Wow After 70

You've just dinged 70... what now? Answer: A Lot!

First thing's first… get your flying mount! Whether you get the gryphon (alliance) or wind rider (horde) you'll love using this to simply fly over all those pesky mobs below! Don't forget it'll cost you 900g all up (800g for training, 100g for the mount itself) and the mount is 60% speed on the ground - which can get a little annoying as you wonder why it's so slow.

Don't have enough gold for your mount? Quest! I can't emphasize how important it is to knock off the quests in high end zones esp. Netherstorm and Shadowmoon Valley, you'll get 10-12g per quest and most of them are relatively easy grinding quests, which leads onto a chain of quests (often with a nice rare weapon/armor for your efforts, so bring a friend or two along).

After you've got your well-earned mount, you'll probably have horrid gear (greens with a few blues), this simply won't cut it for lv70 PVP, battlegrounds (BG) or arena (more on this later). So why not run a few instances to help sort out your gear woes. I recommend Steamvaults, Mechanar and Shadow Labs. All of these are fairly easy with a decent group set up (have tank, healer, 3 DPS with crowd control) and will give you a bit of cash and (hopefully) gear.

Now that you have a few blues, why not try some Battlegrounds? If you're horde like me, avoid Alterac Valley (on Ursin server, anyway) because of the alarming amount of AFK'ers (people who are away from their keyboard)…how can you win when 50 percent of your team isn't doing anything? AB (Arathi Basin) is my personal favorite, and WSG (War Song Gulch) will test your 1 on 1 skills (more than the other battlegrounds I believe). Of course, Alliance may want to avoid AB as horde to do AV, because they seem to get beaten very, very often.

After a week of honor farming, I strongly recommend you pick up some epics (the belt, boots and cape are all VERY nice) through the vendor in either Orgrimmar or Stormwind (ask a guard for directions, though I'm sure at 70 you know where it is already). Congratulations! You should now have enough decent gear through instances, quests and BG's to compete toe to toe in the Arenas!

Gather some mates and buy a charter (Ring of trials in Nagrand) for either 2 vs 2, 3 vs 3, or 5 vs 5. They'll cost you a fair bit so get your teammates to chip in. Try to pick another class that suits yours eg. I am a warlock and have a holy paladin for heals in my 2 vs 2 team. If you're a rogue then get a healer, if you're a healer get a DPS (warriors are deadly in 2 vs 2). If you're losing, don't panic, rethink your strategy using three easy steps

1. Do I have enough stamina? - Aim for at least 9k hp, try to go for 10-12k hp though.
2. Resillience! This stat is important in reducing crits against you, making you survive much longer
3. Teamwork and strategy - talk to your teammates, read some guides (Wowwiki is excellent, and the WoW forums themselves have a few helpful stickies that you should read) and have a few counters to certain combinations, ie. Take down the healer first, get him/her out of mana (oom) etc etc.

Attunements are important at 70; Karazhan is the big 1 that you need to get attuned with. The chain begins in Deadwind Pass outside the instance, and is a long chain that will see you running Shadow Labs, Steamvaults, Arcatraz and Black Morass (remember you need to finish Old Hillsbrad first). Your guild should help you with these instances, if not, then tough it out and PUG (Pick up group) it out. The Armory is a good resource if you have multiple people interested and want to see their gear, just quickly check up who has the better gear (of course, skill also comes into play but if one person has greens and the other epics then id suggest going with the epics).

Another thing you will face at 70 is reputation. Bloody rep grinds! To run heroic versions of instances you will need to be revered with that faction i.e. Thrallmar for heroic Shattered Halls, Cenarion Expedition for heroic Steamvaults etc. Questing and turn-ins are the best methods to rep grind, as well as running the normal version of the instance themselves (obviously). Reputation is also important to get different versions of epic flying mounts eg. Netherdrake.

You'll soon want your flying epic mount! I suggest using the AH effectively, supply and demand is still as important as ever, and don't be afraid to buy out people who undercut your prices! Farming motes is a well-known money maker, but be warned, it's very boring and often overcrowded with other people, try to farm in off-peak hours if possible.

And that about wraps it all up! My in-game character is called Choipman, he's an undead warlock and I'd be happy to hear from you! My server is Ursin.

Enjoy being 70…and grats on leveling! Have fun, and if you're feeling bored you can always create an alt or two:P.