Has anyone tried mob grinding to level up? I know the xp is viable, but is the gear upgrades and income viable too? I’m thinking of mob grinding on my alt while watching something on another screen instead of running around questing.
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Yes. There were many who swore by it back in the day as most efficient. Takes a good pattern of kill->drink->move-etc.
Edit: I should l2r; not sure about the item drops and gear upgrades. Maybe an occasional green, an even more rare blue. Maybe grind to the next dungeon level and do a couple runs for gear. Then go back to the grind, repeat.
Income, yes. Gear, not usually.
Depending on your class, it might be best to grind mobs you can cook, as well.
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Grinding is great I treat quests as pointers to where I can grind.
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I do that all time usually i start with 1-2 hours of GRIND then 1-2 hours of questing.
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I have been, and will continue to grind from 1-60. (I did Rogue quests only)
Pick up skinning, the income is great and you can buy any gear that doesn’t drop for you. I bought a BoE epic weapon to use when I hit 40 and I’ll have more than enough to get my mount and training. Just buy a new weapon every 5 levels or so and you’ll be fine.
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Given the drop rates, you don’t have much of a choice but to grind.
I was thinking about picking up skinning and grinding on mobs I can skin to help out with income. I’d spam dungeons too for gear, so that’d help. I honeslty just can’t be bothered to quest anymore. I still remember them well back when I ran and reran the same quests before cataclysm to level up multiple characters. I do them on my main, but my PvP alt, no thanks
Some classes are efficient at grinding, some are not.
Mage, Hunter, warlock are the kings of grinding. Mages can AOE grind, while hunters and warlocks can just go forever without having to eat or drink once.
Druid: They are decent at grinding, but slower to kill than the others. Druids are another class that never have to eat or drink. Cast your dot and faeri fire (sp?) and shapeshift. Mana regents while you fight in bear or cat form. Druids benefit a lot from questing though, due to imp cat form and travel form, plus prowl. Many quests can be completed quickly.
Priest: With a wand, priests are super efficient, but slow going. They can grind, but are better off questing.
Everyone else has has too much downtime, or kill way too slowly. Some might argue that shamans can kill fast, but like paladins they’ll suffer mana problems if they speed along.
Yes, mob grinding was a pretty standard thing for MMO’s during that golden age. SWG, DAoC, WoW, etc. It was probably the most viable in Vanilla and TBC.
Income and experience per hour, yes. Can be worth it. Gearing? No. God no. You’ll basically be using your income to buy gear.
Considering a quest turn in is about 3k xp, and kills are about 100xp…it takes about 6 pulls to make up for a quest turn in as a mage. That’s probably worth it imo given how long some traveling for quests can take.
People worried about gear while leveling…lol. gear has such a small effect you will be just fine. I haven’t spent a copper at the AH on gear.
People who get bent over leveling gear just crack me up. Absolute scrubs.
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I get more exp grinding mob solo than I do running instances… But then I have no downtime either…
DAOC was my first MMO, SWG my second, and CoH my 3rd. Mob grinding in groups is what I did for years until maybe WoTLK was announced and got me to finely get into WoW. I tried Vanilla WoW in 2005; I was 25 at the time, and wasn’t having it. The solo quest grind experience was foreign to me and not fun. Over time the quest design grew on me as more modern MMORPG’s perfected story telling and I got older and less patient waiting for groups to form.
Back in 04-05’ Mob grinding was sworn to be the fastest way to get to 60. Then Questing came along as someone took the time and calculated a specific route. This time around, the Meta is to Aoe grind dungs which give the most Exp/Hr.
But to answer your question. Yes Mob grinding is a thing, but not be the fastest but its doable.
I’ll be 60 in a few hours and I have grinded most levels. My gear is terrible apart from a few pieces like the shadowcraft gloves and belt. But I also have 960g and can get the epic mount straight away.
But that’s just how I like to play it.
Edit: XpCounter addons says 16,866 kills at the moment.
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I am a skinner/leatherworker so I both quest and grind to keep from having to buy mats off the AH. I’ll often do it to finish off the last few bars of a level. Works well, but then I happen to love grinding. I find it it relaxing.
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Honestly, I feel you already are grinding.
It didn’t take me very long to realize that most quests are “fake” - they are just poor excuses to make you go grind something for a while. People complain about low drop rates, but that’s done on purpose to keep you grinding.
It’s true it’s easier to get gear from quests and dungeons, so that’s a good reason to do them, what even in dungeons - it’s grind grind grind
1-60 is just one long grind and the more you play like that, the faster it will go. That’s why a good piece of advice is to kill everything while going to the quest destination and back. The travel time is long because you should be killing things along the way, finding nodes, rather than just walking down the road.
PREACH has a really great video about this, totally changed how I was levelling, and things are going much faster now.
Well yeah. That’s not a secret. That was literally vanilla quest design, but it was a huge improvement over Everquest’s leveling, which was simply grinding with no stories or ideas behind them.
and I seriously can’t imagine doing that - having never done it. I’m impressed how having it connected to a quest makes it psychologically more rewarding.
But if I think about it rationally, the ilussion breaks down.
Like, if the quest says kill 15 kobolds, I happily kill 15, but a 16th? oh no, forget it, not part of the quest! LOL In reality, it’s all the same thing.
So now, I keep killing them on the way back and that’s been working well.