How has WoW changed since Burning Crusade?

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!

Solution 1:

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:

• Two new classes, Death Knights and Monks.
• New professions, including Inscription which affects every character through the addition of glyphs to modify your own talents and spells.
• Completely redone talents: there are now only 3 talents to pick from for each tier (and there is a tier every 15 levels). This was instituted because a staggeringly high number of talent trees had almost identical builds. These new talents represent the minor variations from the stock builds.
• Specialization (BM vs MM vs Survival) is now separated out from your talents. There are no longer "BM" talents or "MM" talents.
• Removal of many statistics from items, e.g. attack power, spell power, and the addition of "mastery".
• 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.
• New raid difficulties:
• • LFR - dungeon finder, but for raids!
• • Flex - anywhere from 10 to 25 man raids. Bosses scale to howevery many you have. No more waiting for 2 more DPS - it just scales back the boss to make it a fair fight.
• • Normal 10 and 25
• • Heroic 10 and 25 (tougher bosses, better loot)
• Badges of Justice/Valor replaced with Justice Points and Valor Points. Valor points mainly used for upgrading gear. For example, a 528 LFR piece can be upgraded to a 532 for 250 valor points, and again to 536 for 250 more.
• The ability to raid in pick-up groups quite successfully in each tier.
• Achievements.
• Hunter specific:
• • No ammo (speaking as a fellow Hunter)!
• • No more "Bow Slot" (librums, totems, idols, wands). Bows and wands are now actual Main Hand weapons. So no more agil-staffs or polearms for Hunters!
• • Pet talent trees
• • Hunters use focus now, very similar to rogues energy.

Solution 2:

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.

Solution 3:

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.

Solution 4:

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.