Characters

Character Selection

There are eight races and within those there are nine classes. Each class is available in both genders, listed below the classes are the racial traits (bonus attributes for that race).

Alliance
Dwarves	Gnomes
Humans	Night Elves
Horde
Orcs	Tauren
Trolls	Undead

There is limited customization of characters beyond gender compared with other MMOs but it is possible with these options and clothes you can create a reasonably distinct look for your character.

Factions

The eight races are allied to one of two factions as follows:

• Alliance {20 choices}
  • Dwarves {Hunter, Paladin, Priest, Rogue, Warrior}
  • Gnome {Mage, Rogue, Warlock, Warrior}
  • Human {Mage, Rogue, Paladin, Priest, Warlock, Warrior}
  • Night Elves {Druid, Hunter, Rogue, Priest, Warrior}
• Horde {20 choices}
  • Orcs {Hunter, Rogue, Shaman, Warlock, Warrior}
  • Tauren {Druid, Hunter, Shaman, Warrior}
  • Trolls {Hunter, Mage, Rogue, Priest, Shaman, Warrior}
  • Undead {Mage, Priest, Rogue, Warlock, Warrior}

	Druid	Hunter	Mage	Paladin	Priest	Rogue	Shaman	Warlock	Warrior	Total
Alliance 20 choices
Dwarves										5
Gnome										4
Human										6
Night Elves										5
Horde 20 choices
	Druid	Hunter	Mage	Paladin	Priest	Rogue	Shaman	Warlock	Warrior	Total
Orc										5
Tauren										4
Trolls										6
Undead										5
Total races per class	2	5	4	2	5	7	3	4	8

“Non-player characters - such as quest givers and vendors will respond accordingly [to Faction alignment]. ” - Blizzard

Neither side can party with members of the other side or safely enter each others towns, unless in stealth somehow and even then chances are you’ll be detected and slayed on the spot.

If you favour PvP or RP (Role Playing) servers be sure to choose your side carefully as you can only play for one. You can’t have an Undead (Horde) Priest and a Human (Alliance) Paladin for example, it’s either Horde or Alliance. PvE servers are different, there you can mix and match all you please.

Reputation

Reputation is, as you’d expect, your level of standing within a community (Faction). Reputation determines whether certain NPCs react kindly to you or try to kill you on sight, among other things.

Each race is considered a Faction and you can curry favour with the NPCs from your own race and the other three by completing quests for them or killing certain monsters. In fact a number of quests are only available if you have reached a certain level of reputation with a particular faction.

You will start with a slightly elevated reputation with your own race compared to the other three. As you can see in the shot on the left this brand new Orc character starts with a slightly elevated ‘Friendly’ reputation with her own people (Orgrimmar). If you follow the link from that thumbnail shot you will see that you can check a box to declare war on Factions that aren’t hostile towards you.

There are eight possible reputation levels as follows.

	Highest level of accolade attainable with a faction
	Special reputation level reserved for special heroes
	10% discount when buying from vendors
	Standard reputation level for factions on your team
	Standard reputation level for factions not on a players team that are not Kill On Sight (KoS).
	Can not buy, sell or interact
	Kill on Sight
	KOS. All opposing team factions are set permanently to the lowest level

You will never (and can’t in fact) gain enough (any) reputation in the city of the opposing side to be able to shop there. If you’re an Orc dismiss the idea of ever having a lazy weekend in Stormwind. Not gonna happen. Read all about this in our Reputation Guide.

Attributes

• Each class available to each race starts with different attribute stats and proficiencies.
• Points are not awarded for you to allocate to the following stats, the automatically stats increase as you level up and can be augmented with items worn and buffs on your character.
• There are no differences in attribute points between the genders.

Attribute	Icon	Effect
Strength		Strength increases your melee attack power by 2, except for rogues and Hunters. Rogues and Hunters gain 1 attack power per point of Strength, and 1 per point of Agility.Increases the amount of damage you can block with a shield.Strength does not affect critical hit chances at all. Strength does not improve your chance to block, but rather the amount blocked when you succeed. This amount is determined in part by Strength (and the other part by your shield).
Agility		Increases your attack power with ranged weapons.Increases your armour class by 2 for every point of Agility.Increases the chance of a critical hit with melee and ranged attacks. The amount of the increase is dependant on both class and level. For most level 60 character classes, approximately 20 points of AGI will increase your critical hit chance by approximately 1%. Rogues require 29 AGI for an additional 1% critical hit chance, and Hunters require 53 AGI for an additional 1% critical hit chance, but both of these classes also gain attack power from agility and the items available to them typically have much higher amounts of AGI.Increases the chance to dodge an attack. The amount increased is dependant on both class and level. For most level 60 character classes, approximately 20 points of AGI will increase your chance to dodge by approximately 1%. Rogues only require 14.5 AGI for an additional 1% dodge chance. Hunters require 26.5 AGI for an additional 1% dodge chance, but Hunters typically have a high amount of agility, as well as an Aspect spell that further increases their chance to dodge attacks. Rogues gain a much stronger bonus to dodge from agility than other classes. Hunter & Rogue: Increases your attack power with melee weapons.
Stamina		Increases health points.
Intellect		Increases mana points and your chance to score Critical Hit with spells. Increases the rate at which you improve weapon skills.
Spirit		Increases health and mana regeneration rates in and out of combat. at .18 hp/sec and .31 mana/sec.
Armor		Decreases the amount of damage you take from physical attacks. The amount of reduction is influenced by the level of your attacker. Defence Rating (AC)It reduces physical damage done to you. Damage reduction: % = 100*armour / ( armour + 85*level + 400 ). That formula is for opponents at the same level as you.
Weapons		Attack Rating, Power and Damage.

Defense

• Increases the chance of being missed by an attack.
• Increases the chance to dodge, parry, and block.
• Decreases the chance of being affected by a critical hit.
• Decreases the chance of being affected by a “crushing blow”. Creatures that are higher level than your character can land crushing blows that deal increased melee damage. The chance of a crushing blow increases as the level difference between you and the opposing creature increases. Players never deal “crushing blows”, only creatures.

Attack Power

• Attack power increases your base melee DPS by 1 for every 14 attack power.
• Strength increases your melee attack power by 2, except for rogues and Hunters. Rogues and Hunters gain 1 attack power per point of Strength, and 1 per point of Agility.

Damage Per Second - DPS

Agility and Strength both provide 50% of the DPS for Rogues and Hunters whereas for all other classes the entire 100% comes from Strength.

Critical Hit

Agility will determine the chances of striking a critical hit with a melee weapon.

Dodge

Agility will determine the chances of dodging an attack.

Main/Offhand weapon use

Dual wielding will inflict more damage than a single weapon plus a shield but as the weapon in the Off-hand deals 50% of the displayed damage you usually end up dealing about the same as you would with a two-handed weapon. Be sure to put the weapon with the highest damage in you ‘Main Hand’ when dual wielding.

Regenerates X mana per x seconds

Mana regeneration in and out of combat.

The Statistics forum offers more by way of statty type things and this Stat FAQ should be of help also.

Resistances & How they Work

Resistances consist of Arcane, Fire, Nature, Frost, Shadow {protection against dark skills, demonic magiks, the kind you see the Warlock has access to}. They can be augmented with equipment and certain Talents. Some races begin with a +10 to a single resistance as a racial bonus. (Dwarves have +10 Cold Resistance. Gnomes have +10 to Arcane Resistance. Night Elves have +10 to Nature Resistance. Tauren have +10 to Nature Resistance. Undead have +10 to Shadow Resistance.)

When attacked with a magical attack there are two sets of parameters which determine if and how much damage you will take. The first set is based on your character level. If it’s:

much higher than caster = you have a significant chance to resist and take no damage from magic attack

much lower than caster = you have minimal chance to resist (minimum can be 1%) and take no damage from magic attack

If you are affected then the 2nd set of parameters determine if and how much magical damage you will end up taking and they are based on your resistance % and level of caster.

The higher your resist % in relation to caster’s level = higher your average resist % (max 75%) to completely resist the magical attack.

However, with direct damage spells (such as the Shaman’s Lightning Bolt, Warlock’s Shadow Bolt and Searing Pain and the Priest’s Smite) you have a chance to resist a % (0%, 35%, 50%, 75% & 100%) of the magical attack (rather than a % chance to completely resist it) and this is determined by your resist % compared to the caster’s level.

Resistance Score	50	100	150	200	250
Chance to resist spell	0	1	1	11	25
Change to resist 100% damage	0	1	1	11	25
Chance to resist 75% damage	2	6	18	34	55
Chance to resist 50%	11	24	48	40	16
Chance to resist 25% damage	33	46	26	14	3
Chance to take full damage	54	20	7	1	1
Against Other Level 50 Spells
Chance to resist Spell	15	30	45	60	75

Experience

Experience is awarded when killing, however it’s determined by your level in relation to that of your foe. At lower character levels you can gain experience from foe up to 5 levels lower than you. At level 60 you will gain experience from monsters 12 levels lower than you.

The maximum character level (cap) you can reach is 60 although this will increase to 70 with the release of the WoW Expansion Pack The Burning Crusade.

Here’s an experience chart which illustrates the experience required to level up.

Class Skills

All character classes have a set of class skills {i.e. Affliction, Demonology and Destruction for the Warlock}. There are no skill trees or point allocation in the same way there are in say Diablo II. As you attain new character levels the cap rises on the skills’ potential so the more you use these skills the better they become, up to the cap for your level {level cap}.

Your control on their improvement comes by way of use rather than allocating points, this way you do not waste points if you’ve made a wrong choice, you simply stop using that skill and use another which then starts to improve the overriding class skill. Basically, practice makes perfect.

Druid	Balance Restoration Feral Combat	Hunter	Beast Mastery Marksmanship Survival	Mage	Frost Arcane Fire
Paladin	Protection Holy Retribution	Priest	Discipline Shadow Magic Holy	Rogue	Combat Assassination Poisons Subtlety Lockpicking
Shaman	Enhancement Elemental Combat Restoration	Warlock	Destruction Affliction Demonology	Warrior	Protection Arms Fury

Talents

Talents are another area that offers customization over the development of your character. Talent Points may be allocated to skills or attributes significant to your class such as mana regeneration for a Mage, Fire specialization for the Shaman or increased damage with a Mace. You can read all about them in our Talents Guide.

Secondary Skills (Professions)

Professions are as you would imagine, trades that your character can learn to make things for yourself and friends and also trade/sell them with other players. You can read all about them in our Professions Guide.

Spells & Abilities

Some of the spells and special abilities are familiar from Warcraft. Spells are not acquired by working your way up a skill tree, rather they are learnt from class trainers (teachers) located in towns and villages. They cost money to learn and as your character increases in level more skills become available to learn.

Your most used spells and abilities can be dragged to the action bar (as above) which runs along the bottom of the screen and accessed through hotkeys. You can change them whenever you wish, your choices aren’t set in stone. You can arrange your action bars by accessing your Interface Options screen (Esc > Interface Options) as seen here.

You use the right mouse button to perform a combat move or cast a spell on your target. Spells and special abilities will normally require mana and/or reagents and can be temporarily increased in level by wearing particular items or carrying gems or charms in your backpack or by spell buffs and potions.

Weapon Skills

Each class comes with innate abilities in certain weaponry which improve through use. Players can visit class trainers to learn (for a fee) to use other weapon types, but not all. Below is a table with details of what weapon skills classes are created with and which they have access to learn. If they don’t have the weapon in either column then it is not available to that class at all.

I = Innate T = With Training

	Axe		2-H Axe		Bow		XBow		Dag		Fist		Gun		Mace		2-H Mace		Pole		Stave		Sword		2-H Sword		Throw		Unar		Wand
	I	T	I	T	I	T	I	T	I	T	I	T	I	T	I	T	I	T	I	T	I	T	I	T	I	T	I	T	I	T	I	T
Druid										X						X					X									X
Hunter	X			X	X			X		X		X	X							X		X		X		X		X
Mage										X											X			X							X
Paladin	X		X												X		X			X			X			X
Priest									X						X						X										X
Rogue						X		X	X			X		X		X								X			X
Shaman		X								X	X				X			X			X
Warlock									X													X		X							X
Warrior	X		X		X		X		X		X		X		X		X		X		X		X		X		X		X

X = With Talents

Hero Classes

Much muttered and apparently being worked on are Hero classes. The proposal is that when a character reaches a suitably high level, level 40 or higher it can start specializing in skills to become a hero class as found in Warcraft III. There are race and class restrictions but for example a Dwarven warrior could become a Mountain King and a Night Elf Hunter the Demon Hunter. In Warcraft III, these heroes had special skills such as Thunderclap, Bash and Avatar and for the Demon Hunter Mana Burn, Immolation, Evasion and Metamorphosis. Whether we’ll see skills such as these in WoW remains to be seen, we just have to wait for the patch that brings Hero Classes.