The combat of World of Warcraft pits your character's skills, spells, and abilities in real time against both human and computer-controlled opponents. Here is an overview of some of the basic mechanics in World of Warcraft's combat system.

Attack Range
You must be in range of your targeted enemy to begin attacking it. If you are out of range, you will see an error message on your screen when you select a melee attack. For melee classes, the auto-attack will always be in close proximity to the enemy, and most melee abilities (such as Sinister Strike, Heroic Strike, and Shield Bash) have a maximum range of five yards. Certain abilities (such as Blind and Intercept) are usable outside of the standard 5 yard attack range. For ranged attacks, such as with a gun or bow, the standard range to shoot is from 8-30 yards. Hunters can fire their ranged weapon up to 35 yards away, and even farther with certain talents. For spells, every spell has its own maximum range which is displayed on the spell's tooltip.

Cooldown on Attacks, Spells, and Abilities
While World of Warcraft has a real-time combat system, weapon users must wait their turn to swing again based on the delay or speed of their weapon. Likewise, casters must wait for the length of the spell's cooldown until they can cast a spell again. Many abilities have such cooldowns, and the length of any cooldowns are displayed on the ability's tooltip. However, many abilities with no listed cooldown are still subject to a 1.5 second cooldown that affects all of a character's abilities. This is known as the global cooldown. You will see this effect on your spell and skill icons as they simultaneously display the global cooldown after using an ability.

Health
Health points represent how much damage a character can take in combat before dying. Your health is visually represented on the upper left corner of your screen next to your character portrait, and numerically represented as well when you open your character panel and/or hover your mouse over your health bar. You can increase your maximum health by leveling up, increasing stamina through talents, abilities, and spells, or by equipping items that increase stamina (1 stamina = 10 health). During combat, you can restore your health most commonly by being the recipient of a healing spell, drinking a healing potion, or using a bandage. After battle, you can accelerate the healing process by eating food or simply waiting for your health to recover on its own. Under certain conditions, such as a warlock under the effects of Demon Armor, health will also regenerate while you are in combat.

Non-combat Spells or Abilities
Some abilities and spells will not work while your character is in combat. If this is the case, you will see an error message on your screen informing you that the action is not available during combat. For example, Warriors cannot use their Charge ability in combat, and no character can eat or drink while in combat.

Facing the Right Direction
Which direction your character is facing in relation to an enemy is important for certain abilities and spells, which may require you to be facing the enemy head on or from behind. An example is the Rogue's Ambush and Backstab abilities, which require the rogue to be behind his target. If you are not in the proper position you will receive a warning message when you attempt to use the ability.