Allied Races and post 7.3.5 leveling

[bbj]

Hi guys,

I'll be short and specific - with allied races and heritage armors, we are most likely (totally optional) to level +5 times from low level to max in order to unlock race specific heritage armors.

So post 7.3.5 leveling and zones have been scaled, i have read quite different stories from number of people saying - dungeons are worthless now; farm Kara raid trash (not bosses) etc.

I, personally, think along with some other community members would like to hear and know the best leveling methods, tricks nowadays.

Like in example: 1/20 to 60 - Kalimdor or Eastern Kingdom (which zones...) 60 to 80 which continent and zones... etc. Please share your experience and lets build repository of knowledge for new members.

Thanks

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

The leveling changes were made to create a more cohesive enjoyable experience. If you need tips to skip that, then don't level. The heritage armor is just transmog and its only available for the race you play.

Realistically after the dungeon buffs I would say they are again a very lucrative way of leveling. They take much longer now though, so if you wipe a bunch in them then you are really losing time. Try leveling something that can have a heavy impact on the dungeon like a tank or healer to make sure this doesn't happen and to push the pace as much as you can.
All you are after is the completion bonus.

Outside that, quest ahead whenever you can. It seems even though the zones scale up, the more modern zones in each bracket just give higher EXP per hour thanks to density. From 60-80 only do Wrath. From 80-90 only do Pandaria.
For pandaria I've seen 7 levels gotten out of Jade Forest alone. Very efficient.
For WoD do as few zones as possible. Try to get all 10 in the intro zone and then goregrond. People did it before this patch, so it should be even easier now.
After that, do invasions whenever they are up. You can choose to level exclusively through them if you wish. Just monitor the timers and log on. They should give a full level if not more with heirlooms.

[Deleted]

Dungeons are certainly not worthless. They buffed them. They give almost half a level of experience.

Up to 60 is fine. 60-90 is a chore with all sorts of bugs and badly designed quests. 90+ is alright.

Level cap needs nerfing. No one wants to experience that 60-90 part anymore and Blizzard shouldnt be forcing people into a sub-par experience.

[Speaknoevil]

Leveling is so heinous because you have like 5 buttons until max level.

It is seriously so bad, get some friends, get drunk as fuck first, then try to do it while you watch movies.

[Polarthief]

I've leveled a VElf to max and I have an LFD at 65. It's bad. It's really, REALLY fucking bad. You barely have any of your vital buttons for most of the trip (the reason being to "learn your rotation" which is bullshit because a good 40% of your abilities, procs, and other shit comes from your Artifact), the leveling is so slow with 55% (MAX) Heirlooms. It's painfully slow until you get to ~72/73 when you can start soloing BC Heroics. If you have WoD flying, that section also speeds right by (it's been unchanged from pre-7.3, you can knock out the treasures in a few hours), and Invasions make Legion leveling a breeze if you don't mind waiting. The bulk of the leveling is just downright awful though. It needs a huge overhaul.

TL;DR: The level scaling is great, but nerfing Heirloom stats, making mobs have like 10x as much HP and nerfing experience everywhere just ruined it all.

Dungeons are certainly not worthless. They buffed them. They give almost half a level of experience.

Up to 60 is fine. 60-90 is a chore with all sorts of bugs and badly designed quests. 90+ is alright.

Level cap needs nerfing. No one wants to experience that 60-90 part anymore and Blizzard shouldnt be forcing people into a sub-par experience.

Definitely agree with needing the level cap nerfing, but in regards to when the easiest time is, I'd say 20~50 wasn't too bad while everything past that was awful. 50~72 is awful, but once you can solo BC Heroics, it's pretty good, then it gets bad again around 76 until 82, then from there it's okay.

A lot of the late Vanilla dungeons are overtuned to hell (ESPECIALLY the Dire Maul wing with Ogres in it).

PS: MMO-C, fix your shit with the double-quote bullshit.

[Zoibert the Bear]

I have already leveled 3 of the 4 allied races to 110 and it was a genuinely entertaining experience. Those complaining about difficulty don't actually like the core aspect of leveling at all.

Screams Wrath-babyness all over the place to be honest. The changes are awesome.

[soulcrusher]

Pvp levelling seems pretty fast now.

[Aeula]

Blizzard nerfed most of the faster routs.

Argus Legion invasions used to give about the same exp per hour as leveling without you having to actually do anything, so you could level on one monitor while doing something actually interesting on another. I got to 110 on a Lightforged this way.

There was also the option of being boosted by a friend, but Blizzard nerfed that too. I’m not sure how viable it is now.

So basically just go wherever you want, avoid larger zones where you have to travel a lot. Level 10-60 zones are your best bet. Especially areas like westfall and redridge which are designed for no mount players.

Overall leveling is a considerably worse experience bar being able to choose where to level for the first 60 levels. 60-80 is where the pain really kicks in due to Outland and Northrend being so old and outdated.

Oh can we please understand that leveling is NOT difficult. It’s just tedious as fuck.

[Silver Forte]

Heritage armor doesnt give any leveling bonus.

where did you read that he said it does?

Anyone who says leveling til 70+ is slow is insane. I got a priest to mid 50s in like three days and I wasn't playing like crazy, only skipping any quests that had me trekking halfway across the map and moving on. Also didn't really do dungeons. Yeah, finishing a dungeon gives decent experience but because the mobs have more health (and dungeon bosses have a lot of it) it takes longer to clear a dungeon. It's not really any better than before. I just quested, turned them in when I had clusters completed and moved on. It's the 60+ area that sucks. Everything takes even longer to kill than before that point and you're not really being rewarded adequately for your time and effort spent questing.

[Tyrathius]

I'd forgotten how horrible WotLK questing was. Did Borean Tundra and about half a Dragonblight and I can barely stand it anymore. Am currently 74 so probably gotta do at least one more zone after I finish Dragonblight. I'm sure Outland is even worse.

50~72 is awful, but once you can solo BC Heroics, it's pretty good

Is this a thing? I'm gonna go try it.

[Deleted]

Leveling is so heinous because you have like 5 buttons until max level.

It is seriously so bad, get some friends, get drunk as fuck first, then try to do it while you watch movies.

Yup this is really annoying.

I recently levelled my Void Elf and got the heritage armour on a monk, you basically use the same abilities from level 20-100...then in the last 10 levels you suddenly get 2 of the best, most fun abilities (strike of the windlord, rising dragon punch) for the class it’s ridiculous.

[snaek]

I have already leveled 3 of the 4 allied races to 110 and it was a genuinely entertaining experience. Those complaining about difficulty don't actually like the core aspect of leveling at all.

Screams Wrath-babyness all over the place to be honest. The changes are awesome.

No, I've always loved leveling new alts. Some classes are just horrendous to level up now. Shaman being one. I had a fun experience leveling my void elf priest to 110; it was relatively quick, and I did it mostly through questing, only peppered with some dungeon healing (when I could fathom it, because holy shit did they increase the tediousness in leveling dungeons). I could aoe things down quickly as shadow, or I could go easymode as discipline/holy and still do good DPS.

On my shaman, however, I can hardly pull two mobs at once without having to stop to heal a few times afterwards, AoE damage is barely there, my dungeon DPS is hardly keeping up with the healer (if they're DPSing while healing), and it is just slow as hell to level. Not to mention a good portion of my time (as enhancement) is just waiting for stuff to come off cooldown.

I've made it to 65 and am tired of it already, and I've always loved the shaman class. That being said, shaman has always been tedious to level.

I dare not imagine how people without heirlooms do it. Must be quite boring.

[Niwes]

hmm. somewhat i dont no longer care about that. let me explain:

i like transmogs. i am a completionist. but i said to myself, when i see that obvious „keep customers busy by doing shit so they dont quit subs“ heritage blizzard shit: „there will be x allied races. when i even start collecting that heritage shit, i must do it for all coming allied races too, as a completionist.“ and at this point i was sure about the solution: dont even start with it.

so, if i ever want an allied race, i rather pay them the race change service costs, and piss on heritage armor, instead having another 10 (or whatever the count of allied races will be in a year) useless high level toons, just for transmogs. that fukin slow endless leveling? 5-10 times? just for the sake of tmog completionist? fuck that, blizz. no. fukin. way.

and, as a side note, it is obvious to me, that they did that, so that many ppl could try and test their new leveling in the field. heritage is just the bait for making the playerbase to be their software testers. and i will not support that. not a major reason for me, but the overall package smells disgusting to me.

[therealbowser]

Heritage armor doesnt give any leveling bonus.

Uh... what? Why would you even assume that?

On topic, it's really not as complicated as you might thing. For the 20-60 experience, it's just a matter of playing any zone you like. With a few exceptions, they are all totally viable and I would recommend covering zones you need for achievements/loremaster. There are some special exceptions -- people claim that the 10-20 zones are designed for players without mounts and are faster for those that do. I believe this to be true. Likewise, there are a couple zones to avoid -- specifically, Arathi Highlands and Silithus, as neither were updated Cataclysm. Duskwallow Marsh has an unusually high amount of running around too compared to typical Cataclysm renovations, as well. There may be others, but I doubt they are significant.

For 60-80, TBH, TBC should be avoided. The quests are too spread out and you'll be doing a lot of running around. That said, again.. if you need loremaster you may as well clear out any zones you still need. Why not, right? WotLK will provide the better experience overall, however. So if you don't need/don't care about loremaster, just hit that area up instead. I'd avoid some of the later zones until you have epic flying (IE Storm Peaks), but otherwise, it's a great continent to level in and by far has the better stories.

80-90 is totally up to you. IMO, both Cataclysm and MoP have equally effective leveling. It's just a question of which you prefer playing. I will however add that you should avoid doing Cataclysm dungeons, they tend to be highly overtuned.

Then we fall into Draenor. Well... Draenor is broken as shit. I don't know how to appropriately deal with Draenor yet, but there are supposedly tricks to leveling faster here. I'll defer to someone else's wisdom... and in fact, would request some tips myself for this area.

Dungeon leveling, by the way, is totally viable now, especially if you have a group that can do efficient pulls and not go afk for between every group. If you wish, you can try specific queuing and hitting each dungeon independently for quests. Again, though, I suggest you avoid Cataclysm dungeons, and some of the quests for these dungeons are locked behind quest chains anyways.

I don't know of any super special tips for leveling through this content beyond this. I'm curious where this thread will lead however as I am learning a bit myself, here.

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Level cap needs nerfing. No one wants to experience that 60-90 part anymore and Blizzard shouldnt be forcing people into a sub-par experience.

This wouldn't solve all of the problems, but TBH, I'd be entirely okay with this.

- - - Updated - - -

I have already leveled 3 of the 4 allied races to 110 and it was a genuinely entertaining experience. Those complaining about difficulty don't actually like the core aspect of leveling at all.

Screams Wrath-babyness all over the place to be honest. The changes are awesome.

lol

It never ceases to amaze me how many people confuse 'difficulty' with 'tediousness'.

[Deleted]

Uh... what? Why would you even assume that?

On topic, it's really not as complicated as you might thing. For the 20-60 experience, it's just a matter of playing any zone you like. With a few exceptions, they are all totally viable and I would recommend covering zones you need for achievements/loremaster. There are some special exceptions -- people claim that the 10-20 zones are designed for players without mounts and are faster for those that do. I believe this to be true. Likewise, there are a couple zones to avoid -- specifically, Arathi Highlands and Silithus, as neither were updated Cataclysm. Duskwallow Marsh has an unusually high amount of running around too compared to typical Cataclysm renovations, as well. There may be others, but I doubt they are significant.

For 60-80, TBH, TBC should be avoided. The quests are too spread out and you'll be doing a lot of running around. That said, again.. if you need loremaster you may as well clear out any zones you still need. Why not, right? WotLK will provide the better experience overall, however. So if you don't need/don't care about loremaster, just hit that area up instead. I'd avoid some of the later zones until you have epic flying (IE Storm Peaks), but otherwise, it's a great continent to level in and by far has the better stories.

80-90 is totally up to you. IMO, both Cataclysm and MoP have equally effective leveling. It's just a question of which you prefer playing. I will however add that you should avoid doing Cataclysm dungeons, they tend to be highly overtuned.

Then we fall into Draenor. Well... Draenor is broken as shit. I don't know how to appropriately deal with Draenor yet, but there are supposedly tricks to leveling faster here. I'll defer to someone else's wisdom... and in fact, would request some tips myself for this area.

Dungeon leveling, by the way, is totally viable now, especially if you have a group that can do efficient pulls and not go afk for between every group. If you wish, you can try specific queuing and hitting each dungeon independently for quests. Again, though, I suggest you avoid Cataclysm dungeons, and some of the quests for these dungeons are locked behind quest chains anyways.

I don't know of any super special tips for leveling through this content beyond this. I'm curious where this thread will lead however as I am learning a bit myself, here.

Best way of dealing with WoD comes down to treasures and bonus objectives. I moved on to Gogrond as soon as I could, and got to the tail end of 95 just by doing the bonus objectives and grabbing treasures. If you have Draenor flying it's even better.

Dungeon levelling is fine. It's actually a really good chunk of XP nowerdays. The problem comes more down to players. Because we've fallen into the trap of being quite lazy with dungeoning, and used to everything being easy, as soon as we run into difficulty some players just throw up their hands and say "Nope". Or the Tanks act stupid and pull everything. Or the healers forget going OoM is a very real danger. So DPS queue times run from 20 minutes - 1 hour 40 minutes because no one wants to put the time in.

Also, best way of dealing with level 73-80 is going to solo BC Heroics. I'm talking 60% of a level good.

[Deleted]

I had a couple of alts around level 85 that I had to level up, and the best way I've found from 90 to 100 was to do a few quests in the starting zone (just to get a functioning garrison) and then go get all the draenor treasures in all the zones. If you don't get to 100 this way (you probably won't), then start doing the bonus objectives of the various zones. Usually starting zone + Gorgrond should get you finished.
Be warned, I've found the draenor mobs to be kinda overtuned, even with heirlooms.

[Zka]

50~72 is awful, but once you can solo BC Heroics, it's pretty good,

I just logged in with my 70 mage and tried blood furnace hc. The first mob hits for 50% of my health. Definitely not even near soloable for most classes. Not sure what would happen at 72 which would trivialize it. Care to share some info?

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Also, best way of dealing with level 73-80 is going to solo BC Heroics. I'm talking 60% of a level good.

Question also applies to you. Why 72-73? What happens at that level range? They are definitely unsoloable at 70.

[Pachycrocuta]

For me, getting through the atrocious garbage that is the Cataclysm 1-60 "experience" is what I find to be the most difficult in leveling a new/allied race character. It can be tough to force myself to do it. Especially once you get to level 30-ish.

[snaek]

I just logged in with my 70 mage and tried blood furnace hc. The first mob hits for 50% of my health. Definitely not even near soloable for most classes. Not sure what would happen at 72 which would trivialize it. Care to share some info?

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Question also applies to you. Why 72-73? What happens at that level range? They are definitely unsoloable at 70.

The mechanic that makes previous content trivial kicks in. You do much more damage and (I believe) they hit you for much less. They introduced it with the first item squish to make sure people could still solo old content, if I remember correctly.

[Zka]

The mechanic that makes previous content trivial kicks in. You do much more damage and (I believe) they hit you for much less. They introduced it with the first item squish to make sure people could still solo old content, if I remember correctly.

Thanks a lot. I suspected that to be honest.