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Currently, I've been working on my Troll Hunter and Goblin Rogue, with most of my emphasis going towards my Hunter. At the moment, I'm finding questing waaaay too easy compared to vanilla World of Warcraft. The leveling process is very fast, sometimes allowing you to exceed a zone's leveling recommendations by a few at the time you complete the area. As a result, I'm not attempting to do much kill grinding at all, unless it's to level up my skinning ability or to acquire materials (I prefer thoroughly checking out each zone and attempting to complete the entire quest tree; might as well since now you have zone quest achievements in Azeroth).

Another major (good) thing about quests is that the quest rewards are very good and relevant. Although you'll never see more than four rewards given out at once, there's a good chance your class/specification will have something as part of the rewards. Previously, most of the rewards were sad or gave you cruddy item upgrades, thus forcing you to instance grind for decent gear. No longer. In fact, it seems that most zones will have 1-2 major endings which will provide a blue item that will last you a few levels.

There's absolutely little to nothing difficult about these zones. Occasionally, there's a frustrating quest or two that require you to actually READ THE DESCRIPTION. But any decent player should know this. This is Blizzard's enforcement for getting players to actually read what to do. Unlike vanilla World of Warcraft, you'll be presented with a variety of quests that go beyond killing, collecting and talking to people. Sometimes, you get to drive siege tanks, other times you'll be bombing armies from the sky. A few require some skill and coordination like the Ashzara quests where you must jump from level to level on a tiny island while collecting energy. Either way, the quests are intended to not veer too far from the original concept of Warcraft while giving old players (and new) some interesting twists and challenges that break the stigma of the original questing system.

Another chief difference I've found about zones is that the mobs are spread out a little better. If you see huge clusters of mobs, then that's a pretty good indication you're not supposed to be there (except if it's for a specific quest). Aggro doesn't seem as bad as in the past where everything just follows you everywhere. In fact, it feels as though aggro is more difficult to grab at times (or rather maintain, at least if you're a hunter's pet). But the best thing so far is that the mob drops are far better. I'm finding more cloth, greens and quest items compared to vanilla World of Warcraft. Remember the infamous Zebra hoof quest? You'd kill 50 zebras and only one would drop a hoof (and for a 4 legged creature that odds should've been better). Well, the droprate still isn't 400% (as expected) but at least every other zebra drops a hoof.

Something else I'm finding is the plethora of flight paths. I haven't been through a lot of areas, but the ones I've visited tend to have at least three flight paths (for the Horde; pun unintended). Unfortunately, there aren't as many inns that correspond to those flight paths nor do every single section possess a seller, etc. My theory is that this is Blizzard's way of helping players quest faster through the region and avoid the god awful walking that you otherwise would be forced to perform.

My only criticism has been the rendering on my graphics card for my PC. I need to eventually convert my PC to my new Macbook Pro but for now the game runs sluggish at times, especially in intense zones like Ashzara. I had tried raiding Sindragosa in the past and probably had too difficult of a time as a result of my graphics card being outdated. So it feels that the updates definitely cause a great deal of lag on my system.

Onto classes.

The Troll Hunter has been a lot of fun and extremely easy to play. I'm at level 35 at the moment and am about to acquire Kill Shot and Tranquilizer Shot. This is where the game gets interesting because you have most of your primary abilities at this stage (can't remember at what levels I had obtained similar abilities). I had to re-learn the hunter class because of the way the mechanics had changed, especially with the switch to Focus as the primary resource. Honestly though, Focus feels a lot better than mana. The reason being that you're more self-sufficient and no longer have to worry about three resources you'd constantly have to deal with (that is ammo, mana/drinks and food for pets). You can't spam abilities as much as you did in the past, but with the new make up, you only need to utilize around 3-5 at this level.

My current rotation at level 35 as a Hunter looks like this: Mark the mob, send pet to attack (I use a macro for both), fire Serpent Sting (DoT), issue out Kill Command. Right now, the mobs tend to last longer compared to my 20's, so I'm adding a few additional tricks depending on what happens. Kill Command requires good timing. If you're out of Focus, you will need to kite your mob a bit until either you have enough Focus to issue out a Kill Command or you can try using Disengage (which I tend to do). Since acquiring Feign Death, I might switch between Feign Death and Disengage depending upon the proximity and area of a mob. Feign Death is terrible at close range so you should employ it only if your Kill Command is on cool down. Otherwise, you can try for Disengage to give yourself more distance. If you have some distance, you can throw in 1-2 Steady Shots into your rotation to regenerate your Focus. If you're getting swarmed by multiple mobs, then you can use your ability to regenerate 40% of your Focus (if you're a Beast Master, which you should pick up if you're leveling).

Now that I'm about to acquire Kill Shot, I'll probably work that into my rotation if Kill Command is on cooldown or if my pet's critical hits don't manage to completely down a mob. Of course, there's also Arcane Shot. I work that in if my major abilities are on cooldown and if a Mob has only a few health left. I prefer Steady Shot though just to recuperate some Focus because I tend to hit mobs quite frequently. What I find myself doing is alternating between Arcane Shot and Steady Shot, depending on how much Focus I have.

I don't use Intimidation that frequently because if I manage to pull off my Kill Command, then my pet can hold aggro. Usually by that point, Kill Command will do a critical through my pet that brings the mob's health down low enough. Intimidation seems to be better for mobs with larger pools of health where you might need a stun or two. This works well when you see large numbers of mobs in a major fight. I haven't worked in other abilities thus far because I haven't found much of a need while questing/soloing. Sometimes I use traps but only if I get into major trouble and need some extra DPS. Either way, the story I'm finding is that just because you have an ability doesn't necessarily mean you should nor must use it all the time.

Pet taming with the hunter thus far has been extremely easy. As long as I initiate the Pet Taming capability prior to getting a mob on me, I won't get into trouble. I was a little worried at first because I wanted to get some new pets while in Ashenvale. In the past, I believe I might've had Frost Trap at an earlier level. But obviously this time around, I didn't. But taming didn't cost me a lot of health and I managed to get a new bear and wolf very easily. I was sad to see my initial raptor StinkyFinger go, but I was limited in the number of pets I could possess at that moment. Sorry StinkyFinger!

One last thing that you should know if you're a lazy or new Hunter player. You must absolutely learn how to kite monsters. If you don't know how to strafe, you will hate the Hunter. Previously, the Hunter allowed you just to stand around shooting things. No more. You need to run around and move to be successful as a hunter. Your pet will not be able to maintain aggro so easily. If you enjoy being stationary, try a tanking or melee class instead.

The next class I've been playing has been the rogue. Goblin Rogue seem to be a natural pairing. Small, tiny, quick and deadly. When I found out that Cataclysm was getting Goblins for the Horde, I originally had wanted a Rogue. But from boredom, I ended up starting a Troll Rogue and left her around level 41. Frustrated that I lost a lot of abilities through the talent tree change, I decided to start from scratch. Using a tiny Goblin Rogue on the island, I saw myself dying numerous times. This wasn't as infuriating as getting ganked on a PVP server constantly but I did not find the rogue to be all that tenacious compared to my Troll Rogue. Perhaps, the Troll's natural regeneration capabilities and berserking racials allow them to survive fights a little longer. But another probability is just that the starting zone had some unanticipated hiccups (like that wonderful chicken robot thing).

But once I got to the main island, I found that the rogue played out a lot smoother.  Some quests like the one where you kill the two Naga elites were really easy because you could sneak past them. My friend was outleveling me on his Goblin Warrior only because he was forced to encounter more mobs. But I zipped through quests quite quickly in being able to stealth through large mobs. I do find that the burst damage numbers for the combat rogue to be pretty amazing at such a low level.

Of course, that all depends on if you can slip in an ambush or backstab.

My friend revealed that he hated the Rogue class due to the play style. Truthfully, the rogue is really easy to play once you get used to the idea that most of it involves all right hand (or left hand) techniques with the mouse. The trick to playing a rogue effectively is simply what I call the "rotating assault." The idea is that after stealthing, you need to be able to quickly turn around on a mob if they're facing you to get the precise backstab/ambush assault in. You don't always have to be in BACK of them though (and this is where I think my friend might have some problems). You just can't face them in front. So being able to spin quickly then hitting the backstab/ambush hot key will give you the winning ticket. I hot key my stealth and backstab (or ambush) to the same key (which in my case is "4"). That way, I immediately can hit both simultaneously when I'm ready (especially in instances where I might have to switch in and out of stealth and when Vanish is on cooldown). Just like Kill Command's timing, the backstab/ambush combo always has a chance of failure. That's just because a mob might unexpectedly turn around just as you're about to backstab, or that you accidentally run into them. If that occurs, there's not much you can do except to use your Eviscerate to build up quick combo points (and pray that no other mobs are nearby ready to snack on you).

Unlike the Hunter though, I'm finding that the Rogue is starved of resources all the time. My Hunter has a pet to amend the fact that I might lack Focus at times. On the other hand, there's nothing to help buffer the Rogue once their energy reaches a low point. I think once I get to level 24, my rogue's saving grace will be Vanish (my personal all time favorite ability of all classes). In the Hunter's case, they can at least send their pet into a large group of mobs and run if they get into trouble. A rogue can Vanish as long as their level is sufficiently high enough compared to the mobs. Beyond that I'm not finding much of a difference in game play with the Rogue as I did with the Hunter.

Also, I created a Death Knight. Since my friend created a Tauren, I ended up going with an Orc Death Knight. I found that the changes of the Blood spec as the Death Knight's tanking class to make the starting zone a little harder. The thing with the Blood spec is that you were able to do major single target damage and self-heal using things like Blood Worms. Since Blood is now the tanking spec, I decided to go Unholy (I figured that the permanent pet might make the Death Knight more like a hunter). Maybe that was the wrong approach. I found myself dying more than the original time through, probably because I no longer automatically regenerated. I might end up re-spec'ing into Frost, but I'm completely uncertain which spec is the best soloing spec at the moment.

However, the good news is that dual classing now occurs at level 30 and only cost 10 gold. So I'll probably try the Frost spec (or Blood spec just to give it a shot) and see if that's more effective. Nonetheless, I recall just prior to Cataclysm one player lamenting that the Blood spec will never be the same. Yup. Really sucks. I enjoyed the Blood spec, even though everyone complained that Death Knights could not tank previous to Cataclysm. Wonder how things are now?

One thing that I did find constant between the expansion and the older game has been that the Death Knight is still a great farmer. Since he's my highest level toon on this server, I'm using him to mine (although I did pick up Jewelcrafting for future usage). Very easy to run around Durotar picking up ore and one shotting everything around me while not causing any aggro. I hand off all my spare ore to my Tauren Paladin, who then smelts the materials for some mining experience and uses the materials to level up his Blacksmithing skills. I might just ditch the Jewelrycrafting and go straight with Herbalism and hit Inscription hard with my next toon. In this manner, I'll be able to quickly procure materials.

Something I would like to test in the near future is running my Death Knight through lower level instances like Shadowfang Keep. I don't know how much more difficult they made the non-Heroic version. But if I can do a few runs through solo, I can run low level friends through them for some easy loot and power leveling. I'd prefer to get my Hunter to a higher level to do Shadowfang Keep, considering that I used to farm it for lower level leather materials.

Maybe tonight I'll try out either my Orc Shaman or an Undead Warlock. I need someone to take on the Inscription capability. When I was looking for Glyphs, I noticed that even Minor glyphs on my server cost around 70+ gold. Also, I need someone doing tailoring soon and hopefully enchanting. My Hunter has been building stacks of leather goods in her bank account for disenchanting. Without a guild tab, I'm just housing them all in her account. Can't wait to see the starting zones for the Orcs and Undead though. I heard the old Silverpine Forest is now considered an epic leveling spot for quests. Gotta check that out.