Basic information for those wishing to get started in World of Warcraft. This is not meant to be exhaustive, merely to cover the most basic info. This information is valid for the Battle for Azeroth Expansion. Compiled by Eonwë-(Valar).
Some basic terms that are useful to understand (this is not meant to be exhaustive):
There are two playable factions: the Alliance and the Horde.
There are six races for the Alliance: Humans, Dwarves, Night Elves, Gnomes, Draenei, and Worgen.
There are six races for the Horde: Orcs, Trolls, Tauren, Forsaken (Undead), Blood Elves, and Goblins.
A seventh race, Pandaren, can choose to join either the Alliance or the Horde. The choice is made early on and is irrevocable. (within the game. You can always pay for a faction/race change and simply choose a Pandaren of the opposite faction if you *really* want.)
With Battle for Azeroth, there are now also Allied Races, which are generally variants on existing races, but in practicality are just like choosing a regular race.
Allied Races for the Alliance are Dark Iron Dwarves, Kul Tiran Humans, Lightforged Draenei, Mechagnomes, and Void Elves.
Allied Races for the Horde are Highmountain Tauren, Mag'har Orcs, Nightborne, Vulpera, and Zandalari Trolls.
The faction you choose dictates who you can communicate and group with. Alliance races cannot group or talk with Horde races and vice versa.
There are twelve classes to choose from: Death Knight, Demon Hunter, Druid, Hunter, Mage, Monk, Paladin, Priest, Rogue, Shaman, Warlock, and Warrior.
Certain classes are limited to certain races, while others can be played by any race.
There are three primary roles characters fulfill: Tank, Healer, and Damage. Some classes can fulfill multiple roles through their specialization (spec), while others just provide different styles of fulfilling one or more roles.
If you want to tank, you can be a:
If you want to heal, you can be a:
If you want to focus on damage, you can be a:
There are four armor types: Cloth, Leather, Mail, and Plate.
Classes no longer start start on a different armor type, and should use their correct armor type from the start.
Classes that can wear multiple armor types get a passive bonus at level 50 for wearing their highest armor type, so there is no reason to seek armor of a lower quality.
You wear Cloth if you are a:
You wear Leather if you are a:
You wear Mail if you are a:
You wear Plate if you are a:
As with armor, your ability to equip a weapon doesn't automatically indicate that you should equip that weapon. Right now, only Hunters (except Survival) should wield a bow in combat, because only Hunters will have a full set of attacks to take advantage of using a bow. For everyone else, look at what your primary stats are, your passive abilities, racials, and what you can equip. That will tell you whether you should be dual-wielding (i.e., Rogues, Fury Warriors) using a single 2-handed weapon (i.e, Feral Druids, Retribution Paladins), or using a 1-handed weapon and shield (i.e. Protection Warriors, Protection Paladins).
There are 4 attributes: Strength, Stamina, Agility, and Intellect. Strength, Agility, and Intellect will increase stats that increase your damage (Attack Power for the first two, Spell Power for the last). Strength will increase Parry rating for strength users. Agility will increase Dodge rating for agility users. Stamina is a given stat on pretty much any armor or weapon you come across.
You will be getting Strength on your gear if you are a:
Notice how right now, all the classes that make use of Strength also wear plate.
You will be getting Agility on your gear if you are a:
Agility classes will be wearing leather or mail.
You will be getting Intellect on your gear if you are a:
Intellect users span the entire spectrum of armor.
The secondary stats are Critical Strike (Crit), Haste, Mastery, and Versatility.
Each character will require its secondary stats in different degrees. For example, one spec may favor Mastery primarily, while another might favor Haste.
An item has a chance to be created with a tertiary stat that, while not a major game-changer, can help in the strength of your character. These are Avoidance, Indestructible, Leech, and Speed.
Artifacts are now deprecated: they're regular weapons. Relics can still boost the item level of the weapon, but that's it.
The Heart of Azeroth is the item you'll be powering up in Battle for Azeroth. It'll grant you traits for your Azerite Armor.
Azerite armor will reside in the Helm, Chest, and Shoulder armor slots. Azerite Armor cannot Warforge or Titanforge.
There are 6 different qualities of items represented by different colors: Poor (grey), Common (white), Uncommon (green), Rare (blue), Epic (purple), and Legendary (orange). They are rewarded for virtually any type of content.
On drop, items have a chance to upgrade, in increments of 5 item levels, from its base item level to a certain cap (up to +15 levels higher than the current mythic item level). Items upgraded up to +10 base item level are called Warforged. Items upgrades 15 item levels or more are called Titanforged. The item will attempt to upgrade in these increments until it fails, or until the cap is reached. So, while there is a chance you could get a mythic level (or better) item from questing or mobs out in the world, the chance is not high.
There is a chance to get legendary items in Legion content, which will give certain benefits related to the classes/specs they're for. These items can also be purchased for Wakening Essences in Dalaran. Their power will be disabled at Character Level 116.
There are also class-specific item sets available in older raids. These provide a unique look and extra benefits for the intended wearers. Battle for Azeroth is currently not intended to have raid tier sets.
All players now have a wardrobe. Whenever a character has an item bound to him/her, that character gains the appearance of that item to apply to their current gear, so long as that item is equipable and of an item type meant for that character. For example, a Warrior can not gain appearances for cloth gear, but can gain the appearances of plate gear. Paladins cannot gain appearances for Staves, but Mages can.
Once you have an appearance, you can go to a Transmogrifier to put that appearance on your gear, and also can save sets of appearances to apply en masse to new gear when you get upgrades.
Most companion pets are also Battle Pets. You can fight other battle pets with them, level them to 25, upgrade them to rare quality, and collect them. Thou must obtainest them all.
There are no longer separate PvP and Normal servers. PvP is enabled by toggling on War Mode from your PvP Talents pane.
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