Fast-Leveling Alliance from 40 to 60

[nobbie]

With 4 Horde chars so far - one at level 60 - I know the Horde quests and areas in and out, but not the Alliance quests/areas. My Night Elf Druid (Feral specialization) just reached level 40, and I want her to become my second level 60 asap. Which quests and areas would you recommend from now on? I prefer to play solo most of the time (and avoid instances), so the quests should be doable solo, and the rest will be grinding (of relatively easy creatures (no fleeing Humanoids if possible)). On the Horde side, I used the following path from 40 to 60 with my Undead Warrior:

40-50 Feralas/Tanaris
50-55 Un'Goro Crater/Western Plaguelands
55-60 Western Plaguelands/Eastern Plaguelands

Would these areas be also recommended for Alliance, or are there better (and faster) ways?

[kandrathe]

With 4 Horde chars so far - one at level 60 - I know the Horde quests and areas in and out, but not the Alliance quests/areas. My Night Elf Druid (Feral specialization) just reached level 40, and I want her to become my second level 60 asap. Which quests and areas would you recommend from now on? I prefer to play solo most of the time (and avoid instances), so the quests should be doable solo, and the rest will be grinding (of relatively easy creatures (no fleeing Humanoids if possible)). On the Horde side, I used the following path from 40 to 60 with my Undead Warrior:

40-50 Feralas/Tanaris
50-55 Un'Goro Crater/Western Plaguelands
55-60 Western Plaguelands/Eastern Plaguelands

Would these areas be also recommended for Alliance, or are there better (and faster) ways?
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Those areas are where I spent the bulk of my time as well. With Celethirian, were I to do it over again, I would have worked on Felwood & grinding Deadwood Furbolgs at Level 46 for a few levels to get Friendly/Honored and then worked on grinding normal undead in WP until honored with the AD, then start doing AD quests in EP/WP including the repeatable "Dalson's Tears Cauldron" quest in WP starting at level 51. Around level 54, you might think about starting "Dragonkin Menace" line in the Burning Steppes, which leads to getting your Key for Onyxia's lair. By level 55 you will need to start running instance raids into BRD/BRS, Scholomance, & Stratholme, If you are a smith you will want to start doing all the Thorium Brotherhood quests starting at level 46. You can cherry pick certain quests to solo, but near 50 almost everything is do-able and more fun with at least a duo.

[nobbie]

Oh, I forgot Felwood in my list .. how could I forget that one after 3 days of killing Deadwood Furbolgs until I became friend with the Timbermaw :)

So, this would be the complete list:

40-50 Feralas/Tanaris
50-55 Felwood/Un'Goro Crater/Western Plaguelands
55-60 Western Plaguelands/Eastern Plaguelands

[oldmandennis]

You don't mention weather or not you play PVP or PVE, which makes a difference. The furbys and the farms in WPL will probably be pretty contested on PVP servers, as many lvl 60's will be going back for faction.

As far as AD faction goes, my opinion would be to do the cauldron quests as fast as possible, so you can start accumulating the parts off the undead. Hold off on the turn ins until you stop getting faction from elite kills in strath/scholo.

Many people run SM repeatedly for $$ and loot until the mobs there are grey. Mauardon also supposedly has very good loot for its level range. If you are on a PVP server it is a good place to hide from the gankers.

Winterspring and Sithilius are usually relativly dead as well.

[nobbie]

It's RP (PvE) for me.

[MongoJerry]

For Horde, you definitely can't miss the new troll town in the Hinterlands in the late 40's, early 50's range. For Alliance, I wouldn't forget about Searing Gorge, Burning Steppes, and the Blasted Lands.

[TotoGuy]

For Horde, you definitely can't miss the new troll town in the Hinterlands in the late 40's, early 50's range.
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Was so nice finding that place after stumbling helplessly around the hinterlands at level 40, grumbling at the lack of a horde spot.

One thing that bothers me though, is the lack of general/trade goods vendors. Flying to the UC every time for bullets and such can get annoying.

Oh, and the lack of a proper ending for that troll saving quest. "Hmm interesting" indeed.

Speaking of which, where should I head off to with my tauren after finishing there?
Already did most of the stuff in Tanaris and STV, donno if I should head to the Steppes or Felwood.

[Brista]

With 4 Horde chars so far - one at level 60 - I know the Horde quests and areas in and out, but not the Alliance quests/areas. My Night Elf Druid (Feral specialization) just reached level 40, and I want her to become my second level 60 asap. Which quests and areas would you recommend from now on? I prefer to play solo most of the time (and avoid instances), so the quests should be doable solo, and the rest will be grinding (of relatively easy creatures (no fleeing Humanoids if possible)). On the Horde side, I used the following path from 40 to 60 with my Undead Warrior:

40-50 Feralas/Tanaris
50-55 Un'Goro Crater/Western Plaguelands
55-60 Western Plaguelands/Eastern Plaguelands

Would these areas be also recommended for Alliance, or are there better (and faster) ways?
[right][snapback]88674[/snapback][/right]

For power grinding you are best off in cat. Sure you take more damage but grindable mobs are low to zero danger anyway. Cat dps is significantly higher than other methods

You may wish to respec specifically for cat. I have done on mine

I rather like questing, I know you're more of a grinder so I'll try to point out things to consider with both

Questing
- do every zone. There's really no reason to skip a zone if you're after quest exp
- exploring is inversely proportional to levelling. If you explore you level slower
- grouping is usually more efficient than soloing

Grinding
- avoid popular spots. The first field in wpl and the furbolgs you have to kill for Timbermaw faction are very popular on my server. If it gets to the point where you have to run further to find a new mob
- you can usually add in extra benefits. You can get faction, cloth or whatever while you grind. This one is a herbalist isn't it? Gathering is something to bear in mind while you grind
- if you grind in cat you are significantly affected by mob armour. Avoid turtles crabs scorpids and warrior types
- if the mobs are easy enough you may wish to pull multiple mobs to get extra Thorns damage. Pulling lots of mobs then healing yourself while they beat themselves to death isn't a viable tactic though imo
- even if you solo grind grouping for instances provides a very good way to get upgrades. In instances you will usually be expected to heal and can do it perfectly well even with Feral Spec
- use your knowledge of Horde to anticipate where there will be lots of Horde competitors for mobs. In Feralas for instance on my server most Horde do the southern yeti cave but not the northern one.

[nobbie]

For power grinding you are best off in cat. Sure you take more damage but grindable mobs are low to zero danger anyway. Cat dps is significantly higher than other methods

What would be the ideal mob level when grinding in Cat form? 3 levels lower than my Druid, 4 or 5? How are the experience gains over time (incl. dowtime) compared to fighting equal, or 1 to 2 level higher mobs, as Bear?

[Brista]

What would be the ideal mob level when grinding in Cat form? 3 levels lower than my Druid, 4 or 5? How are the experience gains over time (incl. dowtime) compared to fighting equal, or 1 to 2 level higher mobs, as Bear?
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It depends on other factors. Basically you want your opener and your finisher to do a big chunk of damage - that's a fast kill. You want to move from one fight to another fast - that's fast grinding

Downtime is simply shifting to heal once every 2-3 fights and refresh buffs if needed. You always have plenty of mana

You ideally need all of these to be true:

- you get a feel for how close you can be to a mob before hitting stealth. This is just short of the range at which you would body pull. You don't want to stealth then move since stealthed movement is slower

- low armour mobs, especially casters since you will really interrupt them. If they can heal or stun it impairs your kill speed. If they have fast melee attacks (like cats do) you will cause more Thorns damage

- no adds

I haven't researched efficiency over time. I respecced from a Restoration build (MF pulls then bear) to a Feral one (Cat pulls) and my efficiency shot up. I'd be interested if you can get some figures. Next time I play my druid I'll see if I can do some research but I have too many competing WoW attractions and not enough time at the moment

[Icebird]

My levelling advice: Do the long quest chains. They often have incredible quest XP rewards for the amount of work you have to do (although most involve a lot of travel):

The Linken / Blazerunner chain - Starts and ends in Un'Goro Crater, takes you all over Kalimdor in between. Only one grind part in Felwood, and you'll need help for "It's dangerous to go alone".

Razelikh the Defiler - Long, long, long chain, with rewards to match. On the bonus side, Grol is no longer bugged after the patch. Starts and ends in the Blasted Lands.

The Drakefire Amulet chain - Dragonkin Menace leads to some easy XP delivery quests. So many people leave this chain until they are 60, when you can rack up the XP while you are still levelling.

The Fordring questline - Starts with all the grinding you can ever want in EPL. You'll need help for the part in the Undercroft graveyard, but the steps after easy to solo until you need to visit Stratholme.

Nathanos Blightcaller - The pre-quests for the raid are a quick 15k XP and you don't need to kill a single thing.

I pretty much quested my way through the 50s. Did two 5 man BRD runs to complete all the quests there and that was pretty much it instance. Did almost no non-quest related grinding.

Chris