Having just recently leveled a 3rd character to 60, I can still say that I don’t consider it a grind. Leveling is so fun to me.
Here is my theory on why many consider it to be a grind: they try to level as quickly as possible. If you’re trying to hit that maximum exp per hour by dungeon grinding, if you’re sweating with your /played time, if you’re using a leveling guide to speed up the process because you are only interested in getting level 60 gear, then you make it so hard for yourself to enjoy playing the game before hitting 60.
In all of my 3 60s (and about 7 other characters I’ve leveled to 20+), I’ve never used a quest helper add-on like questie, I’ve not participated in any dungeon grinding for exp past doing any dungeon 1-3 times to complete quests or get a certain gear piece thats a big upgrade, and I’ve always leveled my professions while leveling instead of waiting till 60 to level them.
This guy took me just under 11 days to hit 60. I actually leveled herb/alch + all 3 secondary professions to 300 (315 herb) by level 50. I did a mixture of quests and dungeons and did a ton of world exploration and doing lower level content to help out my brother who was lower leveled. I also wasted time trying to participate in WPvP (even though it wasn’t much of a thing back in phase 1).
It was all fun and never felt like a grind. There were times when I didn’t know where to go for quests (like the high 20s) but I still had fun doing random things until I found where I needed to go.
My warrior and warlock each took me 6 and 7 days /played to hit 60. On these two characters, I only did about 3-4 dungeons during the entire leveling process. I really only did open world questing. Neither did I bother to level fishing or cooking on these guys, but I did hit 300 mine/BS and 300 tailor/enchant before getting to 60 on them.
It helped having already leveled to 60 so I knew where to go for quests at any given level.
I know I typed a lot, but it’s to prove that you can enjoy the leveling process without it feeling grindy AND in a reasonable time. I mean, had I not leveled professions before lvl 60, I easily could’ve shaved off around a day in /played time but I chose to do them to give me a break from questing.
To answer the question, the fastest way to level without buying boosts would probably be questing while on rested exp. Technically, dungeon grinding could be faster, but in my experience, you always waste time trying to get groups together, replacing group members who leave early, and the speed at which you clear dungeons is very inconsistent because there are times when the tank takes forever to pull, you’re carrying a character who’s too low so he aggro ranges a pack and wipes the group, or some other reason.
HOWEVER, WHAT I RECOMMEND, is to actually play the game for fun while leveling. Don’t try to rush to 60 for end game raiding, uninstall Questie and actually read quest texts and the random little notes and books of lore you find, don’t dungeon grind unless you’re doing it socially with friends, level professions as you level, do some PvP, explore the full map of zones, and kill some random mob if you just want to see if you can take it and what it drops.
If dungeon grinding, buying boosts, and auto following some quest helper or leveling guide is fun to you, then by all means do it.
All of the novel that is my post is simply my opinions based off of my experience having leveled several characters without it feeling grindy. I’m even planning on leveling a 4th character on a different server as Alliance simply for the new experience because leveling is fun to me!