I'm currently levelling a hunter alt to gather herbs and ores for me. I've also at the same time started a frost mage. I have to say a BM hunter levels a lot faster than a frost mage because 1) hunter never dies, 2) my pet does 1/3 -1/2 of my damage which means the levelling process is fairly "automatic". I can even play in windowed mode and read EJ while questing

I just do quests, and not bother with instances. I find getting boosted through instances not worth it anymore after patch 2.3. Nor is grinding elites of any sort. Quests give so much experience. Since I'm depending on questing, hunter tracking is invaluable when I need to do those kill x mobs quests. Also, I started with buying twink gear and getting them enchanted. However, maybe because I'm levelling a BM hunter, the difference in damage output is really not worth the money spent. And my main is an enchanter too, so I don't even need to find an enchanter.

All in all, here's the things I've found useful, but it's might be hunter specific

1. Get the largest bags you can, I'm using imbued netherweave ones since I'm not so rich.
2. Buy the largest ammo bag too.
3. Use a boar since it eats everything, including raw meat dropped from animals
4. Bandage the pet instead of using mend pet, it's faster than having to drink
5. Park an alt in a major city to send you ammo. Not all the towns have the highest level ammo you can use.
6. If you intend to have a gathering prof for your alt, don't bother levelling it while questing. It's faster to come back later with a fast mount and higher level to gather. The only prof I'm levelling is first aid, to bandage myself and my boar.
7. Use a levelling guide. See below.

I know you say no to levelling guides. But I think I should say I'm using Jame's (pre 2.3 patch version, ie current), and skipping all the instances recommended and also did none of the grinding prescribed in the guide. I still came out ahead and was on level 58 of the guide when I dinged 60. Also, I skipped areas when I got to a couple of levels ahead of the guide (eg most of ungoro and felwood). That's how crazy the new xp is. Jame says he'll have updated versions of the guides soon.

I've been thinking of boosting my level 21 lock a bit with the dot and run out of the instance approach. I have a shadow priest at my disposal, which while not as optimal as a lock, should do the trick. But seeing as I'm horde, I'm not really sure which instances I should start in. Stockades is not really an option, and I'm not sure how well it would work in RFK either, with mobs healing, summoning etc. Would my alt gain exp from SM already at level 21?

Another thing I'd like to ask, which didn't really shine through that clearly on the previous pages. Those of you using a shadow priest for the boosting, how many mobs do you dot up at a time? It seems to me that if I want to have them die roughly at the same time, I'll only be able to dot up some 3-5 mobs, forcing me to run in and out of the instance all the time.

First, you get xp as soon as you can zone in. I believe you need 24 for SM tho, but not sure. However, like you said, it's more annoying if you're not a lock, because locks use a "slow" dot, that let them dot a decent number of mobs at once before exiting. On my druid I just gave up because 12secs dots are not enough to kill more than 4mobs at once, and it definitely not look like it's worth doing. I might try again in SM because there's more mobs near entrance but well, I found it rather underwhelming.

I'm levelling a shaman, and I'm about half a level from the portal. I've heard some talk of cheesing a few levels out of Outland by taking a resto shaman and 4 arms/fury warriors and laying waste to Ramparts and Blood Furnace a few times each.

Does anyone have any experience with this and/or could give some insight as to its xp rate vs questing?

Does this 4 warrior + windfury setup actually do as much damage as I think or is it just as likely to get us killed due to lack of CC?

I'd have to respec and buy some AH healing kit to be able to do this, so I'd want to know that it's possible before I try it.

It's very viable, considering you barely need CC for these instances, as long as you play smart(focus casters first, get out of mines if possible, and assist stuff). You just need to make sure they have outland gear, since the gap between an outland dps war and an old world dps war is about 3k hps and probably 25%dps. If you can't find 4wars, I guess enhance shamans and ret paladins can replace them efficiently, and add a bit of flavor.

Speaking of cheesing instances, I've spent the last couple days doing some interesting runs with my Wife's Pally through places like BRD and LBRS. I just took a quest list of each zone and made as few runs through there as possible with her tagging along behind my Druid. Even with mediocre gear, I've had absolutely no problems with clearing the entire instance, and she gained about 1.5-2 levels per completed instance.

We even managed to find quite a few "rare" mobs in LBRS as well, which most of the items were sharded except for that crazy 4.0 speed 2h Axe. I have a feeling that since I know where that mob spawns now, I'll definitely be bringing my Shammy twink down there when he hits 50ish.

I found this to not only break up the monotony of questing in the old world, but parts of it actually became a bit of a challenge. My wife got splatted right when the ogres spawned during the Omok event and I had to solo it, which was quite a bit of fun as far as an "ironman" type event.

I'd highly suggest something like this if you have a character that can do it, as the quests are fun, and you can get things taken care of like Warlord's Command and the UBRS key now that the gems drop off of the bosses 100% of the time (still only 1 gem each though)

In a couple days we're going to try a 3 man UBRS. I'm not sure how it's going to go with Drakisath, but I think things like the Rend event should be fun and a challenge.

To get into SM its is required level of 20. I also tried the DoT and run out trick, and it didnt work out so well for me. I tried it in the stockades though, and tried down ranking DoTs, But I never got the hang of it. And Seed of corruption didnt work out so well for me either, because it would be 2 ticks and it would explode, I never could gather up enough mobs to use it.

Try using non-damaging curses, like Curse of Elements or something. Basically just to get into combat with them, so you can drag them all into a nice big pile before seed of corruptioning.

I found out yesterday having 2-3 twinks of the same level running an instance is extremely profitable too! In terms of exp. Yesterday, had 3 twinks solo everything in the now nerfed Gnomeregan. 30 prot paladin, 30 hunter, 30 holy/prot paladin. In fact, even did backdoor runs in 18 minutes flat.

Dotting and running out as Shadow is easy. Run around tagging mobs with rank 1 shadow pain. I gather around 10-12. I then run to the exit and cast max rank shadow pain on them, fear, shield alt and exit.

I'm trying this on a shadow priest at the moment as well and it works great, but requires more skill than I originally thought. I'm needing to do a bit of practise in the instance before i get the alt in, figuring out how much HP the mobs have and what ranks to use. Only up to WC at the moment but without removing gear, a rank 1 SW:P will one shot the mobs there so I'm having to run around and body pull, using VE to grab something when it's up which is a slow process.

I'm hoping SM will be an improvement in mob density but provided I don't mess something up and get out of the instance before stuff starts dying it works very well. I find I can do about 6 at a time but with tabbing and GCD, any more than that and they're dying before I finish dotting and zone out.

Minor Run Speed to boots is a must. Nothing beats increased movement speed when your only mode of transportation is running. Even at upper levels, having the ability to flee faster and passively outrun most mobs means you spend less time running back to your corpse because of dumb overpulls.

What I learned is that you have to have your pet switch targets as you're seeding or his dps will contribute to the 1,000 damage trigger which then leads to early agro and pushback. My order was to send VW into the room agro-ing everything for the pull, then SoC target A, tab to Target B, SoC, Send Pet on Target B, tab to Target C, SoC, Send Pet to Target C, etc. The key was to "send pet" while the SoC was casting for efficiency.

Also, with all of the commanding of the pet, I ended up with a stripped macro that was just "/petattack" that kept me from Carpal tunnel from spamming Ctrl-1 for the petbar command.

I am really enjoying this thread; not using to much except questing, questing, questing. I find the new xp is working really well for me. I don't have to switch continents or anything!

One thing I wanted to mention to all the dual accounts out there is wisper cast. I'm not sure if it works in combat, but it allows you to auto cast a spell when someone wispers you. Seems like it would be very useful, especially in the above example.

Has anyone tried 'ironmanning' low level dungeons with a twinked alt? I used to 2-man a variety of low level dungeons (Deadmines, Shadowfang, etc.) as a warlock with my friends paladin, and most of them were pretty easy (and this is at about the estimated level for the instances), and we weren't 'twinked' in the slightest.

Since I have a distaste for solo quest grinding, however fast or 'optimal' it may be, I'm wondering if it'd be possible for me to level (at least some of the way) by soloing the lower level instances. I'd probably have to stop by the time I get to SM, as the instances start to get a lot higher on the tanking and dps requirements then, but I'm thinking that for my level 19 Paladin, if I get an outland shield spike, a crusader-enchanted mainhand, and some pretty decent all round gear (maybe with a few stamina enchants for luck), that a lot of the lower level instances might be soloable. They probably wont be easy, but with the healing from crusader, and damage from the shield spike, and the various paladin 'outs' (lay on hands, bubble), it might be fun and net me a fair bit of XP whilst I do it.

The idea would be to 'grind' each instance a few times, from the 'correct' level to do it to a few higher until I can start the next instance, and ergo keep my gear in pretty tip to shape due to the buffed instance loot.

I'm sure it's not the quickest, nor easiest way to level, but for me it might be the most fun, and therefore the one I'm most likely to stick with for a length of time.

What level was your wife's pally when you started doing BRD? I tried my pally 2-box at level 45 and got pwned by proximity aggro.

Thank you...that would explain my problems.

Anyone doing the whole dot-and-zone-out thing with a warlock have much advice for Seed of Corruption?

All I seem to be able to do efficiently is that first hallway in SM Library before I have to reset and do it over again...it's not bad XP at all, 26-27 in ~11min played...but I don't know.

What I'm doing is pulling 2-3 mobs at a time, with max rank Corruption then CoA and then at 20% or so, I zone out and they die, which works fine.

However, I'd like to more pulls but it seems that SoC is unreliable in terms of when it's going to explode and when I should zone out.

Thanks.

I was using crusader at that level and the proc rate was horrible. I switched to fiery and killed mobs alot faster. I'm guessing that when they nerfed it back to under 35 items again that the proc rate got nerfed to almost worthless levels. Fiery procs 1-2 times a mob, crusader every 5-10 mobs.

I apologize for missing this quote, but Pyros really did well on explaining how I was pulling the mobs.

I'd actually wanted to originally get an Ironfoe for my Wife's pally, so we started at an incredibly low level (42 I believe) and proximity aggro was a bit of an issue, but with her at the keyboard, she could tell me if she accidentally pulled anything.

I relied quite a bit on pulling groups and using LOS to get them to me, where I would then just Demo Roar and that would give me all the aggro that I would need. After that, it was swipe tanking everything and keeping Demo up to reduce the amount of damage taken.

We have been leveling my Wife's character very slowly since she's been having fun playing my Mage in Heroics and some entry level raids (This is her first MMO) so I've had a lot of time to really think about what instances would be a lot of fun.

BRD - Quite a bit of fun, just because the instance is so interesting. Great if you are clearing it with an enchanter, as the second half of the instance is filled with Large Brilliant Shards. Make sure you clear the Lyceum with the low level character outside of the area and just come back to get them.

Strat - Quite a bit of fun, though I recommend keeping the twink out of combat during Baroness, as you will most likely 1 shot them if you get MC'd. Lots of stuff to DE, as well as greens now giving you Illusion Dust and Greater Eternals.

DM - quite a bit of fun, though you end up taking a fair bit of damage in West if you're trying to "solo" it with a lower level around just so they can pick up exp and gear. Again, lots of enchanting mats, and probably one of the better itemized instances. I tend to have a lot of fun here, as it's also fairly well designed.

LBRS - With the addition of making the "Rare Elites" much more common, there are a lot of great lower level items such as The Nicker which my Wife is using on her Pally currently. I would say that LBRS was more of an Ironman test over anything else, but we have a great bit of fun, and walked out with 17 or 18 Large Brilliant Shards.

All in all, I think that BRD is really the last stop as far as viable twinking through instances goes with a second account. I've had an incredible amount of fun leveling the last couple characters of mine through those areas.

Thanks Thiris...that was a great write-up.

So here's a new question for everyone on this topic of twinking. Some of the classes have a half dozen viable weapon types, especially the melees. What have you guys found to be the most efficient way of skilling up your weapons when you are jumping 2/3/4/5 levels in a sitting due to powerlevelling? My alt pally just hit 45 and I have like 160/225 on every weapon skill...its miserable.

For my warrior alt in similar situation, spamming hamstring on a mob few levels below worked fine. I dont know if paladins got any comparable instant attacks, but the ability to heal should make up for it, just find a mob that doesnät hit hard, autoattack and heal when necessary.