Leveling 1 to 10: Blog Azeroth Shared Topic

A while ago Blizzard came out with the stat that 70% of its accounts don't ever make it past level 10. While I am sure that Blizzard can put in some great analysis of their game, I am also sure that they would love to hear more player feedback on the new level experience.

Now I realize that most of us are far from newbies and we won't be able to get into a newbies mind set perfectly (heck I am 10 years out of newbiehood for MMOs and 5 years out for WoW), but I think we can all add to the dialog about those first 10 levels, what works for you and what doesn't.

Obvious examples of "broken" 1-10 experiences are hunters--a petless pet class and paladins--who, if they are lucky, get to hit a second button in combat 1-10. I have a some what closer examination of the dwarf paladin experience on my blog, but it needs working and technical corrections at least. It would also be recast as a Blog Azeroth topic rather than a SAN project.

I have read some of the ones that have already been posted and I have to agree with most of them. Feral druids have it rough but their roughness doesnt really come into play until they start speccing into feral and this is about the pre-talented years. Hunter pre-hunter-pet is one of THE most annoying experiences ever. I thought it was kind of neat that you had to go through the quest to get the pet but the lack of pet in the low levels makes it really hard to level at all. Throw that into a newbies hands and you have a recipe for disaster that will make its way into your group setting. Most new characters have no idea about how to even play the game much less kite around a mob just out of melee range. Granted, once you get your pet, a mediocre amount of intelligence is all that is needed to even play one to the point of making it to 80*.

And lots of the melee classes are in similar boats in the really early levels. Up until the recent changes to the low levels, rogues had a single dagger but that has been doubled with the changes and made them a much easier class to play in low levels. The paladin, only one damaging attack, no buffs or anything, makes them pretty boring early on. I woudl comment on the warrior and any other class i havent commented on already but most of those pre-level 10 comments would be really badly outdated.

*As long as you are working on quests that give you xp you will make it to level cap. I really find it annoyig when people think leveling is hard. They are confusing hard with time consuming and should probably quit this instant cause WoW just becomes even more time consuming.