This comes up often enough in World of Warcraft that it deserves a straight answer rather than a thread to scroll through.

Short answer

Do the simple thing first. It is correct more often than the complicated thing people recommend instead.

  • Test it yourself where testing is cheap.
  • Note the exception cases — they are specific rather than vague.
  • Write down what you changed, so you can undo exactly one thing if it goes sideways.

Twenty years of expansions mean half the advice online describes a version that no longer exists. Nothing here depends on a setting you are unlikely to have. The accepted community answer is broadly right and wrong in a specific way that matters here.

The practical answer

It helps to understand why a step exists, because then you can adapt it when your situation is slightly different. Most of the disagreement online comes from people describing different versions of World of Warcraft. It is worth separating what the game does from what players have concluded it does. Treat anything stated without a version number as provisional.

The mechanic behind it is simpler than the discussion around it suggests. Edge cases are genuinely rare, which is why the simple answer is usually the correct one. Everything below is framed around the current state of World of Warcraft rather than a launch-week impression.

Worth knowing alongside this

Testing this yourself takes a few minutes and settles it definitively. Most of the disagreement you will find online is two people describing different builds. Nothing here assumes a particular playstyle beyond wanting the thing to work.

  • Check which version any conflicting advice was written for.
  • Revisit after a major patch if the behaviour changes.
  • Read the whole sequence once before doing the first step.
  • Try the straightforward approach before the elaborate one.

What to do instead

Screenshots age faster than text, which is why this describes rather than shows. None of this needs a paid tool, a third-party launcher or an account on a site you have never heard of. What follows assumes you are on a current install and have not modified it. If you are coming to this after a long break, the terminology has probably moved on.

The community wisdom on this is roughly half right, and the half that is wrong costs the most time. The awkward part is rarely the step itself, it is knowing which step comes first. A single check up front replaces a lot of guessing later.

When the usual advice fails

World of Warcraft is not shy about hiding useful information two menus deep, so some of this is simply knowing where to look. There is no hidden trick here that the game is keeping from you. Where two approaches both work, the one with fewer moving parts is the one to keep.

The developers have changed their mind about this at least once, which explains the older advice. If a step reads as obvious, do it anyway — the obvious ones are the ones people skip and then wonder about. If your result differs from what is described here, note what is different first rather than starting over.

Why it works this way

Anything that behaves differently on console than on PC is flagged where it matters. Patch notes move numbers around constantly; the shape of the answer holds even when a specific value shifts. Where something depends on your platform or region, that is called out rather than glossed over.

Where people go wrong

  • Changing five things at once and then not knowing which one helped.
  • Treating a rare edge case as the normal behaviour and planning around it.
  • Ignoring the platform-specific note and then wondering why the steps do not line up.
  • Grinding a method that was patched months ago because a thread still ranks well.

WoW FAQ

Why do other guides describe this differently?

Most were written for an earlier version and never revisited. Compare the steps against what your build actually shows.

What if none of this works for me?

Then something in your setup differs from the assumption — version, region or platform. Check those three before anything else.

Is this still accurate after the latest World of Warcraft update?

The method is; individual numbers may not be. If a value on your screen differs, trust the screen and keep the sequence.

Does this work the same on console and PC?

The logic is identical. Menu paths and button prompts differ, and any real difference is flagged above.

If you only take one thing from this: the answer near the top is the part that matters, the rest is context.