There's another trick with a warlock as well...the Voidwalker taunts don't affect exp so create a taunt target of target macro and just pin the mob to your Voidwalker while the lowbie kills it.

I was wondering if you guys have any advice for me in leveling my Shaman. I have access to a Level 68 (currently) Prot specced Pally that I can 2box with. What weapons Should I be either questing for or running him through instances for, at the earliest possible level? I currently am Level 40 with the shaman and I am have 2 Gluttons Cleavers at the moment. I have read this whole thread and have used many of the tips provided. Just curious if there are any MUST have weapons for an enhancement shammie that I should grab on the way up to 58.

Another Question I was wondering about...Is it ALWAYS better to use 2 WF's on both of your weapons? Or should the mainhand have WF, and the off hand be something else? I haven't seen much information on this. I do know it depends on the speed of the weapon in the offhand if I use WF or something else. What is that something else? Thanks in advance.

The number one weapon to get as a Shaman is the hammer from winning AV at 51. Rivenspike from LBRS makes a really good offhand to use with that, but it's off a rarespawn. I tried farming it with a friend, but in 10 tries the mob was never up, so I just gave up and kept leveling.

I'm also a bit curious about weapon imbue choices. I always went with Windfury while leveling my Shaman alt because it's awesome, and proccing it makes me really happy, but I have no idea what's actually optimal. I'm pretty sure Flametongue isn't worthwhile until you have Mental Quickness, and I'm not sure how Rockbiter compares.

Winfury Procs also make me happy in my pants as well. Is the lvl 51 weapon from AV a 1handed hammer? I would assume so. Also could you tell me the name of it so I could look it up?

Assume he means [Cold Forged Hammer]. 41.4 dps one-hander at level 51 is not easily matched.

I didn't read most of this thread so my views have likely already been posted, but for me personally to actually find the motivation to level a character though recycled content requires someone to compete with. Recently I've been leveling my warlock, you should usually have a few people in your guild who are naturally considered guild wide as fast levelers, I'll typically challenge someone higher up in the food group and then let the games begin. With things like gold bets, trash talk, and ones reputation on the line it all drives up the motivation and you'll soon find yourself missing sleep to get that precious extra level higher before you finally pass out.

Sure content is recycled and boring but now it's not the focus point, you'll gladly be logging in to spend time on your alt.

I went balance on my druid alt, and did just that. I picked up almost a complete set of Arcane Wrath that was up to date with my own level in around 24 hours, and probably spent 20-30 gold.

Mage Arcane spells are pretty mana inefficient, even at the lower levels. A considerable amount of +arcane dmg might fix that.

I think you might find the biggest issue will still be mana regeneration, especially at lower levels. You can't really twink past this issue much, though it's not as bad as it used to be--if I recall they upped the mana regen from levels 1 to 30 a year or so ago.

Still, I would recommend you buy vendored water if you can afford it, as soon as you can use it. It might save you a lot of hastle, especially if you have twinked out enough and have a large mana pool. There's nothing more annoying than sitting for nearly a full minute every five minutes at times, drinking two summoned waters, just to get your mana back to full.

I tested out a couple of things in the stockades this weekend, and here are my results. I used a 70 warlock to help level my druid, who started these at 15.

Using the dot and zone out technique to kill 3-4 mobs at a time, I average 350-450xp a mob and could do a level in <15 minutes without really even pushing very hard. Using an AoE method, I could get around 50-70xp per mob only, which slowed down the leveling pretty substantially.

Adding in other lowbies into the group, the xp per mob on the AoE pulls went up slightly at 3 and 4 members in the group. Adding a 5th seemed to not make a difference at all. With a full group, doting and zoning out only got around 120-140xp per mob.

So, if you're leveling one toon the best method by far seems to be dot and zone out. If you have two or more, you're best off AoEing, but it's going to be substantially slower then going "solo".

Oh, also: I tried using my VW to group them up at zone and SoC a bunch, then zone out. Unfortunately when the SoCs detonated it never actually killed anyone, even with 3 out of 4 mobs SoC'd. My hope was that I'd be able to pull like 35 guys, SoC some, then zone out and get like an entire level in a pull. I only gave this about 3 goes, cause the run from the GY to stockades is kind of annoying... when I get to SM I might give this another go.

The problem with the mass SoC method is the low level can't possibly last more than a few seconds if you zone out on a half the zone at once pull, hence pulling 3-4 at a time(unless its a paladin and bubbles). That method works fine if your aoe'ing, but as you mentioned the xp is alot lower per mob. Personally I can clear stocks faster than the 5 resets per hour on my lock, and haven't really tested to see which method comes out to the most xp per hour. Once I get a character high enough to test it out again I will, clearing the entire zone once each way to see what the xp per run is, and the xp per hour is (really thats all that matters).

I would assume that xp/hour would be higher AoEing your way through a place like stocks, even if the xp is nerfed with only the lowbie and the level 70 in the party. I've never personally done the dot+zone out method, but it would seem slow to only grab 4 mobs, dot them all up, zone out, zone back in and repeat. Especially since you have to travel further and further away from the entrance as you work your way through.

As a frost mage with mostly S1 gear, I can pull 1/3rd of the instance (maybe more, I haven't REALLY pushed the limit before) in a single go and AoE them all down at once. The AoE cap isn't too much of a concern since they have so low of health anyway. Even with 50-70 xp per kill, I just can't imagine that being slower than the dot+zone technique, at least at that level.

In stockades, around lvl20, only 1 low lvl in party:
I do pulls of 11 mobs each time, with my warlock (I have to use SL rank 1 or the 1st dotted mob will be dead by the time I get to the last) and the xp/h increases dramatically, compared with the mage/lock killing everything with the lowlvl following.

With dot and zone out, u get 420xp per mob. Thats 4600xp per pull. With aoe u get 70xp per mob. U would need pulls of ~66 mobs to reach the same xp.

Adding more low lvls to the party increases the xp with the aoe method, but reduces to half the xp from the dot and zone out method.


Gonna do some research in SM, these next few days.


[EDIT] btw, SoCing and zoning out, caused the SoC to disappear, for me.

When I was leveling my Shaman, I had to push him from 13 to 15 by dragging him through DM several times with a T4 geared mage. It was reasonably fast to get XP that way for sure. But once he hit 15 and I could take him into Stocks with a lock, I was really just blown away by the leveling speed. There's no way I was getting 4 levels/hour dragging with AOE.

Running deeper into the instance is really not that big deal - because the XP gain is so much higher, the clearing of the level is significantly slower - which is a good thing. I could reset the instance with only 2/3 of it cleared, and still not run into the reset cap.

Your mileage may vary and all that, but for the trip from 15-35 or so I would use the dot and run method if it was available to me - incredibly quick, no downtime.

This spiked another "How come I did not think of that" moment in me. Excellent tip - I thought after being done with the dot and run out leveling the lock would be of limited use - but this has huge possibilities. At the very least it means being able to do most group quests for full XP, which is pretty significant.

I'm starting to level a pally (12 atm) that I'll probably go prot and aoe tank/burn with. Anyone have suggestions on good sheilds to look for as I level? I have the gold to buy BOE AH stuff, but quest rewards and maybe some easily farmable sheilds would be worth while as well.

Other than the obvious:getting a sheild spike for the sheild, should I look for anything in particular besides mail (plate at 40) armor with stam on it? Would the ideal gear be of the eagle (Stam/Int) gear or stam and something else?

With the current pally I use / am leveling I went with a retribution spec up until 44 or so when I had a full set of plate and a good shield (SM shield). For leveling post patch you are best going for doing quests for the massive exp rewards, granted you can do some with AoE tanking you should focus on quests, not on "grinding x mob until I ding"

If you have the extra cash invest in clefthoof armor and fiery enchants early (15% move speed from ret tree is also invaluable) as it will make the progress much faster, use your main to keep new weapons/armor stockpiled in your mail so you always have the best possible gear.

So is it worth trekking to Stockades as horde for the whole dot then leave instance thing or should I just try it in a different instance?

Err, how on earth would you get a low level horde character through most of Stormwind City? Find another instance ^^

Not to hard, Warlock, 2 rogues. Summon.

EDIT: By the 2 rogues, I mean 2 higher lvl rogues in case that wasn't entirely obvious.

On the off chance the paladin you're levelling is Horde, [Vile Protector] is a shield that you can get at level 28 with some help, and it will last you a looooooong time.

I wonder what happens to consecration when a paladin exits the instance.
Considering that if it would not disappear, you could pull an entire instance, consecration until at 15%, BoP the only lowbie in the group and run out.
The only downside would be the cooldown on BoP, but who cares with 5 dings per pull?

Good in theory, although SoC disappears on leaving the instance so I'm guessing Consecration would too. The mobs may also reset as there is no one they can attack?