  • If a Mob has a shield of Lordaeron or a symbol of the Horde beside their name, that will indicate their allegiance. Having these symbols also denotes that the Mob is hostile towards the opposing faction.
  • A flag in the ground denotes a “Duel Zone” between two players. If you see two players with a flag in the ground beside them you will know that they are engaged in a duel.

Chat

  • To talk in the General Chat channel you need to type in “/1” before your statement. Just hitting enter and typing will only come out as a “say” to nearby players.
  • You can post item stats into any channel except for general by holding the shift key and clicking on the item. This will bring the items up in the chat where it can be clicked on for a description of its stats.
  • Double clicking a players name in any channel will bring up a tell message box so you can send that player a private message. This is useful for replying to Sales requests in the Trade Channel.
  • You can ignore messages from annoying players in chat by using the /ignore {username} command. If you every need to hear them at a later point you use /unignore {playername}.
  • Typing “/r” will instigate a reply mode where you can respond to the last person who sent you a tell. This is useful if you are chatting in a general chat and engaged in private conversation with another player.
  • #, /c, /csay - Send text to channel # (e.g. /1 Hi!)
  • /announcements, /ann - Toggle join/leave announcements on a channel
  • /afk, /dnd - Set your Away From Keyboard or Do Not Disturb flags
  • /ban, /unban - Ban/unban a player from a channel
  • /chatlist, /chatwho, /chatinfo [channel] - List channels, or channel members
  • /cinvite, /chatinvite - Invite a player to a channel
  • /join, /channel, /chan - Join a channel
  • /kick - Kick a player off a channel
  • /leave, /chatleave, /chatexit [channel] - Leave a channel (or all channels)
  • /mod, /moderator, /unmod, /unmoderator - Change a player's moderator status
  • /moderate - Toggle moderation on a channel
  • /mute, /squelch, /unvoice, /unmute, /unsquelch, /voice - Change a player's permission
  • /password, /pass <channel> <password> - Change password

Death

  • When you die in an Instance if you try to return to your corpse you will re-spawn at the beginning of the Instance instead of where you died. So be sure to bring some people capable of resurrecting!
  • When you die all your equipped gear takes 10% durability damage. When you use a spirit healer to resurrect yourself you suffer an additional 25% durability damage to ALL items on you.
  • At lower levels using a spirit healer to resurrect your character will only give you a small amount of resurrection sickness on top of the usual 25% durability damage to all equipment. This will grow to its eventual peak of 10 minutes of resurrection sickness; this sickness means an automatic 75% penalty to all stats.

Emotes

To perform an emote type "/emotename". Listed below are the names of some emotes you can try. Targeting another player will perform the emote with them as the recipient.

  • Agree
  • Amaze
  • Angry
  • Apologize
  • Applaud
  • Applause
  • Beckon
  • Beg
  • Belch
  • Bite
  • Bleed
  • Blink
  • Blood
  • Blow
  • Blush
  • Boggle
  • Bonk
  • Bored
  • Bounce
  • Bow
  • BRB
  • Burp
  • Bye
  • Cackle
  • Calm
  • Cat
  • Catty
  • Cheer
  • Chew
  • Chicken
  • Chuckle
  • Clap
  • Cold
  • Comfort
  • Commend
  • Confused
  • Congrats
  • Congratulate
  • Cough
  • Cower
  • Crack
  • Cringe
  • Cry
  • Cuddle
  • Curious
  • Curt
  • Curtsey
  • Dance
  • Disappointed
  • Doh
  • Doom
  • Drink
  • Drool
  • Duck
  • Eat
  • Eye
  • Farewell
  • Fart
  • Fear
  • Feast
  • Fidget
  • Flap
  • Flex
  • Food
  • Frown
  • Gasp
  • Gaze
  • Giggle
  • Glad
  • Glare
  • Gloat
  • Goodbye
  • Greet
  • Greetings
  • Grin
  • Groan
  • Grovel
  • Guffaw
  • Hail
  • Happy
  • Hello
  • Hi
  • Hug
  • Hungry
  • Impatient
  • Insult
  • Introduce
  • JK
  • Kiss
  • Kneel
  • Knuckles
  • Lavish
  • Lay
  • Laydown
  • Lick
  • Lie
  • Liedown
  • Listen
  • Mad
  • Massage
  • Moan
  • Mock
  • Moon
  • Mourn
  • No
  • Nod
  • Nosepick
  • Panic
  • Peer
  • Peon
  • Pest
  • Pick
  • Plead
  • Point
  • Poke
  • Ponder
  • Pounce
  • Praise
  • Pray
  • Purr
  • Puzzled
  • Question
  • Raise
  • Rdy
  • Ready
  • Rear
  • Roar
  • Rude
  • Salute
  • Scratch
  • Sexy
  • Shake
  • Shimmy
  • Shindig
  • Shiv
  • Shiver
  • Shoo
  • Shrug
  • Shy
  • Sigh
  • Sit
  • Slap
  • Sleep
  • Smell
  • Smirk
  • Snarl
  • Snicker
  • Sniff
  • Snub
  • Sob
  • Soothe
  • Sorry
  • Spit
  • Spoon
  • Stare
  • Stink
  • Strong
  • Strut
  • Surprised
  • Surrender
  • Talk
  • TalkEx
  • TalkQ
  • Tap
  • Taunt
  • Tease
  • Thank
  • Thanks
  • Thirsty
  • Threat
  • Tickle
  • Threaten
  • Tired
  • TY
  • Veto
  • Victory
  • Volunteer
  • Wave
  • Weep
  • Welcome
  • Whine
  • Whistle
  • Wicked
  • Wickedly
  • Work
  • Wrath
  • Yawn
  • Yay


Equipment

  • The auction house is the perfect place to pick up new and better equipment. Remember that the auction houses for the Horde and Alliance are in Orgrimmar and Ironforge respectively.
  • When an item is bound to you, you cannot give it to any other players. You may however still sell the item to any NPC vendor, or drop the item if you want to. Some items will bind to you in different instances (pickup and equipped for example).

Guilds

  • /ginfo - Gives basic information about your guild
  • g <message> - Sends a chat message to all members of your guild
  • o <message> - Sends a chat message to all officers of your guild
  • ginvite <player> - Invites another player to join your guild
  • gremove <player> - Removes a player from your guild
  • gpromote <player> - Promotes a player one rank within your guild
  • gdemote <player> - Demotes a player one rank within your guild
  • gmotd <message> - Sets the guild's message of the day
  • gquit - Removes you from your guild
  • groster - Gives an entire guild roster (officers and leaders only)
  • gleader <player> - Sets another player as the guild leader (guild leader only)
  • gdisband - Disbands your guild (guild leader only)

The Outlands

  • To enter the Outlands you go through the Dark Portal in the Blasted Lands
  • You may only enter the Outlands if you own the Burning Crusade expansion
  • There are NO class trainers in the Outlands
  • There is no Alliance or Horde Auctionhouse in the Outlands
  • The best place to bind your hearthstone to is Shattrath City so that you can use the portals to the main cities in Azeroth
  • You can learn the Master First Aid ability at Falcon Watch (Horde) or the Temple of Telhamat (Alliance) in the Hellfire Peninsula

Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Clicking Shift+B will bring up all of the bags you currently have equipped. Clicking Shift+B again will close all the bags.
  • You can use W, A, S, D to move instead of using the cursor keys. This is the better way to go as your fingers are closer to the number keys for fast use of spells.
  • The quick access spell bar has a shortcut for each box to the number keys at the top of your keyboard. Place the most commonly used spells in the easiest and fasted place to reach.
  • While moving, if you hold down the direction that you are moving and then bring up the zone map you will continue to move. If you release the button while in the map screen you will stop and need to close the map screen and re-open it again to continue moving.

Macros

  • Macros are worth checking out and learning. You can script almost everything! For example: "/cast Fireball (Rank 1)" in a macro would cas the spell. You can type the name in manually or shift-click if from your spell book.
  • The following toggles full screen and windowed mode [Cowtaro on the WoW Forums]
    /script SetCVar("gxWindow", 1 - GetCVar("gxWindow"));
    /console gxRestart
  • The following heals your targeted group member. If you are not in a group, or do not have a group member targeted it heals you. Then returns your target to the previous enemy you were fighting. It also lets your group know who you are healing in party chat. [ Calcyan on the WoW Forums ]
    /script if (UnitName("target") ~=nil and UnitIsFriend("player","target")) then CastSpellByName("Heal(Rank 1)") SendChatMessage("Incoming Heal to %T", "Party") else TargetUnit("player") CastSpellByName("Heal(Rank 1)") TargetLastEnemy(); end
  • The following bypasses the wait for text to appear when accepting a quest. [ Perilous on the WoW Forums ]
    /script AcceptQuest()

Mail

  • If you have a small piece of mail symbol beside your minimap that would indicate that you have a new piece of mail to be read at your local mailbox.
  • Sending mail to a player costs 30cp. If you are worried about losing this trivial amount of money you always have the option of sending the package C.O.D. Also, any gifts that are sent via mail can be gift wrapped if you like by purchasing the wrap from local vendors.

Mouse

  • As a Ghost if you hold the right mouse button and move you can still go underwater instead of floating on top of it.

Quests

  • Most of the time quests will give you as much experience as the Mobs you fight while doing the quest, and in the case of messenger or delivery quests this experience is simply supplementary. Quests are the best and quickest way to level in World of Warcraft, so always be undertaking them as the rewards you get from them are massive.
  • In your quest log your quests will be colored according to their difficulty (gray being pathetically easy and red being extremely hard).
  • If a quest has the term (Elite) beside it, then it usually means you’ll need some backup as it is a harder quest that involves battling an elite Mob.
  • If a quest has the term (Group) beside it, it is meant for a group of players to complete and you will likely not be able to complete is alone.
  • If a quest has the term (Raid) beside it, it is meant to be completed in a raid instance. The number of players required depends on the raid.
  • If you don’t have enough room in your inventory for rewards given from completing a quest, you will not be able to complete that quest. Make sure that you have enough room to accept all the possible items given as reward for a quest before you go to complete it.
  • Mobs with yellow exclamation points over their heads indicate they have a quest to give you, while mobs with a silver exclamation point indicates that they have a quest but you are not yet ready to undertake it. Mobs with a question mark over their heads indicate you have a quest to complete by talking to them.
  • NPC’s are not the only things that give out quests. Be sure to check out wanted posters, items and terrain features as they all have the possibility of giving out quests to you.
  • You can only ever have a maximum of 25 quests at a time, so if you intend to venture off to new lands to quest, make sure you have space in your quest log book to get new quests.
  • Sometimes you’ll be told to find a container for a quest item such as a chest or equipment piles. What normally happens in these circumstances is that while you have the quest in your log book the container will be useable, however if you abandon the quest you will not be able to access the container.

Sounds

  • /v help
  • /v inc - Incoming. You type this to warn your party that a monster is coming to attack
  • /v charge
  • /v flee
  • /v attack
  • /v oom - Out of mana, low on mana
  • /v fol - Follow Me
  • /v wait
  • /v heal
  • /v cheer
  • /v fire
  • /v rasp - Sticking your tongue out sound
  • /flirt - voices a random racial flirt with the target
  • /silly - voices a random racial joke with the target

Transportation

  • It costs 50 copper to take a gryphon ride from Stormwind to Ironforge, while it is free to take the Deeprun Tram.
  • A flight master with a green exclamation point over his head indicates that there is a new flight path to be learned by talking to him.
  • When mounted you are unable to engage in combat, though you may be targeted by other players. Players can only get a mount at level 40 and even then need to pay a fee, with the exception of Paladins and Warlocks who get their mounts from a quest.
  • Riding skill costs more than the mount itself. The various riding skills and mounts cost the following:
Description
Skill Cost
Mount Cost
Regular Mount
90 gold
10 gold
Epic Mount
600 gold
100 gold
Flying Mount
800 gold
100 gold
Epic Flying Mount
5000 gold
200 gold
  • Flying mounts can be purches at your factions town in Shadowmoon Valley in the Outlands

Miscellaneous

  • If your reputation is high enough towards specific factions you will get lowered prices when purchasing from that area.
  • Fishing, Cooking, & First Aid do not count towards your two maximum professions as they are considered secondary professions.
  • When forming a guild you need at least 10 players to sign the charter that registers the guild. Luckily these players need only to sign the charter and don’t need to stay in the guild.
  • When in a Raid Group (a group of more then 5 people) you will not be able to reap as many benefits as a normal group. For example you will not get most quest items to drop while in a raid group.
  • Some classes have abilities that require “reagents”, these can be found at Reagent Vendors that populate most towns in WoW. Be sure never to run out of required Reagents as they can only be bought at vendors and not found in the wild.
  • Pings on your mini map indicate important information, such as location of quest NPC’s & Mobs, or the location of mineral veins and different herbs depending on the skill currently in use.
  • When logged off you will gain a bonus to experience gained depending on how long you are logged off. If you logoff in an inn this rate will quadruple and you will accrue experience bonuses much faster.
  • Between the actual game screen and the User Interface bar is a small bar that fills with blue, this shows your experience to next level. A small arrow tab indicates any accelerated experience you have accrued from resting.
  • A sideways bar in your User Interface that can be colored three different colors (green, yellow, & red) shows your currently latency level (or Lag). Mousing over this will show your exact download rate in MS.
  • For the most part, items that are titled in gray text are simply vendor fodder. These items can sell for varying amounts of cash, but are usually meant for just that; to be sold.
  • Holding shift and right clicking a corpse will automatically loot all items on that corpse. This works for the skinning and mining skill as well. This can be useful when farming zones for money, as all the items acquired can be sold.
  • As with all warcraft games, when you repeatedly click on some mobs they will begin talking back with witty little comebacks. However critters do not explode if you continually click on them.
  • Only Hunters can name their pets. Warlocks summoned pets are automatically named, while any pet that is purchased through the use of an item (such as the special collector’s edition pets) receive the generic name of what they are.
  • Going “/who” will bring up a list of all the players in your current zone who are of similar level. This can be changed by editing the level tab in the Who box when it comes up. Going “/who” followed by a username will bring up information on the specified user.
  • Adding players to your friends list allows you quick access to see when their online, as well as the options to send them tells and invite them into a group with a single click.
  • Items that are green are considered “uncommon” and can be drained by enchanters for their magical essence. Items that are Blue are considered Rare and can be made by some crafters by using difficult to find ingredients, or by having them dropped at highly rare times by Mobs. Purple items are considered Epic and are some of the best items in the game.
  • Patches are normally applied Tuesdays from 6AM to approximately 10AM PST.
  • When you have a stack of items in your inventory and want to give just a few of them to someone else, you hold down shift and click on the stack. A window will appear asking how many to separate. You can then place these in a different slot in you inventory to trade or sell.

Submissions

We are looking to expand the list of items that this guide covers. If you have any "Must Know" tips, please share them by posting them in our forums. We have a forum set aside for your submissions here.

Things you wish you knew earlier in World of Warcraft

 


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Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

About The Author

Byron has been playing and writing about World of Warcraft for the past ten years. He also plays pretty much ever other Blizzard game, currently focusing on Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone, while still finding time to jump into Diablo III with his son.

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