Any advice on getting over burnout? I particularly notice in the 30-40s region. I got there on my mage aoe grinding and felt that that gameplay was getting really stale and boring, and in general didn’t like questing as a mage tbh. Got around there with a hunter but went horde side and I think I enjoy ally more. So, lol, now I’m leveling up a NE Druid and im really enjoying the gameplay so far. The “jack of all trades” idea i find really enjoyable and though I know druids are probably one of the worst classes at 60, im really enjoying it so far, definitely more than mage and hunter.
Soo my question becomes I’m a bit anxious to hit that wall again around the 30s-40s, as this is when the grinding levels parts really begins. Usually when I hit that wall I feel the need to start over. Maybe subconsciously I enjoy leveling more than endgame, but I would like to reach 60 at one point lol.
How did u guys get over burnout if you have experienced any? Is it simple as just taking a break? Or something you guys have found to help you get over it?
Genuine question that I’d love to hear different thoughts on 
Personally, I find if you really like your character, you won’t get burned out.
Don’t see getting to 60 as your goal, think of leveling as an adventure.
You want to complete your character, explore everything etc. Make sure you have the Questie addon btw. Atlasloot as well. It will show you what gear you can get from dungeons- use that as a motivator.
If questing gets stale and boring, do a dungeon with friends, or even with people from LFG chat. Maybe find a guild, or start a guild. Then do dungeons with guildies.
If dungeons and questing gets stale, do some battlegrounds. You’ll enjoy them, even as alliance in the lower levels. Good way to have fun, build on your honor ranking, and it still provides decent xp.
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I follow “guides” via guidelime add-on and find the efficiency of it to be fun. I’m close (56) to my third lvl 60 (no boosts) and just enjoy the progression. Yea the 30’s are tough but getting mount makes it worth it. So just keep the end goal in sight and push through. If you get tired flop back to one of your other toons and voila you have rested experience. Do battlegrounds when #7 to #9 to break it up.
You aren’t getting burned out, vanilla just kinda sucks when you’re leveling. Later on in TBC blizzard changed quests around some and made areas more linked together, instead of running out of quests and having to travel to the opposite side of the continent and then return to the same area 4 levels later to finish the red quests, each area was more like a progression. Also, in WOTLK in particular with dungeon finder you could actually do dungeons at a decent pace and it was doable to level solely by dungeons. In vanilla, the only way you’re going to do that is with boosts and that’s different. You’re going to reach certain level brackets where no one wants to do the dungeons, or it’s going to take you an hour or longer to find 5 people to do it, you’re better off litterally finding mobs your level somewhere and grinding them non stop than fooling around with dungeons. Hell, we don’t even have summoning stones, they are ‘‘meeting stones’’ lmao.
In short, you might feel burned out, but everyone usually gets to this point, and you kinda just have to grit your teeth and accept that grinding is tedious, and this version of WoW was unrefined, unlike in TBC and Wraith. Just take a break, maybe do like I do sometimes and leave yourself parked in a city, and level when rested. Takes longer to get to 60 but whatever.
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I appreciate all the replies guys.
I’m back to my mage @ 42 and so far enjoying it again. I think I just make the most of rested exp and break up aoe grinding and quests. Also getting my mount recently was really nice. Once I get to 44 I will try ZF grinding as I heard for mages its the best way to level
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Gonna go out on a limb and say this may be the issue.
Dude, perhaps do not level like that? Make friends, run dungeons as they were designed to run. You claim to be trying to avoid burnout, but by doing the most burnout-prone leveling tactics.
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Very fair point, I’m currently on Kurinaxx which has a semi-low alliance population (rather hardish to find groups) and don’t want to transfer just yet due to adding on top of already long queues on other servers
I try to break it up between aoe grinding and questing but especially in the 40s range aoe grinding is just vastly superior its hard to ignore.
Usually when i start feeling that burnout from aoe grinding I break it up with quests but sometimes I’m just so burnt out from the grinding that I just don’t wanna play. Ima try to do less of it and notice the burnout earlier
a couple of weeks in to quarantine i woke up and decided i needed to resub and play a feral druid. i loved every second of it.
mid 30s to mid 40s there were lulls in my leveling. STV was always there but only a couple quests at a time. some zones (SoS i’m looking at you) only had a couple of quests to offer, so it was a lot of running around for minimal gains.
the strategy i took to leveling this character was not to advance too quickly. i would get all or as many quests as i could for a dungeon and then do it once. even when new zones opened up i would wait until i was finished another zone to squeeze out an extra level or two, to make the most out of a hot new quest hub.
now that i’ve started raiding i’ve found there is very little in the way of gear for feral druids in raids. a lot of it is an amalgam of odd items from any which where, and/or a lot of pvp gear. so i’ll see you in alterac valley!
Getting stuck in the high 30s is pretty common, because most quest hubs in that range will only have 20-30% of a level worth of quests, so it’s either a ton of bouncing around, or running SM until your eyes bleed. Running SM a bunch in conventional groups is getting less common, because a lot of people skip over this level range by boosting through SM. If you truly think it’s the level range your stuck on and not something else, you could consider boosting through it and then questing in the low-mid 40s again.
It sounds like it’s more your play style that’s burning you out though. AoE grinding is grindy. I know it’s crazy to say that out loud, but other things you can do to break it up are professions or alts or PvP. I know a couple people that get tired of single characters so they never play them for more than a level or two at a time, and have 3-4 characters at 60 or close now.
I go through phases where I really feel like grinding. For example this mage went through all of 55 in a single play session just grinding furlbogs in Felwood. But level 54 was probably 15 hours /played because I ran around herbing and helping people spam arena and other nonsense. I always stay at 49 for a long time because I like that PvP bracket the best. Don’t worry about getting to 60. Just find things you like doing in the game.
Leveling & dungeon content is probably the best part of Vanilla/Classic WoW, & where it shines. Once you hit the endgame raiding scene you start to really see how broken/subpar most specs are & how horrible gear itemization is, with class tier sets aimed at only a single spec choice (& it isn’t even very good for that one spec mostly compared to piecemeal gear of random types).
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I usually farm and item or level a profession or something so I don’t feel like I’m simply grinding. For instance, kill mobs that drop cloth or something that you can sell for gold. It helps get some value out of the grind.
Part of it for me was: Don’t focus on 60 - that isn’t the end all be all. You can do professions/rep gains/pre-bis farming much earlier and go at your own pace.
It was hard for me to drop my retail mentality of hit max, get epics, do dailies. Once I did - way happier.
Some days instead of leveling I take pvp breaks or profession days
As Druid, you can tank or heal your way to 60. Easier to find / form groups. Dungeoning often offers some fresh moments. Maybe a bad pull or in the case of SM the challenge of getting out of Lib / Armory without respawns wiping the group, etc.
What I like to do, especially on my Hunter, is forget about exp and focus on secondary goals, let the exp come to me passively. I like to farm beasts all day to make gold and level up leatherworking, and run dungeons like maraudon for a chance at gear.
I find doing this, and not thinking about the exp grind is far more relaxing.
I appreciate all the responses, and will definitely be taking all suggestions into consideration!
I get characters to about level 20ish to 25ish and then decide I don’t want to play them anymore. I have a boat load of characters in that range.
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This is what I’m doing. I have several level 40ish toons where I got burned out, but I swap between them for rested xp, and break up things.
It will be forever, but it’s fun so whatever lol