I haven’t played WOW in years. The character sheet says he is level 50 now. I thought he was higher level than that. I kind of miss playing my Hunter with all his pets. Where would I even begin if I came back?
Welcome back!
Yes, your Hunter was Level 120, 3 or 4 years ago at the end of Battle for Azeroth.
Blizzard thought the level numbers sounded too high, so they more or less cut them in half, in what they called the “level squish”. Same character, same stats, just renumbered the levels.
OK, so what’s the path if you come back?
At the same time they did the “level squish”, Blizzard also created “Chromie Time”. With Chromie Time, you can talk to Chromie and choose any expansion to level in from 10 to 60, even if you have already done that expansion.
Once you restart your subsctiption, you can choose The Burning Crusade, Wrath, or any other expansion to quest througb to get you from 50 to 60. That won’t take long, since each expansion now gives you enough experience to get you from 10 through 60, so 50-60 will be only a fifth or so of a regular levelling amount. And levelling has been vastly sped up. You could probably do that in a couple/few play sessions, if you were single minded about it.
After Battle for Azeroth came Shadowlands expansion, and then Dragonflight, which is the expansion we are in now.
You could choose Shadowlands for your Chromie Time expansion, to get from 50-60, and then buy Dragonflight in the Shop - or buy the next expansion The War Within, which includes Dragnflight for free https://eu.shop.battle.net/en-gb/family/world-of-warcraft#games - to level to the present from level 60 to 70.
Or, if you prefer, you could finish your levelling to 60 in some other previous expansion.
Dragonflight is more than half over. The final major patch is already out. The good news is that there is a whole lot of catch-up available so that when you hit 70 you can upgrade your gear very quickly and be in on the latest area, with all the content of the whole expansion available for you to do if you enjoy it.
Even before you restart your subscription, you can create new characters and play them up to Level 20 rght now for free to get the old feeling back,a dn with Chromie Time, that covers a lot. But you can’t level past 20 without a sub, and you can’t log your highet level character until you resub.
One of the bigger shocks is the new talent system. It’s a lot more involved than the one that’s been in use since Mists of Pandaria. If you just want to jump back in, on the bottom left corner of the talent window is a drop down menu where you can save talent presets. There’s a starter build option there that will be fine for leveling and let you start playing without digging into guides. (When you level, it even highlights where the new point on the starter build goes!)
I haven’t spent a whole lot of time on my hunter, but the time I’ve spent (MM and BM) doesn’t feel dramatically different from BfA.
I’ll add a few more things about Chromie Time and level scaling:
- Chromie is near the embassies in Stormwind and Orgrimmar, and is marked by an hourglass icon on the map.
- The official requirement to unlock Chromie Time on the account is a level 60 character, but it seems that people with max level characters from previous expansions have had it unlocked when they came back, even without the 60. So, if you talk to her on a level 59 or lower character and she doesn’t have the option to choose a timeline, it means it’s not unlocked. I’ve heard that making a trial character will satisfy the unlock requirements.
- Without Chromie Time, expansions will scale to their natural cap:
Vanilla, BC, Wrath: 30
Cata (the old level 80+ zones) and MoP: 35
WoD: 40
Legion: 45
BfA and Shadowlands: 60 - All non-Dragonflight expansion content can be started at level 10 except the high level Cataclysm zones, which require 30 (because you need flying.)
- Turning on Chromie Time for one expansion, turns on scaling to 60 for all of them. So, you can pick Wrath, but head over to Outland and quest to 60 if you want.
- Which expansion you pick has the following effects:
- It sets which dungeons you see in the dungeon finder. (The Vanilla dungeons are in the Cataclysm timeline.) With Chromie Time off, BfA dungeons are all that is available in the Dungeon Finder.
- It will give you a breadcrumb quest for the expansion. (You can also still pick these up from the Hero’s Call/Warchief’s Command board, but sometimes it can be a pain to dig the one you want out.)
- It will give some priority to that expansion’s breadcrumbs on the Hero’s Call/Warchief’s Command boards.
- Characters in Chromie Time are in a different phase from those that aren’t. (All the Chromie Time expansions use the same “phase” so you can quest with other Chromie Time players even if they have a different expansion set.)
- Only characters 59 and lower can access Chromie Time. Once a character in Chromie Time hits 60, they’ll get a one minute countdown and then be ported to Stormwind/Org and Chromie Time ends. (You can still go back and finish what you are working on, but it won’t scale.)
- You can talk to Chromie at any time at lveel 59 or lower to turn Chromie Time off or on, or swap expansions.
Thank you guys for the replies. I logged in and was put right in front of the Chromie Time and picked Shadowlands. It’s been different and fun.
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