What is the best leveling path right now?

[SirCowdog]

Queueing specific seems to be a poor idea right now, regardless of how quick the dungeons are. The brunt of experience in dungeons is from three things, bonus objectives, main objective (ie, killing all the main bosses) and the LFD bonus. I only did a brief testing of this, but this is my experience after the recent dungeon hotfix. Dungeon quests are basically = regular quests now, so there you aren't missing out much.

Oh, I completely agree for the most part. I've personally found that super-focused questing is almost always the faster option. However, with the initial quests and shorter dungeons, you can often match or exceed the exp/hour from normal questing. The point of queuing for specific dungeons, such as Ramparts, Utgard Keep, and Blood furnace is that they're all very short, with lots of trash. You can get REALLY good exp/h from them, even without the random queue bonus. And some people really like dungeons.

The only thing I can be certain of is that by queuing for random dungeons you're putting your leveling speed at risk. Some dungeons are absolutely horrible for exp/h. Diremaul is literally the worst.

I could start soloing Karazhan as a Rogue at 71 already, with Leeching Poison (didn't try it without but I imagine it wouldn't have gone well) and FoK-spamming as Assassination. Just mentioning as a Rogue since I imagine it being the worst class at it and I could still do it. The experience immediately drops off once you hit 80, I wouldn't recommend doing it. Questing and LFD-as-dps was much, much quicker. For me. And as you say, YMMV.

I also just leveled an assassination rogue. While I could kill things in Kara, I found that it was a matter of speed. Waiting until 73-74 made it much faster. But I guess you could go in earlier with fully enchanted gear, flasks, and food. Or if you're just a badass. ;D

Heroic Zul'Gurub is something I haven't tried, will have to. Thanks!

I was skeptical when I first heard about it. But once you learn the path it's pretty amazing experience/hour.

Someone in another thread said they solo'd Grim Batol at the same level range. I haven't tried it, but that place DOES have a lot of trash.

I doubt 'method zero' is going to break ToS since it has been known and used in smaller scales since Vanilla (I farmed weapons from Maraudon and SM et al with my higher levelled chars with it for instance), and although not endorsed by Blizzard, it was at least fine when it was more a forum thing than a widely-known by everyone thing.

It's a real grey area, for sure. Because you're technically not ever "playing" more than one character at a time, which means it doesn't violate the ToS. Ultimately if it becomes a real issue, the solution would simply be to run two accounts. It's not THAT expensive to do, and would actually be faster, probably.

[davesurfer]

20-58:

Loch Modan, Westfall, Redridge, Darkshore, and Bloodmyst Isle while queuing for Ragefire Chasm and Stockades.

58-73:

Northrend quests while queuing for Utgarde Keep, Ramparts, and Blood Furnace. TBC quests, despite seeming nostalgic, are literally twice as slow as Northrend.

74-81:

Set your dungeon difficulty to heroic and proceed to solo every TBC dungeon. Alternatively, Karazhan trash clears serve the same purpose.

81-82:

You could potentially continue doing Kara trash clears til 82, but you might be better off doing Serpentshrine trash clears instead.

82-84:

Set dungeon difficulty back to normal and solo ramparts. Some classes can start at 82, others at 83. YMMV

83-87:

Back to questing/queuing for dungeons. Pick Cata or MoP, whichever you're most familiar with. Speed will rely greatly on how focused you are. MoP has the advantage of treasures which can be grabbed along the way for a little boost. Personally I'd stick with questing, since the speed is based entirely on you, whereas a group is random, and you could suffer a lot of wasted time if you get a bad group.

88-90:

Heroic Zul'Gurub. You can clear all the trash(and I do mean ALL the trash, including the fish and gators in the water) for a LOT of experience. Kill the sub-bosses, but do not kill any main bosses. Again, you might struggle a bit right at 88. A lot depends on familiarity and persistence.

90-98:

Use the Timeless Isle portal to Gorgrond to skip the WoD intro scenario. Fly to your garrison and do the quests to set it up. Buy exp pots and start doing bonus objectives and treasures. Potentially buy a 630 weapon from the AH if it's available and not too expensive. This will be more powerful than your heirlooms. At level 96 go to Spires and set up the Inn for another 20% experience.

Note: Some people have expressed difficulty with WoD right at level 90 due to scaling and heirlooms not leveling up correctly. If this is a problem, grab some free gear from Timeless Isle, or simply wait to start WoD until 91.

98-102:

Go get your artifact weapon. Some classes will have an easier time passing the required quests. Go back to WoD and continue clearing treasures and bonus objectives on EZ mode because your weapon is OP.

100-110:

Quest, queue for dungeons. Again, go to whatever zone you're most familiar with. Flying will help immensely. Invasions are technically the fastest, if you can do them.


This has all been tested pretty extensively by many people. There are ways to cheese the leveling process using something called "Method zero", but it's questionable whether or not it's against the ToS. Google it and do it at your own risk, and I expect Blizzard to nerf it somehow soon.

Thanks for the effort

[SirCowdog]

Thanks for the effort

As I said, a lot of people were involved in this. I mostly took everything everyone said and verified/tested it.

Overall, depending on how focused you are, this should bring your total time /played somewhere between 30-40 hours to reach 110 instead of the 60-80 range.

A LOT depends on if you have flying unlocked, the flight path heirlooms, enchanted, fully upgraded heirloom armor and weapons, food, flasks/potions, and how well you know quest areas.

This path also makes no allowance for persuing professions.

[Katchii]

20-58:

98-102:

Go get your artifact weapon. Some classes will have an easier time passing the required quests. Go back to WoD and continue clearing treasures and bonus objectives on EZ mode because your weapon is OP.

100-110:

Quest, queue for dungeons. Again, go to whatever zone you're most familiar with. Flying will help immensely. Invasions are technically the fastest, if you can do them.


This has all been tested pretty extensively by many people. There are ways to cheese the leveling process using something called "Method zero", but it's questionable whether or not it's against the ToS. Google it and do it at your own risk, and I expect Blizzard to nerf it somehow soon.

The only thing I'd add here is that heirlooms don't scale correctly at level 100 compared to how mobs in Legion zones do. At level 90 the heirloom ilevel is 605, which is very low compared to what the mobs in Legion at 100 are scaled for. At 101 they jump to 695, which is great, so do yourself a favor and don't head into Legion zones until 101 if you're going to be using heirlooms.

[SirCowdog]

The only thing I'd add here is that heirlooms don't scale correctly at level 100 compared to how mobs in Legion zones do. At level 90 the heirloom ilevel is 605, which is very low compared to what the mobs in Legion at 100 are scaled for. At 101 they jump to 695, which is great, so do yourself a favor and don't head into Legion zones until 101 if you're going to be using heirlooms.

I've heard a few people mention this, although I didn't personally notice much difference. The only time I had any real trouble was going to get the frost artifact as a DK at 98.

But yeah, you can always go back to WoD and clean up the rest of the treasures, even going into Tanaan, until 101-102. I think it might actually even be a bit faster, assuming you have flying.

[Katchii]

I've heard a few people mention this, although I didn't personally notice much difference. The only time I had any real trouble was going to get the frost artifact as a DK at 98.

But yeah, you can always go back to WoD and clean up the rest of the treasures, even going into Tanaan, until 101-102. I think it might actually even be a bit faster, assuming you have flying.

I remember trying to level my Shaman and Rogue in Azsuna at 100 and it was a nightmare. Couldn't pull more than 1 MAYBE 2 mobs without dying. My damage was fine, it was how much damage I was taking and having no heals potent enough to out heal the damage and focus back on the mobs.

The Frost DK artifact quest is pretty difficult IMO compared to some of the others, but getting it at 98 is still better than trying at 100 with badly scaled heirlooms. WoD is much faster with flying to get from 98-101, especially with an OP artifact weapon, than fighting through Legion zones at 100.

It's not THAT hard, but why do something hard when a faster, easier, smoother route is available?

[Sluimerstand]

I'm not 100% sure about this, but I think they altered the scaling in the starting zones to stop at level 20. I haven't tested this or read about it explicitly, but when hovering over the zones in-game they show 1-20 while all other zones show X-60.

Basically, the quickest zones to level in are the 1-20 zones because they are designed to do mountless, then the 20-40 zones because they are designed to do with a 60% mount, and then the 40-60 zones because they're designed to do with a 100% mount. As far as levelling in general goes, a mix of questing, constant queueing for dungeons and treasure gathering from MoP onward should work quite nicely. (Source)

I personally don't queue randomly, but make sure I don't do a dungeon more than once because the one-time quests give a buttload of XP, so only running unique dungeons is definitely the best way to go. Though obviously I don't know how badly that method affects queue times and therefore XP/hour. And as said in the thread before, (XP) Heirlooms + enchants definitely help.

Edit: Oh, and run Legion invasions from 98 onward. Buttloads of XP.

[BicycleMafioso]

I'm not 100% sure about this, but I think they altered the scaling in the starting zones to stop at level 20. I haven't tested this or read about it explicitly, but when hovering over the zones in-game they show 1-20 while all other zones show X-60.

Basically, the quickest zones to level in are the 1-20 zones because they are designed to do mountless, then the 20-40 zones because they are designed to do with a 60% mount, and then the 40-60 zones because they're designed to do with a 100% mount. As far as levelling in general goes, a mix of questing, constant queueing for dungeons and treasure gathering from MoP onward should work quite nicely. (Source)

I personally don't queue randomly, but make sure I don't do a dungeon more than once because the one-time quests give a buttload of XP, so only running unique dungeons is definitely the best way to go. Though obviously I don't know how badly that method affects queue times and therefore XP/hour. And as said in the thread before, (XP) Heirlooms + enchants definitely help.

Edit: Oh, and run Legion invasions from 98 onward. Buttloads of XP.

The 1-10 zones are now 1-20 zones, whereas the 10-15 zones are 10-60 zones.

The "buttload" of exp from dungeon quests is not true after the recent hotfix (the same where they nerfed getting boosted through them), they are just on par with general quests now. I've leveled several characters to 55+ since the hotfix and have not once had a dungeon repeat anyway, only queueing random. Instead, the oomph of the exp is moved to a) completing main objectives b) completing bonus objectives objectives c) LFD bonus. It's still very efficient to do dungeons, but it's shifted around so that it won't be as beneficial to be boosted anymore (exp reduced with 110 in group and no LFD bonus possible).

[blackblade]

The 1-10 zones are now 1-20 zones, whereas the 10-15 zones are 10-60 zones.

The "buttload" of exp from dungeon quests is not true after the recent hotfix (the same where they nerfed getting boosted through them), they are just on par with general quests now. I've leveled several characters to 55+ since the hotfix and have not once had a dungeon repeat anyway, only queueing random. Instead, the oomph of the exp is moved to a) completing main objectives b) completing bonus objectives objectives c) LFD bonus. It's still very efficient to do dungeons, but it's shifted around so that it won't be as beneficial to be boosted anymore (exp reduced with 110 in group and no LFD bonus possible).

Seconding this. Quests in dungeons (at least in 1-60, I haven't tested anything in TBC/WLK yet) are identical in xp rewards to quests in the overworld. Some dungeons with an abundance of easy quests (like deadmines, has a quest for each boss, 5 bosses) might be worth solo queuing, but the ones with 2-3 quests are definately not given that the Random dungeon bonus is 4-5 quests worth of XP by itself.

[frogger237]

Anyone try lvling from pet battles?

At 84 I get a little over 13k rested exp for a pet battle in the Jade Forrest, 1,200 per kill, and 18k per quest.

[kramjam]

on my void elf i went

20-60
westfall, redridge, arthi highlands, duskwood, burning stepps, searing gorge, stv

60-70
howling fjord, grizzle hills, zul'drak

70-80
nagrand, shadowmoon valley, netherstorm

80-90
jade forest, twlight highlands

90-100
bonus quest they give insane about of exp

hope this helps the 20-60 was kinda the scenic route for me but after 60 i really flew to 100 was really surprised

[SirCowdog]

on my void elf i went

20-60
westfall, redridge, arthi highlands, duskwood, burning stepps, searing gorge, stv

60-70
howling fjord, grizzle hills, zul'drak

70-80
nagrand, shadowmoon valley, netherstorm

80-90
jade forest, twlight highlands

90-100
bonus quest they give insane about of exp

hope this helps the 20-60 was kinda the scenic route for me but after 60 i really flew to 100 was really surprised

Total time /played?

I ask mainly because I REALLY felt like I was going super fast in TBC until I actually looked at the amount of time it really took. Time flies when you're having fun, and you don't notice the hours pile up when you're enjoying nostalgia like I was.

[Teri]

Anyone try lvling from pet battles?

At 84 I get a little over 13k rested exp for a pet battle in the Jade Forrest, 1,200 per kill, and 18k per quest.

I did,
12-16k xp at 85 in Twilight Highlands. XP is higher if you use appropriate or lower level pets then the enemy.


At low levels ( <30 , it's not really great as it's much less XP in the earlier zones, but at 40 you can go to places like Winterspring with much higher level pets.

I have not tried risking myself on a low <60 character in a much higher zone however.

I am not 100% sure if zone level and player level matter, your team vs their team seems to matter the most.

[UnknownSoldier]

Then you hit 70 and go do Karazhan (the raid) trash farming without killing bosses, out and reset and go in again. 40 minutes from 70 to 80..

I'll have to remember when I come back and try out the new leveling. I don't mind Northrend leveling, but if possible I'd love to avoid ever touching TBC again.

[Wildpantz]

My voidelf duskwood >darkshore >tanaris dimg 60 dungeons done 1 time per dungeon for quest. 60-70 borean tundra zuldrak. 70-80 karazhan trash grind takes 2 hours max. 80-90 jade forest > sha of anger zone. Wod fly around loot treasure takes 5 hours 90-100

[kramjam]

Total time /played?

I ask mainly because I REALLY felt like I was going super fast in TBC until I actually looked at the amount of time it really took. Time flies when you're having fun, and you don't notice the hours pile up when you're enjoying nostalgia like I was.

once i hit 110 my time played was 2 days 15 hours. Im not sure how much of that was in the 20-60 part as that was when i really took my time and just explored

[BicycleMafioso]

Total time /played?

I ask mainly because I REALLY felt like I was going super fast in TBC until I actually looked at the amount of time it really took. Time flies when you're having fun, and you don't notice the hours pile up when you're enjoying nostalgia like I was.

Although I was not the one asked.
My Warlock is just before that stretch at 9 hours 26, level 57 (orc so not allied race at 20)
My Rogue just got done with Karazhan so has just hit 80, at 14 hours and.. 16min? Undead, so all the way from 1. Forget to bring that screenshot, can do tomorrow morning.

[Zoldor]

As I said, a lot of people were involved in this. I mostly took everything everyone said and verified/tested it.

Overall, depending on how focused you are, this should bring your total time /played somewhere between 30-40 hours to reach 110 instead of the 60-80 range.

A LOT depends on if you have flying unlocked, the flight path heirlooms, enchanted, fully upgraded heirloom armor and weapons, food, flasks/potions, and how well you know quest areas.

This path also makes no allowance for persuing professions.

I thought they broke Method Zero? Could be wrong I was working Overtime when it was available after the squish, but I swore I remember a blue post saying they wrecked exp if a higher level toon and a low level toon are in the same dungeon. Maybe since you aren't logged in together it doesn't, but I might be wrong.

[SirCowdog]

My voidelf duskwood >darkshore >tanaris dimg 60 dungeons done 1 time per dungeon for quest. 60-70 borean tundra zuldrak. 70-80 karazhan trash grind takes 2 hours max. 80-90 jade forest > sha of anger zone. Wod fly around loot treasure takes 5 hours 90-100

I've seen several people mention Kara trash right at 70. How viable is this? It seems like the raid mobs hitpoints and damage would overwhelm you at 70, and you'd need a couple levels more to overpower them.

- - - Updated - - -

Although I was not the one asked.
My Warlock is just before that stretch at 9 hours 26, level 57 (orc so not allied race at 20)
My Rogue just got done with Karazhan so has just hit 80, at 14 hours and.. 16min? Undead, so all the way from 1. Forget to bring that screenshot, can do tomorrow morning.

Wait...you got to level 57 in 9 1/2 hours? Was this without using exp pots? Because that's beating my Method-0 passive leveling by like 5 hours(14h 27m to level 58).

Granted this was a panda, so I was stuck on that stupid turtle starting experience with no mount. But that's not going to account for 5 hours. I hadn't tried random queue dungeons since the buff, so maybe it really IS just that good now.

- - - Updated - - -

I thought they broke Method Zero? Could be wrong I was working Overtime when it was available after the squish, but I swore I remember a blue post saying they wrecked exp if a higher level toon and a low level toon are in the same dungeon. Maybe since you aren't logged in together it doesn't, but I might be wrong.

They did nerf the amount of experience you get with a higher level character in the dungeon. But they didn't remove it entirely. At level 20 you'll be getting around 33% of a level per run of Stockades. That slowly lessens until around level 58 where you'll only be getting about 14% of a level per run. But keep in mind that each stockades run only takes about 2-3 minutes. Compared to quest exp, that's still insanely good.

Then at 58 you can start doing ramparts, which is about 4-5 minutes per run, but once against gives ~30% of a level. That also slowly drops to something like 15-20% of a level by 74(where I started running heroics and Kara trash).

[Wildpantz]

I've seen several people mention Kara trash right at 70. How viable is this? It seems like the raid mobs hitpoints and damage would overwhelm you at 70, and you'd need a couple levels more to overpower them.

- - - Updated - - -



Wait...you got to level 57 in 9 1/2 hours? Was this without using exp pots? Because that's beating my Method-0 passive leveling by like 5 hours(14h 27m to level 58).

Granted this was a panda, so I was stuck on that stupid turtle starting experience with no mount. But that's not going to account for 5 hours. I hadn't tried random queue dungeons since the buff, so maybe it really IS just that good now.

- - - Updated - - -



They did nerf the amount of experience you get with a higher level character in the dungeon. But they didn't remove it entirely. At level 20 you'll be getting around 33% of a level per run of Stockades. That slowly lessens until around level 58 where you'll only be getting about 14% of a level per run. But keep in mind that each stockades run only takes about 2-3 minutes. Compared to quest exp, that's still insanely good.

Then at 58 you can start doing ramparts, which is about 4-5 minutes per run, but once against gives ~30% of a level. That also slowly drops to something like 15-20% of a level by 74(where I started running heroics and Kara trash).

I did it as holy priest holy nova spam. Beast quarter clear+boss then alltrash to horse boss moroes maiden then reset do again things die very easy use loom trinket that gives health on kill