The Jame's guides are an excellent resource, but I'm interested to see how the recent leveling changes and de-elite-ing of certain mobs and quests changes the face of the guides.
In helping my girlfriend level her character, I have her get all the quests for a dungeon, examine what drops she could really use, and then just run her through the instance a couple of times. She gets the quests knocked out and gets a couple of solid upgrades, and then she goes back to doing the quest guides.
I can never justify dropping a hundred gold on a weapon that I'd end up vendoring in 5 levels, so I generally look for dungeon drops that are roughly equivalent to BoE items and hit the instances a couple times.
Maybe ''guide'' was a bad choice to describe what i want. Im looking for some guidelines about aoe farm, something to improve the xp/hour...most of the guides you refer are outdated and dont take in consideration patch 2.3. You were the first to ask for ''tricks'' or ''info'' no need to jump on me for doing the same. Thank you.
Wasn't 'jumping' on you at all, I specifically tried to be polite. Asking for leveling guides will turn this into a standard WoW forums thread, which the mods would remove.
If you want the basics, I can't see how those outdated guides aren't still fine. You still use the same equipment, i.e. best shield you can find, highest level shield spike, high stamina/armor items etc.. The talents needed are still the same, and you still can't do it till the 30's (I believe, been awhile since I read about it and don't play a pally).
If you want to perfect it, like the optimal weapon or shield, that's not a guide anymore, and that's fine. It's more in line with the thread's spirit. That's not how you phrased the original request though. Sorry, but the thread is walking a fine line between being a dumb WoW forum thread and being an EJ thread, just trying to make sure it doesn't cross over.
1. Get a second account (make sure to refer-a-friend to yourself for a free month of wow.)
2. Create your alt on the second account
3. Level to ~10 normally in the starting area
4. Use your main to drag the alt through instances, as a mage you can clear deadmines/WC so fast you'll hit the instances/hour cap
5. I spent about 20m searching but can't find a post, but someone had a SS of dinging level 40 with less than a day of playtime using this strategy.
a small but important tip.
Fill up your group with people that are lower than the char you want to push. This will give group bonus and so will give more exp in the end.
And this method works, it works so good it took us 2days 9hours to get 2 chars to 60.
I used this strategy to level my warrior in around 3 days /played (with hours of dicking around wasting time, so fairly close to the 2d9h figure) and have my druid at 42 with a little over 1 day. I leveled normally to 15, went to Stockades until 30, SM until 45, and Strath until Outland. As a paladin in tanking gear (with Figurine of the Colossus and the Burrower's Shell [you can use the one from Slave Pens too]):
- For the Stockades, pull the whole front hall + left side and consecrate a few times, then the right side and consecrate some more. This will hit the 5 reset/hour cap in 30 mins so hope you brought a book.
- For SM, pull the entire wing at once, aggroing mobs on the way and training them back to the entrance. Library + Armory + Cathedral each reset until around 35, then just Armory + Cathedral. You will stop getting much exp from Armory past 41 or so, but you'll just run into the reset cap if you try to skip it. In fact you will probably run into the reset cap for a few minutes anyway if you don't loot anything and do Armory+Cath efficiently.
- Cathedral will be by far the most experience if you are able to pull off this trick: Aggro as few mobs as possible so that you can use a damage absorb trinket to open the door. Kill Mograine, then wait for Whitemane to come out. Beat on her to about 60% HP, then Divine Shield and hit her with a JoR + Shock/AS until she sleeps you. If you don't time your DS right you will be stunned for ten seconds with the entire instance beating on you, but if you do it right she will rez Mograine and manage to get the attention of about 50% more mobs than he did alone. Kite them straight past the fountain so you can heal when you drop down, and LOS pull them into the entry hallway for killing.
- For Stratholme, establish a circuit through the undead AoE packs only. Pull as much as you can at once, I usually do the first room, followed by everything up to the ghost boss, followed by everything straight around the right. After the rat trap I can take everything at once, but if you're not as well geared I'd recommend the packs by the gate + left side + front door trash, then the packs on the right. You can get away with being holy in tanking gear for most of these, but for Stratholme you really want to have Sanctuary to do it efficiently.
The first time through, I had no problems getting random alts in cities to come along and be autofollowed / get exp / grant a group bonus. With my second character there's no shortage of guildies asking to come along.
If you want to perfect it, like the optimal weapon or shield, that's not a guide anymore, and that's fine. It's more in line with the thread's spirit. That's not how you phrased the original request though. Sorry, but the thread is walking a fine line between being a dumb WoW forum thread and being an EJ thread, just trying to make sure it doesn't cross over.
Thanks for the reply. WHat you described there is exactly what im looking for, unfortunately with the changes in 2.3. and my current lvl (41 right now) i doubt that it will be worth it. I apologise for any misunderstanding, sometimes i dont manage to write exactly what i think since this is not my native language...anyway its an interesting thread and ill keep checking it.
This is what I usually do with my Paladin to help PL people before we can start doing DM/Stockades/SM runs for xp:
Depending on the class, judge a mob with either Light or Wisdom, and make sure you don't get close enough to one shot the mob ^^ Continue popping Seal of Whatever if you don't want the mob attacking your buddy, as long as they obviously don't gain any benefit from being attacked. As most of you know, seal's generate a small amt of threat (50?), so if you cast it a few times you'll have generated a couple hundred threat on that mob. Usually that's enough to stay ahead of any caster below 10 or 15. You can also ranged taunt off of them, or stun the mob without hurting XP.
If you still have at least 2 pieces of your T4, your JoL will be doing more than enough to keep the person alive if they're melee, without having to heal them.
Along with blessings and the ability to give ANY caster class almost unlimited mana, this is about the best way I can see to PL someone before instances are viable.
P.S. - You can also PL someone of the opposite faction this way (seals/judgements) :P Not that that sort of thing comes up all the time, but it's just kinda funny that it works out that way.
Unfortunately for you Druid may be the least twinkable class in the game, unless you count grouping with a warrior or warlock twink who does most of your killing while you heal.
Yea, I know. But, I figure a druid is the best to level, since they are so overpowered in PVP currently and needed in raids (at least on my server). Plus, since I dislike leveling alts, if I ever get bored of my mage completely, the druid is a different playstyle with a quick respec. 3 different alts in one
That iron counterweight tip posted above is great though, since it's adding haste rating it will work with feral. I was upset when I first realized I wouldn't be able to twink with weapon proc enchants and such, but that should help for a bit.
Power level the alt's bandage skill. Maxing it out (around 200) gives a bandage skill that is almost a complete heal per second for starting chars.
Some potions are extremly powerful at the levels they can first be used (12 health per 5, +8 damage per hit, etc.)
On PvP servers, park your high level character in the zone your leveling in.
On Pvp servers, level in lesser used zones. It saves time in the long run.
Unless needed for a quest, skip looting.
Hit point enchant on chest piece.
Some quest items can be bought outright from the ah.
Some of the worst talents are the best for leveling. Example priest wand damage talent with enchanter wands for level 13-25.
Well i have a little tip that some people usually forget. Dont skip the cloth turnin quests, be sure to make every single one of em, for each faction. Not huge but a decent amount of xp.
For those asking about the "old guides", the only issue is that you out-level the guide rather quickly with the combination of rest XP, quest XP, and reduced XP per level. One benefit is everywhere they've said "grind to next level"...you won't have to. I suspect someone with lots more time than I will go and update those guides for 2.3 XP changes, but until then....just skip the "if you want to" parts, and drop quests that are gray or green and out of the way.
I'm working up a druid right now in the more traditional style, and I'm not sure I agree that druids have issues. Aside from weapon enchant procs (which 15 Agi helps with), the rest of the enchants, etc. are available. I'm constantly scanning AH for the aforementioned "of the Tiger" or "of the Monkey" gear. Pure feral spec, and I hardly get to use the finishing moves because mobs die so fast. I decided not to invest in enchants (though my warlock main is an enchanter) because I'm replacing gear so frequently.
Edit:
Originally Posted by Gothik
Well i have a little tip that some people usually forget. Dont skip the cloth turnin quests, be sure to make every single one of em, for each faction. Not huge but a decent amount of xp.
Definitely. I think I earned 13k XP for the wool/silk/mageweave turnins, and I haven't done the Runecloth yet. They should be available at level 20, 30, 40, and 50. The sooner they're done, the better for XP.
I think enchanting your gear for any reason other than twinking to play in a specific BG bracket at these levels would be a waste of money, especially with the new changes to xp/level and quest experience. You out level the usefulness of any individual item too quickly. Just following the quests along the way I leveled my alt shaman from 46-56 over last weekend.
Take some non-binding pants and mail them to your main.
Apply a spellthread or nether armor kit.
You now have a set of pants that beats the hell out of anything you're going to see before the Outlands, and can be reused on other alts. Well worth the investment.
Melador> Incidentally, these last few pages are why people hate lawyers.
Viator> I really don't want to go all Kalman here.
Bury> Just imagine what the world would be like if you used your powers for good.
When I was leveling up my shaman, I realized there were a good amount of quest items that weren't soulbound. So using some filters on wowhead I tried to find as many non-soulbound quest items I could. These are are all the quests I could find which can be completed solely by just buying/farming the items on another character. I just realized it's actually incomplete since it doesn't have the shredder manual quest but it was the best I could do with the filters on wowhead. The (A/B/H) next to the quest name designates whether it's available to only alliance, only horde or both. It's also worth mentioning a few of the quests may have prereqs which I didn't mention; so you may want to check that.
Badlands
(B) Coolant Heads Prevail - Frost Oil (1)
[Prerequisite - Coolant Heads Prevail] Gyro... What? - Gyrochronatom (1)
(B) Pearl Diving - Blue Pearl (9)
(A) The Family and the Fishing Pole - Darkshore Grouper (6)
Desolace
(H) Catch of the Day - Bloodbelly Fish (2)
Dun Morogh
(A) Search for Incendicite - Incendicite Ore (6)
Duskwood
[Prerequisite - Jitter's Growling Gut] (A) Dusky Crab Cakes - Gooey Spider Legs (6)
(A) Look To The Stars - Bronze Tube (1)
Eastern Plaguelands
(B) Bonescythe Digs - Bone Fragments (30)
(B) Cryptstalker Armor Doesn't Make Itself... - Crypt Fiend Part (30)
(B) Dark Iron Scraps - Dark Iron Scraps (30)
(B) That's Asking A Lot - Thorium Bar (2), Golden Rod (1), Hi-Explosive Bomb (8), Unstable Trigger (8)
(B) The Elemental Equation - Core of Elements (30)
(B) Secret Communication - Encrypted Twilight Text (10)
Silverpine Forest
(H) Wild Hearts - Discolored Worg Heart (6)
Stonetalon Mountains
(A) Ineptitude + Chemicals = Fun - Minor Mana Potion (4), Elixir of Minor Fortitude (2)
Stranglethorn Vale
(B) Chapter I - Green Hills of Stranglethorn - Page 1 (1), Green Hills of Stranglethorn - Page 4 (1), Green Hills of Stranglethorn - Page 6 (1), Green Hills of Stranglethorn - Page 8 (1)
(B) Chapter II - Green Hills of Stranglethorn - Page 10 (1), Green Hills of Stranglethorn - Page 11 (1), Green Hills of Stranglethorn - Page 14 (1), Green Hills of Stranglethorn - Page 16 (1)
(B) Chapter III - Green Hills of Stranglethorn - Page 18 (1), Green Hills of Stranglethorn - Page 20 (1), Green Hills of Stranglethorn - Page 21 (1), Green Hills of Stranglethorn - Page 24 (1)
(B) Chapter IV - Green Hills of Stranglethorn - Page 25 (1), Green Hills of Stranglethorn - Page 26 (1), Green Hills of Stranglethorn - Page 27 (1)
[Prerequisite - Krazek's Cookery] (A) Favor for Krazek - Lesser Bloodstone Ore (4)
Terokkar Forest
(B) The Outcast's Plight - Arakkoa Feather (30)
The Barrens
[Prerequisite - Tribes at War] (H) Blood Shards of Agamaggan - Blood Shard (1)
The Hinterlands
[Prerequisite - Message to the Wildhammer] (H) Another Message to the Wildhammer - Long Elegant Feather (10)
Un'Goro Crater
(B) Crystals of Power - Red Power Crystal (7), Yellow Power Crystal (7), Blue Power Crystal (7), Green Power Crystal (7)
Westfall
(A) Goretusk Liver Pie - Goretusk Liver (8)
(A) Keeper of the Flame - Flask of Oil (5)
(A) Westfall Stew - Stringy Vulture Meat (3), Murloc Eye (3), Goretusk Snout (3), Okra (3)
The Light's Hope turn-in sets are particularly nice if you have the materials, giving you something like a combined 50,000 exp for your troubles.
Putting major enchants on crappy gear is generally a waste of money unless you've got a ton of it burning a hole in your pocket, but the attack power to gloves and bracers enchants are quite inexpensive for the power. +12 agility to cloak isn't bad either. The spell enchants tend to be a bit less affordable.
For those asking about the "old guides", the only issue is that you out-level the guide rather quickly with the combination of rest XP, quest XP, and reduced XP per level. One benefit is everywhere they've said "grind to next level"...you won't have to. I suspect someone with lots more time than I will go and update those guides for 2.3 XP changes, but until then....just skip the "if you want to" parts, and drop quests that are gray or green and out of the way.
I leveled a hunter from the late 40s to Outlands last week, using the old version of James' Horde guide, and found it was pretty simple to just cut entire zones out. I didn't have to go to Burning Steppes, Blasted Lands, Azshara, Searing Gorge, or Eastern Plaguelands. Yay! I also skipped all the bug quests in Tanaris and Un'goro because I hate them. I otherwise followed the guide as written.
So even with the old guides, as long as you have some familiarity with the content, they're still an excellent resource for solo leveling.
Take some non-binding pants and mail them to your main.
Apply a spellthread or nether armor kit.
You now have a set of pants that beats the hell out of anything you're going to see before the Outlands, and can be reused on other alts. Well worth the investment.
Brilliant!
Weapon oils, scrolls and sharpening stones can speed up your ability to kill as well if you are soloing. There arent too many good potions at lower levels but there are a few that will help. I used Intel and Armor potions early on, Sages and Shadow Power currently. Leveling had really changed with this latest patch and instance grinding is less than optimal. Going from 51-53 in an evening is very easy now thru questing.
I seem to recall getting a mess of experience playing AV from 58-60ish.
This doesnt work anymore but you used to get exp for scourgestone turnins. I would grind felstone field and save all of them until 59 to turn in.
Is 58 the optimal time to depart for the outlands?
Definitely. I think I earned 13k XP for the wool/silk/mageweave turnins, and I haven't done the Runecloth yet. They should be available at level 20, 30, 40, and 50. The sooner they're done, the better for XP.
well i just did the mageweave one and it gives around 4k xp...and i did it five times, one per city, so thats 20k right there.
[Lesser Magic Wand] and [Greater Magic Wand] are probably the two most overpowered items in the game with respect to the level that can use them.
The lesser wand in particular is an 11.3 dps weapon usable at lvl 5. It 1/2-shots stuff at that level. Compared to other stuff at the same level which is in the 5dps range (greens) or 2dps range (white/grey).
Not that levelling that low is hard or anything, but it's pretty ridiculous. Most caster toons I've levelled use those two wands exclusively till around lvl 20. Nothing more than wand stuff from range and heal/bandage after the fight.
I don't remember if it's still the case, but [Skinning Knife] is an item that takes no skill to use. I.e. any class can actually kill stuff with it, and you don't need to level up 'skinning knife skill' - you're always at max.
I used this strategy to level my warrior in around 3 days /played (with hours of dicking around wasting time, so fairly close to the 2d9h figure) and have my druid at 42 with a little over 1 day. I leveled normally to 15, went to Stockades until 30, SM until 45, and Strath until Outland. As a paladin in tanking gear (with Figurine of the Colossus and the Burrower's Shell [you can use the one from Slave Pens too]):
Mind if i ask the specc you use for that? Im planning to boost some friends. I have some experience but with a holy specc, would love to hear about a good specc 7gear for strat. Im trying to get the darkmoon faire deck for trinket, and will probably use the shield you get at honored with sporeggar.
For Stockades it's not important what gear/spec you have really, [Figurine of the Colossus] is helpful for pulling a lot at once as I described. You can also use the Sporeggar shield the whole time since you'll have plenty of downtime to go repair.
For SM you'll need to bring 4 or 5 different shields as pulling that many mobs at once will annihilate your shield's durability and the repair guys aren't nearby. You want to gear for pure block rating; mana is not at issue because it will be easily restored by SoW+JoW. Significant talents are Redoubt and Blessing of Sanctuary, but I've done it easily without either. The only challenging part is the method I described in Cathedral, which you will need both a damage absorb trinket and the FotC to survive. I don't recommend attempting that unless you have T5/ZA tanking gear or are full Prot.
For Stratholme, the amount you can pull at once is not fixed. The pats are few enough that you can catch them and your alt(s) will be strong enough to survive an accidental aggro. However, the speed at which you kill the mobs is pretty much constant no matter how much you take on at once. So a full prot spec with good gear will clear efficiently the route I described in about 12-14 minutes, while a holy spec in the same gear would take 20+. Things like bad pat aggros when you have no mana, party members getting killed by Eyes, etc. will seriously screw it up, but practice makes perfect. Key talents here are Sanctuary so you don't die while strafing through hordes of mobs who will inevitably be hitting you in the back half the time, Reckoning for mana regen with SoW+JoW, and the HP talents so you can survive longer before popping the Figurine.
Basically, starting out I would recommend a standard tanking spec 0/49/12 with Reckoning favored over 1hws. You may also consider Pursuit of Justice; I'm trying it out now for the first time and I quite like being able to outrun the mobs as I turn corners.
I seem to recall getting a mess of experience playing AV from 58-60ish.
Is 58 the optimal time to depart for the outlands?
I'm really not sure anymore. It used to be, but the quest XP in the old world is actually better than outland 58-60, maybe even to 61. However, the way the outland is designed is more conducive to effective questing, and outland mobs do give twice the experience.
There is the matter of having quests left over to do for cash at the end of your leveling experience as well, which is why I'd personally prefer to stay in the old world as long as you can. You'll have a head-start on levels when you do go to outland, and get to 70 without even going to some zones. In theory.
It would be interesting to see if anyone's really tested the difference recently. With my still-leveling hunter I just quested to 60 and then went to outland.
What I hate most about playing a new character is that level 1-20 is extremely boring. You've probably played through the zone a million times and you don't get many skills to use. The boredom makes me take stupid risks to speed things up and I end up dying alot. So I don't mind dumping 50-100g to twink my character out a bit to see what I can do.
For melee characters, an Iron Counterweight is pretty huge (and alot cheaper than Fiery Weapon).
For all characters, a pair of boots with Minor Speed is the biggest increase in leveling speed possible.
The "Kill something outside of group and get full xp as the tagger" 'sploit' works only if the mob is green to people outside of the group. Used to be that all you had to do was have the people outside the group be in a raid but they nerfed that a long time ago.
Anyways...
You can defiinitely use that to your advantage though. If you're in a fair sized guild, chances are people have BG supertwinks. Provided you have a good reputation, you can try to con people into giving you their information. Gets even better later on. I leveled my mage, hunter and rogue from 60 to 63 in 2 days pulling level 64 mobs onto my 70 paladin/warlock combo just AEing crap down. Having 150% rested xp on each helped of course but y'know.
Pre-TBC my mage was a levle 39 supertwink, helped 30-40 go really fast for my other alts I was leveling. My brothers hunter at 60 helped me go from 54 to 60 in about 5 hours on my paladin.
Two/three boxing also depends on what characters you use. I leveled my Affliction spec'd lock with a holy priest PL'ing is just ridiculous from 1-55 or so. I think at one point I didn't leave combat for 2 hours just chain pulling pirates in Tanaris to go from 38~45.
Captain Obvious strikes again but if you just can't resist picking up stuff like me then 4x 16slot bags from level 1 or 5 on are one of the easiest speedups.
Actually not looting is a faster speedup. Considering you probably make more gold from 1 hour of daily quests than you could from the time it takes to loot the nine thousand mobs you have to kill while leveling from 1-60. Outlands it is probably worth looting them.
The Washington Post helps perpetuate a common and pernicious misreading of the decision, referring to "the Supreme Court’s judgment that corporations have the same rights as people when it comes to political speech." What the Supreme Court actually said is that people do not lose their free speech rights when they organize as corporations, including nonprofit interest groups as well as businesses.
Actually not looting is a faster speedup. Considering you probably make more gold from 1 hour of daily quests than you could from the time it takes to loot the nine thousand mobs you have to kill while leveling from 1-60. Outlands it is probably worth looting them.
Personally I dont agree with your statement. Low level mobs drop epics/blues that is worth quite a bit of gold depending on your server and greens can be DE-ed. For instances like stockades which you will hit the reset cap no matter what, it is better to loot to vendor/DE items especially with the vendor/mailbox nearly.
12/05/07, 1:46 PM
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