Stay Alive! Five Tips and Tricks For WoW Newbies

Playing WoW ain't always easy. So here are five hints, tips and tricks guaranteed to make your life easier, save embarrassment and keep your blood pressure down.

You Have No Target

Sometimes in the heat of battle, you'll find yourself getting killed whilst your interface calmly declares 'you have no target.' But you do have a target. It's the target you started killing and which is now mauling you whilst you impotently flail at the air. If you happen to attack using mouse clicks, you may accidentally click on the map and thereby deselect your target. In order to stop this happening, turn 'Sticky Targeting' on. Sticky targeting makes it impossible to lose your target until it is a) dead or b) you tab or esc away from it.

Lock Your Bars

The WoW bars are customizable, as in, you can pull icons onto them. Unfortunately, you can also pull icons off them if they are not locked, and in the heat of battle, this can lead to losing several key abilities in quick succession. If you're not actively modifying your bars, lock them down.

Running into Mobs

You wouldn't believe this, but it is apparently incredibly bad form to forget what you're doing and run into mobs on your way out of an instance, especially if other people aren't also trying to run out at the same time. It is also frowned upon to run into mobs before the rest of the group is ready. Doing this sort of thing can actually kill everyone due to the fact that they are unprepared. Players often get tetchy if you cause them to wipe. (All die in one big pile of death.)

Facing the Wrong Way

The WoW camera can be a temperamental thing, especially if you're lucky enough to hit the bug which causes your camera to swing around and face you instead of staying where you put it. If you hit this bug, holding the LMB down will keep the camera targeted until you can reload the game. Then ensure that the smart camera is off. Trust me, you're smarter than any dumb camera.

Right Clicking vs Left Clicking

This can make all the difference in the world. Left clicking allows you to target a mob or player, right clicking can make you attack them. If you're a hunter with long range capabilities, this can be troublesome. For example, say a member of the enemy faction waves a friendly hello to you instead of killing you and you would like to wave back, knowing the difference between right clicking and left clicking is the difference between making friend and accidentally shooting someone in the face. It's a subtle difference, but I find it matters.