Monk 1-90 speed leveling at launch day

[braus]

Most important of all: you don't need many of these things. There are two categories:

1)Things that are really helpful for everyone who wants to level his monk as fast as possible (most of us here I guess) This includes:
- knowledge of the quest paths, best zones for questing, overall comparison of zones etc.
- some (but not all) consumables
- general advices how to play and how to gear your monk (heirlooms, some enchants)
and this is sincerely enough.

2)Things that may (or not) add some seconds, minutes at best - so if you are aiming for server first, or just want to feel like you did maximum for your speed, do them. But generally they are not necessary at all.
- most of the consumables/enchants
- race choice
- gear other than heirlooms
I will mark those with italic (and also not mention some of them at all)

I personally prefer to min-max at levels 1-20, because these are crucial for "getting out of the crowd" but I don't do things like spending thousands of gold for lvl 58/68/80 sets (any useful item in this level range costs like 500g on my server).

Now for the compilation:

I) What to do before MoP launches (Heirlooms,BoEs,Enchants,Gems,Consumables)

I.a) Heirlooms:
Agility 1H Mace/Sword x2
Agility Staff for first 9 levels (if it doesn't go live or you don't want to save JP for it, use the Intellect one, I tried both on beta and didn't see any difference)
Leather Agility Chest, Shoulders, Head, Cloak (and Legs, if they go live)
Haste Trinket x2

If you want, you can replace any of those by their PvP equivalents, the difference will not be too huge either, most important is the weapon's dps and the increased XP on other pieces.

I.b) Enchants:
15 agility on both 1-handers (4x Large Brilliant Shard (farm BRD Upper City), 4x Essence of Air each)
15 or 25 agility on the staff (8x Large Brilliant Shard, 4x Essence of Air for the 25 Agi)
~20 Scrolls of Enchant Boots - Minor Speed (1x Small Radiant Shard (farm Scholomance), 1x Aquamarine, 1x Lesser Nether Essence) - they are more helpful than they look

The rest of enchants doesn't make such a difference, for those interested, here is a handy link: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1072167306

I.c) Gems
You don't find many socketable items while leveling, though a few quests in Outland reward you with some. Cata gems can't be socketed into low level gear, so if you insist on buying some, get 5-10 Delicate Scarlet/Cardinal Rubies form WotLK.

I.d) BoEs
It can help a lot to create "new expansion sets" for levels 58, 68 and 80, when the gear quality goes up a lot. The downside of this is, as I already said, that on many servers, items for these level ranges can cost a LOT and you get some upgrades from quest rewards in Hellfire/Fjord/Tundra/Hyjal very soon. But again, if you insist, buy it

I.e) Consumables
- Swifness Potions. Just make them, they are more than great. Somewhere between 100 and 200 is probably OK, though 100 seems like a necessary minimum.
- Swim speed potions and Elixirs of Water Walking. Also really handy and not too expensive; a stack of each should be enough

- Agility Elixirs/Flasks: Optional. I don't think this will add much to your speed, but it also can't hurt. Especially on higher levels the flasks can help.. I recommend 5 of each Elixir, 10 Outland and Northrend flasks and 2 to 3 stacks of the Flask of the Winds.
- Food buffs. I am not sure if they give you back those 10 seconds you spend eating...if you think you need them, buy them.
- Healing Potions: Especially Healing Potions and Greater Healing Potions; stack of each should be enough. You need to cover that awful period after you lose that insane out-of-combat regen at lvl 20 and before you get your Zen Sphere at lvl 30 (even if they nerf it, I guess it will still be sufficient).
- Adventurer's Journal: It is very cheap..and +10% XP from lvl 75 to 85 is great. The only downside (and a great one) is that there are ten possible random effects and only one of them is +XP. The buff lasts for 1 hour and the cooldown is also 1 hour. So get about 20 of these and hope you'll get lucky.
- Scrolls of Recall: If you are willing to learn Inscription and level it to 25, having a second Hearthstone is really nice. Never use it after lvl 40, it backfires more than not, unless you want to level your inscription to 200 (possibly during a food-pause or so, if you need it) and use Scroll of Recall II.

- Scrolls of Agility. Since they count as Battle Elixirs and they are weaker at their respective levels, there is NO point in using them.

I.f) Bags
Embersilk or Illusionary. Four of them. Your money, your choice.

I.g) (Optional) Mats for professions
Not really speed up your levelling, but if we speak about preparations, this one could not hurt for sure. And the mats will be much more expensive and the farmspots more crowded when MoP comes live. Remember you need only to have mats for 1-500, not 525, because at 500 you will start crafting new MoP recipes.
I highly recommend to use http://www.wow-professions.com/ for the list of mats needed for each profession.


II) What to do when MoP launches

II.a) (optional) If you play a race which has a long run from its spawn point to nearest mailbox, send your heirlooms, bags, potions and early elixirs to some character of yours with engineering. Fly to the spawn point and logout there before midnight.

II.b) The Beginning (Race)
Hope that you will get lucky and get into game soon after midnight. Create your monk..now it's time for racial decisions:

Horde:
Orcs/Trolls: One dps cooldown (You won't notice them, trust me), quite fast starting zone
Undead: New passive sometimes proc bonus damage and heals you, can be useful between lvls 20-30. Possibly fastest Horde starting zone
Tauren: Maybe War Stomp can save your ass once or twice, but nothing more than that. Quite fast starting zone, slower transition to 10-20.
Blood Elf: Nothing special for levelling, slower starting zone.

Alliance: [PLEASE UPDATE]
I am not a fan of the Alliance, but possibly Night Elves increased ghost speed can get handy if something goes wrong; Draenei GotN is nice too. Other than that, nothing special.

As you can see, race doesn't mind much. Maybe more important than the race itself is the speed of each race's starting zone. I'd say go Undead if Horde, and (from what I heard) Human as Alliance. NEVER GO PANDA. Wandering Isle is great, but it is slow and it will be crowded with other pandas.
But generally just pick anything you want to, anything you like and anything you want for endgame. I think that level faster only to buy a race change right after isn't way to go (unless you are seriously wanting to do everything fo server first)

II.c) Finish creating your monk, don't log. Log the character with heirlooms and send them to your monk. If you did the II.a) step, create a mailbox at the spawn point and send them from there. Don't send everything, speed is the key in the beginning, you can send flasks, Adventurers Journals and crafting mats later. The most important are Heirlooms, Bags, Swiftness and Swim Speed Potions, Elixirs of Water Walking and, if you have them, Scrolls of Recall and Agility Elixirs.

II.d) Log your monk, use minimum of addons (I will use only ElvUI), take items from the mail and equip them "on the run". Let the speedrun begins!


I will add the zone info soon, stay tuned!

[SwiftSM]

Enter zone at first level available > do quests > move to next zone when it becomes available. Don't stay in a zone until you've finished it, move on when you can. For example, start WPL at 35 - do the first two quest hubs, and you'll just about be at 40, and ready to do EPL, that's the easiest way to get quest XP.

[Yorgl]

Also, doing dungeons once for the quests seems a good idea, isn't it ?

[Pixstar]

Hmm I'm going to try leveling 1-90 asap with a friend, who is also leveling a monk. We will level as WW but I will have dual spec as a brewmaster so we can pop dungeons (dungeons are fast and the quests give loads of XP). But I think there won't be many players doing low level dungeons after just releasing the game. Especially if you are leveling fast, you'll be ahead of most monks and not be able to join a dungeon I think.

[Deleted]

Good luck Braus, since u need it

[Stadtfeld]

I will most likely RAF myself, dual-box, and just queue for dungeons as a tank on one of my characters. I'll powerlevel to 80 then just level normally from there.

[Yorgl]

I will most likely RAF myself, dual-box, and just queue for dungeons as a tank on one of my characters. I'll powerlevel to 80 then just level normally from there.

By the way, did Blizzard said anything about giving levels to a monk, with the RAF program ? I mean grinding enough characters to level 80 (so two ^^) BEFORE Mists to be able to have our Monk instantly level 79 at the release ?

I didn't find anything and asked the CS on Twitter but didn't get any answser. :-/

[Wildspirit]

RAF will most likely be blocked for monks for a few weeks...

[sleepingforest]

By the way, did Blizzard said anything about giving levels to a monk, with the RAF program ? I mean grinding enough characters to level 80 (so two ^^) BEFORE Mists to be able to have our Monk instantly level 79 at the release ?

I didn't find anything and asked the CS on Twitter but didn't get any answser. :-/

You can hit a round 80 from RAF, no need to stop at 79. You're better off (time-wise for setup) doing one to 80, one to 40, and two to 20. Use the two 20's to boost the L1 to 20, the 40 to boost to 40 and the 80 to boost to 80 (you'll lose a few minutes switching toons to do the boost though, so might not be worth it if you're going server first.) Also, make sure to do quests/kill stuff and get your monk as close to L2 as possible prior to doing the level boosting; the boost keeps the % of a level done the same, so if you're 99% to L2 when you do the boost you'll be 99% of the way to 81 once you're done. That is good for an hour or so knocked off of your time (assuming you're trying for server first and RAF is not disabled for monks or makes you ineligible.)

[Catharlex]

Granting levels might be disabled for Monks, but if that's the case I wonder if they'd still block the 300% experience gain? That's how my buddy and I planned on doing it. I'll recruit his new account, we'll level to 15, and then just straight dungeon grind with full BoAs and 300% experience boost from RaF.

[Yorgl]

No I don't care about the FoS "1st Monk", I just want to be ready as quickly as possible to raid with my guild.
Thanks for the advices, Sleepingforest.

@Catharlex : Yeah they might, but the fact they didn't said anything makes me think they didn't decide yet.

[Stadtfeld]

Were the RAF bonuses disabled when DK's were released at the launch of WotLK? I only care about the 300% exp bonus, since only the recruited account can grant levels anyways.

[SilenceDHEU]

Were the RAF bonuses disabled when DK's were released at the launch of WotLK? I only care about the 300% exp bonus, since only the recruited account can grant levels anyways.

There was no RAF system at the start of wrath.

Im quite interested in this use for monks however, since ive never done RAF before and dont know how the levels work, so im gona look it up, and hope blizzard announces if monks will be affected by it or not.

[Anastacy]

I would be interested if anyone has compiled a list of zones to hit at what levels for "optimal" experience, Horde side.

[Zik3l]

I was talking to my guildies about this over the past few weeks. I'm hoping granting to 80 is disabled - else you will find 80 monks a few moments after servers come back up. I suspect they won't disable the bonus XP however, which means it's time to dualbox and have your friend / main run you through dungeons non stop. At leas that's worked in the past. Not sure if that would be quicker than dealing with herpderps of DPS.

[Stadtfeld]

I'm hoping granting to 80 is disabled - else you will find 80 monks a few moments after servers come back up.

I'm having trouble understanding why this would be an issue. Only the recruited character will be able to grant levels (grant 1 level for every 2 levels the recruited character earns), no? That would mean the recruited account must level 160 times in order to grant a single character on the recruiter's account to 80.

EDIT: Finally, I understand how one could benefit from the granting level system. One could level 2 80's on the recruited account before MoP launch then use them to powerlevel the monk on the main account! Not sure why I had trouble understanding this, haha.

[Zik3l]

What if you get 2 characters to level 80 via this method and then use both of them to grant level 80? or is this what you are getting at? Server Firsts are meant to be a race. Granting any levels, let alone 40-80 of them puts the majority at a huge disadvantage. We didn't have this problem last time around, very interested on the approach Blizzard will take with it. After all - people buying another account to RAF level a monk = more revenue.

[Vraizan]

I'm really hoping they allow raf to grant levels to monks simply because I want to be ready to raid asap. I have no interest in server firsts. Even if they delay raf granting for a couple days that would be fine, the die hards would probably be 90 by then and it still would allow people who just want to main change to level quickly

[Zik3l]

On second thought, maybe I do as well. Since I will be going for SF Rogue, and then possibly switching to monk anyway - so after SF rogue is done, I doubt I'll have time to get in SF Monk, Unless of course I get a friend to get the ball rolling.

[Yorgl]

I'm really hoping they allow raf to grant levels to monks simply because I want to be ready to raid asap. I have no interest in server firsts. Even if they delay raf granting for a couple days that would be fine, the die hards would probably be 90 by then and it still would allow people who just want to main change to level quickly

I'm in the same situation.
I have tested monk leveling on beta, and I now expercience "high level" (well 87) gameplay. When MoP is released, I will already be familiar with the gameplay and the early levels. Being able to grant levels through RAF program would allow me to be able to experience MoP content (and I'm not talking only about raids, quests and dungeons as well !) with my guildmates without arriving several weeks later and having a lot to catch on.

I really don't understand people not wanting to see Monks be able to quickly level to 80, if they prepare themselves correctly... It's not like Jade forest will be swarming with 80s Monks the day of the launch : using this "trikck" costs money and takes a few days, if not weeks, of grinding before the game is out ; it's then mostly people who really want to play monk that will do it. The majority of players will just play their main and level them until they're borded / curious enough to try monks and/or the wandering isle.