Elitist Jerks - View Single Post

anathor · 12/07/07, 10:43 AM

I've been trying to level an alt recently in order to drop the gathering skill on my main (herba), as well as powerlevel another alt to 35 to be able to disenchant all BoE items. So I asked myself pretty much the same questions.

The first thing I did was make a list of a few constraints, among others:
- avoid known content as much as possible
- efficiency (class, spec, gear, quest vs grind...)

Following this, here are a few considerations you might want to take into account:
- areas: there are areas that I liked and would like to spend time in no matter what (e.g. 1000 needles, stonetalon, STV, badlands, ungoro...), areas that I hate and wouldn't one minute in (ashenvale, WPL/EPL) and areas where I had not set foot (dustwallow, desolace, winterspring, blood elf starting area, blasted lands...). So I decided to avoid the 2nd category (for obvious reasons), to focus particualrly on the 1st (bread and butter, basically) and fill in the gaps with the 3rd category (it's really refreshing to discover new content, whatever the level)
- class: Hunter. No skill required whatsoever for levelling this class, totally overpowered, no downtime - what's not to like? That's really (and I believe by far) the most efficient levelling class.
- gear: Another aspect I took into account was reliance on gear. Druids are probably the class that relies the less on gear, whereas e.g. mages or warriors won't get far without decent gear. The advantage for hunters is that with a good weapon/ammo and a dps pet, quest gear is more than enough. Plus scopes are cheap compared to enchants and make it very easy to twink weapon damage. Same for ammo. The most important thing is to plan ahead, in particular to keep prices low. For example my hunter is currently level 38, I got him a new weapon at level 37, he will get new ammo at level 40 and I'm already checking the AH regularly for a good deal on a level 45 weapon.
- spec: here it's a bit stating the obvious but spec should be aimed 100% towards efficiency, e.g. feral druid, BM hunter, shadow priest, etc. In particular damage is the most important, since (see below) grinding will be an important part, and grinding is a low risk activity.
- travelling speed: especially at lower levels one of the biggest time sinks is travelling. Any class with early access to faster travels should be favoured (druids with travel form and talented cat form, hunters with talented aspect of the cheetah), and of course the alt should get his mount as soon as possible.

Re: the techniques used, I avoided all the quests which didn't involve killing something. When I levelled my main I was not a big fan of grinding quests in general, but in terms of efficiency they are the best. This is why areas like desolace (gotta love those centaurs), racing flats in 1000 needles, TM, STV, badlands... are the best (well, maybe not on a PvP server). Combined with rested xp it means a lot of xp from killing + increased xp from questing. Also while playing a hunter it's important to kill stuff since questing xp doesn't count towards levelling your pet.

The downgrading of elites has been very useful, I think the best example is the dwarves near TM, there are several quests there (kill some of them, pick up a keg, find the sword...) and they are super easy right now.

12/07/07, 10:43 AM	#69 (permalink)
anathor Piston Honda Anathor Tauren Druid <Semper Fi> Terenas (EU)	I've been trying to level an alt recently in order to drop the gathering skill on my main (herba), as well as powerlevel another alt to 35 to be able to disenchant all BoE items. So I asked myself pretty much the same questions. The first thing I did was make a list of a few constraints, among others: - avoid known content as much as possible - efficiency (class, spec, gear, quest vs grind...) Following this, here are a few considerations you might want to take into account: - areas: there are areas that I liked and would like to spend time in no matter what (e.g. 1000 needles, stonetalon, STV, badlands, ungoro...), areas that I hate and wouldn't one minute in (ashenvale, WPL/EPL) and areas where I had not set foot (dustwallow, desolace, winterspring, blood elf starting area, blasted lands...). So I decided to avoid the 2nd category (for obvious reasons), to focus particualrly on the 1st (bread and butter, basically) and fill in the gaps with the 3rd category (it's really refreshing to discover new content, whatever the level) - class: Hunter. No skill required whatsoever for levelling this class, totally overpowered, no downtime - what's not to like? That's really (and I believe by far) the most efficient levelling class. - gear: Another aspect I took into account was reliance on gear. Druids are probably the class that relies the less on gear, whereas e.g. mages or warriors won't get far without decent gear. The advantage for hunters is that with a good weapon/ammo and a dps pet, quest gear is more than enough. Plus scopes are cheap compared to enchants and make it very easy to twink weapon damage. Same for ammo. The most important thing is to plan ahead, in particular to keep prices low. For example my hunter is currently level 38, I got him a new weapon at level 37, he will get new ammo at level 40 and I'm already checking the AH regularly for a good deal on a level 45 weapon. - spec: here it's a bit stating the obvious but spec should be aimed 100% towards efficiency, e.g. feral druid, BM hunter, shadow priest, etc. In particular damage is the most important, since (see below) grinding will be an important part, and grinding is a low risk activity. - travelling speed: especially at lower levels one of the biggest time sinks is travelling. Any class with early access to faster travels should be favoured (druids with travel form and talented cat form, hunters with talented aspect of the cheetah), and of course the alt should get his mount as soon as possible. Re: the techniques used, I avoided all the quests which didn't involve killing something. When I levelled my main I was not a big fan of grinding quests in general, but in terms of efficiency they are the best. This is why areas like desolace (gotta love those centaurs), racing flats in 1000 needles, TM, STV, badlands... are the best (well, maybe not on a PvP server). Combined with rested xp it means a lot of xp from killing + increased xp from questing. Also while playing a hunter it's important to kill stuff since questing xp doesn't count towards levelling your pet. The downgrading of elites has been very useful, I think the best example is the dwarves near TM, there are several quests there (kill some of them, pick up a keg, find the sword...) and they are super easy right now.