After ignoring the pleas of their fans and shutting down Nostalrius in 2016, Blizzard remembered that they like making money and committed themselves to release WOW Classic. As of April 26th, 2019, players from around the globe can play WOW in its basest state… before the Burning Crusade dropped and flipped Azeroth on its head.

If you never played vanilla WOW, you probably won’t be prepared for how much more expansive and intricate the game was, especially in comparison to its more streamlined (or dumbed down, depending on your perspective) modern counterpart. That’s where this article comes in. By the time you finish reading it, you’ll know 10 awesome things that you can do in WOW Classic; many of which are vital to your survival in Azeroth’s vanilla state!

10 Participate In A 40-Man Raid

The modern WOW player is probably accustomed to running 10 or 25 man raids when they feel like farming for epics. However, in WOW Classic, you and 39 other players can take on Azeroth’s biggest baddies in 40-man raids! Instances like Naxxramas originally shipped with a 40 player requirement, about the total population of the Tol Barad server these days.

40-man raids can feel as much a curse as they are a blessing at times; it’s rather hard to get all those players working on one accord in the thick of a fight. However, the scale that 40-man raids bring make them worthy of at least one go-round.

9 Be An Underachiever

Have you ever felt pressured into running certain dungeons or farming specific zones for the sake of an achievement? Well, achievements didn’t exist in the earlier versions of WOW, so you don’t have to worry about them cropping up in Classic! Who needs to fish up Old Crafty when you can just lie about it and coerce others to take your word?

WOW Classic’s lack of achievements might bother the overachievers among the player base, but the rest of us can finally rejoice! And we can all stop dragging orphans onto blood-soaked battlefields for the “School of Hard Knocks” achievement.

8 Take In The Scenery

If there’s one thing you’ll be doing plenty of in any version of WOW, it’s traveling from one place to the next. Once upon a time, WOW used to have amazing weather effects that accentuated Azeroth’s natural beauty - making the whole process feel much more epic and far less tedious.

Thankfully, WOW Classic brings those awesome weather effects back - making Azeroth feel more alive and atmospheric than it currently is. This also adds a level of romanticism to even you most mundane tasks. Mining nodes with thunder and lightning crackling above your head is an epic experience in its own right!

7 Level Without Spamming Dungeons

Asked any seasoned WOW player and they’ll tell you that the safest way to farm in the current game is by running dungeons. Over, and over, and over again - until your keyboard breaks and you’ve fused with your chair. But Ii you want to level up quickly in WOW Classic, it’s arguably more effective to run quests or farm in the open world.

Heck, Jokerd managed to reach level 60 before anyone else by running around and blasting mobs with spells! We don’t know about you lot, but we’d rather level up using Jokerd’s method than stay inside of stinky, Trogg-infested caves all day.

6 Resurrect Worry-Free (As You’re Not Level 11 Or Higher)

Resurrection Sickness (more commonly called Rez Sickness) is a debuff placed on players who get revived by Spirit Healers. If you like experimenting and going off the beaten path, you’re probably going to die a lot.

Thankfully, Rez Sickness won’t apply to players between levels 1 and 10. The Savvy heroes in Azeroth will use this to complete cross-country trips and access zones that they normally wouldn’t be able to. Hey, we don’t consider it cheating if the devs don’t patch it out.

5 Become Virtually Immune To CC

This is probably what most of you really wanted to see; we wanted to quaint by shouting out some of WOW Classic’s more nuanced features but nooo, most of you just want to know how to break the game! Oh well, when in Rome right?

An item called the Skull of Impending Doom makes you fast as hell and knocks you out of most CC effects - albeit by constantly inflicting damage on its wielder (hence the name.) You’re not supposed to hang onto the Skull unto you bleed out - you’re meant to switch to it before you get polymorphed, find the enemy mage, and stomp them out before you drop. Take on the ‘Forbidden Knowledge’ quest to get the Skull.

4 Kite A Dragon Into Town

Some of the most notorious events in WOW’s history transpired because players found ways to bend the rules. The Corrupted Blood pandemic is one of the game’s most infamous moments - so much so that the CDC studied the event to determine how people might react to a deadly outbreak in our world!

But barring even the extreme moments like the Corrupted Blood incident, most Chaotic Neutral players will kite dragons and ogres into towns - requiring all of the town guards to toe it with a flying flamethrower to save all the newbies! This happens pretty frequently too, so we suggest you stock up on fire-retardant before playing WOW Classic.

3 Use the Hydrocane To Become Aquaman

Okay, the Hydrocane won’t let you talk to fish or turn you into Jason Mamoa, but it will help you breathe underwater indefinitely. By quickly swapping to this spear, you can refill your breathing gauge while swimming - affording you the option of not equipping Hydrocane for long stretches of time!

To get this weapon, you need to farm the life out of the Viscous Fallout, a water elemental with a 33% chance to drop the Hydrocane.

2 Obtain The Corrupted Ashbringer

By now, even non-WOW players know of the legendary sword Ashbringer; its iconic design helps it stand out among other fictitious blades and most Paladins love using this thing for Transmgs. However, newer WOW players might not be aware of this twisted version of Tirion’s blade.

The Corrupted Ashbringer has lifesteal, increases crit chance, and adds ‘Will of the Ashbringer’ to its wielder’s status bar. That last bit just means that you’ll start hearing voices in your head - well, more voices than the ones most WOW players already hear after suffering through their zillionth “Break yourself upon my body” spiel.

1 Kill A High-Level Enemy With A Fishing Pole

Yep, you can totally kill an enemy with a fishing pole in WOW Classic. All you need are high enough Fishing skills, a reliable rod, and too much time on your hands!

If your Fishing skill eclipses your current weapon skill cap for your level, you can pull this trick off much more easily. Now get out there and give Hogger some Hell!

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