POLL: Best Leveling Contest Class

[nobbie]

The 1.10 servers for the three "Burning Crusade" beta-key contests (leveling to 50, most chars to 25, PvP honor) have been started this morning at 9:00 CET in Europe.

As the contest participants are starting under the same circumstances when WoW first came out (same level, fresh economy), but have now the advantage of tactical and strategical knowledge of over 1 year WoW, the results of these competitions will certainly be interesting.

I'm curious what you think will be the best leveling contest class for the "Fastest Level 50 Char" category. Note that the competition circumstances differ from the WoW start phase last year in several ways: You'll be soloing mostly (except for some quests during the first 15-20 levels) and grind easy to reach and kill creatures, your professions should deck you out with the most needed stuff as auctions and trading are not really an option during these 3 competitive weeks, and for example self cooked foot is cheaper than purchased foot. Simply put, you're basically a little island in this competition without much help from others.

Make your pick and say which professions and talent builds you would choose.
Note that these are already patch 1.10 chars/talents:

Druid
Hunter
Mage
Paladin
Priest
Rogue
Shaman
Warlock
Warrior


My personal favorite is an Undead Warlock with focus on Demonology and Destruction talents. From the Affliction tree, only the Improved Corruption talent will be used to make it an instant cast. Professions will be Tailoring and Skinning, and First Aid and Cooking. At level 40, I'll ride a free mount ;)

[ima_nerd]

The mount is definitely an issue. However, if all you do is grind, you shouldn't have much trouble getting it at 40.

I'll go with a Rogue equipped with Skinning and First Aid only. Cooking is a waste of time when you have bandages and are grinding humanoids at least every once and awhile. Eviscerate's fixed damage will make up for any lack of gear and a Rogue's kill rate and ability to get away from bad pulls or patrols will save him time in the long run.

[Concillian]

New realms always have 15 hunters leading the pack to 60, there is a reason.

BM Hunter all the way.

[Rinnhart]

I agree with you on the warlock, disagree on the spec. Full Affliction. Dark Pact is absolutely insane. The only time there's any downtime is when you get three adds and fear kite them to death whilst drain tanking your original pull.

Mentioned it in the mage thread, but a pair of frost mages would be a force to be reckoned with as well. Continuous AE grinding with very little risk.

[nobbie]

New realms always have 15 hunters leading the pack to 60, there is a reason.

BM Hunter all the way.
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My first thought, too, but a fast hunter (and a rogue) needs a good weapon, doesn't he?

[Kevin]

My first thought, too, but a fast hunter (and a rogue) needs a good weapon, doesn't he?
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That's why the hunter specs beast master. L50 beast master pet can push 70 DPS. The hunter, even with a poorer weapon, will still add more than that, so you can safely grind with autoshoot only if you want at 140+ DPS with quest rewards and crappy stuff you find with no down time and pretty much complete safety along with the ability to do elite quests if the reward is worth it. Other classes can be doing more DPS by then (L32 rogues can push 80-90 sustained DPS without heavy twinking) but they generally come with more downtime too that gets you in the end. And the rogue is helped in the lower levels by the fact that evis is flat damage this does make up some for subpar weapons. Now the rogue that gets lucky and finds a good weapon will do better but if you are limited by respawn rate on killing speed as it is, who cares? :)


As a note, my combined pet and hunter damage, even though I'm a beast master will still often top the damage charts against similar geared players (blues and greens) in instances, even on AoE heavy UBRS runs I can still keep up, if I push it hard and drink during some of the pulls and such. The Marks and survival hunters don't really start to pull away on the damage the hunter himself does until they get the better gearing because the talents are multiplicative and 5% or 100 base DPS isn't quite the gap as 5% of 250 base DPS but the pet stays flat on the damage after the talents are hit. And there are few synergies with higher talents and higher level marks and survival talents that make damage ramp more exponential than multiplicative. The pet ramps up faster in DPS with beast talents vs non beast talents but levels off. The hunter himself ramps more slowly but the ramp gets faster at the end. So generally in lower level given same gearing a beast hunter will out DPS other hunter specs when you factor in the pet. The pet holding better aggro also lets the hunter push himself harder which can help the beast master out too.

[Mirajj]

I'll just add that I agree with GG...if you are going for flat out levelling speed to cap out at 50, you won't find a better setup than a BM hunter. You will be almost completely self reliant with just drops (You can get an omniverous bear near most start areas, and never have to buy/fish/cook food for it) and, since there are two of you, you don't take as much of a gimp hit from lower damage and rarer (to find) weapons. For speed levelling, professions are just gravy. Take skinning, and that's about it. Mining you only want if you have an eagle eye, as you'll likely be tracking other things (such as beasts or humanoids) and can't have the mining tracker up. First Aid is certainly nice, too. Cuts the little downtime you have already further. Especially as it's easy enough to level up off of finds.

[Concillian]

My first thought, too, but a fast hunter (and a rogue) needs a good weapon, doesn't he?
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Hunters have everything you want:

Mobility -- Aspect of the cheetah at 20
Gear independence -- Beast Mastery Spec
Low downtime -- Extremely low since pets regen FAST
ability to handle or escape every situation -- disengage, feign, kiting options, traps, some of the best soloing tools around. Death = huge waste of time, and no class has more options for escaping death.
Low $$$ needs -- If you have a bear or a boar, they are a garbage disposal. You can feed them anything. You take little damage, so don't need to waste money on your own bandages / food (or can sell cloth) and repeair bills are minimal.
High DPS -- low geared hunters have the best sustainable DPS around, largely because of their pets.

Some classes have a subset of those things, but no class puts it together like a hunter.

I see the best competition as a feral druid. 20% speed improve at 21 (with talents), and more at 30, a fair amount of time is pre-40 and they get nice mobility before 40. Plus swimming. The major thing they lack is escape mechanisms, and they have lower DPS but they fit most of the other items, though are a little more gear dependent.

A warlock has more mana dependence pre-40, which is a significant amount of time, and also has no speed boost before level 40. Escape option is fear, which is okay, but not as good as the multitude of options that hunters have.

[oldmandennis]

/nod to hunters.... and I haven't even played mine since they redid the talents. Even then it was so easy to level a hunter, it was worth it just to get him up there to do mooncloth.

As far as druids go... meh. The lower level leveling is pretty painful. The best thing about the druids would be if the lurkers were all going to try this, a druid is great at duoing with a very wide array of characters.

[Artega]

Protection Warrior, any kind of Priest, any kind of Mage. 3-man instances till your eyes rot out.

Excellent XP, excellent drops, excellent cash. Probably won't be the first to hit 50, but between the superior gear and rapid XP gain, at least one of you stands a good chance of making it.

[nobbie]

Two level 28 Hunters are currently (14:00 CET) leading the level 50 contest in Europe since Monday 9:00 CET .. sick.

[nobbie]

Mission completed !!

I've just finished my third level 25 character for the European "N x 25" level contest and - judging by the surprisingly very few participants in the (EU) contests - one key for the "Burning Crusade" beta should be mine :D

See you in the beta!