Coming back after long break

Guides New/Returning Player Questions & Guides
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I’ve recently purchased War Within and have some game time to use. I am a bit lost as to how to proceed. I’ve stopped playing somewhere around Battle for Azeroth, 2018/2019. I think I’ve maxed out my main, which then was 120 (?). I most likely finished most of the land exploration and quests, probably not end game raids. I vaguely remember the end of the story with Sylvanas escaping after killing Saurfang in mak gora, not sure if there was something more past that.

I’d like to explore the content I’ve missed but I don’t know how to go about it. The level squish is very confusing, I am 50 now. The quest prompts seem to prod me towards Dragonflight and not Shadowlands. Should I not do Shadowlands? If I want to do it, how do I proceed, where to start?

What other important stuff I should know about that is new since BfA? I see that the interface is mostly the same, they’ve done something to talent trees again, but that is to be expected. There is a Trading Post, not sure what that’s for and how to get currency for it. With regards to servers and clustering, how is Dunemaul EU doing? Back then it started to become deserted as a lot of people transferred to other pastures. Is this still a problem these days? Should I move?

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New players are generally ushered into the dragonflight expansion but you can go your own way and ignore that if you prefer. You would need to find the starter quest for the Shadowlands from Darion Mograine (for Alliance this would be on the stairs to the keep).

Chromie time allows players to choose an entire expansion to level in, should they wish to. So that they get one cohesive story. The first time a player is expected to go to Dragonflight but after that players are free to choose via Chromie in SW or Org.

The trading post refreshes every month, you earn tender by completing tasks in the game, you can see the available tasks if you press SHIFT+J to open up the Journal. This will show a progress bar at the top and a list of tasks you can complete. You can either go out of your way to clock them off or just play and gain stuff passively. SW/Org and Dornogal all have a Trading Post located in them where you can pick up the tender you’ve earnt from the chest and spend the currency with the vendor.

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Thanks for replying!

Any reason why? I mean, it’s neither the next expansion in line for me to progress in nor the latest expansion.

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The latest expansion is The War Within. It is the current expansion. You require Level 70 to start it, and you must have purchased it.

This makes it unsuitable to be the default starting expansion for levels 10-70.

Dragonflight has a lot going for it as a starter expansion. It brings new and returning players near to the latest story, It is straightforward to start and progress in, unlike Shadowlands (Ewwwww :scream_cat: ) and Battle for Azeroth. You naturally learn Skyriding as you quest.

That’s why the devs nudge you towards it.

Shadowlands …um, We Don’t Talk About Shadowlands. We tactfully don’t mention it. If you want to do it later, on a future alt, for completeness, I understand, and there are some very nice bits in it, but I would urge you to stay away from it for now. Apart from anything else, all the gates and the way the story is presented is hard to get straight.

 

 

Chromie Time.

In short, when you go to Chromie in Stormwind or Orgrimmar in front of the Embassy and ask for an expansion, you are put into Chromie Time and all mobs you meet during questing and dungeons scale to your level.

So if you ask Chromie for Dragonflight and take the quest to go there at level 10, you will see all the mobs there as level 10 (plus or minus 1) and if you go there at level 50, you will see all the mobs there as level 50. And they will scale up with you as you level, so that you will only ever be fighting mobs of your own level.

This makes each expansion a One Size Fits All proposition.

The devs have tuned the questing in each expansion such that if you enter it at level 10 and quest your way through the main areas, you will end up just about at level 70, ready to start The War Within.

So your level 50 (was 120 pre-squish) will probably have to do only one zone, or maybe part of a second zone, before you hit 70. Levelling is crazy fast now, even compared to BfA.

 

 

Realms, Dunemaul.

Realms almost don’t matter any more. You can join Guilds and Communities from different realms. You can trade with characters from other realms. You have a Warbank which you can use to exchange items between your characters on different realms. Zones are sharded betwen realms.

Stackable items on the Auction Houise are shared across all EU realms.

I would definitely not pay for a transfer before you acclimatize to these changes.

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Battle for Azeroth was originally the new player expansion after the level squish but it had problems of not being designed for new players, so some dungeon bosses were problematic and the story wasn’t really good for players who knew nothing of the game beforehand.

Dragonflight was designed to be new player friendly I think, the story isn’t really related to the expansion before it, the dungeons are more newbie friendly and it has the new dragonriding/skyriding flight style and teaches you how to do that.

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Thank you, this was very informative, I appreciate it.

One last question - if I decide to skip Shadowlands now, while being 50, what are my options? If I’m 50 and Dragonflight content is, normally, 60-70, can I go there? Or should I use Chromie Time to get Dragonflight content scaled to my 50? Would that still mean I would exit the story with lvl 70? Finally, if I skip Shadowlands, how could I replay it later on in the same character? If I’ll be 70, then I understand that the content would be too easy for me (being meant for 50-60). But can I use Chromie Time to go through Shadowlands while being 70?

I understand that Shadowlands isn’t among the best expansions out there (to put it mildly), but I wouldn’t want to block myself from experiencing it anyway.

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Go on your Level 50 to Chromie outside Stormwind Embassy. Ask her to send you to Dragon Isles/Dragonflight.

You will go there at level 50. You will see all the mobs as level 50.

Follow the quests. You will have a good questing experience until you hit level 70, which may be while still in the Waking Shores, or maybe starting Ohn’ahran Plains.

When you hit 70, Chromie will recall you, rather abruptly. You will then automatically get the quest to start The War Within.

That is the intended path, and that will work well.

If you choose to do something else, you can, but the risk of your own experience.

 

Chromie Time spans from Level 10 to Level 70. Strictly. A level 70 or above CANNOT be in Chromie Time.

 

So what else could you do, and why shouldn’t you do it?

You could do Shadowlands either inside OR outside of Chromie Time. Shadowlands’ natural state is Level 50 to 60, so at 50 you could make it work either way.

The problem with Shadowlands isn’t bad content, or at least not only that. The problem with Shadowlands is the complicated set of triggers you need to unlock things. It’s easy to get lost, and unable to find the quest where you should be to do the next thing, which is very frustrating.

Shadowlands has four main questing zones, and they open one by one. First you have to COMPLETE the story of Bastion before you even open any other zone. You can’t get to other zones until you have a flight point to them, and you get that flight point only as part of the next quest chain. Then you have to complete each zone in order before you can access the next. Inbetween, you have to check off boxes to open The Maw, and Torghast, and complete quests there before you can move on to the next zone.

And, no matter what you do, you will hit 70 after a zone or two in Shadowlands. You can then continue as an overpowered god while getting no XP, but it’s not very satisfying.

I repeat, you can do it if you really want to. It’s just not going to be a bundle of fun.

Personally, I would make a new alt to do Shadowlands in Chromie Time from 10 to 70 if I wanted to see it, but you have the choice.

Or you could get your main to 80 and then go back and blow through Shadowlands.

Either way, though, there is FAAAAR TOO MUCH XP in Shadowlands and Dragonflight for you tocomplete either or both betore you become too high level for Shadowlands.

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I don’t understand this part. Why would I hit 70 so fast? I thought that each expansion is meant to give experience within its level range, so Shadowlands would do 120-130 but after squish it does 50-60. Why would I get 70 while doing Shadowlands?

Also, I remember that back then there was an option to artificially stop getting experience. Could that be helpful here or is it no longer available?

I’m a bit flummoxed to learn that I cannot progress the content naturally and instead have to do some convoluted workarounds just to play the game as it was intended. What a weird state to be in.

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I was wrong about a part of that. I was writing without thinking. I’m sorry.

Outside of Chromie Time, mobs in Shadowlands won’t scale above 60. So if you do Shadowlands outside of Chromie Time, you will level to 62 or 63, but no farther.

You could then go to Dragopnflight outside of Chromie Time, where you certainly would hit 70-72 before finishing it, but you could finish it there.

Doing it that way would throw away a huge chunk of XP as well, but on a more gradual basis. I think you would hit 60 very fast, then take a long time to hit 62-63. Then you would hit 70 very fast, and very slowly climb beyond it.

Why is it like this? Because most people don’t want to spend weeks gettting to max level, and the devs obliged, making levelling lightning-fast.

Yes, there is also a way to stop your XP gains - the Experience Eliminator

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Phew, that’s a relief. Thank you. Well, I’m going to just go to Shadowlands without Chromie Time and see what happens. Most of the critique for the expansion is irrelevant for me at this stage because I’m not going to grind anything and largely ignore Covenants, so I’ll just focus on questing and story. If I hit 60 early, I’ll just stop experience gathering, so that I can enter Dragonflight “normally”.

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