A little bit to preface - I’ve leveled a couple of characters to 80 now, one being a DK, so it doesn’t exactly count.
I don’t mind, almost enjoy the 58-68 levelling, and even don’t hate the 68-80 grind in northrend. However, there is just something about the grind that makes it hard to even keep questing/levelling. No, this isn’t an RDF post, of course that would help, but it just seems that the zones are so spread out and you have to keep changing zones so frequently.
I’ve currently got a hunter at 31, a pally at 30, and a priest at 15… Tips for making it past the level 30 areas without hating everything? what zones should I be focused on?
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Make sure to hit the grind at Thousand Needles, but don’t forget Dustwallow Marsh. You will get ten solid levels in that zone on Horde side. It is not to be missed. Do every quest. Seriously, it’s the best mid-level zone push we’ve got.
Stonetalon is an excellent questing zone, as well, and a lot of people skip it. If you’re sick of Ashenvale at those levels, hit Stonetalon instead.
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I couldn’t give any Horde advice as I play Alliance, but of course, heirloom gear is a must if you’re trying to cut the grind short. And BE SURE YOU STACK RESTED EXPERIENCE! That’s a big one. The higher level you go, the more important it is for you to spend as much of your downtime as possible in inns or capital cities.
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my tip, go to a zone and look for others in the zone doing the quests and see if you can group with them. I got 2 levels fast knocking out quests with people doing the same ones best part is, you dont need a tank or a healer for those quests. Sure beats trying to solo them (but you can solo quests - its boring and takes more time).
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For making leveling a hunter more fun i would recommend not fighting 1 mob at a time.
Have pet fight 1, put a serpent sting on it (mend pet if it gets low or mob hits hard) then kill another mob by kiting it. Conclusive shot, wing clip, frost trap, disengage, and stutter stepping to get your auto attacks off. Its a much more engaged way of killing things on a hunter.
Personally i did this with multiple mobs, but experience is important. Ive been a hunter since actual vanilla and i push the class to the limits for fun. If that doesnt sound like fun to you you can also aoe farm with traps and such. From around lvl 28 once you get frost trap. Serpent sting the mobs and kite them around the frost trap, aspect of the cheetah and disengage to keep them in the slow and running in a circle. (Drop cheetah when about to get hit and then turn it back on when safe) explosive trap for more aoe damage (if you have the kite around frost trap down you can drop explosive into the group then disengage back to a kiteable position). Just dont forget to reapply frost trap and if you are doing this glyph of frost trap might be useful for you for this.
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Two of those classes are notorious for being horrible to level. Neither gets anywhere near fun imo until much later. Pally doesn’t even get CS until lvel 50 lol.
My recommendation focus on hunter and get Questie add on. Do qsts and zones you never did before- off the normal path. Hunter can handle anything even elites so who cares.
Other possibles- just run dungeons as prot or holy for pally/priest.
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Questing add-ons help, optimized leveling routes shorten the pain but do nothing to reduce the intensity of it. The real problem is, it isn’t fun to play an MMO alone.
As the expansions progress, the player population moves further away from old world content. Addition of catch up mechanics like mounts at lvl 20 mean people level quicker and are in a zones for shorter times. The opportunity to play with other players shrinks and the old world content does not get run.
It’s a tragedy and RFD would alleviate much of the pain of 1-58.
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I’m leveling a DK right now, I just hit 62 and I’m still in Hellfire. With the reduced XP compared to TBC, do you guys skip some of the Outland zones?
I’m assuming you have them but haven’t seen any discussion around them, but, heirlooms for 20% XP gain.
Currently have my hunter in Thousand needles at 31. Something I’ve noticed with the lower lvl zones is that they have a huge range to the levels for questing. Especially places like Arathi. I’ll keep pushing in thousand needles and move to dustwallow afterwards (assuming that’s the correct order, right?) I pretty much strictly play horde, I’ve never levelled alliance.
Definitely couldn’t agree more. The heirloom gear has helped a ton. And I try to stack the rested XP, as it helped my Dk blow the 70-80 levelling out of the water. I think my goal may be to let them get a full rested bar, and then burn through it and repeat.
I try this whenever possible, but not very often do I run into others in the lower-level zones. I do agree though, whenever possible it definitely helps!
I played a hunter back in original wotlk, was one of my main characters. Definitely some good advice for pushing through the levelling grind with a hunter. Definitely know the hunter will be the fastest of the 3 that i’ve got listed. I’m planned to level as BM, but not sure if that’s exactly necessary.
Yeah, pally I’ve got specced as prot and its just - cast judgement, aoe, auto, judgement. repeat. very boring lol. I do use questie, and it definitely helps.
I do agree with this, and would love it for low levels, but I don’t expect to see it anytime soon, if ever.
If you’re going to level them all, rotating rested exp would be a good place to start. Other than that, it’s just going to be about grinding it out. As someone else mentioned, paladin and priest aren’t the most fun classes to level. You just have to keep grinding. By the way, Horde leveling is way “smoother” than Alliance leveling IMO.
Started Hellfire on my DK at 58 a couple weeks ago, got to Zangar at 61, Terokkar at late 63/early 64, and did about half of Nagrand before hitting 68 and heading to Northrend.
For sure. From 30-35, you want Thousand Needles/Shimmering Flats. Start hitting up Dustwallow as soon as you’re over 35, and you’ll cycle back and forth a bit. I routinely do 30-58/60 in the 10K Needles/Duswallow/Gadget/Un’Goro/Silithus group. You might throw some Feralas in there if needed, but it should go well with you.
Makes sense. Might be just as easy to hammer the lower zones out even though we’re a bit too high level by the end.
Best way to make it bearable is finding a better game. I wouldn’t wish the 1- 58 grind on my worst enemy.
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Try questing in zones you haven’t done on previous characters. Going to those spread out zones that were too far away that you didn’t wanna travel to may be your saving grace. Even if you’ve don them before, it’s better to do Feralas for a second time than it is to do Tanaris for a 5th.
Bm is the best option in most cases for leveling. Only way another spec would be better is if you constantly have very good gear as leveling so full heirlooms, enchants, strong boe gear, exc. But even then its not much better than BM at that point. I leveled as MM/SV from 70-80, but i was in full sunwell gear for my hunter then, if i wasnt BM would have been the better option for leveling.
This is the build i would recommend for lvl 31 bm, that 3% hit helps a lot for leveling in the MM tree so definatly make sure to pick that up.
1: level with rested exp, the blue bar not the guide. With 3 leveling characters should get 1 rested level for each week.
2: get hierlooms
3: turn in cloth quests for cities
4: Do dungeon pre-quests if a group for the dungeon forms, cue for the dungeon while questing
5: at level 51 get the av quests and hope for a good av. You can again cue while questing in wpl,
There are videos of people doing 1-60 solo speed runs in vanilla in 2-3 days /played. Watch one of these videos and replicate what they’re doing. With Wrath talents and nerfs the leveling experience should be even easier now.
Yes you can do it in 72 hours of played and get real sweaty doing so. But it’s not fun. It’s a solo, isolating experience and this is a MMO game that should be FUN.
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