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  1. #1

    What is the best leveling path right now? (BfA edition Guide) 8.1 update!

    TL : DR There are no more shortcuts! It's now 100% preparation and execution of good leveling techniques!

    OPENING DISCUSSION:

    As many of you know, I maintained a guide after 7.3.5 to help people level up alts in preparation for BfA. This was mainly directed at people looking for a quick way to get their Allied race character up to speed. The original thread is shown HERE.

    Then 8.0 came along and turned everything on its head. Most of the techniques and shortcuts discovered, after 7.3.5 introduced scaling, were nerfed into oblivion. Many of the old techniques were confirmed by myself, first hand, to no longer work. I'm hoping that this thread can serve a similar purpose as the old thread, and gather as much data as possible on the fastest methods under the new system, and facilitate as many different perspectives and opinions on speed leveling with constructive discussion. I've just finished leveling to 110 under 8.1 with the exp curve.

    My fastest time in 8.0, from 1 to 110 is a handful of minutes under 41 hours, using a troll warrior. I only include up to level 110, because there's literally an addon for BfA to tell you the fastest path. This guide is primarily going to benefit people rolling alts or allied race characters.

    My fastest time so far in 8.1 is just under 28 hours with a human warrior. I am bad at alliance, so this can probably be trimmed down a bit.

    For reference, my previous best time abusing Method-0 in 7.3.5 was 32.4 hours(as show in the old thread). A difference of just over 8 hours; which isn't all that bad, all things considered. And I believe I made several errors along the way, which could be cleaned up in future runs. I believe that that gap could be significantly closed by using a monk's bonus, but I hate playing monk...so...yeah. YMMV

    I used fully upgraded and enchanted heirlooms; missing only the Dread Pirate Ring. 1-20 took my human warrior 2 hours. War Mode is a whopping 30%!!! I was ganked twice along the way by 120s, meaning War Mode PVP was insignificant. I did not enter a single dungeon. Not even once.

    No 300% potions were used, as they are not readily available. If you have them, save them for bonus objectives in WoD. There are plenty of videos on youtube of how to maximize their use, and it will not be covered here.

    So lets move on to the actual guide.

    WAR MODE:
    I won't tell you that you have to use War Mode, but be aware that it's an extra 10-30% bonus that's basically free exp, and some of the war mode talents are VERY useful for PVE.

    99% of the time when you encounter an enemy player they will be just as interested in questing/leveling as you, and will leave you alone. But even if they don't, the amount of time you lose by getting killed and running back to your corpse is more than made up for with the bonus.

    And if you get too frustrated by being camped by a 120, then get up and take a break. Make a sammich. Play with your pets. Go to the store. Whatever. I guarantee you that no lazy piece of crap camping ganker will hang around your body more than 5 minutes if you don't rez and let them keep killing you.

    PREPARATION:

    You're going to want to have as much as possible prepared in advance so you can focus and spend as little time on resupplying or farming when you should be questing. Set up your UI on your main account, then copy the profile. Make sure you have all your addons configured correctly, and know which spec you're planning on in advance.

    Things you're going to want in the mailbox the second your new character can reach one:

    • Gold for riding training. Travel time is a SIGNIFICANT time sink while using quests to level. You don't want to wait to get it. In fact, while questing, the second you ding 40/60/70/80 you'll want to hearth and train it IMMEDIATELY! 10304 gold is the base cost, which will be modified by reputation. Also, make sure you're in a guild with the 10% riding speed bonus unless you're a class that already gets a mount-speed buff.

      And if you don't have both Draenor and Legion Pathfinder completed, FFS do yourself a favor and finish it before leveling any alts.

    • Bags: This SHOULD be a no-brainer. The cheap-o version are Netherweave bags, but if you have the gold I recommend you get the largest bags you can afford, since it means you won't have to stop to clean them out as often. In fact, if you have an excess of gold, it's probably not even worth your time to stop and loot mobs that aren't quest objectives. This seems like a small thing, but over the course of 100+ levels, all those clicks to loot add up.

    • Heirlooms. At the bare minimum you make sure all the armor pieces upgraded to 110, since this is the lion's share of your experience increase. Neck and Ring upgrades are secondary, but still important due to being able to enchant them. Trinkets can't be enchanted, but you'll want them at max as well, if only to save time by not having to worry about replacing them as you level.

      Some people have made arguments that quest blues can sometimes be more powerful than heirlooms, especially with sockets. I'm not convinced. The simple fact that you never have to even look at quest rewards will save a non-insignificant amount of time over the course of leveling. Also of consideration is the value of enchanted gear never having to be re-enchanted.

      Make sure you have the two Flight-Path toys purchased, as this can save you time. It won't have EVERY flight path, but will have major locations for faster travel if you need to switch zones entirely(which you will). If you buy the toys on one faction, it unlocks for the other faction as well. So don't spend double the gold! These toys can be found at the heirloom vendor(Undercity for Horde, Ironforge for Alliance)

      Also get the Heirloom Mount. Being able to have basic riding speed from the beginning will save you a lot of time if you're starting from level 1. Allied races start at 20, so this is a non-issue for them. It's important to note that Pandaren can not use this mount until they finish their starting zone and pick a faction. Being Horde or Alliance is a requirement of the mount.

    • Enchants. I honestly wasn't 100% certain which enchants were best, since scaling has screwed up a lot of things. IMO, just pick the enchant for each armor slot that has the highest bonus without level restrictions. The exception is that you'll definitely want Mark of the Hidden Satyr for your neck piece, and probably Elemental Force for your weapon. Both of these proc consistently and strongly across all levels.

      You'll also want to make sure to pick a cloak enchant with a 2% speed increase. Every little bit helps.

      In addition, you'll want to pick up leg and shoulder enchants and have them in your bags. These enchants have a level requirement of 80/85, but can't be placed on items above iLVL 136. You can get around this by having a level 85-100 character apply the enchant before mailing it to the character you're leveling, thus getting use of the enchants before level 85. I've personally confirmed that this works.

      Insightful Rubelite was nerfed to require iLVL 200. Still good for actual BfA leveling, but not 1-110.
      It's not an enchantment, but you should buy or craft an iLVL 100+ belt, gloves, or boots with a gem socket for use with the new 5% bonus experience gem: Insightful Rubellite.
    • Guild Banners. The Banner of Cooperation and Battle Standard of Coordination will increase the experience from kills. They both have a 10 minute cooldown, but when you use one, the other is only locked out for 2 minutes. I was very bad about using these, so it might be worth using a macro to drop them on your first attack against an enemy. Keep in mind you must have reputation with your guild before being able to buy these, so new character may have a bit of a wait before picking them up.

      Goblin Gliders. For the most part you'll be in fairly flat zones until lvl 60, and after that you'll have flying mounts. But it may occasionally be very useful to have a stack or two of gliders to get around. And you'll need them after 110 for BfA content anyway. Might as well pick up a few to have handy if you need them.

    • Buffs. Food/Flasks/Scrolls/Potions/Elixirs are a small, but noticeable, buff to your killing speed and survivability. If you have a max level character that can already supply you with cooking or alchemy, you'll be very well off, because the AH is a cesspool for this. I can't really give you specific foods or potions to look for, since each AH is going to have different supplies. Generally speaking, lower level foods are going to only last 15-20 minutes until you can buy the more powerful versions at 60+. Look for anything that adds versatility or your primary stat, and buy stacks for each level range(1-60/70/80/90/100).

      Once you reach the MoP level range, you can buy food with any buff from inns or at the shrine. Siege of Orgrimmar on mythic has crates scattered around the city with various flasks of that level range, if you want to farm free stuff.

      Elixirs serve the same purpose as Flasks, but the buff expires if you die. You'll only use these between 1-70, generally speaking, until you can start buying Flasks which persist through death. Try not to die, and carry extras just in case. If you can't find an Elixir with the stat you want, look under scrolls, since they count as battle or guardian buffs as well.

      Potions serve more utilitarian purposes, and it's up to you to decide whether to make use of them. The most common is the Swiftness Potion, which can provide you a handy boost in speed while going after annoying quest objectives indoors. These are generally MASSIVELY overpriced, because people know how useful they are. I opted not to spend the gold since Warriors are already fairly mobile, but slower classes may benefit greatly from these.
    • Special mention is the Darkmoon Faire Top Hat and WHEE! buff. While not always available due to the DMF being inaccessible most of the month, if you happen to be leveling when the DMF is running, it might be worth your time to go and get these. AFAIK they do stack with heirlooms, although I have not personally tested it. Fair warning: These buffs do NOT stack with each other, and the hats disappear after the DMF goes away later in the month(unless you only log in when the faire is running).

    Professions: This may seem strange for a leveling guide, but the first opportunity you get, pick up both the Mining and Herbalism gathering professions. Not only will this allow you to track many various quest objectives on your map, but you also get a fair amount of experience whenever you gather. I'd put it at around 10% of a quest turn-in per gather. Since most of your wasted time in WoW is travel time, stopping to gather ore or herbs can keep your exp/h rolling as long as you don't go too far out of your way. You should only gather if it's convenient, and on the way to an actual quest objective. Don't make gathering your priority.

    Strangely enough, during the Cata/MOP levels, herbs drop to being worth only 1% of a quest, while mining maintains the full 10% value. I'm not sure why this is. But stop herbing and only mine after this point.

    Update: The reason for less experience from gathering is due to how Blizzard revamped professions and broke them down by expansion. In order to get full exp from gathering you'll simply need to find a profession trainer for the relevant expansion. (WoD you just mine or herb the first one ypu come across and the game gives you a scroll for learning WoD gathering).



    ZONE SELECTION:

    The zone you start in isn't under your control, in as much as it's pre-selected for you based on your race. But for leveling purposes we want to make scaling work for us as much as possible. That means sticking to the lower level zones. Even though scaling will increase the level of the quests and mobs in those zones, the layout and design of them is built for a player with no mount. So you'll blaze through them and gain more exp/hour than higher level zones which assume you DO have a mount.

    I highly recommend actually staying in the 20-60 range zones until you ding 62. The reason for this is that despite getting a slight penalty in experience for being over-level, the advantage of having flight will more than offset this. That, and WOTLK and TBC zones are the slowest part of the leveling process. Minimizing your time there as much as possible is worthwhile.

    As you're leveling, I generally recommend you just follow the natural flow of the progression through each zone. They're laid out fairly reasonably. But don't be afraid to hop around, especially if you're near a quest objective. You shouldn't actually need ALL of the zones listed to reach 62. Pick the ones you like best. It's much more important to simply be as focused as possible and flow from one quest to the next.

    Remember to set your hearth at whatever quest hub you're working on currently. This can save you a little time by hearthing back instead of running to turn in quests. Being in a guild with the hasty-hearth bonus will drop your cooldown to 15 minutes(or play a shaman).

    You don't have to do all of these zones in order. Just pick the ones you like and go!

    Horde: 20-62
    • Silverpine Forest and Hillsbrad Foothills are hands down the best exp/h available to horde.
    • Northern Barrens is the next runner-up for exp/h. Make sure to do the quests to ride kodo's to each new quest hub. It also unlocks quests there.
    • Western Plague Lands: Despite being a shared zone with the quests out of Mender's Stead and Hearthglen, I found WPL to still be exceptionally good exp/h. The density of herbs and minerals is super good here.
    • Arathi Highlands do only the first few quests at Galen's Fall. Stay out of Stromguard.
    • Hinterlands only do the initial quests in Revantusk Village: Bottles, Turtles, Wolves, Dwarves, Lurch's Lunch, hearth back.
    • Ashenvale Only do the quests at the Mor'shan Ramparts on the border of Ashenvale, because Ashenvale sucks).
    • Southern Barrens: This can be a pain to get to, but is very good exp/h. You may have to fly to Sun Rock Retreat in Stonetalon, then ride down, or find a spot to hop over the canyon at the north end of the Northern Barrens side. But its worth it!
    • Azshara: This zone sucks with a slow mount. But after level 40, or even better at 60 with flight, Azshara becomes amazing exp/h!
    • Ghostlands: Many people recommend Ghostlands, but personally I thought it wasn't very good. There are a LOT of quests there, however.
    • Dustwallow Marsh: Again, some shared quest areas, but the sheer number of quests makes this zone very good, especially with a faster mount or flight.


    Alliance: 20-62 I won't lie, I'm less familiar with Alliance zones. Feedback is appreciated here.

    • Loch Modan: Basic low-level zone layout. Nice and easy. Lots of minerals and herbs. Highly recommended.
    • Redridge Mountains: Lots of people don't like it, but I think the quest density and layout are pretty good. The zone is pretty small, and easy to move around in.
    • Western Plague Lands: Just as good for Alliance as it is for Horde. I recommend going here ASAP.
    • Darkshore: Pretty Linear. Lots of quests. The southern end has too much back and forth.
    • Bloodmyst Isle: MANY quests, but no flying. Good use of hearthing highly recommended to achieve high exp/h
    • Westfall: Very easy to waste time running back and forth, but like Azshara for horde, MUCH better with a faster mount. I personally don't go here.
    • Northern STV: Proximity to Stormwind makes this basically an Alliance zone. Otherwise I'd have recommended it for horde too.
    • Searing Gorge: Again, this is basically an Alliance zone. So many quests with good flow from one to the next.


    TBC vs WOTLK: 62-80

    This level range is the SLOWEST out of any other part of the game. It's better now with the 8.1 experience changes. But stay super focused. Make sure you get every quest. Avoid backtracking whenever possible. Try VERY hard not to die, since you'll have to walk back instead of flying.

    While some of you may enjoy TBC for its atmosphere, when I tested exp/h in the original guide, TBC's quest layout and design resulted in it being LITERALLY worse than WotLK. In some cases WotLK exp/h was double that of TBC zones. If you're interested in raw speed, then go with WotLK zones.

    You should not need to do more than any 2 of these zones before moving on to the next level bracket.

    • Borean Tundra: Tested to be the best out of all the zones. The PETA buff is an extra bonus if you're willing to farm ears. This is still true in 8.1. Alliance should avoid Howling Fjord at all costs. It's garbage.
    • Dragonblight: Only marginally slower than Borean. You can waste a lot of travel time back and forth with the quests out of Wyrmrest if you're not careful.
    • Grizzly Hills/Howling Fjord/Zul'Drak: By the time you finish Borean and Dragonblight, you shouldn't have to do much more to ding 80. Just pick a zone and go.
    • Isle of Quel'Danas: Special mention. At lvl 70 you can start doing the dailies here. Despite not being able to fly, the quest density is VERY high. I recommend hitting this every reset if you spend more than 24 hours REAL time(not /played)in the 70-80 level range. In fact, if you're doing a monk and only logging in once each day anyway, IQD WILL be your best exp/h for this level range.

    CATA vs MOP: 80-91

    These two expansions are virtually identical in terms of exp/h. I personally favor Mount Hyjal, and think it's very slightly faster. But if you know Jade Forest well you can just as easily keep up there, and it has the advantage of a few treasures worth EXP.

    Ultimately you'll end up doing a little of both anyway, so it's mostly academic. Every time I've tested Valley of Four Winds or Deepholme, or any other zone in MOP/CATA's level range, they were worse exp/h. You should not even need to fully complete both zones to ding 91, so it's more important to just pick one and go.

    WoD: 91-104

    8.1 Update: Treasures are heavily nerfed past level 104. At level 101 they're only worth 16k, then drops by 4k each level, until being only worth 4k a pop at level 104. I still believe that questing in Gorgrond is faster. However, it requires combat and level 92 to begin, and treasures are more relaxed and easy.

    First off, make sure you have a treasure-tracking addon such as DraenorTreasures or HandyNotes.

    Second: The reason you wait til 91 to go to WoD is because you can't use the 20% garrison Exp Potions until 91.

    Once you ding 91, DO NOT TAKE THE QUEST THROUGH THE DARK PORTAL FROM KHADGAR! It's a trap! The Dark Portal scenario takes like an hour and change. (If you don't have Draenor Pathfinder complete, you're boned. Suck it up and do the Opening of the Dark Portal scenario).


    Instead, go to Timeless Isle and take the portal to Gorgrond. From there, fly to your respective faction starting zone(Frostfire Ridge or SMV), go to your garrison, and do the quests to unlock your garrison(A short quest chain beginning down near the water where you'd otherwise start after the Dark Portal scenario). For now DO NOT collect any more treasures than absolutely needed to buy 2 experience potions! Treasures continue to be worth superior exp/h all the way to level 104!!! You don't want to begin collecting them until lvl 100 or later.

    Once you have your potions, proceed to complete all the bonus objectives in your starting zone. This should easily level you to 92, where you can proceed to Gorgrond. Interesting enough, for some reason many Gorgrond quests are worth nearly double the experience of quests in other zones. Maybe this is a bug, maybe intended, I'm not sure. But I actually recommend you do all the quests and bonus objectives in Gorgrond. For your outpost choice, I recommend choosing the Gladiators, since they give access to more treasures than the shredder IMO.

    At 96 the standard wisdom is to immediately drop what you're doing and proceed to Spires of Arak and do the quests to unlock the Inn, granting a further 20% experience bonus while in that zone. You'll want to do that eventually anyway, but I'm not sure it outweighs the quest experience from Gorgrond. However, if you decided to go to Spires immediately at 96, restrict yourself only to bonus objectives and again leave Treasures until you're 100+. Make certain that when you being the quests to unlock the inn, you speak with the quest NPC to also learn Archaeology, since it's required to collect several of the treasures in Spires.

    At 98 you have the option to drop what you're doing and return to your capitol city to start the quest for your Legion Artifact weapon. However, I do not believe this is necessary to do right away unless you're struggling with kill speed in your current gear. I would recommend waiting for a natural pause, such as hearthing to repair and clear your bags. From 100 to 107 you won't even really fight mobs that often; only just enough to clear the way to any treasure you need to pick up.

    101+ At this point you'll start taking a penalty on quest/bonus objective experience for every level past 100. Treasures, however, remain worth their full value all the way through level 105, at which point they'll be worth something like 15% less, and then another 15% more when you ding 106. I recommend that you stop questing/gathering entirely, and collect all the treasures you can stomach, only avoiding any annoying to reach ones inside caves or behind elites/rares(where scaling does bizarro things).

    Legion: (104-110)

    Stormheim is the zone you want to start it. For some reason Legion treasures are not worth any experience like they are in WoD...except in Stormheim. I haven't been able to find out any reason for this, and it's possible it may get fixed/nerfed at a later date. But for the time being you REALLY want to jump from treasure to treasure to augment your quest experience.

    UPDATE: This appears to be a fluke. I have not been able to recreate experience from Stormheim chests. I don't know how it worked on my demon hunter.

    Do invasion world quests if they're available. These will be VERY good experience.

    Special note: At 110 it's almost certainly worthwhile to go and immediately get your Heart of Azeroth and first piece of Azerite gear from the BfA opening quest. It doesn't take long and provides pretty high power levels. I'd then return to Legion quests until 111 or even 112, since the power of these items will increase your kill speed significantly over the scaled enemies of BfA content.

    Battle For Azeroth: 110-120
    Many people suggest using the addon: Azeroth Autopilot to streamline leveling in BfA. I haven't tried it myself, so your YMMV.

    Many other people have claimed that you can level up quickly by using only island expeditions. This has the advantage of raw speed, but not anything else, such as progress on the war campaign or reputations, or flight paths(some of which you may already have unlocked from your main.

    UPDATE: There is now a flight path item for BfA, and dubloon vendor for Islands which has experience potions that you can send to you alts. Incursions are the BfA version of Invasions, and also have very good exp rewards. They are worth doing when they're up.

    HINTS AND TIPS:

    Overall you want to always be heading towards the objective of a quest. Try not to get sidetracked by anything. Ignore other players unless they offer to group for a quest you're on. Ignore enemy players. PVP is a waste of time. Try to stay mounted as much as possible, even over short distances.

    Pick up as many breadcrumb and pointer quests as possible for the areas you know you're going to be going to. That means hitting up the Warboards and taking all the quests until you get the ones for the zones you're going to be in later. Every little bit of exp counts, and you're going there anyway.

    Use your cooldowns! As often as possible you should be hitting those cooldowns to kill things faster, or to run faster to reach a quest objective.

    Before you leave Pandaria/Cata for WoD, take a few minutes to set your regular hearthstone to the shrine. You'll be getting a garrison hearthsone, and later a Dalaran stone anyway. It might seem good to do this right after character creation by having a guildy summon you, but you'll want to use your hearth for quest hubs before then.

    All the portals at the shrine were removed, except for Stormwind/Org and Shatt. A new portal room can be found in SW/Org.

    Take breaks. Unless you're straight up no-lifing it over a weekend or something, this leveling process is going to take ~40 hours. But any time you do need to step away, log out. That tiny little bit of rested exp is insignificant...but you never know when something might come up and you'll have to leave for a longer period of time than you expected. Better to be logged out and safe(especially with War Mode on) than AFK waiting for a d/c. Plus, you'll need to stretch, eat, shower, and maybe sleep. XD

    -------------------------------------------------

    As always, I will monitor and update this guide as new information comes in. If I've gotten anything glaringly and completely wrong, just tell me with as much data as possible. The idea is to find the fastest possible leveling method, NOT to argue about how good or bad individuals are. If you have hard data, post it! If you have an idea, let the thread know so we can test it!

    Also, how's the format? Easy to read, or no?
    Last edited by SirCowdog; 2018-12-21 at 06:36 PM.

  2. #2
    Deleted
    Thanks for this guide. In the preparation section, you could add Goblin Gliders which are always super useful. I also recommend picking Northrend Engineering and Draenor Archeology as temporary professions. The first allows the use of the loot-a-rang toy which allows looting movs from a distance. The second one is required to picknsome treasures in Draenor.

  3. #3
    Thanks for the guide! I'm sure it will be very useful to me and other people who are altoholics and want those heritages.

    As a sidenote, i would recommend taking a bit more of time but level in zones that give cities' rep, namely leveling only in those zones until 60 and as alternative to quel'danas the argent tournament dailies. This might take more time but will give you reputations.
    Last edited by RangerDaz; 2018-08-25 at 08:38 AM.

  4. #4
    Invasions just got reactivated a few days ago, but after 110 they're not worth doing.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Pwaite View Post
    Thanks for this guide. In the preparation section, you could add Goblin Gliders which are always super useful. I also recommend picking Northrend Engineering and Draenor Archeology as temporary professions. The first allows the use of the loot-a-rang toy which allows looting movs from a distance. The second one is required to picknsome treasures in Draenor.
    I'll add gliders to the guide, although I can't think of a situation where it would save a significant amount of time. The low level zones before 60 are all relatively flat, and after 60 you have flight.

    As for taking engineering, it would come at a cost of herbalism, which accounts for a fair amount of convenient exp along the way. With AoE looting there's seldom a need for faster looting, assuming you're even looting in the first place.

    You're absolutely right about getting archeology, however. I forgot that you need it for many treasures in Spires of Arak.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by RangerDaz View Post
    Thanks for the guide! I'm sure it will be very useful to me and other people who are altoholics and want those heritages.

    As a sidenote, i would recommend taking a bit more of time but level in zones that give cities' rep, namely leveling only in those zones until 60 and as alternative to quel'danas the argent tournament dailies. This might take more time but will give you reputations.
    I yried Argent tournament dailies. They're quite a bit out of the way to get to, requiring a long flight to the tourney grounds. And other than the actual jousting, the quests send you a long way out of the way, unlike the IQD quests which are all bunched together.

    As for reputations with cities: This is a secondary consideration, since it only gives vendor discounts that can be overpowered by gold from a main character.

    - - - Updated - - -

    As a heads up: Dont forget the Darkmoon Faire is starting this weekend! And it's a 3 day weekend for those of us in the states(Labor Day). Thats a perfect opportunity to get some serious leveling in.

    Don't forget! If more people are leveling, more competition and War Mode encounters happen. Consider counteracting pvp by using the DMF buff to male up for turning war mode off.
    Last edited by SirCowdog; 2018-08-31 at 04:34 AM.

  6. #6
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    Remember, for BfA, you get full Legion Invasion exp (minus the bonus XP reward), even at level 110.

    I know you're not covering BfA, but it's still out there.

  7. #7
    I personally wouldn't recommend Bloodmyst Isle. There's a ton of quests but a lot of those quests have absolutely horrible drop rates on their items. A lot of the quest mobs also have very slow and/or spread out spawns so if there's other people there you're gonna be waiting for respawns or spending a lot of time traveling between spawn areas quite a bit. Overall it's just an incredibly slow zone as far as EXP goes.
    Last edited by Oerba Yun Fang; 2018-08-31 at 03:35 AM.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Oerba Yun Fang View Post
    I personally wouldn't recommend Bloodmyst Isle. There's a ton of quests but a lot of those quests have absolutely horrible drop rates on their items. A lot of the quest mobs also have very slow and/or spread out spawns so if there's other people there you're gonna be waiting for respawns or spending a lot of time traveling between spawn areas quite a bit. Overall it's just an incredibly slow zone as far as EXP goes.
    I've found it to be much better after lvl 40 and faster riding is available. Throw in the talent at 45 and the first War Mode talent at 40, and things die pretty fast.

    Sadly, afaik Alliance just doesnt have any zones to rival Silverpine into Hillsbrad. Dun Morogh is pretty close, as is Redridge.
    Last edited by SirCowdog; 2018-08-31 at 04:32 AM.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by SirCowdog View Post
    I've found it to be much better after lvl 40 and faster riding is available. Throw in the talent at 45 and the first War Mode talent at 40, and things die pretty fast.

    Sadly, afaik Alliance just doesnt have any zones to rival Silverpine into Hillsbrad.
    Was doing it at 52 on my lightforged paladin and it was easily the slowest zone out of the ones I'd done. Granted, I didn't have War Mode on so I didn't have any PVP talents, but it felt like about 40% of my time was spent waiting around for respawns or wandering around looking for mobs to kill to get a quest item that had like a 5% drop rate. Maybe I just got unlucky but I definitely won't be going to that zone again for future heritage armor runs.

    I'm not familiar with Horde zones really but Darkshore into Felwood is pretty great EXP. I usually finish up my 1-60 grind there and then head to Northrend.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Oerba Yun Fang View Post
    Was doing it at 52 on my lightforged paladin and it was easily the slowest zone out of the ones I'd done. Granted, I didn't have War Mode on so I didn't have any PVP talents, but it felt like about 40% of my time was spent waiting around for respawns or wandering around looking for mobs to kill to get a quest item that had like a 5% drop rate. Maybe I just got unlucky but I definitely won't be going to that zone again for future heritage armor runs.

    I'm not familiar with Horde zones really but Darkshore into Felwood is pretty great EXP. I usually finish up my 1-60 grind there and then head to Northrend.
    I guess maybe I'm familiar enough with it to just slam it out. I don't recall any low droprate quests as bad as 5%. Although Blizzard has been screwing with stuff lately. Do you remember which quest it was? A lot of those can be skipped if they're too tedious. Like literally ALL the quests on that little island in the NE corner of the map with the ghost pirates underwater and the dragon whelps.

    Ive never had an issue with respawns unless im trying to quest 30 seconds behind someone who just cleared the same area. That'll be an issue no matter what zone you do.
    Last edited by SirCowdog; 2018-08-31 at 05:06 AM.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by SirCowdog View Post
    I guess maybe I'm familiar enough with it to just slam it out. I don't recall any low droprate quests as bad as 5%. Although Blizzard has been screwing with stuff lately. Do you remember which quest it was? A lot of those can be skipped if they're too tedious. Like literally ALL the quests on that little island in the NE corner of the map with the ghost pirates underwater and the dragon whelps.

    Ive never had an issue with respawns unless im trying to quest 30 seconds behind someone who just cleared the same area.
    5% was admittedly an exaggeration, just felt that low. I'd say it was probably closer to the 30-40% range. It was Artifacts of the Blacksilt, spent a good 10-15 minutes killing Blacksilt Seers to get two damn idols to drop. A quest that had me killing Elder Brown Bears for bear flanks also took quite a while, though that was less due to drop rate and more due to how spread out they were.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Oerba Yun Fang View Post
    5% was admittedly an exaggeration, just felt that low. I'd say it was probably closer to the 30-40% range. It was Artifacts of the Blacksilt, spent a good 10-15 minutes killing Blacksilt Seers to get two damn idols to drop. A quest that had me killing Elder Brown Bears for bear flanks also took quite a while, though that was less due to drop rate and more due to how spread out they were.
    Bear flanks is one of those quests you're meant to do over the entire course of questing in the zone, not all at once. Or at least thats how i interpret it.

    The idols sounds like bad luck. In all the times I've been through there I've never had to spend 15 minutes killing murlocs for those idols.

  13. #13
    Deleted
    If it still works and hasn’t yet been nerfed.

    73-80 is very fast levelling if you simply do TBC Heroics solo. In 7.3 you could do 73-81 in 3 hours tops.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Also, Zul’Gurub heroic loops from 87-90.

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by SirCowdog View Post



    I yried Argent tournament dailies. They're quite a bit out of the way to get to, requiring a long flight to the tourney grounds. And other than the actual jousting, the quests send you a long way out of the way, unlike the IQD quests which are all bunched together.

    As for reputations with cities: This is a secondary consideration, since it only gives vendor discounts that can be overpowered by gold from a main character
    Well honestly i did the argent tournament to get the squire and buy the briddle (which is NOT account bound) that gives you character remote access to bank and mail, very useful when you need them and far away from those.

    Im still in the middle of the argent tournament but it is leveling my alts from 70 til 80 with 30-40 min daily and getting rep and coins for the briddle, allowing to focus on my high levels in kul tiras and zandalar.

    I also have a second account with high level that boosts me in the jousting dailies.. winning them instantly lol.

    You can also skip the maidens city quests after you get access to the champion dailies, if you find them too much of a burden.
    Last edited by RangerDaz; 2018-08-31 at 08:10 AM.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Heladane View Post
    If it still works and hasn’t yet been nerfed.

    73-80 is very fast levelling if you simply do TBC Heroics solo. In 7.3 you could do 73-81 in 3 hours tops.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Also, Zul’Gurub heroic loops from 87-90.
    Those no longer work due to scaling. I went into heroic ramparts solo at 83 and still struggled. But the exp was penalized for overlevel.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by RangerDaz View Post
    Well honestly i did the argent tournament to get the squire and buy the briddle (which is NOT account bound) that gives you character remote access to bank and mail, very useful when you need them and far away from those.

    Im still in the middle of the argent tournament but it is leveling my alts from 70 til 80 with 30-40 min daily and getting rep and coins for the briddle, allowing to focus on my high levels in kul tiras and zandalar.

    I also have a second account with high level that boosts me in the jousting dailies.. winning them instantly lol.

    You can also skip the maidens city quests after you get access to the champion dailies, if you find them too much of a burden.
    I mean, if all you're going to do is log in, do the tourney quests, then log put again...sure. The guide isn't really set up that way, but im sure it works if you don't want to spend a lot of time each day.

  16. #16
    Thanks, gonna follow this guide when I unlock the new allied race.

  17. #17
    Deleted
    What a great guide. As a dedicated main since vanilla (I basically play one char since then, with a few exceptions) it's fascinating to see in how many different ways this game can be played.

    This guide got me tempted to actually level an alt, but I was wondering if you had given any thought to the time it takes you to do all the preparations. For example, I get that it might be helpful to get a Darkmoon Fair Top Hat, but does the time it saves overcompensate the time it takes to get the item in the first place?

    How would you sort your recommendations by ( preparation time needed / leveling time saved ) ratio?

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by SirCowdog View Post
    Sadly, afaik Alliance just doesnt have any zones to rival Silverpine into Hillsbrad.
    I just did yesterday Silverpine on pally. The quests give a fuckton of xp and some of them are just traveling between quest givers.


    Quote Originally Posted by Heladane View Post
    73-80 is very fast levelling if you simply do TBC Heroics solo. In 7.3 you could do 73-81 in 3 hours tops.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Also, Zul’Gurub heroic loops from 87-90.
    Does it still apply for 8.0?

  19. #19
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Vynx View Post

    Does it still apply for 8.0?
    No SirCowdog is quite correct. I tried this out after he said scaling had broken it with a 76 priest alt on ramparts. Before the priest could have soloed the heroic dungeon with just power word: pain on each mob. Now he can barely get past the first two mobs.

    Looks like Blizzard have killed that particular xp express train very well.
    Last edited by mmocb687a72763; 2018-08-31 at 10:41 AM.

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Katsu2881 View Post
    What a great guide. As a dedicated main since vanilla (I basically play one char since then, with a few exceptions) it's fascinating to see in how many different ways this game can be played.

    This guide got me tempted to actually level an alt, but I was wondering if you had given any thought to the time it takes you to do all the preparations. For example, I get that it might be helpful to get a Darkmoon Fair Top Hat, but does the time it saves overcompensate the time it takes to get the item in the first place?

    How would you sort your recommendations by ( preparation time needed / leveling time saved ) ratio?
    To give you some perspective I leveled both a LF Ret Paladin and BE Rogue (so one started from level 20 and the other from level 1). I focused on getting the achievements I was missing for the Loremaster, so not the most efficient route by any means. I was using full enchanted heirlooms (minus the ring) and the WoW-Pro addon though, as well as having War Mode turned on all the way.

    Anyway both got to 110 at around 50h played. I messed up with my Pal by going to Legion once I hit 100 instead of finishing treasures and bonuses in WoD. All in all, if I picked the best zones and was only trying to level as fast as I could, I would probably could have done it in roughly 40h. Note that it would have a been A LOT faster with a Monk as both Ret and Rogues don't really have a decent AoE until 40+ (45 for Ret and 63 for Rogue I believe). The daily also helps a lot. I know that leveling my Monk before the pre-patch was insanely fast. Might be slower with the changes to FoF, however.

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