• Xaviera

I mostly did what Gurgthock did, except I'm leveling a mage.

I did the whole "white items" with super enchants, I had a level 1 dagger with +30 spell damage, pants with 25 spell damage kit, gloves with +20 fire damage (old-world pre-patch enchant, not sure that's possible anymore.). Obviously having 75+ fire damage at low levels lets you destroy things in almost one hit.

I kept up the twinking and always looked ahead, getting fiery wrath items and maximizing enchants and such. I've stayed around the same 350ish fire damage since my mid 30s. Once I talented Combustion, whenever it was up I'd be able to chain 1-shot mobs until the buff was gone.

A lot of people told me frost was more effective for leveling as a Mage, but I found being able to 1 shot mobs was a pretty quick way to go about killing things.

Twinking gear-wise costs a bit of money but really does drastically speed up your kill rate, and thus leveling rate. Most people who are leveling alts probably have a fair bit of money, anyway.

Anyone who's leveling a caster up and is obviously going Tailoring, I'd recommend starting the grind for the Elementals you need for whatever tailor spec, and grinding them until you ding 70, doing as few quests as possible. This way, you get the primals you need for your gear, and save a ton of Outlands quests for the massive gold it will give you doing them at 70. Probably save you a good 6-8k gold doing that, as opposed to leveling/questing all the way to 70, then buying the majority of your mats for your gear.

For casters, Adept's Elixir is usable at level 50, and that's just an extremely good elixir, due to the critical rating. You can use something like Mageblood with it, or Draenic Wisdom, both are really nice because they massively reduce downtime. Wizard Oil + Food is also great. Whenever I was in an area where I'd be grinding for a while, or, doing an instance, I'd obviously buff myself up to the fullest. It was hilarious to be lobbing fireballs more powerful than BWL era mages.

Also, don't overlook Jewel crafting items! There's tons of Necklaces and Rings that are extremely good, and aren't "search friendly" on the Auction House, or whatnot. Find a JC friend, ask them what their good lowbie stuff is. Or scour a JC tradeskill / recipe page somewhere. The necks that have "uses" that greatly buff you + your parties abilities for a period of time are amazing for their level.

This is my mage:
The World of Warcraft Armory
I stopped min/maxing every single gear slot upgrade because some of them were annoying instance drops that I didn't really want to run 5+ times for a chance at an upgrade, and instead would rather use that time doing my tradeskills/leveling!

(Oh yeah, you should also really skill your tailoring ASAP if you're a caster, that way you can start doing your Cloth transmutes as soon as possible.)

For outworld questing zones, there's definitely an excess of zones.
The following are zones you can completely skip:

Ashenvale
Wetlands
Thousand Needles
Stranglethorn Vale - I only did the Pirate chains from Booty Bay, because everything is so close together and easy, and very little cross-faction competition.
Swamp of Sorrows
Desolace - probably. I did a few quests here and realized the time I spent running back and forth between quest givers and the miles of land stretching between them with no mount, was probably a massively inefficient waste of time.
Un'goro Crater
Searing Gorge - I was only able to complete like 3 quests here and realized that while they were green, they were already being flagged as "low level" and giving me bad experience.
Silithus
Winterspring (Note: You do want to do the chain that ends in killing High Chief Winterfall, that's all though. The rewards are super, super, super good)

I skipped all of the above zones unless noted otherwise. Basically, any zone that I felt was kind of a pain in the ass terrain-wise, or I wasn't familiar with, I decided to go without. And it turns out there's still plenty of questing to be done, mostly because Dustwallow was hugely buffed, and covers a huge leveling range and duration, highly recommended.

For a long time while leveling I tried to use every zone and zigzag all over the world and get the most out of quests before they went gray, but that really proved impossible and not worth the time. I know the last time I leveled an alt you could easily run out of quests, but it's the polar opposite now, so pick your favorite zones and stick to those only.

I decided to not skip WPL/EPL because I wanted the Argent Dawn rep, and if your server is the type to run Naxxramas pugs sometimes, you may want that reputation on your alt incase you ever want to experience some of that old world content on a different character.

 

Nezralix

I suppose I may have taken a flawed approach, but I completed most all contiguous zones even if they were largely green quests (although obviously I passed on gray quests or monsters). A lot of the stuff I leveled on was 4-5 levels below me. I ended up not visiting Winterspring, Burning Steppes, EPL, Silithis, or Felwood, and only did about half the quests in WPL (if that) before I hit 58. It was fairly painless, but I didn't have much of an opportunity to skip huge swaths of zones in the middle like some people are reporting. Maybe if I had been getting double exp on the monsters it wouldn't have been the case.

 

Kir

Well, broke down and spent some money making a white gear melee twink set for my druid, that I can re-use for future melee alts.

Just a note for anyone using the iron counterweight, it seems to bug out sometimes and not apply the haste rating depending on what order you equip it with any other items with haste rating. On my druid, if I took off my gloves with minor haste enchant (10 haste rating) and then re-equipped them, sometimes it only counted that 10 haste rating. If I un-equipped then equipped my weapon, it properly applied the haste rating for the counterweight.

btw: 30 haste rating (10 from minor haste enchant on gloves, and 20 from counterweight) is ~31% haste at lvl 14. It's pretty sick, especially with the 40tk power/10stam leg enchant and such. I'm killing mobs 4 lvls above me without any trouble, and 2-3 shotting mobs my own level. I have enough armor for 40% damage reduction too. It's pretty fun and a nice change of pace to be in 'god mod'. I haven't even gone all out, didn't spend a lot of time finding the best weapons, getting arcanum enchants, or adding +armor to my cloak or anything. Will be fun to see when I max it out.

 

roddo

Some random thoughts based on what has been posted and my own experiences:

Fiery is a better enchantment than crusader at low levels for a number of reasons, first of all being an increased proc rate (sorry no parse data to back it up, but observation shows it to be alot higher) and also everytime fiery procs its a useful proc, crusader might proc on the last hit when you need to sit and drink/eat, while fiery always procs and does damage. Nothing is more annoying to me than waiting 7-8 mobs for crusader to proc and then when it does it either is the last hit and I'm looking for a mob to hit before the buff wears off, or it procs 3 times in 4 hits then goes away for another 7-8 mobs. From my observations fiery procs almost every mob, usually more than once and is a significant portion of my dps at level 8 with a warrior using a 1h mace and even at 28 with a shaman using a 2h mace. I ditched crusader on the shaman at 18 and haven't regretted it one bit. No more looking for a proc to justify the big expensive enchantment, now I just play and watch the xp roll in. I do want to see the iron counterweight in action, and wonder if it will increase the attack speed on a feral druid, if so that'll be my next class to get twinked.

The shield spike trick is better than I expected, thanks to whoever first mentioned it. Nothing like having 4-5 mobs on you and seeing block after block and mobs keel over dead.

The dranei lands from 15-22 are insanely good as far as quest density, every mob you see is either part of a quest, can be killed for a quest or needs to be killed to get to an area for quests. No random wandering mobs that I noticed that are there just to annoy you and get in the way. Way better than any other leveling experience I've had for those levels, and the best part is theres usually no one there so no competition for spawns/nodes/flowers etc.

On my shaman I've built my gear around stamina and agility, which has given me a pretty good crit rate. Taking this into consideration talents such as flurry and shamanistic focus become even better, making me level even faster. I can chain pull mobs and as long as I get alot of crits my attack speed is increased and I only spend 40-50 mana for a shock spell doing well over 100 damage every 6 seconds. My downtime is low due to the faster mob deathes, and I don't even carry food or drink with me unless I loot it, if I need a break I bandage up. I make sure and drop a mana totem each fight, and a searing totem as well. mana totem gives me 6 mana every 2 seconds at a cost of 40 mana, and for 45 mana searing totem does 17 to 20 damage for 35 seconds.

 

• Jokie

Reporting in with my experience so far with the power leveling aspect of the alt. I used a 70 SL/SL lock to run my alt through from 14 or so to 20 via Wailing Caverns. Since 20 I've used Scarlet Monastery very successfully. Alt is currently 30 at 1 day, 2hrs played and enchanting 200+. 99% of the enchanting mats came from the WC/SM runs as well.

A tip for those using a warlock to AOE the instances is to make sure you're seeding early and often or bad things can happen. Once you get agro from the first seed popping your ability to crank out more seeds drops significantly. Things like AOE cap and rare resists on applying the SoC can ruin your day so I always add a few more seeds as insurance if the pull is large.

I plan on staying with SM until low 40s and then hit Zul'Farak until 50 or so. Is there anyone with experience using a warlock for Stratholme AOE? Is BRD safer? If so, I'm wondering if it's AOE friendly (layout, density of mobs, etc). If it's not feasible, I'll hit the improved old world leveling from 50 - 58 until Outlands.

 

Kir

It does, read my post directly above yours, I'm leveling a druid with it. But, you'll see I noted a somewhat buggy experience with it. When the character sheet has the correct info displayed, I can assure you my attacks are faster (have quartz bar showing my melee attack cooldown, it always matches character screen and combat log)
I'm attacking a 1.9 spd in bear form, with ~10dps added from stats (base of about 6dps). I'm averaging 20-25dps at a level where I should be doing 6-10, and I've got about 40% damage reduction from armor in bear form and almost double the hp I should have
I can non-stop grind +1 lvl mobs, throwing a HoT on myself after every few mobs, or take on a +5/6 lvl mob if needed (for +6 lvls, have to regrowth/rejuv on to begin, moonfire open, shift to bear, and reapply rejuvs when I can. If bash works or nature's grasp procs on them, I back up and throw a regrowth + rejuv. If neither works, and it's going bad, I shift out to war stomp and regrowth/rejuv and try to moonfire kite for a bit if I have the mana)

It's really quite fun, and I'm going to put some more effort into maxing out a transferable twink set with white items so I can do it again with another melee class (thinking shaman or warrior so I can take advantage of proc enchants) and see what kind of record I can set for leveling 1-20. I think if I had everything planned out, with +run speed boots and the whole shebang, I could hit lvl 10 in 2 hours (no mailbox at starting spot, and certain class quests you have to complete [bear form/shaman totems/etc..] adds a bit of wasted time overall) and lvl 20 in <6 hours played.

 

Aoife

I tossed a 30 stam/10 agil leg kit on a pair of white level 10 cloth leggings for my rogue. It nearly doubled his health. Combined with Fiery on both of my weapons, I'm killing things my level before I even think about using my finisher. I also put +4 damage on my level 1 dagger, which helped rip through stuff at the beginning. I can definitely see having a white leveling kit to pass around in guild being very nice and very much worth the money if enough people use it.

 

• Calantus

I tried doing the DoT and run strategy and I have to say it is amazing. My warlock is sporting something like 700 +damage as SL/SL without a pet so this exact sequence might not work if you have more damage:

15-27 Stockades (really goes down after 27)

- Cast low rank siphon life (I think it was rank 5?) on 4 mobs and pull them to the entrance, making sure to run past the lowbie getting experience. You can get up to 8 mobs, but only 4 of them can be hurt early.
- Cast max rank curse of agony on the 4 and run out. If you have more than 4, cast low rank siphon life and the agony on them first. This is so that they all die at roughly the same time.
- The lowbie will get 400-500 experience per mob killed.


I didn't bother with the East corridor as it has lots of stunning mobs. What I pulled was pull the first corridor in full (7-8 mobs), then pull the first 2 rooms opposite eachother, then the 2nd set of rooms, did the same for the West corridor, then in the last room I pulled it in 3-4 pulls depending on mood. All up it's about 8-9 pulls worth about 3k-4k experience a pop. That's basically completing a quest every pull, and the pulls only take 1-2 minutes each. I was leveling my brother's alt this way (I also did one of my own on a seperate account but I wasn't paying attention to speed) and he was getting levels in 12-15 minutes all the way to 27. After that though the experience dropped a heap, down to <300 I believe, so we went off to SM. I didn't like library too much as the beastmasters were annoying and once you get past them mobs seem to bug out if you pull them to the entrance. Instead I did armory.

- Pull 4-5 mobs with max rank siphon life and take them to the entrance.
- Once there cast siphon life on the group again, then cast agony on the group. It is important to get the siphons on everyone before casting any agonies as otherwise the HP levels will be too different.
- ~500 per kill again.

This is slower than stockades was before the xp turned to crap because you have to run further and pull in smaller groups. This is a little more dangerous as healers can keep people alive long enough to get to the alt or even keep them from dying if every healer targets one guy at the same time. If that happens I like to cast corruption on the one healed as I leave the instance. The lowbie needs to be in the courtyard, NOT in the corridor, and they will likely need to pay attention. An enraged myrmiddon can and will kill then in 2-3 hits if he gets heals.

 

PsiVen

For whatever reason, Stockades experience goes to crap at 27 but then immediately gets good again at 28. I took it to 30 and was still getting great experience, but I left for SM because I was sick of the downtime.

By the way, you guys who are using SM starting in your 20's, I would plan on finding an alternate way to get from 40-45 because it takes as long as 30-40 and you will be REALLY sick of the place by then. To a 'kill it all at once' grinder like me, Cathedral is far and away the most exp but that's because ZF isn't really AoEable with all the healers.

 

• Jokie

Looks like Zul'Farrak is a safe bet then as the NPCs are 43-46 elites.

Zul'Farrak - Zones - World of Warcraft

 

Pyros

For the people doing the run out instance dot stuff, how much are your dots ticking for? I'm wondering cause my main is a druid, so I have dots but they're pretty short duration and not extremly powerful, would you say a 1200insect swarm is enough to kill stuff in 2 applications?(first to door, then reapply before running out). I know I could go test myself, but being horde, stockades isn't really the closest thing in the world.

 

• Calantus

I checked for you just then. The rank I was using in stockades was actually rank 3, which does 1220 damage on my lock, and the first application does around 70% of their hp so you should be fine. The only problem you'll have is you can't do 2 dots at a time (unless moonfire works for it) so you'll be limited to pulls of 4-5 depending on how many your latency lets you dot up before you have to leave.

Awesome news, I have 0 downtime doing this so I'll be pushing stockedes to 31 (or higher if the xp holds still).

 

• sadris

SM cathedral is terrible; myrmidons only give half-XP as other elites. Go to ZF after the armory.

If you are doing Zul'Farrak, do it with a priest and mana burn the Witch Doctors in any pull which involves them as they heal.

http://elitistjerks.com/f57/t26374-savage_2_a/

 

Vazu

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned but Haste is disgustingly good through level 20 or so.

Pickup a 2H of any kind for a Warrior/Paladin/Druid/Shaman and slap Iron Counterweights on them. Choose a level 4, 10 and teens quality BOE weapon and get ready for some fun. If you're really interested in power leveling, grab a Blood Elf Bandit Mask from Azuremyst Isle and slap a Libram of Rapidity on it. That way you can use the item again and again on different characters or help friends level their alts/twinks. I've been leveling a twink Druid and I believe at level 10 when I first learned Bear Form, my attack speed with +30 Haste was something like 1.4. That's insane.

 

◊ Kyth

Frost mage, due to their "don't hit me" playstyle also works very well with "of X (frozen in this case) wrath" green-gear levelling.

I had almost no added stamina from gear (other than a leg patch from outlands, of course) and while I did die if I had an uncontrolled add on me for more than a second or two, as long as I played well and was alert, stuff just melted.

I did the same thing everyone else posted: camped the AH a few weeks ahead of time, enchanted choice gear, made sure I picked up the good tailoring and JC crafted stuff, etc.

 

kadgar

Do white weapons get bop when putting enchants to them?
Wonder if it would be possible to mail a white lvl10 bow to a lvl70 char, who applies a [Stabilized Eternium Scope] and mails it back.
Would be more than 50% crit at lvl 10 for a hunter twink.

 

Molri

Happened on a side effect of Blizzard nerfing elites down to non-elites.

Dun Garok Priest - NPCs - World of Warcraft in Hillsbrad gives xp as if it were still elite even though it is a normal mob now. 400xp per kill when I cleared it out on my little lock alt yesterday. Quite possible other areas with "previously elite" mobs have the same issue.


Nope they don't get bop. I'm using a dirk with +30 spelldamage and a pair of white pants with +25 spell damage and +20 sta.

 

Overhead

I have two accounts, so was going to try the one follow the other idea. Anyone know of a good way to have two versions of WoW open that doesn't incredibly lag the game? I'll only need to push one or two buttons on the secondary version (renew).

 

kadgar

A second PC ideally.
With one PC: copy the wow installation to another folder and use that copy for your 1 or 2 button char (account)
Remove / disable all mods and reduce all settings to absolute minimum there.

 

Coltaho

There isn't much of a need to copy your WoW folders over, just start up a new one using the same shortcut and it will work just fine.

Personally I keep WoW running in windowed mode with the less used alt's game window 1/4th of the size of my main one.

Then I overlap the main one so that I can just see a small part of the alt one incase he gets an add or something.

Like said, minimizing the use of addons will greatly help system performance, especially load times.

 

◊ Merple

I've always wondered about levelling hybrids. When you first start a druid/shaman, you inevitably start casting, and finishing with melee (I'm talking 1-10) simply because you don't have any active melee abilities. Would it be worthwhile to throw your white +dmg casting gear on the druid/shaman for those first 20 levels (cat form for druids, T.Strikes&sham focus for shamans) and level as a caster?

Good: Probably doing more damage than a melee class at that level (50 spell damage at lvl 1 is pretty hefty), round out the rest of your gear with heavy spirit, and you'd regen pretty fast.

Bad: Reliant on mana, probably slightly more downtime (mitigated by spirit on gear).

I've levelled 2 of each, but both the standard "no help beyond 14 slot bags and a little gold" kind of way, and it hurts. As compared to a hunter or rogue, hybrids don't level nearly as fast.

On Break?

 

Kir

Good question. I was a little curious about that also, though since I've gotten bear form as my druid, I think melee is a lot faster. Or, more specifically, a combination of the two, but with most damage coming from melee. I will shift out to throw HoTs up on myself after a mob, pull the next one with moonfire, then shift into bear to finish them off. With the way ratings and armor work at low levels, I'm pretty beast. 25% haste at level 16, 35% dmg reduction from armor, double my normal atk power from items etc..

It seems better because I run out of mana fast the other way, but I haven't tried to get much spirit gear at all, nor +dmg gear.
I want to try twinking out a shaman next actually, so I'm curious what would be better too.

edit: I think where the druid loses out is not getting an equivalent weapon enchant to +30dmg, since fiery doesn't proc in feral forms. The shaman wouldn't have that problem though, and fiery/crusader is pretty comparable to +30dmg, or at least it is as you get past the 1-10 range.

 

Pyros