kervi

There's also 5th way to do this, tag mob with lowlvl alliance character and oneshot with lvl70 horde character. Full exp and quite fast. Though not everyone has high level characters on different faction.

 

• sadris

Just tested this, does not work.

'[The main argument against gay-marriage] always revolves around ... "the gay agenda"... Apparently all these gays only want to get married so they can adopt children, turn the children gay (probably using their mystic gay voodoo, passed gayly down from one gay generation to the next), and perpetuate their gayness.'
-- rantingkitten

 

Vardisk

All 3 of the 4.00 speed weapons in the game are massively overpowered if you give them to warr/pally twink at the first level they can equip them. And they're spread out just right so you'll have a seriously OP weapon all the way to 60.

Problem is though... all three of them are pretty goddamn rare.

 

Pyros

The only way tag killing works is if the killer is within xp range of the mob(so green mobs, level gap depends on current level, but iirc at 60 it was 52+, at 70 63+). Unless they fixed it again since BC release, but back then it worked fine. However, it only works for non pet classes. A pet will eat half the xp even if the mob is tagged.

It's especially efficient if you have a 60 mage lying around with rather decent gear. You can go to hearthglen(and that was doable before elites nerf) and do the mine with AE. You obviously need an AE on the twink, but that's what we used for our BE paladins at BC release. Consecrate, then arcane explo a few times, drink up, pull more etc.

 

Grizzly

I helped to level a hunter friend of mine level to 10 quickly once as a 70 druid by simply chain pulling with faerie fire and using demo roar to refresh the leash on mobs. One FF was usually enough to hold aggro until the mob was dead (up to about level 10) allowing the hunter free reign to chain kill zero armour mobs at range. It make things much easier for those annoying levels before hunters have a pet to tank for them.

 

Ghando

On my Shadow Priest alt I found that even with a fair amount of Spirit, levelling was quite mana-consuming because you ALWAYS need to have PW:Shield up to prevent pushback on your Mind Flay. I found myself having to re-cast Shield every mob (sometimes every 2) and frankly it's just an expensive spell with the small mana pool you'll likely be running (obviously you'll want to stack Shadow damage as much as possible, sacrificing raw stats). I've started seriously downranking my PW:Shield, because no mob will live long enough to break through it and I'll save a ton of mana in the process. All I care about is eliminating pushback.

 

moowalk

Ghando - Was there a reason you didn't like to fear? Fear + flay means you hardly have to worry about getting adds. I did a similar thing with downranking PS. It performs the same function of eliminating pushback but it's ~100 mana for rank 1.

 

Metaphysic

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned engineering. Level this up to the max skill available and you can virtually 1-shot most mobs with a bomb up until level 20.

 

Kjaska

Blood Elf Bandit Mask - Items - World of Warcraft allows you to use headslot enchants like +10 haste rating or +8 spell damage at level 5 already. It does not bind, so you can reuse or resell it. It goes for 50-100g on my server without enchant.

Goblin Rocket Boots - Items - World of Warcraft no level requirement, no profession/skill requirement. +60% runspeed for 20 seconds, 5 minutes CD. Can explode on activation or during sprint duration. You will always get the Black Mageweave Boots back and some of the other mats needed for creation. I made myself around 20 of those, so I could use them for a larger period of time before needing to recreate them

Swiftness Potion - Items - World of Warcraft Very basic, but no one mentioned it, and it helps a lot in the innitial traveling. Only 2 minutes CD and a fairly low production cost.

Also, I wouldn't recommend using Pendulum of Doom for leveling purpouses, as it is the singlemost desired weapon for level 39 twinks and goes for 500g+ on the AH.

 

Ninjerk

The faster you hit 70 is the faster you get gold for quest completion. Once you've exhausted your dailies this is a great way to make money.

 

Ghando

It breaks early a lot. I tried it out a long time ago figuring it'd be more efficient, and when it lasts full duration it is. But pretty often it doesn't, and isn't.

 

crimsonsentinel

If you don't want to drink alot while leveling a priest, you'll want to have 5/5 wand spec and a good blue quality wand. Then just flay until the mob gets to you and wand while your dot(s) tick(s). By the time the mob is dead you should be close if not already out of 5sr so you get the full effect of spirit tap while you loot/walk to the next mob.

 

PsiVen

With several 70s do you really exhaust their dailies though? I don't even bother doing my main's every day anymore, and I don't think I've ever done 10/10 on both my paladin and warrior on the same day. Said warrior has a whole bunch of quests I could do still, but even at the level cap it's less gold than straight farming.

 

BeeL

Quick reply that i have been doing sort of on and off with my priest alt.

The general idea is to pull around 5 mobs(in an instance) with a shadow priest or a warlock with their dots, do it so that they do not die with one application i.e. downrank according to the level of the instance. When youve pulled 5-7, run to entrance and dot the mobs up again, when they reach around 20% on the first one you dotted, leave the instance on your 70 this will mean that your alt will get full exp for killing the elite mobs. This exp can be from 500-700 in the best place to do it which is sm library/armory from level 20.

Ive only experiemented with this and got my priest from 20-27 in around 2 hours work total, the method kinda stops working around 40 because of the strength of mobs but is extremely handy going from 8-40.

Areas:

8-15 - Rfc
15-20 - WC/Deadmines
20-30 - SM Library
30-40 - SM Armory
40+ Zul'farrak, BRD

Ive also picked up on some method using a warlock in which he SOC the group of mobs he has aggroed, runs out and boom like 10x 500 exp but so far i havent been able to work this method, as the seeded mob seems to remove the seed debuff upon exiting the instance.

 

Juli

Tagging + killing out of group (with a player who cons green or higher to the mobs) can get you some really quick leveling times, I just don't think it's worth it anymore with the alternatives, outside of maybe plowing through 63-70 with geared 70's killing for you if you have enough people that want to help.

Back before anyone started MC (long before leveling guides and the popular speed runners like joanna were around) we powerleveled a rogue friend to 60 in something like 3.5 days played in around 5 days real time, so that he could start MC with us (he got leveled in shifts for a lot of it since the goal was to minimize real time not played, so the /played would've been a lot lower if he had his full entourage the whole time). I already had a 48 rogue alt at the time which covered the pre-52-tagging level range nicely. We mostly ground outdoor mobs, including yetis in feralas, witherbark trolls in hinterlands, and then ogres and eventually orcs in burning steppes. Once he could tag level 52 mobs, we had a guy in our guild that 3boxed and had 2 mage bots that operated off a whispercast-like mod that would just assist and cast frostbolts or use (talented at the time) arcane explosion. Between that and a couple 60 mains we really plowed through those last levels. Doing this kind of thing even with supertwinks for low level BGs probably isn't worth the effort unless you know someone that has one, is bored, and wants to chase you around while you do quests, which really reduces the benefit he provides (2shotting mobs for you isn't going to make you run any faster). Quest exp is just too high now for grinding mobs in azeroth to remain competitive.

For lower levels, I second the instance AE grinding with a 70. Even though the xp is reduced due to level, its WAY faster than anything else you can do. For fastest leveling times, I'd use a geared mage/prot paladin on a 2nd account to AE instances until close to 60. Maybe quest for a few levels after that until you get to zangarmarsh, then continue outdoor questing with assistance from bored friends tagging + killing out of group once you hit the level 63 mobs. There may be some places that you could tag + kill out of group and just grind mobs without questing and get higher exp, but you'd probably need more 70's helping you than is realistic (you could probably get really nice exp tagging insta-spawns at legion hold once you hit 66+).

 

◊ Kalman

Stop using PWS. Before shadowform, you open with a smite (or holy fire, once you have it) - you won't have enough +shadow at this point not to make those your best openers - put up Pain, strafe, mindflay til it gets to you, then either MB or wand it down. After shadowform, open with MB, put up pain, strafe, mindflay, wand. After VT, open with VT, then strafe, MF, MB, wand. In no circumstance should you need to use PWS to avoid pushback; in fact, often times its cheaper to just let the pushback occur and recast MF, unless the mob is a fast attack/dual wield mob.

This concludes your derail into spriest leveling techniques.

 

tedv

My normal rotation while leveling was Mind Blast, the cast Pain while backing up, then Mind Flay. If they are close to dead, just wand them, because wanding has no pushback. Otherwise fear and flay again. When the flay ends, your second Mind Blast should be up, which is enough to finish them off.

One other perk of wanding is that you'll enter the spirit tap state while in full mana regen mode, so you get more mileage out of each kill. I basically just used shield when I had a mana surplus or accidentally pulled more than one monster.

 

◊ Praetorian

As someone who was notoriously anti-alt for most of the past three (!) years, what finally got me to try a serious one was the allure of powergaming and min/max'ing to see just how broken the game could be at various stages. Obviously if you just want to get to Outland in the minimum amount of time, having a high-level helper AoEing instances is hard to beat (I know a rogue who had a 70 mage AoEing Stratholme for him from 45 through 58 and it took a couple of days total). But what I was aiming for was being as brokenly overpowered at every level of advancement as possible.

My choice for the project was an affliction warlock. They're unique in that they have one single stat that matters: +shadow. We can turn hp into mana, and +shadow into hp, so that one stat covers all needs. Other casters can't really manage to have no +int and no +spi or they'll have to stop and drink constantly. Having zero +sta means that a bad pull or a multi-mob pull will end in tears. And pure offensive itemization for non-casters is difficult to come by with any level of quality.

My MO was pretty simple: Greens of Shadow Wrath whenever possible, unless a clearly superior crafted/quested/instance/world drop substitute existed. For the most part, that means Greens of Shadow Wrath wherever I could find them, through the 20s. By 22, buy a [Staff of the Shade] and put +30 spell power on it. It's basically as good as a Staff of Jordan and literally will last you until Outland unless you want to get really silly and put +40dam or Soulfrost on a 1h after 35 (but the selection of non-mace caster 1h's is awful until the high 50s anyway). I think I had something like +150 shadow by the low 20s.

Also not to be overlooked are the BG token pieces while leveling. AB belt/boots in particular are fantastic (Defiler's Cloth Boots - Items - World of Warcraft and Defiler's Cloth Girdle - Items - World of Warcraft), and the WSG bracers at 40 (Dryad's Wrist Bindings - Items - World of Warcraft) are as good as you can possibly get at that level, and the bonus armor on them is fantastic for a low-level clothie. Again, if your goal is to hit 58+ ASAP, then this isn't worth the time, but in terms of min/max'ing as you go, they can't be beat.

Other noteworthy items post-2.3 include the buffed Myzrael neck, [Pulsating Crystalline Shard]. You can get some help and do this quest as early as level 35. Unbelievable neck for that level.

In practice, having such extreme amounts of +shadow is quite a bit of fun. Forget drain tanking. At most stages of the game a siphon life alone would keep pace with a mob's incoming damage. That allows large multi-pulls, dotting everything up, and letting it all die at your feet. Even better once you get Howl of Terror.

I experimented with using a succubus and drain-tanking once I got one, but I was generally unimpressed with the effect on my downtime. With a VW I can send it in first, dot up a mob, and my dots will pull aggro usually by the time the mob is down to 50% or so. By then I'm already pulling the next mob, and the first one will die from dots just as it reaches me. Rinse and repeat, and I take zero damage except from lifetapping. And DoTs are more mana efficient than drain, anyway. Also having a VW out full-time makes a warlock with this setup pretty much ungankable short of ??s one-shotting you. You're squishy, but VW sac -> fear -> DoT will result in a dead player even if they're ten levels above you given the disgusting damage output involved.

My own experiment in this regard is currently sitting at 55, with 410 +shadow. As soon as I can use Outland greens, things are going to get interesting: Armory

 

Kir

Good post Gurg, think your mindset is similar to mine. I have been anti-alt for a long time, as there is always something else to do on my main (pvping, max out a faction, farm gold etc..) But, I'm a little tired of being shoehorned into a tiny niche with my mage, that blizzard has neglected for a long time, and may or may not improve in the future. I have a similar goal as you in making my alt, hence this thread, and that's to see how overpowered I can make the character. Only difference being, I want to turn the 'OPness' of the alt into quicker leveling times, as I would like to have this character as a viable main in the future. Potentially before Sunwell, or by xpac at latest.

I agree that warlocks probably have the highest potential for leveling. I saw a non-twinked warlock alt level from 60-70 in half the time it took me. He was questing with the same method that everyone has mentioned, dot them up, fear, continue. He'd have 3-4 mobs feared at any time, and they'd die all over the place. One time, I followed him around and looted everything for money. A level 70 mage, following a 67ish warlock, and making more money by looting his stuff then if I was farming He had zero downtime and everything just died.

I would make a lock alt if I wanted him simply for pvp/farming, don't think any other class comes close. But, I think druids will always be needed for raiding, either as a healer or a tank, as blizzard has effectively stated they want them viable for both roles AND potentially as a dps with balance. One of those specs is likely to be overpowered at any given time and therefore wanted for raids.

 

Justician

I think I might be able to help.

I have never had much time to play WoW, so after franticly levelling my warrior to 60 over the course of over a year, I was in dire need of experience with other classes. Thus, just having dinged 60 and not wanting to start gathering raid/PvP gear, I became... an altoholic.

I particularly liked the level 19 PvP bracket (that is, twinks have slowly begun taking over so not so much anymore), so I was desperate to find the very best gear for my low level characters. At first I thought twinking was cool, I tried, but didn't understand the concept so I failed with only BoE greens equipped, and later completely dismissed the whole idea of twinking as I experienced the effects first-hand). So I just started levelling 1 character of each class to 19 with good gear. As I wanted the best, I started looking for tricks and quests that would allow exceptional gear at low levels. Over the course of another year, I brought 7 classes to 19, all in good gear. Looking for good gear also meant I had so scoop past the majority of available items, quests, mobs, zones, abilities and talents on various WoW information sites.

This provided me with good knowledge on this topic. After a while, I also became interesting in certain "exploit"-like game mechanics for lower levels such as the Shield Spike that was mentioned. I made various studies on how to optimalize low level characters. Some ideas:

-Rating exploitation. The new rating system, opposed to the old % based one, allows for extreme stats for low level characters. On of the most notable of these is the Iron Counterweight, highly recommended. It gives a lot of haste rating, which will increase DPS substantially for low level characters, more than most weapon enchants. For instance one of these will cause a level 10 character to attack about 1.78 times as fast. Other haste-based enchantments will allow for a similar effect, altogether a 2.95 multiplier can be achieved.
Other rating "exploits" I know are the Arena Grand Master trinkets, very useful if you get them because of the +dodge rating, the Surefooted enchant which will allow fr a great +hit increase, the Arcanum of Protection for +dodge, and various randomly enchanted items such as ".. of Defense", or "...of Blocking".

-You could use your alts to farm low level BoE items from low level instances, which is a cheap and usually fun way to get them, and although you won't need to provide new gear for each level your character attains, it will provide some gear improvements.

-There are various items that do not have a level requirement and also are not soulbound, which can be used from level 1 and on. Examples are the Goblin Rocket Boots, Voice Amplification Modulator, and Feathered Arrow. Other notable items do have a level requirement or are soulbound, be can be useful nonetheless. Examples of these are the Blood Elf Bandit Mask, Red Defias Mask, and Furbolg Medicine Pouch.

-If you're willing to spend time on it, the Fishing Extravanganza tournament can provide very good head and foot gear at very low levels. A gathering profession like fishing can be learned from level 1 and on if I'm not mistaken.

-Having your professions such as Engineering, Jewelcrafting, and First Aid maxed out will provide you with excellent BoP items and high level bandages such as Mageweave at level 5 already.

-If you have a high level friend to help you, try doing various high level quests as early as possible. Not only will the mobs and the quest reward a lot of XP, the rewards will also be substantial, especially at such low levels. A list of quests with notable rewards and the lowest level required shown can be found here WoW-Europe.com Forums -> The Full List of Imba Quests (this is a post of mine).

-Of course enchantments are your best friend when trying to level, but they need to be replaced when you change your gear which can be quite costly. I recommend changing gear and enchants every ten levels. For very low level characters, some items can be found that do not have notable stats but do fill a slot to be enchanted. For these, you can use the Tuxedo Jacket for chest enchants past level 35 required, Goblin Rocket Boots for boots enchants past level 35 required, Tuxedo Pants for Leg enchants past level 35 required, and for enchants that do not require a level, the Blood Elf Bandit Mask, Red Defias Mask, Lucky Fishing Hat, Nat Pagle's Extreme Anglin' Boots and Mantle of the Fire Festival.

-You can make your character even more powerful by keeping it fully buffed. Food buffs, player cast buffs, Onyxia/Nefarian capital buffs, mind control mob buffs.. the possibilities are endless.

-The character can be levelled very fast by doing high level instances at the minimum level for entry. For instance Gnomeregan can be entered at 15. Even with a high level player to help you, the experience gained with be huge, especially when the helping players are close to the normal level of the instance.

-Lastly, if you want to grind for experience, choose a very densely populated area with mobs about 5 to 8 levels higher than you and bring a healer friend (preferrably a priest), then start hacking away with your extreme damage.

 

PandemicXTC

Pull with Vamperic Touch
Mind Flay (might lose last tick)
Rank 1 Psychic Scream
Mind Flay
Mind Blast if they run out of range
Mind Flay
....
SW : D (or Wand if the mob has a trival amount of health left)

At least that's my high end cast squence. I agree that PW:S burns through mana too fast, and so does SW:P (because it doesn't tick out often enough for me.)

 

TheCutlery

Man, you guys are leveling off different stuff than me.

Way back in the day when I was leveling up my priest shadow, I believe the sequence I used was MB, MF, then Pain, and wand till death. This is obviously low level.

Once you get VT, that first, turn around and start running. Cast VE (as needed) and Pain on the run, spin and Mind Flay, mind blast right after the flay is done, mob is at sub 25% health at that point, wand it down and go get another one. If you VT at max range, you'll get everything off before the mob hits you at all. If you get lucky with a MB crit, you can sometimes kill/force them to fleeing range before they ever touch you. I leveled up on PvP, I would never think of using my Psych cooldown on a mob, that leaves me defenseless for 26 seconds, and my defense is weak to begin with.

 

Redbeard

TourGuide addon is an amazing leveling tool, in addition to already mentioned Lightheaded+TomTom, maybe throw in Mobmap as well.

For TourGuide check these links:
http://www.wowace.com/wiki/TourGuide
WoWInterface Downloads : TourGuide (download)

For Mobmap, it's:
MobMap development blog and
MobMap - the ingame WoW position database (download)

 

Anthion

It used to be 12 levels pre-BC, it is currently 8 levels. This means you would have to tap level 62 mobs to get full exp from a level 70 killing them. The old diminishing return point was +5 levels (meaning anything 5+ levels above your level gave the same amount of exp), not sure if this changed.

 

Tojara

I did roughly the same thing with my Warlock about a year ago. You could never do this at release however because the itemization wouldn't allow it. Spell damage being very rare and a very expensive stat at the time.

I never really min/max while playing my Warlock, but I did plan ahead. Before I started to level I would browse the Auction house for every single Green of Shadow Wrath possible and after a few weeks I was ready to go. It becomes completely insane what you can do as an affliction Warlock with more Spell Damage in the 30's then what most casters had when people were first entering Molten Core. (might actually be in the 20's if I remember correctly, mainly due to lack of spell damage gear in favor of stats in all caster itemization in the game at the time).

I found myself pulling massive amounts of mobs with virtually zero downtime. I never bought food or water once while playing him and to give an idea of how little downtime I had, I forgot to level first aid. There is literally very little downtime. For a pet I just straight up used an imp for the most part. Although there would be times I would use a Void Walker for difficult pulls solely for the sacrifice.

The trend really continues in outland as well and it has essentially spoiled me. In greens of Shadow Wrath I was obliterating everything I came across, even more so then my AQ/Naxx geared Rogue who I had taken to 70 months before. When it came time to level my Warrior (mainly in MC/ZG DPS gear) I couldn't bare it, forever spoiled by the speed which is an affliction Warlock. Its utterly insane, and everyone should atleast try it for awhile. Surely there are other insane (in my eyes) classes/specs to level with, but I have yet to find something as absurd as my Affliction Warlock.

It was a running joke in my guild because of how little health my Warlock had. But who needs health when you have siphon life ticking on 4-6 targets and life drain going with Fel Armor? In a bind? Instant Howl of Terror