Returning to WoW after 7 years, feeling a bit overwhelmed

[Wubsie]

Heya, and welcome back.

PVP has taken hits since WoTLK. /follow indeed no longer functions in random battlegrounds. For a while we had sudo-follows utilizing battle pets, but they've since been nerfed. Only multi-seater mounts work for moving around, and that obviously excludes indoor areas and while you are in combat. So outside of exciting "turret gameplay" BGs are basically undoable. As far as arena, we've seen a decline in viability. Gone are the days when just targetting the same target meant getting one-shot after one-shot. Partly it's down to game balancing being improved to where those insta-gibs are not nearly as common without very specific conditions being met. Additionally the amount of CC, and in particular AOE CC has gone up. Add to this the substantial increase in the skill level of the "average" arena player and we have conditions where boxers are struggling. The 5s ladder has also been removed, so you'd have to go for 3s. However I would point out that outside of seeing how far you can climb, there is literally no reason to do ranked PVP, as there is no real PVP gear anymore and you'll most likely be able to gear more efficiently in PVE.

Delay macros (as I think they were called) were done away with. However other methods of creating similar "rotations" and priority ques exist through ISBoxers pro-config and addon solutions such as Gnomesequencer. Results vary between specs and setups as you would imagine. I would say mixed class setups are just as viable as ever. The separate class halls might add some extra work, but atleast for small groups it's no real issue...

The expansion itself is fairly boxer friendly. You'll have to do some individual instances for each of your characters while leveling to unlock all the areas and finish your class hall / artifact quest lines, but once you are done with those it's all good. There's plenty to do and instances are doable even to M+ levels. Although the best success has so far been found in stacking tanks, I think they're perfectly viable to clear on normal trinity setups as well. Add to that the scaling world quest rewards, world bosses, LFR and you should keep gaining gear fairly steadily. I'm playing fairly casually on 8x and creeping close to 870 ilvl.