Newbie guide/Fighting and dying

Combat
Some quests require you to kill mobs to meet their requirements, but you can also just kill mobs for XP, their drops or to skin them. (Killing other than for a quest is called grinding.) Either way, you will have to fight.


 * [[Image:pointer sword on 32x32.png]]  or in range [[Image:pointer sword off 32x32.png]]  or  out of range

You can attack any hostile (name written in red when selected) or neutral mob (name written in yellow when selected) and they will fight back. Combat can also begin by entering a hostile creature's aggro radius and they will attack you automatically. A neutral mob will ignore you unless you make any kind of threatening action toward it. Sometimes two or more mobs (hostile or neutral) may be linked so that if you attack one, another comes without calling.

To kill the mob you must reduce their health to zero. If the mob reduces your character's health to zero you die.

To reduce a creature's health you can attack in a number of ways:
 * A weapon to attack (usually by right-clicking the creature):
 * Melee weapon such as a axe, dagger, mace, staff or sword.
 * Ranged weapon such as a bow, gun or thrown axe or dagger.
 * A spell:
 * Direct Damage spell such as Smite (priest), Wrath (druid), Shadow Bolt (warlock), or Fireball (mage).
 * Damage over Time spell such as Immolate (warlock), Shadow Word: Pain (priest), or Moonfire (druid).
 * An item:
 * Thrown dynamite (engineering).
 * A targeted rocket.

Once you kill the creature you may or may not be able to loot and gain some treasure.

Using combat skills will increase your weapon skill. Being attacked will increase your defense skill. The maximum amount of skill (under common circumstances) is 5 &times; your character level + Racial bonuses.

Player vs Player (PvP)
With the PvP system, you may fight players of opposite factions if their PvP flag is turned on. You will know since their names will be written in yellow (you can attack them but they can't attack you) or red (you can attack them and they can attack you). Players of opposite factions can only attack you if your flag is up, unless you're on a PvP server. See PvP flag for a fuller description.

You can fight players of your own faction in duels. Duels will not affect the status of your PvP flag and they do not end up in death. "Death" will cause the duel to end but the loser will be left alive with almost no health.

In Stranglethorn Vale, there is an arena where you can fight anyone of any faction, like a free-for-all battle. Only those in your group are safe from your wrath. At specific times a treasure chest is set at the center of the arena. The last man standing gets the loot.

Recovery
Health and mana (or energy as a Rogue) will recover over time. If you are willing to sit down, you can eat food to recover health faster and imbibe a drink to recover mana faster. You can eat something and drink something at the same time (use one then the other) which regains health and mana in one break period. You cannot eat or drink during combat.

During combat you can use potions or spells to recover health or mana during combat. Some special items also allow recovery with effects similar to spells. Potions generally act instantaneously. You may only drink one of these potions every 2 minutes and drinking one potion type precludes drinking the other for the full time. Spells can be instant, but most have a casting time which can be delayed or interrupted by combat. First Aid can also be used to recover health during combat, but the recovery is incremental and can be interrupted, as it is channeled.

Rogues have some special abilities, potions or foods that can increase the recovery rate of energy, but most are only available at higher levels, so somewhat beyond the scope of this guide.

Warriors use rage which is generated by dealing, receiving, and avoiding damage. Thus, recovery is not really an issue. But since their rage decays over time following a battle, there are potions that give the warrior rage. These aren't generally necessary, however, since rage is usually generated at an acceptable rate without the potion.

Death
Unlike other games, in World of Warcraft you lose no items or experience when you die. Instead, all of your equipped items immediately take a 10% durability reduction (this applies only to items equipped when you died, not to items in your inventory). While in spirit form, you can run back to your corpse and rejoin it for no additional penalty by selecting the "Resurrect Now" button when you come within range; you come back to life with half health and half mana. Run speed is increased while you are a spirit and you are able to walk on water.

A Spirit Healer is also present in each graveyard who can bring you back to life immediately, saving you a trip to your corpse. However, doing this will cause all of your equippable items to take an additional 25% durability hit; this applies both to equipped items, and to items in your inventory. In addition, you will suffer from resurrection sickness, beginning at level 11. Furthermore, at the point when you die, you are usually doing something that is necessary to complete a quest. In this case, you will have to return to the same place. While sometimes it is better to go ahead and resurrect at the spirit healer, it is usually better to return to your corpse.

Note: If you are killed by another player in PvP combat, you do not take the initial 10% durability hit. This means that if you walk back to your corpse or are ressed by another player there is no adverse effect at all, except the time to make the trip to your corpse due to a PvP death. However, you will always take a 25% hit if you are resurrected by a spirit healer no matter how you died, and if you are above level 10, you will also suffer from resurrection sickness.