How to Plan a New Character Efficiently

By dayoodin Updated: 2022/01/29

This Is A User-Submitted Guide!

Wowhead only updates official guides, so information might not be up-to-date.

PurposePlanning Your CharacterClass

Tip: You can change everything about your character later (by paying a fee), but you cannot change your class. So, this is probably the most important decision you'll make.

class

Role

Purpose

Healer

Heals the hurt, especially the tank (if the tank dies, everyone dies).

Tank

Focuses the mob on them, grabbing their attention using well-timed aggro methods and sustaining the majority of the damage.

Damage Dealer

Damages the mob, delivering it either through melee (in-your-face fighting) or casting (sending spells from a distance). The damage, regardless of its delivery method, can can either be immediate or "damage over time" (otherwise known as "DOTs"). When first starting out and getting your feet wet, this is generally an easy class to play, as healers and tanks are a bit more specialized.

class

Leveling your character. In the beginning, your character spends most of its time questing and leveling, which basically involves killing and looting a lot of things. Leveling your character alone is harder to do as a "clothy" (such as Priest or Mage) or leatherwearer (such as Druid or Rogue) than it is as a character who can eventually wear mail (Hunter or Shaman, at level 40) or plate (such as a Warrior or Paladin). On the other hand, most clothies and leatherwearers can both heal themselves and do damage, making them a little more self-sufficient for leveling.

Not every class can perform every role. This means that you cannot play a Warrior and expect to be a healer, too. But several classes can perform more than one role—in fact, some characters, like Druids and Paladins, can do all three roles!

Some roles are more challenging than others. Healing and tanking can be stressful, requiring a lot of tactical knowledge and perfect timing, with everyone's "lives" in your hands. DPS is generally less challenging, but can be very involved, depending on the situation. At times, it requires multitasking, paying close attention to what's going on around you, so you can stay healthy so the healer can focus on the tank (common sense things, like, don't stand in a fire or be too near the mob when it's spraying poison everywhere), keep "adds" away from the healer so the healer doesn't die (if the healer dies, the tank dies, then everyone else dies), and assist with helping those who cannot help themselves (like freeing others from immobilizing webs).

Ease of getting into raids and dungeons. Because healing and tanking are more challenging, fewer people choose to play them. This means that if you want to do a lot of raiding and dungeons, you generally will have to wait for less time than a DPS character to get in. I find that healers, especially, are sought after.

PVP versus PVE. For someone like me, I focus on player versus environment (PVE) for the most part. I do not like player versus player (PVP). If you want to do PVP, though, this may also factor into your decision for what class to be and the role you wish to play.

Tip: In the end, if you really can't decide or want to focus on more than one role, you can do Dual Talent Specialization at Level 30.

Glyphs and TalentsFaction

Alliance - Fanciful, attractive, "normal" characters with angelic, clean appearances (like Humans!)

Horde - Gruesome, less traditional characters with missing jaws and grotesquely colored skin with bones poking out (like undead Humans!)

RaceraceNaming Your Character

Add an extra character to the end or the beginning

Create an anagram

Try a different language (baby name websites are very handy for this!)

Use wikipedia to find a nuance to name your character after

Spell it phonetically

Take out the vowels

Nareendi - Anagram of "Draenei" with an extra "n."

Dayoodin - This character's original name was "Deudan," an anagram of "undead," but everyone kept pronouncing it wrong, so I changed it to the phonetic spelling of "Dayoodin"

Schattena - I'd heard a long time ago that "Schatten" is German for "shadow." I wanted my shadow priest to have this name, but it was taken, so I just added an extra "a" at the end.

Hexa - I originally wanted "Hexe," which was taken, so I changed the last "e" to an "a"! It wasn't taken, and I ended up liking it better than the original name I wanted.

Rmplstltskn - I wanted a Goblin Warlock named "Rumpelstiltskin," but that name is too long, so I just took out the vowels.

Crepuscular - This word describes animals that are active at twilight. I gave it to my Druid as her name because she turns into a bat when she flies. (I know, I am a super ultra nerd.)

Choosing Professions

Make your own food, clothing, gems, mounts, potions, bandages, and other items

Make money by selling items on the Auction House

Garner achievements and titles

Garner special skills, abilities, and resistances

Primaryprimary professions

The output from one profession to work as the input for the other. This simply means that I am not going to choose Herbalism as one profession and Leatherworking as the other--it would make more sense to choose Skinning and Leatherworking because then you have one gathering profession (Skinning) which works as the input for the crafting profession (Leatherworking).

To find an advantage to using a certain profession with your race or class. Choose professions that make sense for them to do because it gives you an advantage; for example, as a leather wearer, Leatherworking can be a good choice because you can make some of your own clothing. Or, if you are a Hunter, Skinning is good because, as you progress, you can not only make clothing for yourself, you earn a Master of Anatomy ability that increases your critical strike chance, which is handy for bow users—so much the better if you are a Troll, who, as I mentioned earlier, is "born" with an innate Bow Specialization trait. And, some races have an affinity for a particular profession; for example, Draenei are "born" with an innate Gem Cutting ability so doing Jewelcrafting makes sense and Tauren are "born" with a Cultivation ability which makes herbalism a natural for them.

To pick professions that are not unattainable for your play level. Some primary professions are easy because they are simple gathering professions that fit nicely with other primary professions; these are: Skinning, Herbalism, and Mining. Other primary professions, like Leatherworking, Alchemy, Blacksmithing, and Inscription require the output from these gathering professions, as well as more time and gold, but they are not overly challenging. The remaining primary professions (Enchanting, Engineering, Jewelcrafting, Tailoring) are more advanced, requiring more gold, planning, and patience, but also output from the gathering and less-involved crafting professions and even a reliance on others players to gain experience. These latter professions do not make very good starter professions and work best if you have a lot of gold or you have other high-level, established characters who can help you provide output from other professions. For example, while you can get jewels or metals from Mining, you can't cut the jewels into what you need for enchanting unless you also have Jewelcrafting, nor can you melt the metal into the rods or bars you need unless you also have Blacksmithing. So, it really takes three professions to be a jewelcrafter, but you can only select two--this is where it helps to have another character who might be a miner or a blacksmith (or a guild that can help you out).

SecondarySecondary professionsTertiarySetting Up Your User InterfaceInterfaceToolbars and Key BindingsInterface > ActionBarsKey BindingsOMapInformation WindowsGeneralCombat Log

Tip: With regard to interacting with other characters, you do this in the General window. This can be both fun or bothersome:

Fun. You can do some RP, if you want, such as typing /hug or /highfive or /dance—the options are endless! I don't do it too much, but if someone helps me defeat a mob or rezzes me after I died in a dungeon, I do a /thank. Just like in real life, small things like that make a big difference in interacting with people!
Bothersome. If someone is pestering you with whispers while you're out questing or yelling profanities in a large city, you can always /ignore their character. This way, anything they "say" will never appear in your chat window again. (On the flip side, if you find someone fun and want to be friends with them, you can do a /friend!)

Titles and NamesInterface > NamesMiscellaneous TipsRead Quest Text

Tip: By reading the quest text, you can also learn the lore of the game, which can be fun and interesting, as well as help with an understanding of why things are the way they are.

AutolootAuto LootInterface > ControlsFunding Your CharacterTrainingGear

Tip: Pay attention to any armor proficiencies you gain; for example, when a Shaman hits level 40, they can wear mail instead of just cloth or leather, which greatly reduces squishiness.

Guild

Tip: Sometimes an easy way to earn gold, especially if you are just starting out and have no higher-level characters to fund you, is if you are in a large city and someone is asking for people to sign their guild charter for 5 or 10 gold. If you are guildless, you can sign the charter, get the gold, then /gquit (sometimes you won't have a choice and they'll kick you out because they have specific plans for the guild).

LevelingThe Green Hills of Stranglethorn

Tip: While leveling, do all the quests in an area to earn the questing achievement for it and also complete the map of the area to get that achievement. The more of that you do now, the less you have to do later when you are "grown-up"! (I am big into killing two or more birds with one stone in this game, if I can.)

Conclusion

Comments

Comment by SquireKel

This is truly a great guide. Very novel topic, well laid out. My only thought is that with so much text, some pictures would go a long way toward breaking things up and making the guide even better. Other than that, it looks great!

Comment by 989407

Very well written and informative. Includes basically everything a new player would need to know to get started, as well as some nice tips. Good job!

Comment by FatalHeaven

Great guide. Very -very- minor detail. When discussing classes towards the beginning of the guide you cite Warriors and Paladins as "always wearing plate." They in fact wear mail until level 40 when it is then that plate becomes available to them. The only class currently in game who always wears plate from the point of creation is a Death Knight. (Which is only relevant for players who already have a player above level 55.)

Other than that I highly suggest images to break up the text and make the guide more "colorful."

Overall, fantastic guide. :)

Comment by Padsoldier

Class section: Paladins can also perform in any role, but they're easier than Druids for a beginner, so it wouldn't hurt mentioning them too.
I really liked the "Naming Your Character" part, as that part is often difficult for me. Good job overall.

Comment by 1064255

Over the time that I've played WoW, I've made quite a lot of characters. The reason being is that I want to find that certain race/class combination that would fit me. My highest leveled character would be my 86 Tauren Druid, named Undeadtaco. This is a wonderful guide, as I read it, and should help some newbies to the game create a new character for PvP, PvE, and RP. Yet, I think I should've checked it out before naming my Druid... Oh well. Fantastic job, dayoodin!

Comment by 1062406

I should have read this guide before I named my Panda Rogue Pandarogue. LOL

Great guide by the way! Thanks for sharing!

Comment by Isgebind

A couple of things for this excellent guide:

If you come back, perhaps you could add Monks to the Paladins/Druids as classes that can perform tanking, healing, and DPSing roles.

"nor can you melt the metal into the rods or bars you need unless you also have Blacksmithing."

The bars part here is somewhat misleading, as you'd only need Mining to melt them into bars.

Gear section: "I eluded earlier to the fact that some characters can wear"

The word you're using is actually "alluded"--to elude something is to try to escape it.

Comment by 1004665

This is a great guide for beginners, but I'm thinking you should add a section on choosing your server; PVP/PVE/RP, and maybe even mention something about the pros and cons of server traffic (full vs low).

Comment by harrithebona

Nice guide it really helped me to level :)

Comment by dattenborough

Great guide. I find most of this site (wowhead) generally unhelpful as a new player. Everything seems to be in code. I'd actually appreciate if you could define "aggro". Thanks!

Comment by 1015609

LOVE this guide. Have you written one or do you know of one that explains DPS, mastery vs. crit vs. hit, the talent tree options, glyphs, etc. for the beginner? I didn't have a guild or mentor explain these things when I started and I made some very poor choices not knowing the later ramifications. While it is possible to change these things later in your character development, it would have saved a bit of embarrassment in dungeons. Could not understand why I was being told I was dragging the group down, getting kicked out, when I was "hitting" it with everything I had. I mean, it worked questing!

I now have a lvl 90 retro pally with the wrong gear, wrong talent specs, and wrong glyphs. Would have helped to have a little more insight to why I was choosing things - and this is my first MMOG, so to say I was clueless, is a vast understatement!

I think many new players are told to just jump in and learn as you go without understand the little things that make such a big difference or are mislead by players that tell them to "just follow us" in a dungeon, gaining experience and loot we didn't earn.

Again, thanks for a great guide and oh how I wish I had read it when I started playing!

Comment by 1210757

Great guide! Only suggestion i have is that you should add accents and stuff in the name section. It makes it much easier to use the name you want, for example my character name is åura

Comment by Warramir

Nice guide, very helpfull for new players.

Comment by 1331179

I agree with many of the positive comments from the others. This guide is simple and clear enough to help a starting player.

One other thing I thought of to add, perhaps is a bit more about the social aspect of the game. New players are often unaware of the different types of players (good and bad) that they may encounter, or may join huge leveling guilds at first invitation and find themselves lost in the shuffle.

Also, returning players often meet a chilly reception while they are relearning their class and readjusting to new zones and encounters. Perhaps a small section on the best ways to group and the features that allow you to deal with the less savory elements of the WoW player base would help new/returning players as well.

Comment by 1406853

Definitely wish I would have read this when I started 6 months ago. Would have had an easier time. I love how you guys actually talk to newbs like me like the humans we are...don't get that many places anymore. Thanks!

Comment by Spilledstars

Been playing since 2004, and now we're 22 years later. This guide is not really all that out of date, the author is just humble as heck.

The only part that's newer is:

Monks wear leather, can handle all three roles.
A dragon-like race called Dracthyr has been added.

and

Read the quest text is a good idea, but it still might be unclear what the heck it wants.
Generally quests either need your help to

make things dead then come back to the quest giver (kill counter)
go retrieve stolen stuff (these can be either picked up on the ground OR looted from the meanies who took it)
go fetch a material (usually a ground-spawn item, but SOMETIMES looted off some local mini boss who owns it)
rescue someone in trouble somewhere around the quest zone, bringing them back to safety (escort quest)
take a message to a new location, where more quests await. (breadcrumb)

Join others you can share with, they need not be like you. Good gaming, friends!

How to Plan a New Character Efficiently

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