My sudden and deep descent into all things Hearthstone has made me interested in playing World of Warcraft again. I haven't played since 2006, when I got an Orc Warlock up to level 37 or so. It was okay, but I was ultimately undone by a constant character reroll disease that I had around the time.

Now I'd be interested in leveling up to endgame and maybe some PvP. Any ideas on how long that would take, given that I don't want to go straight to endgame but see a lot of the content along the way as well?

Any tips on race / class would be appreciated as well.

I think most people had the reroll bug early on. Currently you have access up to the previous expansion, once you buy the current one though (WoD) you get one free boost to 90. It can be that Orc lock or another fresh toon. It does not take long to go from 90 to 100 and gearing up is the easiest it has been. The warlock has changed greatly since 2006 but its still fun. I mostly play as a windwalker monk now. That class was introduce in 2012.

@viking_funeral: Since the last time you played everything has changed. They redid all the original content and made it much better/fresher to quest through because they could apply the lessons they'd learnt over the years. The biggest issue with levelling from 1 to 100 right now is probably Outland, which to you is unseen content but it also sticks out like a thumb because the original world (1-60) is now based on newer quest designs than Outland (60-70) has.

Depending on how much you play at a time, if you're playing anything else or if you're just playing WoW you're probably looking at about 40-60ish in game hours to get from 1-100 as a brand new character depending on your play style. You can speed that process up if you have a friend who plays and make a new account via the recruit a friend program, where you'll get bonus XP but that will also cause you to skip a lot of content while levelling up to whatever the cut off point is (it was 60, I'm not sure any more).

As for recommendations, honestly just play whatever you want or like the look of. If you want complete versatility in a character without fearing having to reroll before you know what aspect you like the most (healing, damage or tanking) then go with either a Paladin, a Monk or a Druid as those classes can fill all of those rolls where as something like a Warlock can only do damage.

Don't play DPS, dps are the scum of the earth; play a tank or a healer. Success. Tanking is really easy now so that's not a big deal, healing can be difficult pre-gear in the 90-100 dungeons/heroics.

If you do level make sure you do dungeons up to 60 as that's most of the best content in the game.

@jesus_phish: 40 to 60 hours is way overkill even for new players. I would say half that easy. They adjusted the experience needed to level. It does not take that long.

@fredchuckdave: Interesting. What's the go-to tank class these days?

And did they ever implement something like 2 class builds you can switch between, one for leveling and one for raiding? I thought they might have implemented that, but then again it could have been a fever dream.

@viking_funeral: Most viable endgame: Warrior, Death Knight, Druid. Ease of use (from easiest to hardest): Druid, Paladin, Monk, DK, Warrior. Warrior still isn't difficult but there's some odd intricacies and relics of days gone by that make it somewhat more challenging than the other classes; rage in and of itself is much different than the other resources.

@rorie Probably has some decent input on this.