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I stopped playing WoW during the good old days of Burning Crusade, mainly because I'd swapped guilds and stopped having fun when the new guild didn't really appreciate my prescence >.>

So a few RL friends have convinced me to return. I'm in the process of retrieving my account at the moment (since Blizzard somehow "lost" it and can't retrieve it without me sending in stupid forms and ID and things, but that's another story), so in the meantime, I'd like to know how things have changed, if at all?

My main was a level 70 hunter, had done all of Kharazan repeatedly, and some of Gruul's, and back the the good ole days of pre-BC, I had full Dragonstalker. YAY!

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5 Answers

up vote 15 down vote accepted

There's been a massive amount of changes. Obviously there are new zones, new battlegrounds, higher level cap, new skills, etc, but I'll try to cover the biggest changes as they will probably affect your character:

  • A new class, Death Knights.
  • New professions, including Inscription which affects every character through the addition of glyphs to modify your own talents and spells.
  • Completely redone talent trees, as of a recent patch. You only get one talent point every two levels and have 31 point talent trees again.
  • Removal of many statistics from items, e.g. attack power, spell power, and the addition of "mastery".
  • Modification of raids to 10 and 25 man versions of each raid.
  • The addition of "heroic" or "hard mode" raiding.
  • The ability to raid in pick-up groups quite successfully in each tier.
  • Achievements.
  • The Dungeon Finder makes running dungeons infinitely easier for DPS, as it is really quite easy to get pick-up groups compared to vanilla and TBC.
  • No ammo (speaking as a fellow Hunter)!

Edit: Adding some good points raised in other answers:

  • Pets have talent trees and are divided into three types: Tenacity (tank), Ferocity (DPS), and Cunning (special/PvP).
  • Hunters use Focus instead of mana, with most shots using 10-40 Focus, and Steady Shot replenishing it.
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Accepted for being quite comprehensive! Though its gonna take some getting used to not having to down Mana potions... and my entire strategy of maxing my attack power has been removed... what replaces it? If anything? – Andrew Natoli Nov 10 '10 at 22:25
Attack power has been replaced completely by Agility (for Hunters, Rogues, Cat Druids and Enhancement Shamans) or Strength (for Warriors and Paladins). Spell power has been replaced with Intellect. There are some cases where these still exist, e.g. Spell-power weapons, some old world items, but in general they're now just a derived stat. – dlanod Nov 11 '10 at 2:10
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Consider adding an item about the level at which riding can be trained now -- ie - slow mount @ 20, fast mount @ 30 (or 40? I forget), slow flying mount @ 60 and flight speed increased to 150%, and epic flying is still @ 70. That was a big improvement for all of us leveling alts when we get bored. :) – Jagd Nov 11 '10 at 21:21
So I'm back to stacking agility? That works for me, it'll be ain interesting reshuffle of my talents, but since they're likely changed significantly too I'll have to look them up >.> – Andrew Natoli Nov 12 '10 at 2:24
up vote 10 down vote

In addition to all the other changes mentioned, The Shattering (4.0.3) patch arrived on November 23, 2010, redoing all the zones in the old (classic) world.

Additionally, Blizzard has shifted the levels you need to ride mounts around. It's now:

  • 16 for mount-like abilities (Druid Speed form, Shaman Ghost Wolf)
  • 20 for normal mounts (4g skill, 1g mounts)
  • 40 for very fast mounts (50g skill, 10g mounts)
  • 60 for flying mounts (250g skill, 50g mounts) (Druids can train Flight Form for 3g)
  • 60 for Flight Master's License (flying in the old world, post Shattering) (250g skill)
  • 68 for Cold Weather Flying (flying in Northrend) (500g skill)
  • 70 for very fast flying mounts (5000g skill, 100g mounts)
  • 80 for extremely fast flying mounts (5000g skill)

Cataclysm also adds another two playable races: Goblins for Horde, Worgen for Alliance.

4.0.3a introduced new race/class combinations. At least one class was added for each race. The new combinations are: Troll Druid, Troll Warlock, Tauren Paladin, Tauren Priest, Blood Elf Warrior, Orc Mage, Forsaken Hunter, Human Hunter, Night Elf Mage, Dwarf Shaman, Dwarf Warlock, Dwarf Mage, and Gnome Priest.

Levels 10-60 also require 10% less experience per level than they did back during BC.

The rate you gain spells/abilities at has been changed. It is no longer every other level pre-60/every level post-60.

The rate you gain talent points at has changed. It is no longer every level post-10... instead it's spread out, maxing out at 41 talent points at level 85.

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In general, you get new talent points on odd levels and new skills/abilities on even levels. – GalacticCowboy Nov 10 '10 at 19:38
I noticed at low levels that sometimes you'll get talent points two levels in a row... that comes from having 41 talent points spread across 75 levels. – user2974 Nov 11 '10 at 21:57
At level 80, you'll have exactly 36 points, enough to fill 1 tree and 5 left over to do as you please. By 85, you will have exactly 41 points: an additional talent point per level from 80-85. So from 10-80, there are 36 points and 71 levels worth of points. Levels 10 and 11 are the only back-to-back levels that give you a talent point, with a new talent point being obtained at every odd level thereafter. This gives you, for the most part, "big abilities" (1 pointers) at *9 and *5 levels (e.g. 29, 35, 39) with the majority on the *9s. – TheQ Nov 29 '10 at 13:25
Err, my math above is off. Should just be *9 levels. 29, 39, 49, etc. – TheQ Nov 29 '10 at 14:54
up vote 2 down vote

The stable version at the moment is World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, Although already in progress Betas and the new version World of Warcraft: Cataclysm

Referring only to the first name you as the other is not complete yet, things have changed a lot maps, achievements, set, instances.

The level of PVP and PVE are more successful as you are 70 that section 70-80 is more complicated than before, but not much.

In each expansion adds two new classes one for each side.

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Actually, the stable version at the moment is 4.0.1, which has already redone things like talent trees and spells/abilities for Cataclysm. 4.0.3 (aka The Shattering) is due out sometime in the next month, which will change the old world's layout. – user2974 Nov 10 '10 at 13:37
up vote 2 down vote

Since you mentioned your main is a Hunter:

  • Pets have talent trees now, just like you do.
  • Pets are divided into three classes: Tenacity (tank), Ferocity (dps), and Cunning (special/pvp).
  • Hunters to not have mana anymore. Instead they have Focus, which is the same kind of energy bar your pet has.
  • The Volley spell was removed.
  • You don't have to be at a stablemaster to retrieve a stabled pet.
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To add to the hunter bit - if your last play was TBC, you won't miss volley. You actually luck out because TBC wasn't aoe oriented, so you won't miss the tremendous aoe that volley could do in WotLK. There is no more shot clipping, so the magic macro from tbc is long gone. Really with skipping WotLK, the changes for a hunter are all pretty good! – DHayes Nov 10 '10 at 19:26
Actually Volley was awesome to the point of OPed at the start of TBC (through the start of Kara and Gruul's). It was often better DPS to Volley on a single target boss than to bother with a rotation. That only lasted about a month though, before Blizzard nerfed it back down. – dlanod Nov 10 '10 at 20:30
Volley was awesome once the cd was removed, but trash in TBC was generally CC based. In WotLK you aoe EVERYTHING except the boss. Maybe even the boss too. – DHayes Nov 11 '10 at 14:57
up vote 0 down vote

Probably should mention many of the quests have changed, levelling is much easier, Quest helper integrated into the core. I'm replaying now for the first time since BC as well and the Alliance quests in Westfall for example are completely different, no more Defias!

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Oh there's Defias... just you wait. The payoff at the end of Westfall is truly epic. – LessPop_MoreFizz Nov 29 '10 at 14:09
@LessPop Just did this questline on a fresh alt over the weekend. Gotta agree, they did a heckuva job with that zone's main questline. – TheQ Nov 29 '10 at 14:43
@TheQ you think Westfall is awesome... go check out Redridge. – LessPop_MoreFizz Nov 29 '10 at 14:55
@LessPop Did that too actually, and despite a few bugs it WAS indeed awesome. The ability to do 30 levels in 2 days makes me want to level more (go reduced XP curve)! – TheQ Nov 29 '10 at 15:08
Ya Redridge was epic too, I'm just hoping the rest is good as well..I remember the 30-40 and 50-60 being the worst grinds – Wil Nov 29 '10 at 19:12

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