How to get back into the game after so long off

[Galeru-aszune]

I last played when Cataclysm was about (and I never hit end cap then) so as you can guess I’m a little hazy with what to do.

I’ve picked up with my Hunter who’s now at 87. I’ve no idea if my gear is good and how I should be levelling. At the moment I’m questing but it’s going to feel a drag getting to 120. My issue is I don’t know if I want to PvP or raid!

Is this game all about 120 now? I was thinking of re-rolling but solo levelling from 1-120 might exhaust me before I even get going!

Unfortunately I’ve no friends who play !

[Gráinne-earthen-ring]

Welcome back!

Your gear is OK for level 87. You will want to pick up some better gear by level 90, but that will happen naturally.

The way forward for now is to keep questing. You can also optionally queue for dungeons and/or battlegtounds. They won’t speed you up much, but may provide a change from the routine.

Things are scaled now, so wherever you go within your level range, all mobs will be the same level as you see them. So you can change zone if that helps. If you go to Stormwind now, you should get a quest to start the Mists of Pandaria expansion. That might provide a change of scenery. Cataclysm and Mists have been merged in level, so you can do either.

At level 90, if you go to Stormwind, you will get a quest to start the next expansion, Warlords of Draenor. This has a long introduction which is quite fun the first time you do it. You will be told to report to the Dark Portal at the Blasted Lands. Pro Tip: when you get to Blasted Lands, there will be a half-dozen quests near the Flight Master that will give you some excellent gear pieces, so it’s well woth diverting to those before you go through the Portal. The difficulty ratchets up for a couple of levels around 90-93, so you’ll be glad you did.

I’m not quite sure what you mean you don’t know whether to PvP or raid? You can do both. Or do you mean you’re not sure you want to do either? Dungeons are also possible, and can be repeated to a very high level now, on par with raids.

The game has been mostly about max level since The Burning Crusade, but it is much more about max level now than it was in Cata.

What is it you want to do in the game? What do you enjoy in other games? Maybe we can help you get toward something you will enjoy.

Here are some website resources that might help:

https://www.wowhead.com/ for anything about gear or quests or items

https://www.icy-veins.com/wow/beast-mastery-hunter-pve-dps-easy-mode for the basics of BM hunter as it is played in BfA.

[Galeru-aszune]

Thank you so much for this, you’ve helped me out heaps. I will continue questing for now and grind for some better gear.

I always thought you mainly used your character for PvE OR PvP and solely grinded out one or the other. Excuse my naivety although I’m still not sure which I would like to prioritize first.

[Gráinne-earthen-ring]

Glad I could clear that up!

Well, you dont have to make any decisions about what to do first until 120. When you do reach 120, a zillion things you can do are all going to hit you at once, and you’ll just end up deciding to do some of them first anyhow.
Please ask again if there is anything else you would like to know!

[Psyfy-argent-dawn (Psyfy)]

You can do both on any character. You can enter battelgrounds as you level up if you want to, raiding is max level only. There are old raiding instances but no one does those except for soloing for transmog gear, mounts or some other vanity stuff.