In the ever growing world of Azeroth, the races and classes are banding together to gain battle experience through questing, raids and instances.
Everyone begins the game of World of Warcraft at level 1. From there, you run around your race’s starting area doing little bitty quests in exchange for a lot of experience, a small amount of copper and really poorly made gear (which is still better than what you’re wearing when you start). The higher in level you get, the less experience you get from these smaller end quests, but the more you quest, the more experience you gain and the more experience you gain, the higher you level. Once you’ve leveled beyond the area you are in, you can move on.
Fortunately, soloing through the beginner’s area is very simple. The monsters and creatures you have to kill die quite easily, and the things you have to gather for some quests are incredibly easy to obtain. But once you leave that starting area, the quests get harder. So what do you do?
You can either continue soloing, or you can group with another player. Here are the pros and cons of each.
One Man Show
Soloing is a great way to learn the tricks, and flaws of your chosen race and class. You have to learn spell or damage combinations that work and you have to learn how to save your own butt from death. Sure, you will most likely die quite a bit while you’re getting the hang of things, but learning is half the battle.
When you level solo, you gain all the experience from the quests, you don’t have to share the loot (money or other sundry items), and you get to interact with the world around you at your own pace.
The bad side of soloing is that it can get lonely out there in Azeroth all on your own. Also, the rate at which you quest is significantly slower than if you were questing with a partner. There are some that don’t care about the speed, but rather want to have a quality experience so they solo for the fun of it. But there are those that have already leveled several other characters and just want to get to the ‘good stuff’ in the higher level zones.
Banding Together
Grouping together with other players can be fun, but it can also be a pain. Your grouping experience will depend on whether or not you’ve grouped with someone you know, if the combination of classes is good, and if you both know what you’re doing. It would be a bad idea to group with a complete stranger of the same class that has no idea where they are or what they are doing.
If you group with a friend of a complementary class (i.e. fire mage and protection paladin), that has been around the block before, your chances of surviving increase and your frustration levels will decrease.
A caveat about grouping at lower levels- you might not want to group with a character that is much higher in level than you. The further apart your levels are, the less percentage of experience you get.
Now that you know a little bit about the pros and cons of soloing and grouping, you can make your decision with some confidence.
No matter what you choose, go out there and kick some butt- and have lots of fun doing it!
