World of Warcraft Strategies

Warlock Leveling Guide
Last Update: Dec 2009 aka 3.3.0
This guide is still accurate as of 3.3.3 (Mar 2010)

This guide is simplified for people who want as much information as they can get as fast as possible. Good for you, this is how a Warlock works. If you want to discuss something or have a question not answered, post in this thread and we will get to it. I will reveiw this thread every couple days and update the main posts, but we have several extremely able members who can answer your questions.

If the warlock is your first character, this guide is not meant for you. It will help, but there are things in here that require a knowledge of game mechanics. I'm sorry. World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Forum Index will have more answers for you, especially in the Warlock Class section.

A quick reminder. If you have an opinion about this guide, or a response to a question, the phrases "retard" "l2play" or anything to do with someone's intellect are not appropriate responses and will be reported dealt with. We can be adults and give reasons for our disagreements.

Lastly, Jame's Alliance and Horde Leveling Guides (also available as an add-on!) are amazing and best of all free. I highly recommend the guide in conjunction with the new questing interface as they work very well together.

***CHANGE LOG***
3.3 Update - Changed 1-29 spec (more dps), updated all Affliction talents to include Improved Felhunter (now a dps boost), added a suggested 35-55 talent pick order, added some more information to leveling as Destruction.

3.2.2 Update - Renamed a bunch of sections to make more sense, moved "Nightfall" information paragraph from 1-29 to 30-54 section. Updated level 40+ pet use. Added macros and suggested ways to use your Felhunter better.

Skip this section if you don't know what I mean.

From 1-29
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IZ0GchkZVM
Glyphs: Lifetap and Unending Breath
12 Points into Demonology, then move into Destruction

@30, respec to
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IcxbbhMho
Glyphs: Lifetap, Siphon Life and Unending Breath

ending up at @54
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IfxrbhMhoiA0hk
Preferred order of talent choices based on DPS gain:
Shadow Mastery, Eradication, Improved Fel Hunter, Contagion, UA, Pandemic, Malediction

Decision time: Do you want to try something different?

"Yeah, I hear a lot about Demonology." Give this spec a shot:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IcbZ0GchkAdi0sxz
Glyphs: Lifetap, Felguard, Unending Breath, and Drain Soul

Getting to this @71
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#Ifxrbz0hoZ0GchkAdi0sxz
Glyphs: Lifetap, Felguard, Unending Breath, Drain Soul
Then whatever you want.

"NO WAY IM OP!" Don't respec.
Getting to this @70
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IfxrburhoiA0hkt0M
Glyphs: Lifetap, Siphon Life, Unending Breath, and Drain Soul

Then do whatever you want.

This section of the guide is for people who want 1-79 as simply as possible with as little fuss as possible. The spec choices reflect this and will be explained. Yes, you can go ~ANY SPEC~ 1-79 if you'd like, but this is impractical for many reasons. See the level range to find out why. Here we go.

Do this, all the time, or you're a scrub:
Spellstone - we're using dots the whole way. Spellstone makes them better. Firestone is not as potent.
Demon Armor / Fel Armor - If you do not have your armor up, you fail. Its free buffs.
Healthstones - This is your first emergency button. We all make mistakes, this is how you learn from them without dying.
Soulstones - If you are smart and don't fight in the middle of spawn points, this eliminates your downtime.

Soulshard management: "Whine! I have too many!"
Macro:
Code:

/run i="Soul Shard"d=GetItemCount(i)-20 for x=0,4 do for y=1,GetContainerNumSlots(x) do if (d>0) then l=GetContainerItemLink(x,y) if l and GetItemInfo(l)==i then PickupContainerItem(x,y) DeleteCursorItem() d=d-1 end end end end

See this text "GetItemCount(i)-20"? Replace 20 with the number of shards you want to keep. Click this macro once to destroy all but this number.

That gut feeling when you think you're going to die:
Suppress it. Embrace it. Live it. A warlock lives by constantly taking damage and shrugging it off like nothing. If you ever feel comfortable of your survival, you are not pulling enough mobs, or are extremely overgeared for the area. A Warlock is the only class in the game who can pick a fight with 20% HP and come out with full Health, Mana, and a field strewn with corpses. The only specs who comes close to this are lvl 75 Prot Warriors with Enraged Regeneration and level 73 Shadow Priests with Dispersion and Meditation. Even then, you can mop the floor with both of them.

1-29:
I'm not going to lie to you. The first 14 levels of your life as a warlock will be a living hell. You will have mana issues, health issues, and you will die a lot. This turns around at level 14 when you get Drain Life.

Purchases:
Lesser Magic Wand http://www.wowhead.com/?item=11287
Greater Magic Wand http://www.wowhead.com/?item=11288
Bloodscalp Channeling Staff http://www.wowhead.com/?item=1998

Spec:
End up at level 29 with this spec
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IZ0GchkZVM
Glyphs: Lifetap and Unending Breath

How to play:
The spec doesn't work until you get Sacrifice (16) and Drain life (14), so until then you will have to use your wand a lot. As I have said, the worst parts of leveling a warlock are these first levels. Here's how you manage:
-Only do green quests (this applies to all classes - it makes the first 20 levels that much easier)
-Do two starting areas, such as Tirisfal Glades until level 7, then migrate over to Silvermoon/Ghostlands until 11 or 12, then back to Tirisfal/Silverpine.
-Dot (Corruption) Dot (Curse of Agony) Wand till it's dead.
-Your wand is ridiculously overpowered at this level, it won't take long.

~If you are fast at moving and know the quests, you should reach 16 in 12 hours or less, not factoring in Heirloom gear~

Now that you're 16, the keys to this spec are your Wand, Corruption, Curse of Agony, Drain Life, and your Voidwalker. Leveling is all about synergy, so here is how this spec works together to make you a badass:
1) Your damage output heals your pet.
2) Your pet actively prevents damage being done to you by sacrificing part of its health.
3) Demon Armor prevents 25% of physical damage taken.
4) Your pet absorbs 20% of your damage taken.

Summary: You kill shit and heal your pet. Your pet uses this healing to make you take less damage. You kill more shit. It's a glorious cycle of violence.

Your voidwalker should have all abilities turned off and Soul Link active. "But Gherkin, he's a tank!" No. Smack yourself. Your pet is a dumb shit. He will stand in one place and tank the monster while you could be running around killing things. The second he gets aggro is the second you will a) wait for the mob to die, b) let him despawn because you go out of range, or c) pull more mobs because he stood in another mobs path. End result: if he gets aggro, you will have down time, either passively (you died) or actively (you wasted too much mana/hp trying to survive the **** up). Your pet serves two purposes: minor dps and shields. That's it.

Let's say you're doing a quest that requires you to kill boars for meat. You walk into an area with boars and it should go kind of like this: Corruption and Agony on 3 or so mobs. Your pet is running out to smack on the first one because he's set to defensive - remember that with his Taunt disabled, he will not put out enough damage to hold aggro over your dots. The other two boars are running at you, each with both dots. Hit Lifetap and Sacrifice to keep your mana up and prevent the damage. Cast drain life on the last one a few times until your hp is at or near full, then use your wand to finish him and the second mob off.

Boom, three mobs dead in around 24 seconds. Maybe a bit longer. Do this a few times until you get the hang of it, then start increasing the number of mobs you pull at a time. You should be able to handle 6 or 7 green-level mobs without heirloom gear. Key word - green mobs. Yellow mobs hit too hard, causing more damage (hit harder and more frequently due to less misses and more crits, i.e. tank mechanics) than you can safely handle in numbers.
If you happen to fight Casters (Defias Pillagers for example), they are your priority. Instead of Drain Life the last one, drain life the caster. Lastly, if you find that you can't pull this off, work Immolate into your first few mobs for extra damage.

Start thinking about your gear. You should be able to obtain 100 spell power by lvl 32 without much work, and it is highly recommended that you do so. Here's a link for things you can get between 20 and 30: http://www.wowhead.com/?items=4&filter=qu=2:3;minle=30;maxle=42;ub=9;cr=123;crs=1;crv=0#0+3-2+1

EDIT: Some people are having a hard time getting 100 spell power by lvl 32. Scroll down to the advanced topics if you are as well.

RULES OF DOT-DOT-TAB - DO NOT:
-Go below 50% health
-Go below 50% mana
-Let your pet go below 50% health
-Cast Sacrifice before a mob reaches you. Only when you have 2+ beating on you
-Fight inside a spawn point. Sometimes respawns are instant, which can get painful very fast.
-Cast Fear. Ever. It causes the mobs to unpredictably run off in a random direction, usually grabbing more mobs in the process who you did not necessarily want, see, or prepare for. Same with instances.

Why not Affliction?
Affliction's talent tree features minor damage upgrades with zero survivability options. You rely on spell power gear, and there isn't a lot of it this early on. You need to get used to being hit, because despite wearing cloth a warlock gets hit a lot. If you go affliction 1-29, you are learning how to be a shadow priest, not a warlock.

Some people advocate sticking with Affliction the whole way up, because its simpler and doesn't force you to respec. I disagree with this because of how lvl 30 works. You play Affliction and intentionally gimp yourself from 1-25 until you get all of your main arsenel of spells, and these spells become powerful enough to matter. Then you start getting spell power gear and have a few less problems. Suddenly you hit 30 and you're invincible. I don't like playing this way, as the transition is alarming and hard to get used to. If you have heirloom gear and run dungeons frequently, or if you don't mind dinging 30 and wondering if you missed a "GOD MODE ENABLED" message, feel free to stick to affliction the entire way. Scroll to the next post for your spec.

Why not Destruction?
Destruction's talent tree features major damage upgrades with zero survivability options. You will run out of mana all the time, use fear far too often, and only kill one monster at a time (two if you're good). If you go destruction 1-29, you are learning how to play a very bad mage, not a warlock.

30-54:
Respec time. You now know how to dot multiple mobs and survive, now its time to turn on extreme mode.

Purchases:
Demons Deck (new weapon at 40)
Dreamweave or Shadoweave armor

Spec:
Respec to
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IcxbbhMho
And it should look like this at 55
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IfxrbhMhoqAohk
Glyphs: Siphon Life, Lifetap and Unending Breath

Edit: If you feel like it, you can swap the points in Dark Pact and Improved Felhunter to Improved Howl of Terror. This makes it instant, but still falls under the "Try not to use fear" category. A good emergency button, but chances are you won't need it. At 42 you will use the Felhunter instead of the Succubus. Improved Felhunter means he never runs out of mana. Dark Pact means you can eat his mana and watch him fill it up again for you. Less net health cost. You only need one point in Improved Fel Hunter - two points means he shadow bites so frequently that he may pull aggro on you, and this is not the goal. One is sufficient.

How to Play:
You will be doing the exact same thing as you did before, except now you have the Succubus out. Turn off Seduction but leave her other abilities on. Pet mana has been fixed enough that she will not go OOM, and Soothing Kiss will ensure she's not tanking. Remember, pet tank = downtime so if she holds aggro even with Soothing Kiss going off, disable Lash of Pain as well. The major difference here is that now instead of pressing a button to stay alive (Sacrifice) it happens passively (Siphon Life) and you can get more healing out of Drain Life (Fel Concentration, Soul Siphon) and more mana (Imp Life Tap, Imp Drain Soul). There is no change to your strategy.

At 42, switch to your Felhunter. Keep Devour Magic and Shadow Bite on auto. Spell lock is turned off (in case you need a silence!). Shadow Bite is a good damaging ability that hits harder because you dot everything.
A word on Spell lock: If you use this ability on a caster, they will run towards you making you have to run less distance to loot them. Efficiency!
A word on Devour Magic: Devour Magic will automatically remove painful buffs from enemies as well. If you get adventurous, disable this ability and use it on yourself to dispel harmful effects such as DoTs or debuffs. Will not remove Curses, Poisons, Stuns, or Diseases. Macro:

Code:
/cast [target=player, modifier:alt] Devour Magic; Devour Magic
Alt Click for self dispel. Click for target dispel.

The limitation of this spec is a big reliance on Spell Power gear. Spell power is your most important stat because it increases your damage AND healing. Your goal should be 100 spell power by level 32 (extremely easy to achieve if you know where to look). You should already have a good start on it, but heres the link again.
http://www.wowhead.com/?items=4&filter=qu=2:3;minle=30;maxle=42;ub=9;cr=123;crs=1;crv=0#0+3-2+1

Here's your next step:
http://www.wowhead.com/?items=4&filter=qu=2:3;minle=42;maxle=55;ub=9;cr=123;crs=1;crv=0

Note that you can get 100 spell power without going into a dungeon. It is just as easy, but requires you to think about where you will be questing more. You will use the Demons Deck weapon until Outland, so if you want to enchant it you can.

You should be seeking to double your spell power every 15 levels. This means getting to 200 spell power at 45-47, 400 at 60-62 (this is a bit tougher) and 800 at 75-77 (very easy).

Nightfall Procs:
When your Corruption or Drain Life tick, they have a chance to give you a buff called Nightfall. It has a sound effect and displays these awesome black flecks on your character. It means your next Shadow bolt is instant. You will get a lot of these. A LOT. Here's when to use them:
-When you are comfortable with the amount of damage you are healing
-When you are comfortable with your current mana level
-When you want another mob to pull

A word of caution - Nightfall makes shadow bolt an extremely attractive button to press. Resist this urge because like many things it can get you killed. Shadow bolt is the least efficient single-target spell in the game. (This is intentional but I won't explain why as it requires another post by itself). When spec'd correctly with sufficient gear, this is an amazing spell. Unfortunately, this is not the case while leveling. It provides a decent burst of damage but is not your main source. As such there are times to use it and times where you shouldn't. Here's a few "shouldn't" scenarios to get you thinking the correct way.

Scenario 1: You have a lot of mobs on you and are spamming drain life. Your health is slowly dropping. Sacrifice is on cooldown. Pressing shadow bolt means 2 seconds of no heals, which can be unrecoverable if your hp is low enough.
Scenario 2: You have a lot of mobs on you and are spamming drain life. Your health is fine, but your mana is low. If you cast shadow bolt, thats 2 drain life spells you no longer have the mana for. Which means you life tap. Which means 2 seconds of no heals and a chunk of your HP missing.

Play with it. If you find that you have a lot less mana than normal, then the way you just used it is not a good idea. Myself, I use it like my pet - added damage if I need the target to die a bit sooner. So if I Corruption and Agony first, the pet will do the rest of the damage. The second can have Immolate as well to do the rest of the damage. The third I can drain. The fourth I can shadow bolt if I get a proc. The rest I drain as well.

As you level, you will reach a point where you can choose between two or three talents in order to fill out the "template". There is no right answer, pick what you like, but this order will result in more damage:
Shadow Mastery (More damage output, all spells)
Eradication (More spells out)
Improved Fel Hunter (More pet damage)
Contagion (Prerequisite to UA/Pandemic, minor dps upgrade)
UA / Pandemic (Replace Immolate with a better dot, two hardest hitting spells can crit)
Malediction (Minor dps upgrade, major crit upgrade with Pandemic)

Why not Demonology?
You start to get a lot of spell power in the 30's, and your pet doesn't increase as fast as you do. Buffing your pet at this point is like taking your stats and saying "Hi, can you make these worth less to me? I think they're too strong." It's still viable, but you will get more out of an Affliction build.

Why not Destruction?
At this point, Destruction starts losing its mana problems because you hit harder. It's just as viable as Affliction if you like that playstyle, but I just showed you how to dot and run and drain tank. This is the easymode guide, so why should I retrain you? One more thing about Destruction is that it's very crit focused - the more crit you have, the better it works. The problem is that as soon as you gain a level, your crit % goes down. This is how scaling works, and its working AGAINST you as a Destruction lock. More in the hardmode section.

55+:
This is where you can branch your playstyle. Blizzard nerfed the shit out of Outland so mobs that used to be challenging can still be steamrolled. You can continue the Affliction path or swap to a Felguard build. I'll explain how they both work, but the recommendation of people in this thread is Affliction, providing you can maintain your spell power (i.e. enchants and dungeon or heirloom gear). You can do Elite quests in both specs.

Purchases:
Nothing. Quest rewards will kick the ass of anything you can buy, or is worth buying at least.

Demonology Option:
Respec to
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IcZ0GchkAdi0sgz
And it should look like this at level 72
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#Ifxrbz0hZ0GchkAdi0sgz
Glyphs: Felguard, Lifetap, Drain Soul and Unending Breath

How to Play:
You now have the Felguard. He will do exactly half your damage from now on. The main reasons for this build are Elite quests and an excellent stat boost. First, in Outland there are a lot of elite quests, such as the Matriarch, Terrokarantula, Drillmaster, and the Nagrand Mastery quests. In these cases your Felguard will be your tank and you defeat these mobs through attrition - one dot, spamming Health Funnel, taking care of adds yourself. Secondly, the talent Demonic Knowledge lets you hit just as hard as you did in Azeroth despite the health increases mobs get in Outland.

For the Felguard, you can keep everything except Anguish (the aggro button) on auto. He will never need healing on normal mobs and if left to his own devices will usually win 1v1 against mobs. Your strategy is the exact same as it was - Corruption, Agony, (sometimes Immolate), and Drain Life as necessary. Since the quests in Outland are very different from what you were used to, killing gobs and gobs of enemies is not as important. However, it is still important to kill everything in your path, rather than run around the mobs to avoid fighting, as it is a direct experience gain with zero loss. Seriously, your Felguard hits like a truck.

One strategy that may become fun is the use of Decimation. The combo starts like this: Dot the mobs, have the pet attack one, then when a mob hits 40% hp, wind up a shadow bolt. It will impact the mob as they cross the 20% threshold and sometimes kill it. You get Decimation and have the ability to Soul Fire crit for 60% of a mob's life. Soul Fire a new mob, and hit Agony, and Shadow Bolt. This will require a bit of experimentation, but you will find a groove where you are casting Soul Fire on every single mob. Plus, if you play on a PVP server, those nasty Death Knights and Ret Paladins won't know what hit them. If this does not appeal to you, fill out the Affliction tree with these two points as per above. It means you reach Siphon Life at 71 instead of 73.

Don't forget to start using Fel Armor when you get it.

There are a lot of questions about why I choose 55 as the switchover point, here they are with answers:

Q: Why not go Felguard at 50?
A: He has no abilities and scales poorly. Thus he has no HP and dies a lot.

Q: Why don't you pick talents like Molten Core or Demonic Resilience?
A: You don't have incinerate until 64, and it relies on Immolate to prop it up. Molten Core sucks. Demonic Resilience is a no brainer because the options are 10% crit or ~200 spell power.

Q: Why Felguard at all? I was doing just fine.
A: Elites are easy mode, and you might want a change of pace. It's also kind of fun if you can learn how to chain Decimation procs.

Elites are easy for you now. Here's how to down a simple one, such as the Rock Flayer Matriarch.
Send in your Felguard with all abilities up. Wait until he is at 75% life and start channelling Health Funnel. If he seems to be taking a lot of damage, cast Curse of Weakness on the elite. Otherwise, cast Curse of Elements. Continue Health Funnel until the elite is at 75%, then start casting dots, filling the felguard to full anytime he hits 50% hp. After 2 minutes you should win.

The harder ones, such as Overlord or the dual naga's in Zangarmarsh require more finesse from you, but its a fun learning experience. I won't ruin it for you. Always be aware of the ground (your pet standing in stuff means it might die) and the abilities of the target in question. The south Naga has a knockback, so make sure the area is clear, or figure out how to reposition your pet so he gets knocked in the correct direction. The north Naga is a caster, so be careful of the frozen circle spell. Overlord summons Infernals.

Your last talent point before the final stretch will be Siphon Life. The final talent that matters. You now have Siphon Life AND a Felguard. Effectively, you are invincible. There's nothing I can say or do that won't tell you more than you already know. The rest of your points can be spent as you like (I recommend Improved Demonic Tactics, Decimation, and then Demonic Pact - these are the only "quick wins" for dps gain). ENJOY!

Affliction Option:
You will already be:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IfxrbhMhoqAohk
And it should look like this at level 65
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IfxrburhoiA0hkt0M
Glyphs: Siphon Life, Lifetap, Drain Soul and Unending Breath

You know how to play this, so I won't bore you with details.

One thing to note is that the transition to Outland will mean you pull fewer mobs at a time. This is because they gain more HP and hit harder (25% more each, approximately). For example, Yetis in Winterspring hit me for 250-300 or so. Bonechewer Orcs will hit you for 350-400. Your gear won't improve right away, but will improve. Just take it a bit slow until you approach 300+ spell power, then let her rip. If you already have 300+ spell power, then enjoy being a steamroller.

Elites: You will have a harder time with Elites, but don't worry too much. Skip them, move to the next zone, then come back and solo them. Send in your Voidwalker, wait until the void has 50% hp, Health Funnel once and fully DoT the mob (Elements > Agony for elites). Spam Shadow Bolt. Your pet will heal to full and you will get aggro. Keep Corruption and UA on the target, use Haunt on Cooldown once you get it, and spam Drain Life. You will win.

Unstable Affliction. Use this instead of Immolate from now on, and keep your playstyle the same.

Haunt. When you hit Northrend, the mobs jump up in difficulty again, so you will need a bit more healing. Corruption, Agony, Pet. Corruption, Agony, UA. Corruption, Agony, Haunt. Life Tap once or twice so that haunt heals the tap. Repeat forever.

Your final talents are up to you. Death's Embrace is useful 75+ when the mobs have 12000 hp. Improved Shadow Bolt is useful if you enjoy Nightfall procs. Soul Link and Demonic Aegis are more spell power and more survival.

Why not Destruction?
Destruction works well in Outland, but again it's a matter of ease and learning. You already know how to play two specs, why learn a third where you single target mobs really quickly? Seriously though, if you want to play this spec for a while don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Between mana cost reduction early in the tree to Improved Soul Leech the spec is more viable now than it ever has been. The only reason its not more popular is because once you figure out Affliction... well, you've seen it in action.

Start with this:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IZZEbhVbcuVsVd
Glyphs: Conflagrate, Life Tap, Unending Breath, Drain Soul
End with this:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IcZ0MZEbhVbcuVsVfot
Glyphs: Conflagrate, Life Tap, Unending Breath, Drain Soul

Playstyle: Immolate, Conflag, next target. Immolate, Chaos Bolt (replace with Shadow Bolt if you don't have it yet), next target. Repeat until OOM and dangerously low on HP (30%). Add Curse of Agony after Immolate if you need extra damage. Use Succubus as you did 30-54. Grab food instead of water because food returns more hp than water does mp at this level, and life tap makes this more efficient.

Don't take Empowered Imp - 3 Talent Points for 3% crit or less is not very good. (Imp has 5% unbuffed, which translates into ~3% for you) Also, Imp has to stand to cast - this is the same as a Succubus or Voidwalker tanking, and we know how that part works.

The First Goal: 100 spell power by 32
This ensures that you will have zero problems leveling the rest of the way through to Outland. While this is not a required number, it is a ballpark figure illustrating the important of Spell Power on your gear. Spell Power not only increases the damage you do, but also decreases the damage you take. If you can kill a mob faster, it does less damage to you. If you hit harder, Siphon Life heals harder. If you have very low spell power at level 32, you will take a lot of damage, spend mana re-casting Corruption on targets that should have died already, and Life Tap more to regain this mana. It becomes very inefficient. The more you can get, the better. If you can't get 100 by 32, don't fret, but Spell Power should be the only stat you look at.

Here is a list of gear that you can get, and where to get it, by level 30. Most of it is attainable by 27. Note that there will not be Dungeon or Heirloom gear here because not everyone has uber 80's or assistance.

This is a wowhead profile I created showing easy to find gear from either the AH, Quests, or Tailoring. The profile shows 93 spell power but it is possible to have upwards of 116 using only AH, Quest, or Tailoring gear.
http://www.wowhead.com/?profile=14373828

Here is the link I used to find these items:
http://www.wowhead.com/?items&filter=qu=2:3;maxle=40;ub=9;cr=123;crs=1;crv=0;gm=3;gb=1;wt=123:77;wtv=10 0:-100

You can make more than enough gold by simply mining Copper Ore while riding around to your farm/quest locations.
Most of the time, money should not be too much of an issue, but availability is. If you are having a hard time with finding some of these items, there are several things you can do instead.
Enchant Weapon: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=18259
Oil: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=20746 (Stacks with enchants!)

Lastly, here is one more profile fully decked out with the best you can find, including enchants. 204 Spell Power.
http://www.wowhead.com/?profile=14373869

Glyphs, and why the suggestions are the right ones:
Here is a list of every possible glyph you might use in your quest to 80 and why you shouldn't use them. If you feel it in your gut that I am wrong here, I suggest you give it a go, as it just might work for you.

Corruption - More free shadow bolts means more desire to cast shadow bolt. I said above, I'll say it again. Without all the talents to prop up Shadow Bolt, it's the worst spell in the game. Casting it is stupid without the spec (usually raid spec), a loss of mana (extremely inefficient), and a loss of health (to recover the mana). More time life tapping is less time staying alive via drain life.

Curse of Agony - Mobs won't be alive longer than 24 seconds, so why extend it to 28 seconds?

Haunt - This is a raiding glyph.

Health Funnel - Just kill the things surrounding you while/before your pet tanks the elite, then you don't have to worry about pushback.

Healthstone/Soulstone - If you died, you failed. An extra 30% should not save you - this is a crutch, and you should not rely on crutches.

Immolate - Periodic damage won't tick fully to get maximum benefit from this glyph

Incinerate/Shadow Bolt - Direct damage is not how you level.

Voidwalker - He should not be getting hit.

Why Affliction will ~always~ beat out Destruction and Demonology:
Quite a simple answer, if not immediately obvious - looting. Destruction and Demo have the capability of killing a mob from range, thus forcing you to walk to it. Affliction lets the mobs beat on you, guaranteeing close proximity to loot quest items, gold, etc. Then you mount up, run into the middle of another camp, and repeat.

And since half your quests require you to walk to point A and get items B, Affliction lets you leave a trail of bodies going there for you to loot going back. Destro would force a zig zag pattern that is not efficient to retrace.

Other Topics:
Suppression (Talent)
When you level before Felguard, you have a 5% chance to miss. Less since you should be killing things at least a level below you. This is no big deal because you can simply recast your spell and continue. When your Felguard shows up, he does half your dps. This means you effectively have twice the chance to miss (him missing and you missing). This is why we take this talent now instead of earlier.

Pawn:
Some people use this tool to compare gear and have mentioned its use. You can download it from curse:
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/pawn.aspx
And the values you want to use are here:
Haste Rating=1, Crit Rating=0.7, Spirit=0.5, SpellPower=1.6, Stamina=0.5
And the copy paste code is here:
Code:
(Pawn: v1: "Warlock: Leveling": SpellHasteRating=1, SpellCritRating=0.5, Spirit=0.5, SpellPower=2.0, YellowSocket=10, RedSocket=10, BlueSocket=10, Stamina=0.5 )

This isnt wrote by me;
Credits goes to:

Jame's Leveling Guide
Gherkin @ MMO Champion for this article/guide
Me for the layout etc.

NOTE: THIS IS JUST A LEAK!!

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Want to Gear up an Alt in PVP gear with practically no effort at all? Well, this is how you do it, without actually having to arena OR do BGs (25 pts a days is WAY too slow anyway).

Before I go on though, let me just say, yes, I know it would probably be easier to just grind up to 1800+ on a toon and get points MUCH quicker, but hey, how long does that take? This is how you get your toon geared w/o having to PVP.

Kind of a trick/exploit I would say cause Blizz doesn't really want this I am sure.

PROCEDURE

Step 1: Buy a 5v5 arena team(will actually work any size, but 5v5 is best for max pts).
Step 2: Get 4 friends to do this with ya =p
Step 3: Que for 5v5 rated match
Step 4: As soon as que pops(usually less than 30 seconds), LEAVE QUE -- You NEVER have to step foot in arena, but leaving que counts as a loss.
Step 5: REPEAT for a total of 10 games.

You ONLY have to do this once a week. You will be 0/10, BUT, at the end of the week you still get your 340 arena pts for 5-10 min of effot. I currently have an arena team that is o/40 atm and 1400 Arena pts lol without ever stepping into an arena or a BG.

NOW -- There is one thing that you also need, a total of 58,200 honor for ALL 5 pieces. So, you have a couple of options here... Either send your toons WG commendations from your main to get the honor, negating your effort even more, OR, just doing WG once a week, 3 times and doing those dailes... That will easily get you about 60k honor.

I will do the math for you so you don't have to on time...

Total Arena pts needed FOR 5/5 RELENTLESS?: 3350 / 340 a week = 10 weeks.

Total Honor Pts Needed for 5/5 RELENTLESS?: 58150 / 20k per week in WG = 3 WG runs(once a week).

ANYWAY, before all of you say this is worthless cause it takes 10 weeks to do to get 5/5, just remember, MAYBE it is not for you, but for someone like me who has 7 level 80s, I try to be as efficient with my time as possible, and this is VERY helpful for gearing up some of my alts.

Just think, if you had started doing this at the beginning of Season 8, you would already be just about done with EVERY toon of yourse in Full relentless with 10 min or less of play time a week.

ENJOY!

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1. Bind focus macros for the following abilities: (use /cast [@focus] spellname)
◦ Death Grip
◦ Mindfreeze
◦ Gnaw
◦ Strangulate
◦ Chains of Ice

Use comfortable binds for these and get used to them because your roll is utility in most comps.

2. Bind a focus Dark Command to your main attack(s). This will keep any healers in combat, assuming they are in range/LOS, without using and runes or runic power. It's also very helpful to bind /startattack to as many abilities as you can for easy targeting and switches. The /petdefensive is used because when Huddling your pet, it's sometimes more effective to have him leap towards you (See tip #24), and it's better to use a /petfollow in said macro.

Code:

/startattack /cast scourge strike /cast [@focus] dark command /cast !rune strike /petdefensive

3. If you really want to get the most use out of your Dark Command, then you're either going to have to avoid using the Scourge Strike macro in certain times, or just straight up not bind Focus Dark Command in the macro. If you don't have dispels or your dispeler is CC'd, you can taunt a Water Elemental, Gargoyle, or pretty much any form of pet to break a CC such as a Polymorph, anticipated Blind, etc.

4. When a rogue opens up on you with a Cheap Shot, use your Gnaw with 1 second left on the Cheap Shot so you're able to Chains of Ice for runic power -> Icebound Fortitude to avoid being Kidney Shot.

5. If your partner calls out that they've been Scattered, the hunter is most likely going to lay a trap. Have your pet leap to your partner and Stay in order to counter this.

Code:

/cast [@partnersname] Leap /petstay

6. Here is macro, thanks to Proditor, that allows you to control your not-so-well-designed Gargoyle, while keeping your ghoul on whichever target you want. I'm not sure if there's currently an easier way to do this, but this is the only method I've found that actually works. It's going to change your focus, but it's definitely worth it. This will summon the gargoyle, and if you wish to change its target, simply use the macro again on whatever target you desire:

Code:

/cast summon gargoyle /focus pettarget /petfollow /petattack /petattack [@focus]

This also works, but changes both your gargoyles & ghouls target to whoever you are targeting:

Code:

/petfollow /petattack

7. To avoid being sapped, you are able to send your pet in to attack the rogues partner from any distance. Your partner can heal you, but they will still be vulnerable to sap, so technically you're not in combat. You need to spam pet attack on any visable target and rush in on foot to do this. Pretty useful against RMP and RLS.

8. Get comfortable with controlling your ghoul - it's underrated. Personally, I have Alt+Scroll up set to /petattack [@focus], while having Alt+Scroll down set to /petfollow me. This is great for keeping shamans in combat who are using water-shield. You're easily able to toggle your pet on and off the shaman without giving him too much mana.

9. Use a Chains of Ice macro for Shadowfiend if you have any binds available. Very helpful! (I'm going to be downvoted by every priest for this)

Code:

/cast [@Shadowfiend, harm, exists, nodead] chains of ice

10. Lichborne can be used for many things other than just breaking fear. Lichborne also prevents:
◦ Seduce (Will also break this effect on use)
◦ Sap
◦ Polymorph
◦ Hex
◦ Any form of fear (Will also break this effect on use)
◦ Mind Control (Will also break this effect on use)

11. Use a macro to Lichborne-heal yourself along with the Glyph of Death's Embrace (This refunds 20 runic power when using death coil to heal). This is assuming you don't have a problem with filling your inventory with corpse dust instead of using the Glyph of Raise Dead).

Code:

/cast !lichborne; /cast [@player] Death Coil

*Note: Lichborne can be used at any time during a crowd control effect. This is great for preventing back to back polymorphs which overlap and do not allow any time between each other. An example of this would be using Lichborne to prevent Warstomp -> Hexs

12. Death & Decay is amazing for interupting healers who are LOS and drinking. You can be in the middle of Nagrand Arena and interupt a healer drinking almost anywheres on the map.

13. While Chains of Ice is effected by Cloak of Shadows, Plague Strike is not. When a rogue uses this ability it's best to reapply Plague Strike right away. And despite being subject to Grounding Totem, Death Grip is considered a physical ability and is not affected by Cloak of Shadows.

14. I mentioned using a focus Death Grip macro in the first tip. I cannot stress enough how huge this is for interupts. Don't just use it to close gaps.

15. If you're running with a warrior, Chains of Ice -> Death Grip another target into range of the Bladestorm for more pressure.

16. When a warrior is Bladestorming one of your team-mates, Death Grip it off them. Also, you will be criticized for doing this but when in Dalaran, Blade's Edge, and Ring of Valor, you're able to Death Grip the warrior off a pillar or ledge during the Bladestorm, but you have to watch for a Grounding Totem. Any good warrior will cancel the Bladestorm and Spell Reflect if he see's you jump off the ledge.

17. Remember to cancel Lichborne if you see a priest casting Shackle or a pally using Turn Evil on you (/cancelaura Lichborne works).

18. When you see a mage pop his Mirror Images, lay a Death & Decay over them because they have next to no health.

19. Remember that both your Death Grip and Mindfreeze can be grounded. You can use an addon to show an alert or the "Grounding Totem" buff (I use Elkano's Buff Bars). If you need to use either of these abilities and there is a Grounding Totem down, just cast a quick Chains of Ice to get rid of the totem.

20. Your opponents will probably kill your ghoul if they are training you, or planning a quick switch for a kill on you while your Summon Ghoul is on cooldown. Keep in mind that you're able to also Death Pact your Gargoyle.

21. In order to better utilize your Ghoul, you can use a mouseover petattack macro. This macro will cause your ghoul to attack your mouseover, and if there is no mouseover, then it will attack your current target. It is great for stomping totems without switching your current target.

Code:

/petattack [target=mouseover,exists][exists]

22. Take note that Anti-Magic Shell not only prevents magic spells from being applied, but also poisons. Another great use for Anti-Magic Shell is preventing Nature's Grasp or traps.

23. Gargoyle is affected by Unholy Presence, however Blood Presence does not provide any bonus. By using your Gargoyle in Unholy Presence, it will gain extra haste allowing 3 more casts. However, it can be killed early or shackled so it's generally not worth the rune to switch - but good to know if you're already in the stance. Also, if you're going to Bloodlust/Heroism, do it before you summon your gargoyle or it will not receive the benefit.

24. If your pet is being targeted by a melee, it's usually helpful to have your pet Leap towards you. Rather than just using the Leap trick to help your partner from being trapped, you can also prevent yourself from being the victim of a trap. /petfollow is optional, but more effective because you'll able to run behind a pillar with your pet to LOS any range damage.

Code:

/cast [@player] Leap /petpassive /petfollow

25. If your diseases are about to fall off and the target death knight uses Anti-Magic Shell, you are still able to refresh them via the Glyph of Disease by using Pestilence.

26. If you notice that the priest is low on mana, has not Hymn of Hope'd, and is running LOS he is most likely going to first check to see if there's a Ghoul he has to Shackle, and then he will Hymn. Pulling your Ghoul off the priest just temporarily can juke him into using it when you are perfectly aware and can easily have your pet switch back to him for the Gnaw.

27. It never hurts to carry an extra weapon engraved with Swordshattering. Using this will reduce the duration of those disarms that feel like they will never end. A rogues rotation usually starts with a Cheap Shot -> Kidney Shot -> Dismantle with 1 second left. If you're able to pull off tip #4, the rogue will probably go right into a dismantle. This is where equiping your Swordshattering weapon comes in handy.

28. Recently double healer/DK has become fairly popular. Because you're no warrior with an MS, you need to be in control and allow your priest to get in those Mana Burns. When you and your priest are ready, Chains of Ice -> Death Grip the opposing healer (or Mana Burn target) into LOS of your priest, usually the middle of the map is the best position. If you're running with a padadin as well, have him pop Aura Mastery so that you can get in as many Mana Burns as possible. Using a Hammer of Justice on the burn target into a Gnaw is usually a good idea. It's not uncommon to get half of a mana bar within the first 15 seconds of the match.

29. It's best to start a match in Frost Presence. Having to switch to switch back to Blood Presence is only going to consume a blood rune, whereas if you start in Blood Presence and are bursted right out of the gate, you are forced to use a frost rune hurting your damage and survivability.

30. This next tip is especially helpful in 5v5 where an extra 5% damage can make the difference between a kill or not, assuming you're lucky enough to make the cut on a 5v5 team. Clutch Death Grips are very important in 5s, and one of the best places to do this is in Dalaran Sewers. You want to grip the kill target down to the lower area, using the wall to LOS it's healers. At each corner in Dalaran Sewers, there is a Shadowsight that spawns after 90 seconds. You are able to grip a player into this Shadow Sight, and it will increase the targets damage taken by 5% for the next 15 seconds. Just think of it as gripping Power Sparks for your team.

31. [2v2] The following can be performed by any class, but I will explain how a Death Knight would do so. Druids will often try and open with a Cyclone right out of Prowl. Cyclone is a 1.5 second cast, not including haste, so you will have a hard time targeting the Druid in time to interupt the opening Cyclone. Here is a macro to instantly Death Grip the druid, assuming he is the 2nd to appear in a 2v2 match. You have to use this at your own discretion. If you're going to use it, you best spam it while going heads up versus the druids partner.

Code:

/cast [@arena2] Death Grip

32. Another great 2-in-1 pet macro that allows you to use the same bind to corpse explode as you do to summon your ghoul:

Code:

/cast [nopet] raise dead; [@pet] corpse explosion

33. Sick of using Death and Decay only to have it not work due an invalid area? You can't really spam it because it will toggle on and off. This macro will prevent it from toggling so you can spam the macro and click in your desired area simultaneously:

Code:

/cast !Death and Decay

34. If you press Huddle more than once, then it will cancel the cast. By adding an exclamation mark before the spell name, it will not cast a spell if it's already active.

Code:

/cast !Huddle

35. Presence dance. (If you play in unholy presence, just switch that with Blood Presence).

Code:

/cast Blood Presence /cast Frost Presence

And the most important..
Don't Rage! Whining in vent will most definitely affect your gameplay.

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Tonight after the patch we noticed our hunter was doing a lot higher dps than normal. All our dpsers were freaking out over the recount when someone noticed that the hunters Xbow's stats had changed to something that looked legendary.

Anyways I'm betting this gets fixed quick, but anyone with Fal'inrush, Defender of Quel'thalas should use it now to impress your raid =)

wowhead link for comparison:
Fal'inrush, Defender of Quel'thalas

screenshot of xbow after patch:

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This is the big deal over at mmOverload right now. I'm almost 100% sure this will get nerfed.. this is nuts.

The new lifetap scales with spell power, rank 8 for me with my gear returns 3604 mana at the cost of 2k health.

Here is the kicker, rank 1 returns 2000 mana at the cost of 400 health.

That's more then my old rank 8 returned, at the cost of so little health i don't see my bar move.

This will totally get nerfed, pretty much free unlimited mana..

I don't care what anyone says, this was way too cool not to share ASAP, can't wait for arenas this week.

(all this was with only 1 point in improved lifetap btw)

(Btw, previously the lower rank ones gave 1 mana for 1 health )

For testing reasons, i just put 2 points in improved lifetap, i now get 2125 mana at the cost of 262 health, not sure why the health cost went down with more points in lifetap~ however this was consitant with rank 8 as well, now giving 3901 mana at the cost of 1742health.

Seems the more spirit you have, the more health it drains while barely increasing the mana back.

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How to make Chinese people stop scamming?
Let me introduce you the ULTIMATE revenge guide:

Free Tibet

A short justification first.

Since the very beginning of the game we are being annoyed by the Chinese spammers, whispering us and offering gold for sale. I understand that such a person makes money and living this way. It annoys me though, that their main source of gold is scamming. I would not try to bother sellers if they were not selling gold they scammed(mine, maybe yours?).
In real the seller and the scammer are the same person(or group of them). Thus they shall be punished.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Background info

The Chinese government likes to censor some information. In China there are some issues that are a taboo. People don't talk about them and want to stay as far away from people who discuss those subjects. Why is that? Well, a person caught or suspected of talking about the forbidden may, be accused of spreading revolutionary ideas and therefore expect:

- at least an investigation,
- often a jail sentence,
- rarely a capital punishment.

And this is what we have to exploit.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

What are the HOT topics in China?

This is just a basic short list:

- Human rights
- Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
- Invasion of Tibet

------------------------------------------------------------------------

So what we do?

In-game:

Whenever you are whispered by a 1 lvl character just spam him with revolutionary slogans like:

- Free Tibet!
- Tiananmen Square massacre!
- etc.

(I actually got the idea when I saw this on wowbash.org)

Email:

Often if you try to sell an account a few of Chinese scammers will message you. Just send them email containing info about the taboo topics. Remember to include a lot of forbidden keywords!

Phishing websites:

Like in game, instead of username and password, just input some revolutionary slogans!

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Anything else?

Yes! Popularize the idea. Mention it to your guildies, tell it in your pug raids, make people aware of the Free Tibet action. It will take just 20 seconds and you can have some real revenge on those scammers!

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Why it will work?

The internet in China is under constant supervision. Of course the government wont bother if they find one was trying to access a forbidden website once only. They rather catch big fishes. So what will happen if everyone of us (instead of swearing at the scammers/spammers) will just ctrl+c some info from wikipedia? I can promise you those people are gonna get spotted by the programs and the authorities will be aware that they have a loooooot of revolutionary stuff in their mailboxes...

I promise you the Chinese scammers will shit their pants off... and think 4 times before trying to scam anyone else.

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World of Warcraft, is the most popular MMORP ever made. The game was first announced on September 2, 2001. But the first time I heard about it, was when I watched the below video which came with the Warcraft III CD:

This was a preview of world of warcraft that was on the warcraft 3 collectors edition dvd. You can see it's really early alpha footage and how much that game has changed to what it was at release:

The game was released on November 23, 2004, on the 10th anniversary of the Warcraft franchise. The game had been in beta in about year in advanced, here are some early alpha video from about a year before the release. See how much has changed since 2003...

The Female troll model from Alpha a version:

The first expansion set of the game, The Burning Crusade, was released on January 16, 2007. The second expansion set, Wrath of the Lich King, was released on November 13, 2008. The third expansion set, Cataclysm, was announced at BlizzCon 2009.
With more than 11.5 million monthly subscriptions in December 2008, World of Warcraft is currently the world's most-subscribed MMORPG, and holds the Guinness World Record for the most popular MMORPG by subscribers. In April 2008, World of Warcraft was estimated to hold 62 percent of the MMORPG subscription market. Below is a look back on how things used to be, and how the game have evolved over the last 7 years:

During original WoW alpha, Scholomance was supposed to be an outdoor elite area (probably where sorrow hill is now), but the developers made it so big and good that they decided to make it an instance.
At the beginning, there were shields and bucklers. Rogues and hunters could use bucklers, but they later removed them, and rogues/hunters couldn't equip shields anymore. There are still bucklers in game, but they are labeled as "Shields".
Survival talents for hunters was the "melee" tree and they had a lacerate ability which dealt less than 100 damage at lvl 60.
Discipline tree for priests was supposed to be a "melee" tree (think of like monk), which is why Inner Fire increased attack power.
All of you know this already, but Dwarves could be Mages.
Hunters were using focus as their resource system, but it regenerated while standing still, and was very overpowered so they gave them mana instead.
Several classes had talents which increased stats by a raw number (for example 20/40/60/80/100 spell power (not percent but just 100 SP)), and they didnt scale at all with gear/level.
There was almost no Spell Damage on gear during early vanilla. It wasn't a strange thing to see a lvl 60 mage with less than 30 SP.
The reason why there are so many cloaks with exactly the same stats in the starting areas was because cloaks also had armor types (for example cloth/leather/mail/plate cloaks)
There were two big islands off the western coast of STV, which were removed, but if you go far enough with mount and water walking, you can reach the area where they were. You will see that you are zoning in Isle of Doctor Lapidis or Gillijim's Isle.
Elwynn Forest, Stormwind and Westfall were the first zones that blizzard made back before 2001. That is why they are crappier than other starting zones.
Azshara has very little quests because Blizzard has designed it with a terrible layout, and they realized that too late. They thought most people would hate it so much, so they just didn't bother and left it for future expansions (Cataclysm)
Their original design(back before alpha) was that horde and alliance each had only 100 quests in the game.(was said in a recent interview)
At release, there were no quests at all in Silithus(or anything important), and it was added in the AQ patch(or earlier I don't remember)
There were much less quests past level 50 at release, so players complained that they had to grind mobs in order to level, and Blizzard added more quests later.
Blackrock Spire, Stratholme and Scholomance were all tuned for 15 people raids, and they were still way too hard even with 15 people, which they later toned down to 5 players (except for UBRS which is 10 player)
Before TBC was released, you were able to blink through deadmines portal and glitch it, cast slow fall off an unfinished tunnel, and reach a very early version of Hellfire Peninsula. Here is a video of it:

Emerald Dream was supposed to be released in vanilla, as either zone/raid/continent. They scrapped it, but there are emerald dream zones in the game files, though not accessible in any way on official servers. You can also see it on Youtube.
T2 sets dropped in Molten Core, and had different graphics.
Epic Mounts at release were just recolored normal mounts without armor. They removed them and replaced with armored mounts later(R.I.P Ivory Raptor). Oh and Tauren didnt have a mount at all, they had a plainsrunning ability.
Ironforge was by miles the largest city in game, because it had two floors instead of one, and the one which exists today is smaller than before. The Great Forge was also visible in game. Here is a video of it:

Gnomeregan was supposed to be a city like all others, Ironforge had an elevator which led into Gnomeregan, but they turned it into an instance because it would create faction imbalance.
Undercity was even more complicated to navigate, so they removed the second floor (it is still accessible in game).
Humans and Orcs were the first Races Blizzard created in game.
Human females and Orc males used a slightly different model.
You would be scared if you saw how Female Trolls looked in alpha.
Goldshire was a lot bigger, and it resembled a real village. But Blizzard realized that they can't make other starting zone hubs that big, and they removed a lot of buildings in goldshire so it would be even for all zones.
Overall Graphics in WoW are definitely improved since it's release, but in alpha, the graphics looked more realistic(but lower quality than now), and they toned them down.
Naxxramas is still physically present in Eastern Plaguelands today. There is no way to enter it or see it(it is invisible). If you logged off your character in old naxx before wotlk was released, you would appear in EPL naxx with portals to northrend. Video:

Undead were able to communicate with the Alliance.
Undead were really Undead, so they could have been targeted by Exorcism and such spells(back when it only worked on undead and demons)
Will of the Forsaken was a passive buff which made you immune to sleep, polymorph and fear effects. That didn't last long.
Cloaks weren't visible at all until beta, due to player request.
CC effects didn't have reduced duration on pvp targets, so a rogue or mage could cc you up to 1 min(or more)
Mages had an invisibility spell earlier, but you could cast Pyroblast while still invisible. It was removed because of an outcry from other players.
There were no guards at neutral cities, so most of them were slaughter fests.
Maraudon was added in a content patch.
Warrior charge ability used to teleport you to your target instead of increasing your run speed.
Wands couldn't auto-shoot so you had to click it each time you wanted to hit.
Spell schools used to have a skill system similar to todays weapon skills. "Your skill in Fire has increased to 93"
There was only one flight path and graveyard in the Barrens. Ugh.
Warlock spell Banish had a 30 minute cooldown for some reason.
Rogues and Druids had "feign death" abilities before they were moved to the hunter class.
Mages had an ability called "Khadgar's Unlocking" which was like rogue pick lock spell.
The only enchanting trainer at higher level was in Uldaman.
Each major city had it's own special auction house, so Darnassus was pretty useless.
Although Azshara crater, a scrapped battleground, never appeared in game, it is in the game files.
All wings of Scarlet Monastery was once a single instance, but they have split it into four because it was too big.
The Black Morass instance(without the mobs and bosses) was in the game files since 2004.
Hellfire peninsula was supposed to be a 54-60 zone.
Andorhal in Western Plaguelands was a very hard elite area(MC geared players had problems with it). Araj the Summoner was tuned for 20+ people. It also had ruined wall around it's borders, which was later removed.
There are Programmer isle and designer isle in the game files but aren't accessible.
As one reply reminded me, player housing was briefly tested and scrapped completely. Here is an interesting picture:

If you look at the beginning of the original wow cinematic, you'll notice half of Silithus is missing on the map. That's because it wasn't there at that time.
Here are some more realistic graphics I was talking about:

The original Hellfire Peninsula resembled the WCIII HFP a lot more. Here is a very old picture of it:

Blizzard definitely wasn't wrong when they said emerald dream was gonna look awesome:

The very first legendary item that dropped was a necklace that dropped off Baron Geddon. It was removed from the loot table, but the guy who got it was allowed to keep it. Here is his armory (you can't actually see it because it shows an error).
Hunters were the last class to be introduced in beta.
Paladin Judgement had a cast time.
Shaman enhancement tree had a couple of tanking talents/spells, although they were never really able to tank anything other than occasional trash.
Warlocks were able to summon people off cliffs, and mages/some other classes were able to cc people underwater and make them drown.
Warrior Recklessness used to reduce targets armor to 0.
On release, there was no PvP content at all. It was added some months later(battlegrounds and honor system).
Flight masters didn't summon mobs to help so they were sometimes camped constantly.
Many people don't know this, but there is a "click to move" option in WoW. You can click on the spot on the ground, and your character will move to that spot, like in RPG games.
Paladins had about a dozen seals removed, namely Seal of Fury, Seal of the Crusader, Seal of Sacrifice, Seal of Wrath and others. They also had Crusader Strike and Holy Strike in beta.
I'm not 100% sure on this, but when you died you lost a small amount of XP.
Warlock Felsteed mount was called "Nightmare".
Kick and other interrupts had a 75% chance to hit.
Mages had to spend 5 talent points in arcane tree to make Arcane Explosion instant. Evocation was a talent also.
Shamans had Magma Blast and Lightning Shock spells.
Since the vanilla definition of "Hybrid Class" really meant "Hybrid Class", the itemization was quite strange. Paladins/druids/shamans had all stats on their gear, and for some reason rogues, warriors and some other classes had spirit or some useless stat for them on their gear.
Though most people know this, Windfury weapon procs could proc off eachother. So theoretically shamans could one shot a raid boss if stars aligned.
Paladin reckoning talent could be stacked to infinite stacks. It was used to one shot Lord Kazzak, and it was hotfixed within 24 hours of that event.:

Mages and priests had a "Sleep" spell.
Eviscerate had a base damage that didn't scale, so a naked rogue would hit the same as a full T3 rogue.
The best lvl 60 warrior dps item was a level 44 mail gloves(Edgemaster's Gauntlets), because they had weapon skill bonuses.
Rogue and warrior mace specialization used to randomly stun people. They were changed to ARP bonuses in WotLK.
Mortal strike hit for 200% weapon damage, making 50% healing debuff almost useless because you would 1-2 shot cloth.
You weren't able to see buffs on enemy players, but mages had "Detect Magic" spell.
Deathwish and Enrage could stack for some scary DPS increase.(enrage was 40%)
There was a way to gain reputation with Wildhammer clan and Revantusk trolls, but they had no reward at all and they just removed it later.
Bosses had only 8 debuff slots, so warriors were sometimes kicked for speccing into deep wounds.
Hunter and warlock pets didn't scale with any stat at all.
Many players think that worst quest in vanilla was "Deep ocean,Vast sea...", because the breath timer was only 60 seconds and murlocs could move through walls. Ouch.
There was no arcane resistance, but there was holy resistance. Today it's vice-versa.
Hunter arcane shot scaled from spellpower, which is why hunter T2.5 sets have SP on them.
This was recent but, healing and spell damage were two separate stats. So leveling as a holy priest/paladin would be a suicide.
Mage arcane tree and priest discipline tree had talents that improved wand damage. This was removed in 3.0
Wound poison would stack to 5 for 10/20/30/40/50% healing debuff.
Dispelling poisons was actually a good tactic because it's application chance was much lower.
Although never confirmed, there is a rumor that Ironforge Airstation was supposed to be a gnome starting area.
Priests had racial spells, but some of them were turned into baseline priest spells and some other removed. (human-desperate prayer/troll-hex of weakness/undead-devouring plague)
There was a period in TBC when orcs had bugged shoulder size(2x smaller), and worst of all, it took Blizzard 2-3 months to fix it.
Undead had slightly bigger shoulder size than today.
Recently, in the Ulduar patch, a Gm accidentally mailed a player with Martin Fury. That is an artifact level shirt that has a "on use" effect that one shots everything. He used it to one shot Malygos, and couple of bosses in Ulduar. People noticed on his statistics tab that he had an abysmally high "Highest hit ever" number, and he got a permanent ban shortly after.
Female Tauren had a lot of doors/obstacles that they couldn't fit through. They still do, but much less.
Tauren not being able to fit through the MC entrance window(next to the high elf quest giver)
And the best one! instance servers being full, and 40 people jumping through the window of MC to zone in, inevitably falling into the lava, getting "Instance servers are full, try again later" message
Trolls used to have a joke ( /silly emote) that said this "I kill two dwarves in da morning, I kill two dwarves at night,I kill two dwarves in the afternoon, and than I feel alrgiht.I kill two dwarves in time of peace and two in time of war,I kill two dwarves before I kill two dwarves, and then I kill two more." This was removed from the game, because it was a reference to smoking weed.
There is a very creepy crypt behind Karazhan which is currently inaccessible except for hunters/shamans chain farsighting/eagle eye. It is pretty well done, and was probably shaping to become something, but Blizzard abandoned it because the game is rated "12".
In alpha WoW, all instance portals used a "Dark Portal" model as a placeholder. There was one dark portal in underwater Azshara, which would lead to assume that there was supposed to be an instance in Azshara underwater. Maybe they just threw it there randomly, who knows. Pic:

Meeting stones weren't used for summoning other people, they were used so you can look for other people who queued for that instance.
Retaliation had no animation, and you couldn't see the buffs of your enemies, so warriors could pop it against rogues who had very little chance to notice it.
After a patch in vanilla, something got bugged and warriors received one extra talent point, which allowed them to spec 31/21/0 and be very overpowered.
People used to pay a lot for people that had a key to Upper Blackrock Spire.
The Unstoppable Force(AV exalted weapon) used to knock back players instead of stunning them.
There was a hunter that stacked spellpower gear(for mend pet) and soloed Azuregos.
The term "Globaled" which people oftenly say today when they get killed very fast, doesn't actually exist today. In vanilla, mages could actually really "Global" you, using PoM/pyro macro and double spelldamage trinket in one button.
Warlocks could kill people in duels. (and I really mean "kill")
There is an achievement called "Old School Ride". You need to have a first epic mounts that blizzard added at release(the ones without armor). Since it costed 1000g(that was really a lot of money back than), and was removed pretty shortly after release, very few people got that achievement.
Warriors oftenly fell through the world when using charge/intercept, and charge could be used in combat.
Walljumping allowed you to carry the flag in WSG to an unreachable spot, making you invulnerable. If both flag carriers did that, the game could last until the players log out/dc(which could be days).
Intellect increases the speed you gain weapon skills.
Warlock succubus pets used to have less clothes, but they added more later.
Druids couldn't cast for a few seconds after leaving a form. There was a talent to allow that.
Shamans had a talent that allowed them to equip two handed axes and maces.
Since there was no casting bars, shamans and druids used hearthstone to lure interrupts so they can heal.(they have the same casting animation).
There is an NPC next to Haris Pilton in shattrath city, that is only viewable by priests who have level 60 trinket equipped. (forgot it's name)
You could communicate cross-faction by using lines to make words( /,|,_,\)
Gurubashi catacombs was an arena that was supposed to be the first arena in TBC, but got scrapped. You can see it on wowwiki.
After feign death timer ended, hunters would really die.
There is a cloth blue item set that drops in Scholomance. For some reason, it's set bonus increases defense.
Hippogryphs in Azshara used to drop more money than any other mob in the game, so it was usually farmed by bots 24/7.
Sap was breaking stealth, and there was a talent that gave 90% chance to the rogue to remain in stealth after using sap. Sucks if it didn't work and get killed immediately in instances.
In TBC beta, there was a quest reward dagger in Netherstorm that dealt arcane damage instead of physical. It scaled with spellpower, so mages would hit really hard with it in melee. There is a video on youtube.
Balance druids were utterly useless at vanilla release. Than they added Moonkin form halfway through vanilla, but they still sucked.
Deeprun Tram was supposed to connect Stormwind and Darnassus.(not 100% sure on that one)
Baron Rivendare's mount had about 0.02 chance to drop, so anyone that had it was considered a god(especially alliance). Today it's 1% chance.
Rogue detect traps ability had a "Swirly Ball" animation. All rogues loved it and spammed it all the time, and there was a huge outcry when Blizzard removed it.
Undermine (Goblin capital city) was planed to be released here is a map of it:

some very interesting screenshots/videos!

During very early wow development, it wasn't a strange thing to see something like this:

Here is the old scholomance with placeholder Dark Portal entrance:

Guardian of Blizzard:

This was south of Silithus:

This is how Karazhan looked before:

I don't think this needs explanation:

This was the placeholder for the world tree in Hyjal:

A very very old picture, note the different human model:

This is a map of Emerald Dream(I linked an exploration video above):

An untextured an unfinished Naga Temple:

This is the art for it:

The rarest mount in game is Fluorescent Green Mechanostrider.
There is a cave in Dun Morogh, and when you enter it, you enter Silithus general chat.
Rogues had a poison brewing profession, and poisons had stacks that were spent on attacking, and they had to refresh poisons on their weapons during bossfights.
Blizzard said in vanilla wow numerous time that Shadowfang Keep is their favorite instance, and the one they have spent most time on.
Orc racial Blood Fury only increased melee attack power by 25%, and when the effect expired, you lost 25% of your AP for 45 seconds. Also reduced healing by 50%. Overall it was useless for orc warlocks and resto/elemental shamans.
All Polearms were called Spears.
You could swap armor and weapons during combat(now its only weapons).
You didn't lose durability when dying, but you lost more durability during combat.
Hunters gained 2 attack power per 1 point of agility.
Hunters couldn't lay traps in combat. It was changed in TBC so you can do it, but with 2 second cast time.
A good one: Survival talent tree for Hunters had a different name - "Outdoormanship"
The paladin spell Holy Wrath was once named "Judgment"
There was no countdown on duels.
PvP trinkets were class specific, for example, warrior trinket broke only stuns or warlock only snares(don't remember exactly).
Healing spells had 30 yard range and classes had talents to increase its range.
Barkskin increased your cast time and slowed melee speed.
Enslave demon buff was dispellable, so the enslaved demon would attack the warlock.
Druids couldn't shapeshift to break polymorph.
Channeled spells (such as arcane missiles) couldn't be interrupted.
Upon release, boats(and zeppelins?) were very unstable and buggy, so they disabled them for a short time until they fixed it. They added an NPC called Captain Placeholder which teleported players for some money. He was so popular, that players made a lament for him.
Thrown weapons had charges, like todays ammo.
In the patch that introduced TBC talents in vanilla, it also introduced paladin/horde - shaman/alliance gear. Since there were no horde paladins and alliance shamans yet, those drops were just wasted.
Night elf guards in Darnassus and some other settlements are always female. Blood elf guards are always male.
Chinese people are still playing TBC because there is no WotLK in china.
There is no WoW in Japan at all.
Sylvanas in WoW had 3-4 different voice actor.
Draenei were announced as a playable race 6-7 months(I think) after TBC was announced.
Chris Metzen is the voice actor of Ragnaros/Nefarian/Thrall/Rexxar/Varian Wrynn/Deathbringer Saurfang/Algalon, and many more.
Azjol-nerub was supposed to be a raid instance/zone instead of ToC, but left behind as blizzard realized that it was too big, so they put all of what they have done in OK/AN instances(it really is big). They also said in a recent interview that their biggest disappointment about WotLK is not making AN a zone.
The longest instance corpse run was Crossroads-Razorfen Downs, because there was only one graveyard in barrens. The longest non-instance corpse run was probably in Blade's edge mountains before they fixed graveyards there.
Bind on pickup was called "Bind on Acquire".
Everyone could see Spirit Healers, including people who are alive.
There is a spirit healer west of crossroads that is named "Koiter". He is a memorial to Michael Koiter, a blizzard artist that died during the development of WoW.
Spirit healer whispers you hear when you die, say following things "Play World of Warcraft" "Give us your money". Of course they are very hard to hear, so very few people notice it.
Battleground groups weren't formed automatically upon joining the BG, so it was "INV PLZ" spamfest during the first minutes.
(Don't know if it's still possible) A death knight could death grip someone while standing on the booty bay boat, and that person would be sent flying across the continent, ending up below Alterac Mountains.
Hunters would usually go out of mana after 3 shots, so they were mostly auto shooting in PvP. However in PvE, you could FD+drink/swap gear.
Unfortunately, Moonkins would just go out of mana after 3 spells. They were mostly brought there for the /dance.
Paladin blessings lasted 5 minutes. So by the time you buffed 40 raid members, the first ones you buffed would have 2-3 minutes left on their blessings. So they were essentially just rebuffing the raid all the time.
Warlock Death Coil had 10 minute cooldown, and didn't cause any horror effect.
All mobs in the heavy-silithid areas in Silithus were elite. Also many other mobs in the game had elite status removed.
Warlocks were able to summon people into battlegrounds, including people who are higher/lower level than the level bracket.
The longest ever unkilled boss in WoW is Ouro the Sandworm(86 days after the first twin emperors kill), with C'thun and Onyxia just behind him. This is because he was very bugged at AQ release, and he is an optional boss.