What is the best leveling path right now?

[Crowfeather]

i level my nightborne with battle pet (20-90), then 90-100 with draenor chest and 20% xp pot, at 98 i start the legion quest (first time on horde side so no intro skipping), at 100 i complete 4 point out of 5 on invasion site, so now im lvl 101in 2 days and 12hours.

(yeah my english grammar probably burn your eyes, sorry)

Is pet battling still the fastest way to level now?

[Micronetic]

Ok I am in Tanaan with my 100 rogue and yeah, a treasure gives me 21+k xp, not bad! Looks like I will make a whole level just from Tanaan 100 - 101 (I only took the treasures on top, didnt want to play in the caves)

Full Heirlooms but the fishing ring, 20% xp pot and darkmoon buff.

[BicycleMafioso]

I also noticed that with the Garrison EXP pot. As long as you use it at 99, it can last you through a fair few levels. To me, that was 102 and 103 on two different characters since I didn't use them in time.
I also noticed that whilst 1-58 was super quick, I am not very good at optimising it past that.
Remember this girl? Yeah, total time to 110 ended up being 1d16hrs, so 40 hours. I still need to find a way to optimise past 58. Because I'm not good at leveling in outland/northrend. Destruction was also probably not the best choice through Pandaria. Got to 98 in 7.3.5 and finished in 8.0
For 98 and onward, I couldn't really justify staying in WoD zones, and leveled purely through invasions with my other three characters in the level range. Currently at 18 110s.

But I might have to try going for purely treasures

...
Off-topic, since this thread is about solo-leveling:
I'm currently running 5-people non-pug instances on my hunter to level and see what the figures at, during DMF, and I'm currently at a way better pace than with my warlock, like 2/3rds of the time to level 53 as the warlock took to 57.
The trouble with this is that it doesn't count, since you can't always have four people to rely on and speed through the dungeon with though.
What makes dungeons so quick is that almost all the dungeon EXP is fixated around the end-boss and the LFD bonus. Meaning that bonus objectives, or bosses not included in the "main objective" are a complete waste of time.
Examples are the first half of Maraudon Purple, where Cerebras-guy is not actually the final boss, all the EXP is put on the Satyr. Gnomeregan where only the last boss matters. Et c.
So if you are capable of running with four people who are good and just rush toward the end objective and have fun on Discord during, time flies.

[Kyphael]

Is pet battling still the fastest way to level now?

Seems that way, and most relaxing too since the item level squish bugs and voice chat channel bullshit lag. I've just been leveling my void elf (57 now) by doing the trainers and eastern kingdoms along gets him almost 50% xp, and that's not counting the far away ones in the far north.

[SirCowdog]

Small update: Leveling a shadow priest under 8.0 on a completely new server. That means no gold, no enchants, basic heirlooms. Hell, I couldn't even afford upgraded riding training until lvl 45, and still can't afford flight right at 60! Starting from level 1 and using War Mode as soon as possible.

Just dinged lvl 60 at a handful of minutes under 18 hours. Minimal dungeons(Ragefire and Sunken Temple once for quests, that's it). Straight questing the entire time. No tricks. No grinding or abusing bugs. Just progressing from zone to zone to zone.

Encounters with enemy players have so far been virually non-existant outside of a 3-4 ganks by level 110 players. The impact on leveling speed in insignificant. As far as I can tell the only reason to NOT use war mode is if you're one of those types of people who has an allergic reaction to PVP of any kind. But IMHO, sacrificing maybe 5-10 minutes, even from being ganked, in an 18 hour period is definitely worth the 10% exp from quests and kills.

Given my older leveling logs from 7.3.5, this still appears to be about 4 -5 hours faster than straight leveling before 8.0. Whether this is due to war mode, my being more practiced at leveling, or what, I couldn't say. Spriest seems slow and weak to me, but I wanted to use the weakest class I could think of as a baseline.

[Ashcrack]

Small update: Leveling a shadow priest under 8.0 on a completely new server. That means no gold, no enchants, basic heirlooms. Hell, I couldn't even afford upgraded riding training until lvl 45, and still can't afford flight right at 60! Starting from level 1 and using War Mode as soon as possible.

Just dinged lvl 60 at a handful of minutes under 18 hours. Minimal dungeons(Ragefire and Sunken Temple once for quests, that's it). Straight questing the entire time. No tricks. No grinding or abusing bugs. Just progressing from zone to zone to zone.

Encounters with enemy players have so far been virually non-existant outside of a 3-4 ganks by level 110 players. The impact on leveling speed in insignificant. As far as I can tell the only reason to NOT use war mode is if you're one of those types of people who has an allergic reaction to PVP of any kind. But IMHO, sacrificing maybe 5-10 minutes, even from being ganked, in an 18 hour period is definitely worth the 10% exp from quests and kills.

Given my older leveling logs from 7.3.5, this still appears to be about 4 -5 hours faster than straight leveling before 8.0. Whether this is due to war mode, my being more practiced at leveling, or what, I couldn't say. Spriest seems slow and weak to me, but I wanted to use the weakest class I could think of as a baseline.

I've had 15-16hr 1-60 times on mage/hunter, pre 8.0.1 I leveled a hunter to 60 in 18 hours so it's an improvement but not anything crazy. 60-73ish pretty fast(Borean/Sholazar) but 73-80 felt like it dragged a lot, AVOID ICECROWN I read somewhere that it was good but man is it awful. I went storm peaks after doing 74-75 in an hour in icecrown. 1-60 averaged out at 15ish minutes per level, 60-80 was generally 20-35 at the later levels. It's a breeze after that.

I don't think dungeons were ever worth it, battlegrounds on the other hand seem to be about 2 wins per level with some questing while in queue. I imagine if you have the pvp exp trinkets and can get a few likeminded players to spam bgs you'd level much faster.

[Alduin]

Currently working on a Lightforged Paladin (new low population server) - no gold, just heirlooms. Got my first 10 levels to 30 in around 2.5h by running dungeons. The bonus experience however is not worth the time lost in a dungeon (exception: stockades). Doing Gnomereggan gives me nightmares.

Overall pace especially damage feels a lot slower. Sometimes I have survivability problems (e.g. when handling 4-6 mobs). Feels a lot like vanilla especially when people in your group don't use CC or don't have heirlooms. Worst experience so far: My heirlooms sometimes scale only like and sometimes worse than blue equivalents. Pre-nerf they behaved like raiding endgame gear, now more like entry gear. Damage, survivability and experience gain just don't feel right for this kind of "catch up" mechanic. And for people not having the gear it must be horriffic - you don't always get all the necessary items. I had a hunter in my group (level 28 in Gnomereggan) who still used lvl 15 greens as nothing better dropped. Maybe he didn't do the right quests (no idea).

- - - Updated - - -

You make 200/hour?! O_o

I was hoping that method-0 would still work, but I'd settle for just being able to clear TBC heroics solo. Method-0 was always fast, but questionable, so I can't really complain if they finally wrecked it.

It would be nice to have the option of heroic dungeons and raids again, though.

Didn't see your replies on the first: Sometimes more, sometimes less. But taxes are a rip off.
Method-0 and soloing is in no way usable. Final boss experiences is shared (we "tested" it with a low level group where 2 people died at Mechaplugg). And soloing trash like in Karazhan - you simply die even as tank with full CDs to 2 of those bats.

[SirCowdog]

60-73ish pretty fast(Borean/Sholazar) but 73-80 felt like it dragged a lot. 60-80 was generally 20-35 at the later levels. It's a breeze after that.

This seems to be my experience so far as well. 60-67 so far has felt really slow. I went to Howling Fjord instead of my normal route of Borean Tundra, just to mix things up. Each level has taken roughly an hour, which is really REALLY bad. I can't say if it's just Howling Fjord, or shadow priest, or a combination of the two. Although Spriest still feels REALLY weak.

Currently working on a Lightforged Paladin (new low population server) - no gold, just heirlooms. Got my first 10 levels to 30 in around 2.5h by running dungeons. The bonus experience however is not worth the time lost in a dungeon (exception: stockades). Doing Gnomereggan gives me nightmares.

Overall pace especially damage feels a lot slower. Sometimes I have survivability problems (e.g. when handling 4-6 mobs). Feels a lot like vanilla especially when people in your group don't use CC or don't have heirlooms. Worst experience so far: My heirlooms sometimes scale only like and sometimes worse than blue equivalents. Pre-nerf they behaved like raiding endgame gear, now more like entry gear. Damage, survivability and experience gain just don't feel right for this kind of "catch up" mechanic. And for people not having the gear it must be horriffic - you don't always get all the necessary items. I had a hunter in my group (level 28 in Gnomereggan) who still used lvl 15 greens as nothing better dropped. Maybe he didn't do the right quests (no idea).

This is something I've noticed as well. Time to kill for regular quest/trash mobs feels very high, even when using heirlooms. It feels like the game is balanced around having fully enchanted heirlooms. I feel sorry for anyone playing without them. This seems off. The game should be balanced around non-heirlooms, and players WITH heirlooms should not only be killing faster, but getting more exp.

I think that Blizzard should do another scaling pass to correct this. But of course MAUs and Allied races conflict with this, so they probably won't.

Method-0 and soloing is in no way usable. Final boss experiences is shared (we "tested" it with a low level group where 2 people died at Mechaplugg).

In both the random queue dungeons I did(RFC and ST) final kill exp was non-existant. I'm not sure if it's broken or what. Either way it was a complete and total waste of time to run dungeons, even for the quests. EXP/h was less than half that of questing.

Again, I'm not really sure what Blizzard's plan here is, other than needlessly padding MAUs and making leveling slow and tedious. The pacing is REALLY bad.

[Alduin]

This is something I've noticed as well. Time to kill for regular quest/trash mobs feels very high, even when using heirlooms. It feels like the game is balanced around having fully enchanted heirlooms. I feel sorry for anyone playing without them. This seems off. The game should be balanced around non-heirlooms, and players WITH heirlooms should not only be killing faster, but getting more exp.

I think that Blizzard should do another scaling pass to correct this. But of course MAUs and Allied races conflict with this, so they probably won't.

Well to be honest I never liked the idea to one-shot trash especially as fully heirloom geared paladin (avenger's shield was so OP). But in the current situation I am more or less doing the same damage as a new character. Class mechanic (e.g. Monk) is granting WAY more than heirlooms.

Also it forces the absurd tactic to "buy" e.g. 58 BC, 68 WotLK, 78 Cata etc. gear as it sometimes grants additional stats over the heirlooms (atleast +1 on everthing).

Additionally: I found out that using Flasks and Potions in lower levels (with bufffood if possible) grant an enormous DPS increase. The 200haste for 15sec potion from Northrend is a nearly 50% haste increase at level 70. Gives around 15% haste at max level still. So I guess we have to flask up for old content? (PS: Prolonged Power is only 94 on all your stats for 1min on a level 100 alt, the old Draenor potion gives 185 for 25sec. Guess you have to setup the alchemy building in my garrisons again). The additional 10intellect of the Legion Flask feel somewhat - irrelevant.

[Paperfox]

Currently I am leveling a Void elf rogue. Had a friend run me through Stockades twice. First time I got some decent xp due to quests. Second time although very quick I got 5% of a level. Picking 3 weeds while rested is more XP. Except for the fishing ring I have full heirloom gear.

I really am disappointed in how they have nerfed dungeon runs. Are they trying to make it so that it takes 1,000+ hours to level a toon in full heirloom gear? And the only alternative is to buy a boost?

[Alduin]

I really am disappointed in how they have nerfed dungeon runs. Are they trying to make it so that it takes 1,000+ hours to level a toon in full heirloom gear? And the only alternative is to buy a boost?

Tbh: I guess it was not their primary intention as Ion has stated otherwise. I also guess that the heirloom farm was intended to be a somewhat decent reward for investing time - but compared to Heroes of the Storm or Overwatch the time invested for ONE skin only is trememendous (we are talking about 40h+ which translates for casual gamers into a 20d+ farm if calculating with 2h per day). The last time I invested that much into one char it was for the Trial of the Crusader - which I absolutely hated. The sideeffect that players tend to boost is - atleast for me - a horrific idea (you already get the old content fully unlocked if you boost a class trial char). 60€ is the old price of a whole expansion for "only" setting your level and giving you some gear. For some classes (and alts) I really was considering boosting - but the overall pricing is questionable atleast.

If you are not interested in leveling or the allied race transmogs, I investing 60€ is the far better trade off: instant fun at max level with decent gear... (saying that: tjhere are ways and possibilities how you can easily get a level 110 char for less than 20€).

[SirCowdog]

Well to be honest I never liked the idea to one-shot trash

There's a difference between one-shotting trash, and the current state of the game. With full heirlooms it's still taking something like 10-15 seconds to kill a single random quest mob. Enemies are NOT difficult. They're just damage sponges. They don't feel threatening, or challenging, or dangerous. They just feel tedious.

Nothing about that is enjoyable, especially considering the sheer volume of "Kill X bears" or "Collect X Bear-toenail" quests there are. Questing does not feel like it has good pacing or flow. It feels monotonous and slow. Bloated. Sluggish.

I see a few solutions to this:

1) Make heirlooms more powerful again. Up their stats so they're actually better than normal quest gear by more than 1 point in each stat. To me this is probably the easiest solution to implement, and with the most allowance for players to customize their leveling experience. Players who want a longer, more drawn out leveling experience can just take heirlooms off.

Players should not feel punished for not having heirlooms! And "Punishing" is the only way I can think of to describe the leveling content without heirlooms.

2) Reduce ALL open world mob hitpoints by 20% or so.

3) Maintain current mob hitpoints and time-to-kill, but increase experience rewards or lower the number of kills/collections needed in every quest. If enemies are going to take this long to kill, we shouldn't be required to kill 12-15 of them for a single quest. That just creates fatigue and annoyance. Average "Kill-X" or "Collect-X" should be AT MOST 6-8 with current mob hitpoints.
added.

[BicycleMafioso]

Also it forces the absurd tactic to "buy" e.g. 58 BC, 68 WotLK, 78 Cata etc. gear as it sometimes grants additional stats over the heirlooms (atleast +1 on everthing).

There should be vendors in at least Mount Hyjal and one of the Pandaria zones with appropriate leveled gear. Using them over heirlooms is not something I'd recommend, since the EXP is worth far more than slight kill speed.

Additionally: I found out that using Flasks and Potions in lower levels (with bufffood if possible) grant an enormous DPS increase. The 200haste for 15sec potion from Northrend is a nearly 50% haste increase at level 70. Gives around 15% haste at max level still. So I guess we have to flask up for old content? (PS: Prolonged Power is only 94 on all your stats for 1min on a level 100 alt, the old Draenor potion gives 185 for 25sec. Guess you have to setup the alchemy building in my garrisons again). The additional 10intellect of the Legion Flask feel somewhat - irrelevant.

This is interesting. And not something I'd paid attention to, since the WoD flasks and potions are the ones I've used throughout legion -- including in the Mage Tower challenge -- so I used them anyway. Mostly due to the fact that I never bothered with all the professions from Legion and because I kept having a surplus of a few 10s of thousands of them or so it felt.



As for dungeon exp, doing it with randoms feels like a distraction and a trap. Doing it with two-four other people who know what they are doing and skips all the superfluous things and get lucky with dungeon queues (which can partially be manipulated so you never run into Dire Maul), they are very lucrative.
The EXP is definitely there, but some of them have the "end boss" and "completion" exp set to trigger on other times than they are supposed to (eg, Lord Vyletongue rather than Celebras the Cursed). I was making way progress (one level per 7 minutes if my math didn't suck) in comparison to questing.

Shadow is, aptly described, as one of the weakest leveling specs. Disc is both faster (albeit not by much) and safer, able to handle larger pulls (in my opinion) which is its advantage.

War mode is one of my favourite additions to the game thus far. Despite being a hardcore Pvper who could not care less about PvE after ICC, Legion really soured my opinion of world pvp. I'm leveling my Rogue with war mode on, otherwise no. I am thankful for the ability to turn it off.
Losing buffs (such as DMF), time and effort because people want to roam around in groups was something that really turned me off in Legion, as well as PvE gear being ridiculously superior to Pvp gear and it was basically one-shot fiesta. The tiny fractional addition in exp is definitely not worth it to me in terms of carefulness needing to be applied. In contrast, I make sure to always punish those who are not careful when I do use warmode.

Closing thoughts.
I think the method-0 fix is entirely uncalled for. I think the expansion squish in the leveling scope was a great idea, but I think it needs to be made wider; the pacing of howling fjord is - to me - awful, for instance.
You can also not fit an entire expansion into a leveling run so I would want the range of entry to be larger (eg, Pandaria 60-90), because it almost feels like you can only punch out one zone in, for instance, Pandaria before you leave again; I have yet to quest in a Pandaria-zone that was not Jade Forest. I realise I can leave sooner, but story/quest-wise it makes no sense.
Exp req in the 60-80 range, to me, is fine. The pacing of questing is not.
In an expansion named "Battle for Azeroth", I do not see how I should not be able to spend my entire 1-90 life (at least) in the actual two main continents of Azeroth itself, in the 1-60 and 80-90 zones of that world. Because to me, those zones are amongst the best.
The 98-110 experience in Broken Isles feel great, the 90-98 experience in Draenor does not - not in terms of pacing, but the mobs are so much stronger than later progression. Still. Even (timed broken isles) invasion mobs that were outright difficult to solo at 109, crumble to dust as a 98; I could solo-kill the elite invasion bosses with time/boredom being the only major enemy. In contrast, even going back with my artifact weapon had me near struggling in Spires, if it weren't for the fact that I was leveling a healing spec.
Leveling speed, which others have pointed, out seems tailored for Heirlooms. I have not done it without it but

I still prefer this questing experience (by a mile!) compared to pre-7.3.5, but I find the killings of the shortcuts for the super dedicated ridiculous and uncalled for, since those who make that effort is pushing in extra exp/hour went out of their way to do it and in no way became "mandatory for the player base en masse" or "was akin to exploiting" which are valid reasons I could see them objecting against. It was very niche and not game-breaking, so why not allow that type of fun? If dungeons are not meant to be lucrative, why have them? If raids should not always be in "legacy loot pinata mode", why not always allow legacy loot mood? Clearly this is implying people are supposed to run them within the level appropriate ranges. Does this seriously happen? Who puts together a Karazhan 10-raid in 2018, for level 70s? So why break Karazhan leveling?

Questing to me was dreadful pre-7.3.5. It is now not only tolerable, but enjoyable. The fact that certain level ranges are a trap is still a disappointment, especially when they have no other outs.

Rant, off.

[Deleted]

I've leveled 14 toons. Do you really think theres any more enjoyment to suck out of the same content I've been doing for the past 7 years?

you can level by doing pet battles

[Alduin]

I know. I was just saying: the state of leveling during WoD was feeling strange. You went into a group of 10mobs and killed everything. You outhealed, outdamaged and outtanked everything while being close to invincible. I even got my Paladin Tank at level 101 the T18 set items from HFC (in addition to the 840 gear) to boost instances as Avengers Shield could be spammed.

This was not an optimal state. 5-10sec per mob would have been a good lifespan with atleast 3-5 rotation cycles at a boss or elite.

But they overdid the downtuning. Heirloom should feel special. And it simply does not. It is even worse than some blues. Any item with a socket in low levels is strongly OP as you can socket it with stats worth 1 to 3 expansions. Example: https://www.wowhead.com/item=24021/l...ate&bonus=4077 socketed with 3x Bold Cardinal (+6STR each) gives a 34STR, 24STA, 6Crit chest. This is AS MUCH strength on this plate like the lvl 101 equivalent of https://www.wowhead.com/item=122381/...lor&bonus=3592

So yes: There needs to be done something with the heirlooms or the overall HP not just outdoors but also in dungeons. I suggest nerfing the HP and damage to 1/4 of a players (e.g. a mob should have 800 HP @lvl 30, dealing 40dmg with melee hits, scale up to 5x the value if in an instance. instead we have 4k HP mobs in a 5man trash pack (aka 4x harder than PVP) walking around in dungeons, while your own abilities do around 90-100dmg (aka you could kill a mob in 1min, the whole pack in 5min)).

Additionally I would be suggest a 20% boost to heirlooms (20% more stats, more HP and damage compared to the greens of the same level. +15% or +10% versus fully blue). Currently items are on the same level, there is no difference between green, blue and heirloom.

Both together should resolve in around a 10% buff to leveling without and 25% with heirlooms. Yet this would bring us down from 18h (0 to 60) to 14h and from 40h (to 110) to 30h. This still is far from what I personally deem suitable (but its acceptable) for time being spent in outdated content (as around 25h of that grind apply to level 1 to 100).

Turning the XP ratio would also be a decent idea. It shouldn't happen that you run out of suitable quests / have to quest through all the content (e.g. WotLK between 60-80 where I currently have to go to ICC) and/or have to enjoy pet battles for the sake of XP/hour. This feels.. false.

Changing quest requirements however is far too difficult as you have to adjust each and every quest manually.

- - - Updated - - -

There should be vendors in at least Mount Hyjal and one of the Pandaria zones with appropriate leveled gear. Using them over heirlooms is not something I'd recommend, since the EXP is worth far more than slight kill speed.

I just trade in some gear here and there as an additional +1 STR in low areas easily gives a 10% damage increase. It sometimes outweights the +XP by killing mobs so that I switch back to full heirloom only when turning in quests.

Yet: Heirloom feels underpowered compared to its purpose.

This is interesting. And not something I'd paid attention to, since the WoD flasks and potions are the ones I've used throughout legion -- including in the Mage Tower challenge -- so I used them anyway. Mostly due to the fact that I never bothered with all the professions from Legion and because I kept having a surplus of a few 10s of thousands of them or so it felt.

So was I when sending Flasks wrongfully to my alt and experiencing that the effects somewhat scale (e.g. my WoD Flasks is not 49int for my lvl 90). Overall the benefits are superb. Same I guess will apply to certain enchants, e.g. using an enternal belt bucket from WotLK on a belt from WotLK with sockets like https://www.wowhead.com/item=50620/coldwraith-links gives you easily +18 additional STR and is wearable up to 110. There are several items with multiple gem sockets that could be used for this. Same with enchants on weapons, rings, etc.

As for dungeon exp, doing it with randoms feels like a distraction and a trap. Doing it with two-four other people who know what they are doing and skips all the superfluous things and get lucky with dungeon queues (which can partially be manipulated so you never run into Dire Maul), they are very lucrative.
The EXP is definitely there, but some of them have the "end boss" and "completion" exp set to trigger on other times than they are supposed to (eg, Lord Vyletongue rather than Celebras the Cursed). I was making way progress (one level per 7 minutes if my math didn't suck) in comparison to questing.

Closing thoughts.
I think the method-0 fix is entirely uncalled for. I think the expansion squish in the leveling scope was a great idea, but I think it needs to be made wider; the pacing of howling fjord is - to me - awful, for instance.
You can also not fit an entire expansion into a leveling run so I would want the range of entry to be larger (eg, Pandaria 60-90), because it almost feels like you can only punch out one zone in, for instance, Pandaria before you leave again; I have yet to quest in a Pandaria-zone that was not Jade Forest. I realise I can leave sooner, but story/quest-wise it makes no sense.
Exp req in the 60-80 range, to me, is fine. The pacing of questing is not.
In an expansion named "Battle for Azeroth", I do not see how I should not be able to spend my entire 1-90 life (at least) in the actual two main continents of Azeroth itself, in the 1-60 and 80-90 zones of that world. Because to me, those zones are amongst the best.
The 98-110 experience in Broken Isles feel great, the 90-98 experience in Draenor does not - not in terms of pacing, but the mobs are so much stronger than later progression. Still. Even (timed broken isles) invasion mobs that were outright difficult to solo at 109, crumble to dust as a 98; I could solo-kill the elite invasion bosses with time/boredom being the only major enemy. In contrast, even going back with my artifact weapon had me near struggling in Spires, if it weren't for the fact that I was leveling a healing spec.
Leveling speed, which others have pointed, out seems tailored for Heirlooms. I have not done it without it but

I remember also not having issues with Invasion after 8.0.1. with low level characters. This last part could indeed be one issue Blizzard forgot about - they did not just squish the itemlevel but also scale the difficulty of your environment with you (so you perform worse while your environment stays the same). Which makes invasions for lower level characters a lot easier (mobs have exponentially less HP and damage) than for high end characters (the environment scales stronger with your level than you do with gear).

I still prefer this questing experience (by a mile!) compared to pre-7.3.5, but I find the killings of the shortcuts for the super dedicated ridiculous and uncalled for, since those who make that effort is pushing in extra exp/hour went out of their way to do it and in no way became "mandatory for the player base en masse" or "was akin to exploiting" which are valid reasons I could see them objecting against. It was very niche and not game-breaking, so why not allow that type of fun? If dungeons are not meant to be lucrative, why have them? If raids should not always be in "legacy loot pinata mode", why not always allow legacy loot mood? Clearly this is implying people are supposed to run them within the level appropriate ranges. Does this seriously happen? Who puts together a Karazhan 10-raid in 2018, for level 70s? So why break Karazhan leveling?

Questing to me was dreadful pre-7.3.5. It is now not only tolerable, but enjoyable. The fact that certain level ranges are a trap is still a disappointment, especially when they have no other outs.

I agree on the part that some player might find it more enjoyable to see more from the world while leveling. And my best guess is that leveling via questing stayed pretty much the same from WoD to 7.3.5 to 8.0.1. Atleast I cannot find any major difference to the last time I leveled by questing only (besides ridiculous encounter HP and damage at some places). It highly remembers me of leveling during Vanilla (only paced faster at certain points and more clustered).

However the short cuts that very dedicated player took to min/max the content e.g. for allied races are significantly reduced compared to the necessary effort. This includes dungeons as well. But the XP for doing these shortcuts never felt unjustified. The additional effort you had to perform Method-0 or running dungeons all day long (and enduring certain types of players) were paid off by better XP. It was also nothing the majority of the player base did (atleast not Method-0). Running dungeons on the other hand was the only viable option to interest players in playing tank or heal (as you had to play those to queue faster). The only thing that was malicious to this content was the overwhelming power and importance of heirlooms. But hey: those were a gold sink to level up some of your alts faster.

Honestly I have no clue how they want the leveling experience to be. Personally I preferred WotLK and in some parts WoD. You got a certain routine and the more you played the faster you got (from my original 14h in WoD I got down to 8h just by optimizing bonus areas etc. without abusing treasures, boosting or such). Legion never had this feeling for me, as with every other patch the changed a lot of things. The last time I went into Highmountain I came out with 2 levels higher than during the original grind. Only had to due Highmountain and half of Stormheim to get to max level.

In Short: If they want to go full flex content they should do so. The itemsquish they performed will be forgotten the first raid tier (itemlevel 350 compared to 285 now). They just leave a lot of burned land behind in the "not so well scaling" areas.

[BicycleMafioso]

I'm actually on the complete other side of the fence as far as Heirlooms are concerned:

* They are too powerful. Correctly (ish) itemised gear, with a huge, stacking additive Exp bonus on gear which does not have durability, no repetetive gold sink for transmog

* They are the only option. +10% Exp, 1crit vs 3 str? Hm. This is not a trade-off. Are gem-slots exceptions? Heck yeah. But the heirloom gear is at worst on-par with any other gear. With a bonus +Exp. This does not balance make.

* Not having them is a mistake. Nearly the same point as above, but aslo pacing. What am I going to do, not use heirlooms? That is not possible atm.

* It trivialises gear when leveling. Only look at the gold cost of quest rewards? Check. Gear doesn't exist and you never have to think about it.

* Gear enchants somewhat scales and due of the permanent gear can be put on said gear and give you a further boost at only the one-time cost, trivialising enchanting until max level.

* It makes progression null and void in the actual real world since the scaling world introduced because your relative power always scales with everything else. You never start trailing behind and then get that quest reward weapon that suddenly bumps you up well and beyond the world. (eg, Verigan's Fist, Whirlwind Axe, Scarlet Monastery quest items from Vanilla)
(this is the only point where I am actually excited about leveling characters in BFA, because the only progression you have after you get your last talent at lv100-120, is that heirlooms are not 4/4 yet and thus you can start replacing non-raid geared starting at 111, and others at ~114? Once heirlooms go 4/4, 100-120 is 20 dead levels of character progression)

To draw a parallel to Magic (the Gathering), the only other game I play right now, you can't design a 10/10 for 5 mana without some drawback. 5 mana gets you a 5/5, otherwise what's the point? You can't design a Flying, Trample 6/6 for 4 mana without a drawback. If you are going to design a 7 mana creature with a game-changing upside, you better bet that that it will be a 4/4.
So why are heirlooms the "no duh", answer to any question? That bothers me. I think they underdid the nerf to heirlooms and would be on-board with reducing their power (statline) to balance out that they are always relevant, reducing their +% XP in addition so that you are not punished by not having heirlooms and giving you options, and further reducing xp required in general to compensate and (again) to reduce the punishment for not wearing heirlooms.

I realise probably no one of you would agree with this, because leveling is a hurdle to you, and the "game starts at max level". To me, that isn't so. I want to be playing a proper and enjoyable game up to that point. 7.3.5 was a great start, and was the first time I was able to quest 1-60 zones. (my previous attempts had me outlevel them almost immediately after starting)
In vanilla (and thus up to and including WotLK), questing was pointless in exp/hour sense and effort of travel as compared to simply grinding and picking up kill quests when you were in the area anyway.
In Cata, LFD was the proper answer. I quested through Outland only when TBC was current, never again after. I quested through Northrend only when WotLK was current, never again after, I quested through Cata when Cata was current, only Hyjal and Jade Forest in Legion. I didn't play MoP or WoD.
So to me, this is the first time I'm seeing many of these zones questlines from start to finish without them turning grey. I am happy about this. Questing is finally worth doing in Wow!
And I want to be able to enjoy it more than I am.
But I also don't want to be forced into doing questing, because Questing is the only thing left that is efficient at all in this game --- because questing is horrible in general and far less fun than mindlessly grinding mob-camps like Vanilla had.
What's the harm in having options? What's the harm in allowing people who enjoy PVP doing BGs to level with on pace with questing? LFD quicker, but at the cost of queue times (aren't dungeons supposed to be fun and rewarding)? Solo-adventures versus difficult enemies yielding appropriate boons? Or the effort put in, juggling two characters at once for method-0 and the rewards there-in? That's what I don't get.

....
Also, my theory on the reason that invasions are less powerful now is that there will soon be a whole lot less people in those zones doing invasions, so you will be in need of handling them.

And yes, I realise that I'm being quite contradictory, but that's me. I can't fight the human nature of doing things a certain way when I know it's the most efficient or not wear heirlooms for the same reason. Path of least resistance et c.


EDIT: And let's not forget. You can still level to 110 in 30% of the time it took to level to 60 back in Vanilla. People think the leveling is slow now, but that's only because it was a mess pre-7.3.5 and pre-7.3.5 should not be the benchmark.
In a vacuum, the leveling speed is fine.

This however, you are free to clear up for me:

Yet this would bring us down from 18h (0 to 60) to 14h and from 40h (to 110) to 30h. This still is far from what I personally deem suitable (but its acceptable) for time being spent in outdated content (as around 25h of that grind apply to level 1 to 100).

How the heck can you do 60-110 in (40-18=)22hours?
I leveled my Warlock to 1-57 in 9 hours, and then it took me 30hrs 57-110 (ending at that same 40h you did). What the heck am I doing wrong once 60 starts.
(I also disagree on the leveling content being outdated content, because by that metric it will never be relevant our "up-to-date" content.)

[Deleted]

i want to lvl my SM-skill

since when heirlooms r the only option?
ur complaint about heirlooms being to powerful for alternatives, giving to much xp and bla has a simple solution: just not use them, no matter how hard u try to argument around it.

[monchwow]

The best solution for players that are levelling new allied races just for heritage gear should be to allow the heritage armor to be unlocked with a character boost.

[RobertMugabe]

IMHO Blizzard should just remove heirloom gear and instead give us 1 item (maybe a necklace or trinket) that gives you the 50% xp bonus. This way gearing up would at least stay interesting.

[Kathranis]

IMHO Blizzard should just remove heirloom gear and instead give us 1 item (maybe a necklace or trinket) that gives you the 50% xp bonus. This way gearing up would at least stay interesting.

At the end of BFA they should turn the Heart of Azeroth into an Heirloom that grants a major EXP boost for levels 1-110.