01-11-2005, 08:54 PM
Powerleveling and You
Or, How to get to 20 in 20 hours /played
Or, How to get to 40 in 4 days /played
Those currently on the Stormrage server know that I got in on the WoW fun a little over 2 weeks ago. While I've started out 8 characters, the one that I seriously play is Boltress, a now-level 39 Priest. She got to level 20 before 20 hours total playing time (which you can find by using the /played command with your characters). She'll be level 40 before I get to 4 days /played. I'm not claiming this is some sort of record - there are people who have level 60s in 3 weeks of Real Life time - but it IS pretty dang fast.
I warned some guild members coming in that I've been known to level quickly, but I still managed to surprise quite a few. Some keep asking me how I do it so fast, so here's a mini-guide on how it's done. And no, it's not something simple like "ignore tradeskills." My priest has over 200 points in both Herbalism and Alchemy, along with 120+ in Fishing, 150 First Aid, and 75 in Cooking. I'll address tradeskills in more detail later.
Why powerlevel, you might ask? Won't I have more fun taking my time through the game, exploring areas, and doing things considered "wasted time"? The answer is, YES! If you're new to the game, stop reading. If your goal in the game is just to get to 60 as quickly as possible, you're going to miss out on a TON of content, and then sit around and complain that the game doesn't have enough. Stop and smell the roses along the way. Everyone will have 60's soon enough, and there's no point in "getting there first." All you win by being first is a lack of people to play with. Since all the best level 60 content is in instanced elite dungeons, that won't get you far.
Powerleveling is about supreme expediency in gaining character levels. If it sounds like the opposite of fun for you, then don't do it. Some people have fun powerleveling, and some don't. A great thing about WoW is that there are so many different ways to have fun. For example, Leeah in our Stormrage guild is having a blast playing the Auction House. Leeah has more cash at level 25 than I will at 40. I can't afford a mount. Leeah will, easily, and has just as much fun playing the House for all its worth as I did powerleveling.
However, there are a few situations where, even if powerleveling isn't for you, you may want to powerlevel to a certain point.
1) You're like me, having gone through months and months of beta and have already seen almost 100% of the low-level content. You want to blow through it fast to get to newer or better things. This can also apply to retail players after they've been at this for a few months with different characters.
2) You started late, and want to "catch up" to levels that allow you to play with your friends. WoW still suffers from that all-too-common problem, where even a difference of 5 character levels can eliminate you from an instance party.
3) All you really care about is "maxing" your character ASAP. While I don't approve of that (I'm the Explorer personality), I recognize that for some, being the highest level first means a lot.
How to Win Levels and Influence Reputation
I could say that there's a "secret" to leveling quickly. But it's not much of a secret. Ready for it? It's only one line, and the rest is all details. Here we go:
Solo green to easy-yellow non-elite quests.
OH NOES! The secret's out!
Basic Points of Soloing Quests
Following one simple guideline should dominate your play.
Don't waste time. Rather than play more, play smart.
Always be thinking of the ***time*** it takes to do things. Arrange your play so that you accomplish the most (read: get the most quests done) per unit of time.
ALWAYS be doing quests. Thankfully, unlike many other MMOs, grinding is NOT the fastest way to level. World of Warcraft uses its quest system to encourage you to have a point to all of your slaughter, and the benefits are too good to ignore. If you're not doing something that is either improving your character (tradeskilling, buying spells, etc) or questing, you are wasting time. In fact, if you're going out of your way just to solve ONE quest somewhere, you are wasting time. There are so many quests in WoW, that you can almost always be working on MORE than one quest at a time. In other words, you don't take 2 flight paths and a 5 minute run somewhere to accomplish just 1 quest. Wait until you have a few quests in a general area before heading out there, or just don't bother. For some players, who like to "finish" a zone of quests and complete them all, this would drive them insane. But you have to be willing to abandon quests that aren't worth doing from a time perspective.
The single biggest thing you can have to accomplish this goal of always doing quests efficiently is: game knowledge. There is simply no substitute for knowing where to find quests, where to solve them, and the most expedient way to go about doing so. This can generally only come from game experience. You can always Thottbot up quest information and arrange a game plan for a zone, but there are so many details and particulars that can only really be obtained via experience with playing the quests. However, even when you're not familiar with the layout and quests in the world (i.e. you're new to the game), there are things you can do to help speed up the process while you're learning.
If you don't have the knowledge level that a seasoned WoW beta tester has of the quests, you'd be surprised at how willing they may be to become a Quest Minion. Quest Minions are inordinately useful, as they will escort you speedily through quests and show you were everything is. While Quest Minions can be difficult to capture, once subdued they become most helpful. Always be on the lookout for a Quest Minion! :) You know that T-mobile TV commercial where Snoop Dog says "Everyone needs a sidekick?" Well, just picture him saying "Everyone needs a Quest Minion!"
Parties
One of World of Warcraft's strengths is that you don't need to be in parties to succeed. It's also one of it's weaknesses, if you really like to party all the time. This is because so many of the quests are soloable, that many players often don't want to bother with parties. And I can hardly blame them. There are some nasty disadvantages:
1) While there's a "group bonus" to experience, the fact remains that the exp you get per kill is divided amongst the party members. Sure, you kill faster, and that's great - but often times you'll get better experience when killing a little slower, but by yourself. More on this later.
2) With collection quests, you have to kill at least x times as many enemies (where x is the number of party members) to get the required number of items. Especially with rare drops, it can take an eternity for everyone in the party to get their drops. If you're looking to get in and get out quickly, that just slows you down.
3) You have to divide the loot. That's no fun! :)
Of course, you have to party for instance runs and elite quests. So do so. But otherwise, partying will usually just be a hindrance except for special situations. These situations are addressed below...
Quest Difficulty
As mentioned earlier, you want to be doing quests that are marked as green to easy-yellow in your quest log. With some mods out there, the actual level number corresponding to the quest can be displayed, making that easier to see. Don't forget that quests are ordered in the log by difficulty level.
Now, why is this? Don't you get more experience by killing things closer to around your level? Yep, you do. But there's a catch.
See, questing is the fastest way to gain experience. This is simply because while you're out killing things for exp, you're also working toward the bonus exp for the quest - a double-whammy that allows you to advance faster than mere grinding. Now, while you're out soloing monsters, you will find quickly that level difference between you and the monster you are fighting is a *huge* determinate in how a fight plays out.
Non-elite monsters that are many levels under you and labelled as "green" by the game can be soloed with ease by any character class and mowed down without much cost in hit points, mana, etc. If the monster is "yellow" to you, it will require much more effort. You will find, as I have, that while the exp gained for a "yellow" monster is better than that for a "green," over a period of time you will gain experience much faster by mowing down the greens than by taking your time with the yellows.
It's all about downtime. Fighting yellows tends to take a lot out of you - whether it's hit points for rogues and warriors, or mana for mages/priests/warlocks, etc etc, you can't solo the yellows nearly as efficiently as the greens. When the difference in experience gained for a yellow is something around 10% greater than a green, but you can mow down greens twice as fast (due to little to no downtime), guess which is better for exp gain per hour? Yep, the greens.
This is the key determinate for why you should pursue green to easy-yellow quests. Speed. Quest reward exp in the fastest time possible, not to mention speedy obtainal of quest rewards and loot. Speaking of which, never do a fedex (delivery) quest just for the sake of the delivery quest. Only do those when it's convenient; i.e. you're just passing through that way anyway. They typically don't give enough experience to be worth wasting a lot of time to do, unless they lead to more quests in a chain that you have to get to ASAP.
So, once you've cleaned out a zone of green and easy-yellow quests, what to do? There are still a bunch more yellow, orange, and red quests in the area that could be done. You have two options for pure powerleveling of remaining non-elite quests:
1) MOVE ON to another zone! You can come back to that zone later after you've gotten a few more levels, and those quests will now be green and fast. In World of Warcraft, there's always another zone to go to for quests, because there are SO many quests. Don't be afraid to say to a zone, Arnold Schwarzenegger style, "I'll be back."
2) Join a party of ONE additional player and ram through the harder quests fast, just to get them done. Why only one player? Because two-player parties are the most expedient party configuration. I have found that while two-player parties can often more than double your killing speed and safety, the returns diminish with additional players. A 5-player party does not kill five times faster, due to all of the "overhead" that comes about - having to find new monsters to kill, looting issues, afk-ness, etc. Two player parties are ideal for non-elite quest slamming if it's not an easily-done quest. If you really need more than 2 players to beat a non-elite quest, either the quest is really too hard and you should move on, or at least one of the two players is doing something wrong. Plus, having more than 2 players just exacerbates the issues I listed above in the parties section.
Quest Log Maintenance
"Okay Bolty, so if I hop around zones a lot to find that 'sweet spot' where the quests are easy to do, won't my quest log fill up fast?"
You bet it will.
So, what to do? Again, part of this is game knowledge, but even if you're new to the game, there's things you can do. When ditching a zone because its remaining quests are a little on the non-efficient side for soloing, abandon that zone's quests when they are given by town NPCs. If you need to, write down what you're abandoning. Yeah, actually take out a piece of paper and a writing utensil of choice and write it down (the horror)! For instance, "Loch Modan - 5 quests in town still available." After you've run off and got a few more levels under your belt, you can pick those quests right back up the next time you visit Thelsamar (the town in Loch Modan) in little over a minute. No sweat!
Meanwhile, quests that are given by NPCs that are more out-of-the-way should be held on to, IF it seems like they'll be worth doing when you next return. To use Loch Modan again, there are quests given by an NPC on the dam. If you abandoned that, you'd have to run back to the dam again the next time you visited, just to pick up the quest. That's a waste. Don't waste time.
Usually, non-town NPCs give a quest here, a quest there, so they won't fill your log up like quests from towns. And remember that even with multi-part quests, once you've completed some of the parts, abandoning it won't make you start all the way over again - you can just pick right up in the middle of things again from that NPC.
The key thing for new players is to get over the "fear" of the Abandon Quest button. It's NOT a big deal. Drop the quest and you can get it again later. Either try to remember it's there, or just jot a quick note that at character level x, the quest was color y. You can return for the quests in that zone later.
Townin' It
The ideal situation: you enter a new zone, visit all the town NPCs, and pick up a bunch of green or easy-yellow quests. You head out to one area of the map and knock off 4 or 5 quests there in the span of 2 hours, and then return to town.
Towns should be used for two things: handing in quests and clearing your inventory. But the key thing here is that you should only head to town for one of three reasons:
1) You have to log out. Pesky Real Life. Don't forget the importance of Rest State, if you're the 2-hours-a-day type of player.
2) Your inventory is full.
3) You have to hand in a quest to get the next part of that quest, so that you can hit a bunch of quests more expediently in a different part of the zone.
A common newbie mistake is to think "Oh boy, I completed this quest! I'll go back to town and cash it in!" for each and every quest they do. Ugh. Look, if you're going back to town for a reason other than those 3 above, you're wasting time traveling around back and forth.
My record for number of quests accomplished before heading back to town is 9, which I did in the beta over on the Horde side with that lovely powerleveling-rich zone known as the Barrens. The joy of returning to town to cash in a whopping 9 quests at once is quite fun to feel. I had 8 quests done at once in the Hillsbrad Foothills the other day. That's pure efficiency.
So, it's clear that bag space is of the utmost importance. If you have to return to town a lot to clear out your bags, do everything you can to get more bag space! Beg, borrow, and steal to get bigger bags. I was fortunate to be twinked out with bags from day 1, which is very key to getting that level-20-in-20-hours goal. If you're going from scratch with no support, having to find or buy bag space as you go, it's going to slow you down significantly. Not much that can be done there, except to use whatever spare cash you have buying bigger bags. 8-slot bags cost 25 silver each, and a full set of those can be a huge asset to a starting player.
Hearthstones
Use hearthstones strategically. Sometimes it's better to leave your hearthstone in a far-off town than the one in the zone you're working. Better to have a 5-minute run to town and an instant port to a key destination, than an instant port to town followed by 15 minutes of flight path and cross-continent travel. Always be keeping in mind where your hearthstone is, and try to determine the most strategic placement of it.
Mages get an extra edge here - they can teleport to the major towns, so they can keep their hearthstones in more out-of-the-way places. Travel time costs you in efficiency and some cash, so try to limit it as much as possible. In general, you want to keep your stone in major "hub" areas - like Stormwind or Ironforge.
Tradeskills
You might think that tradeskills have no place in a powerleveling guide. Quite the contrary! Tradeskills SHOULD be developed as quickly as possible, because from an efficiency standpoint it makes a lot more sense to develop tradeskills as you level up, than to waste hours and hours later on developing them in zones that give you no experience.
The material-gathering skills - mining, herbalism, skinning - should be obtained as quickly as possible. Make sure to build them up as you play, for you'll find that if you fall behind you'll have to waste time going back to easier areas to build them up. As the monsters in an area go up in level, so too do the levels of the mining nodes, herb nodes, and the skinning requirement for said monsters. Keep up with the curve.
Also, develop your production tradeskills, mostly just to keep your inventory and bank clear of materials. Taking time out to get the materials needed for any specific item, though, is probably a waste of time. What's important is that you get it skilled up so you can make the really good stuff later on. THEN you can take the time to make those killer items.
Instances
Do instances for the quests. Then don't do them again. Instances give fairly decent exp-per-time, but soloing non-elite quests is actually a bit faster. What's key with instances though is that the equipment you can get as drops is *far* better than non-instance loot. You will find that if you don't run instances enough, your equipment will lag behind that of players who run instances over and over. It's up to you to decide if the better equipment is worth the slower leveling or not. But since we're talking only of pure speed, instances should be a one-and-done affair.
How to get to 20 in 20
Or, Level 20 in 20 hours /played
To me, all character levels before 20 are the "newbie" stage of character development. You don't even have talents before level 10, and you still don't have anywhere near your total number of spell abilities. The quests are almost all non-elite, and tend to be of the boring fed-ex or kill x to get y variety. I want to blow through them as fast as possible. At level 20, at least on the Alliance side, you can start hitting up the instances with a trip to the Deadmines. That's when things start to get interesting to me. So I like to rush to 20 with all my chars.
Note that in these early levels, you usually can't really find quests that are green. That's not so much of an issue because the quests are very easy anyway and designed as such for newbie players.
Since most Lurkers are playing on the Alliance side on the Stormrage server, I'll put up a short mini-guide on the general way to get up to level 20 fast if you're an Alliance character.
Dwarves and Gnomes, levels 1-10:
You hit the "I lose" button, at least in terms of the initial ability to get to level 10. For some reason, Dun Morogh just continues to lag far behind Elwynn Forest and Teldrassil with the lack of quests for pre-level 10 characters. There are enough, yes, but they're kind of spread out and that adds to "wasted time" getting around from place to place.
Try to limit the number of times you have to travel between Kharanos and Brewnall Village. Do the Kharanos and Steelgrill's Depot quests first, then take the quest that sends you out to Brewnall village and do the quest to get the brew back to Kharanos. If you're ready to get new spells, return, else do the Frostmane Hold. Shimmer Stout is one of the hardest early quests in the game, because those troll mages hit hard. Good luck.
After Kharanos and Brewnall village are cleaned out, you need to take the stout to the southern outpost. Hit the quarry along the way, along with the farm with the Ram breeders to kill Vagash. You might need help with Vagash, he's elite. The north outpost has another quest to find a missing adventurer, and the south outpost has the delivery quest that leads on to Thelsamar in Loch Modan. This is, of course, irritating, since you'll have to backtrack in SOME way eventually. Don't forget to pick up the fedex quest in the northern guard tower of Loch Modan to deliver to Stormwind. Then head to Elwynn Forest to pick up some green quests there to do.
Humans, levels 1-10:
Elwynn Forest is a great early-level zone, with only moderate travel from Guard Howe's location to Goldshire and Stormwind. Do the farm quests alongside the Jangolode Mine quests, since they're inter-related. In general, you want to do as many quests over on the eastern side (Guard Howe) as you can before returning to Goldshire, and vice-versa. Keep the quests grouped up and avoid having to run back and forth between the eastern and western parts of the zone.
Don't forget to do the Gnoll quests in the southwestern part of the zone once you're getting near level 10.
Night Elves, levels 1-10:
You hit the "I win" button, as Teldrassil is just quest-rich and positively overrun with newbie content. Not a good place to start out if you're a miner, though, because there are no mining zones there (it's a giant tree, remember?). This will make keeping up with the mining curve a little harder.
The quests here are packed together tightly, there's little travel time, and the quests are placed such that when you have to go from the newbie town to Darnassus and back again, there's usually a quest or two you can do along the way! Keep in mind that rescuing Mist (the tiger) in the super-northwestern end of the map with the harpies is useless, since the quest is STILL broken. Don't miss the two glowing-purple trees in Teldrassil. One is on the way to killing the Furbolg boss from the newbie town (southern area of map), and one is by the harpies, north of the Oracle Glade.
Night Elves, levels 11-20:
Unfortunately, you're cut off somewhat from the human and dwarf lands. After doing whatever quests you can in Darkshore before the curve gets away from you, you'll have to make the run from Menethil Harbor (the boat takes you from Darkshore to Menethil) all the way down to Loch Modan and beyond. Don't forget to grab the flight path in Menethil! While traveling from Loch Modan to Ironforge, pick up the flight path at Thelsamar and the delivery quest from the northern guard tower, along with whatever green quests you find and do those. Then pick up the human quests that are good for your level and go from there (see below). You can return to Darkshore easily after a few more levels, because you picked up the flight paths along the way! So after you make the run, you have access to all three primary 11 to 20 zones: Darkshore, Loch Modan, and Westfall. Just keep alternating between the three and you'll level very fast.
Humans/Dwarves/Gnomes, level 11-20:
You lack easy access to Darkshore, but you still have two of the three primary 11 to 20 zones: Loch Modan and Westfall. While you can make the run to Menethil and get to Darkshore if you run out of questable material, that's usually not necessary. It's also not efficient, since at level 20 you can get a quest in Loch Modan to travel that way anyhow, along with a quest at the Loch Modan dam that has you talk to someone in the Wetlands. So if you can stand waiting until level 20 before going to the Wetlands and visiting Menethil, that's the better way to go.
Westfall's Defias Brotherhood line will require you to go to Lakeshire. Gotta do it eventually, so while you're there don't forget to do the Foreman toolbox quest (it's right in the lake, just grab it and run) and the lost necklace quest from the kids on the dock. Those are both easy and can be done without fighting anything, along with Guard Parker's quests between him and his girlfriend. The magistrate in town gives out fedex quests asking for help from first Stormwind, then Westfall, then Duskwood - feel free to do those when you're making trips anyway. Don't make separate trips just for those, it's a waste of time, but as you get around, it's worth doing.
Also, pick up the delivery from the blacksmith to Goldshire, and the bartender's quest to go around picking up grog from many places. Again, the grog quest is something you do while you're getting around, so don't make separate trips just for that.
When in Westfall, save the Flasks of Oil and the Hops you get off of Harvest Watchers. You need 5 of each for quests at the Lighthouse and the brewmaster up in the hills of southern Westfall (part of the Lakeshire grog quest).
Loch Modan's quests include deliveries back and forth from Ironforge - do those when convenient. Never do a fedex quest by itself, it's a waste of time. The Defense of the King's Lands quest line can be done alongside Bingles' Missing Tools quest, for troggs of all kinds are on that island. The Mo'Grosh ogres quests (Chok'sul and Mercenaries) can wait until you're at the last part of the Dam quest, because you'll need a Mo'Grosh crystal that they drop. So you'll be doing those at levels 20-21 with a party anyhow.
The Dwarven District of Stormwind has three Deadmines quests. Don't miss those for when you finally go down there.
Just keep switching between Westfall and Loch Modan as necessary to keep yourself leveling quickly. There are a few fedex quests involved to make the travel between the two areas a little less painful, since you're at least getting some exp for making the trips.
At level 20, after you make the trip to Menethil, you're ready for the Deadmines, or you can jump over to Darkshore for some very easy leveling off of all that Night Elf content you didn't get to yet.
Level 20 and Beyond
From there on, you're on your own - the number of zones you can level at keeps going up as you level, because the level difference at which you still get experience from monsters keeps growing. By the time you're 40, there are just a huge slew of zones you can go to for quests, so it becomes more of a matter of personal preference.
For example, from levels 20-30, you can level up in these zones (in order of estimated difficulty by my reckoning, easiest first):
Loch Modan
Darkshore
The Deadmines
Redridge Mountains
Ashenvale
Wetlands
Duskwood
Stonetalon Mountains
The Stockade
Blackfathom Deeps
Gnomeregan
Thousand Needles
You'll never do all the quests in these zones unless you're just nuts about seeing all the content. But then again, won't you play more than one character?
Hope you enjoyed the guide - remember that powerleveling is not for everyone, and you'll get much more enjoyment out of the game if you just ignore this and do your own thing. But maybe, by the time you're on your 3rd and 4th character, you'll just want to blow through the early stuff - and then you can pull this out and reference it. It's pretty nice to be able to generate a level 20 instance-ready character in less than 20 hours of playtime. Over the course of a weekend (Friday-Saturday-Sunday), if you're left alone, that can be done. Or a 2-hour-a-night player can have that accomplished in 2 weeks, which isn't bad at all.
Nitpicks, thoughts, comments, disagreements?
-Bolty
Or, How to get to 20 in 20 hours /played
Or, How to get to 40 in 4 days /played
Those currently on the Stormrage server know that I got in on the WoW fun a little over 2 weeks ago. While I've started out 8 characters, the one that I seriously play is Boltress, a now-level 39 Priest. She got to level 20 before 20 hours total playing time (which you can find by using the /played command with your characters). She'll be level 40 before I get to 4 days /played. I'm not claiming this is some sort of record - there are people who have level 60s in 3 weeks of Real Life time - but it IS pretty dang fast.
I warned some guild members coming in that I've been known to level quickly, but I still managed to surprise quite a few. Some keep asking me how I do it so fast, so here's a mini-guide on how it's done. And no, it's not something simple like "ignore tradeskills." My priest has over 200 points in both Herbalism and Alchemy, along with 120+ in Fishing, 150 First Aid, and 75 in Cooking. I'll address tradeskills in more detail later.
Why powerlevel, you might ask? Won't I have more fun taking my time through the game, exploring areas, and doing things considered "wasted time"? The answer is, YES! If you're new to the game, stop reading. If your goal in the game is just to get to 60 as quickly as possible, you're going to miss out on a TON of content, and then sit around and complain that the game doesn't have enough. Stop and smell the roses along the way. Everyone will have 60's soon enough, and there's no point in "getting there first." All you win by being first is a lack of people to play with. Since all the best level 60 content is in instanced elite dungeons, that won't get you far.
Powerleveling is about supreme expediency in gaining character levels. If it sounds like the opposite of fun for you, then don't do it. Some people have fun powerleveling, and some don't. A great thing about WoW is that there are so many different ways to have fun. For example, Leeah in our Stormrage guild is having a blast playing the Auction House. Leeah has more cash at level 25 than I will at 40. I can't afford a mount. Leeah will, easily, and has just as much fun playing the House for all its worth as I did powerleveling.
However, there are a few situations where, even if powerleveling isn't for you, you may want to powerlevel to a certain point.
1) You're like me, having gone through months and months of beta and have already seen almost 100% of the low-level content. You want to blow through it fast to get to newer or better things. This can also apply to retail players after they've been at this for a few months with different characters.
2) You started late, and want to "catch up" to levels that allow you to play with your friends. WoW still suffers from that all-too-common problem, where even a difference of 5 character levels can eliminate you from an instance party.
3) All you really care about is "maxing" your character ASAP. While I don't approve of that (I'm the Explorer personality), I recognize that for some, being the highest level first means a lot.
How to Win Levels and Influence Reputation
I could say that there's a "secret" to leveling quickly. But it's not much of a secret. Ready for it? It's only one line, and the rest is all details. Here we go:
Solo green to easy-yellow non-elite quests.
OH NOES! The secret's out!
Basic Points of Soloing Quests
Following one simple guideline should dominate your play.
Don't waste time. Rather than play more, play smart.
Always be thinking of the ***time*** it takes to do things. Arrange your play so that you accomplish the most (read: get the most quests done) per unit of time.
ALWAYS be doing quests. Thankfully, unlike many other MMOs, grinding is NOT the fastest way to level. World of Warcraft uses its quest system to encourage you to have a point to all of your slaughter, and the benefits are too good to ignore. If you're not doing something that is either improving your character (tradeskilling, buying spells, etc) or questing, you are wasting time. In fact, if you're going out of your way just to solve ONE quest somewhere, you are wasting time. There are so many quests in WoW, that you can almost always be working on MORE than one quest at a time. In other words, you don't take 2 flight paths and a 5 minute run somewhere to accomplish just 1 quest. Wait until you have a few quests in a general area before heading out there, or just don't bother. For some players, who like to "finish" a zone of quests and complete them all, this would drive them insane. But you have to be willing to abandon quests that aren't worth doing from a time perspective.
The single biggest thing you can have to accomplish this goal of always doing quests efficiently is: game knowledge. There is simply no substitute for knowing where to find quests, where to solve them, and the most expedient way to go about doing so. This can generally only come from game experience. You can always Thottbot up quest information and arrange a game plan for a zone, but there are so many details and particulars that can only really be obtained via experience with playing the quests. However, even when you're not familiar with the layout and quests in the world (i.e. you're new to the game), there are things you can do to help speed up the process while you're learning.
If you don't have the knowledge level that a seasoned WoW beta tester has of the quests, you'd be surprised at how willing they may be to become a Quest Minion. Quest Minions are inordinately useful, as they will escort you speedily through quests and show you were everything is. While Quest Minions can be difficult to capture, once subdued they become most helpful. Always be on the lookout for a Quest Minion! :) You know that T-mobile TV commercial where Snoop Dog says "Everyone needs a sidekick?" Well, just picture him saying "Everyone needs a Quest Minion!"
Parties
One of World of Warcraft's strengths is that you don't need to be in parties to succeed. It's also one of it's weaknesses, if you really like to party all the time. This is because so many of the quests are soloable, that many players often don't want to bother with parties. And I can hardly blame them. There are some nasty disadvantages:
1) While there's a "group bonus" to experience, the fact remains that the exp you get per kill is divided amongst the party members. Sure, you kill faster, and that's great - but often times you'll get better experience when killing a little slower, but by yourself. More on this later.
2) With collection quests, you have to kill at least x times as many enemies (where x is the number of party members) to get the required number of items. Especially with rare drops, it can take an eternity for everyone in the party to get their drops. If you're looking to get in and get out quickly, that just slows you down.
3) You have to divide the loot. That's no fun! :)
Of course, you have to party for instance runs and elite quests. So do so. But otherwise, partying will usually just be a hindrance except for special situations. These situations are addressed below...
Quest Difficulty
As mentioned earlier, you want to be doing quests that are marked as green to easy-yellow in your quest log. With some mods out there, the actual level number corresponding to the quest can be displayed, making that easier to see. Don't forget that quests are ordered in the log by difficulty level.
Now, why is this? Don't you get more experience by killing things closer to around your level? Yep, you do. But there's a catch.
See, questing is the fastest way to gain experience. This is simply because while you're out killing things for exp, you're also working toward the bonus exp for the quest - a double-whammy that allows you to advance faster than mere grinding. Now, while you're out soloing monsters, you will find quickly that level difference between you and the monster you are fighting is a *huge* determinate in how a fight plays out.
Non-elite monsters that are many levels under you and labelled as "green" by the game can be soloed with ease by any character class and mowed down without much cost in hit points, mana, etc. If the monster is "yellow" to you, it will require much more effort. You will find, as I have, that while the exp gained for a "yellow" monster is better than that for a "green," over a period of time you will gain experience much faster by mowing down the greens than by taking your time with the yellows.
It's all about downtime. Fighting yellows tends to take a lot out of you - whether it's hit points for rogues and warriors, or mana for mages/priests/warlocks, etc etc, you can't solo the yellows nearly as efficiently as the greens. When the difference in experience gained for a yellow is something around 10% greater than a green, but you can mow down greens twice as fast (due to little to no downtime), guess which is better for exp gain per hour? Yep, the greens.
This is the key determinate for why you should pursue green to easy-yellow quests. Speed. Quest reward exp in the fastest time possible, not to mention speedy obtainal of quest rewards and loot. Speaking of which, never do a fedex (delivery) quest just for the sake of the delivery quest. Only do those when it's convenient; i.e. you're just passing through that way anyway. They typically don't give enough experience to be worth wasting a lot of time to do, unless they lead to more quests in a chain that you have to get to ASAP.
So, once you've cleaned out a zone of green and easy-yellow quests, what to do? There are still a bunch more yellow, orange, and red quests in the area that could be done. You have two options for pure powerleveling of remaining non-elite quests:
1) MOVE ON to another zone! You can come back to that zone later after you've gotten a few more levels, and those quests will now be green and fast. In World of Warcraft, there's always another zone to go to for quests, because there are SO many quests. Don't be afraid to say to a zone, Arnold Schwarzenegger style, "I'll be back."
2) Join a party of ONE additional player and ram through the harder quests fast, just to get them done. Why only one player? Because two-player parties are the most expedient party configuration. I have found that while two-player parties can often more than double your killing speed and safety, the returns diminish with additional players. A 5-player party does not kill five times faster, due to all of the "overhead" that comes about - having to find new monsters to kill, looting issues, afk-ness, etc. Two player parties are ideal for non-elite quest slamming if it's not an easily-done quest. If you really need more than 2 players to beat a non-elite quest, either the quest is really too hard and you should move on, or at least one of the two players is doing something wrong. Plus, having more than 2 players just exacerbates the issues I listed above in the parties section.
Quest Log Maintenance
"Okay Bolty, so if I hop around zones a lot to find that 'sweet spot' where the quests are easy to do, won't my quest log fill up fast?"
You bet it will.
So, what to do? Again, part of this is game knowledge, but even if you're new to the game, there's things you can do. When ditching a zone because its remaining quests are a little on the non-efficient side for soloing, abandon that zone's quests when they are given by town NPCs. If you need to, write down what you're abandoning. Yeah, actually take out a piece of paper and a writing utensil of choice and write it down (the horror)! For instance, "Loch Modan - 5 quests in town still available." After you've run off and got a few more levels under your belt, you can pick those quests right back up the next time you visit Thelsamar (the town in Loch Modan) in little over a minute. No sweat!
Meanwhile, quests that are given by NPCs that are more out-of-the-way should be held on to, IF it seems like they'll be worth doing when you next return. To use Loch Modan again, there are quests given by an NPC on the dam. If you abandoned that, you'd have to run back to the dam again the next time you visited, just to pick up the quest. That's a waste. Don't waste time.
Usually, non-town NPCs give a quest here, a quest there, so they won't fill your log up like quests from towns. And remember that even with multi-part quests, once you've completed some of the parts, abandoning it won't make you start all the way over again - you can just pick right up in the middle of things again from that NPC.
The key thing for new players is to get over the "fear" of the Abandon Quest button. It's NOT a big deal. Drop the quest and you can get it again later. Either try to remember it's there, or just jot a quick note that at character level x, the quest was color y. You can return for the quests in that zone later.
Townin' It
The ideal situation: you enter a new zone, visit all the town NPCs, and pick up a bunch of green or easy-yellow quests. You head out to one area of the map and knock off 4 or 5 quests there in the span of 2 hours, and then return to town.
Towns should be used for two things: handing in quests and clearing your inventory. But the key thing here is that you should only head to town for one of three reasons:
1) You have to log out. Pesky Real Life. Don't forget the importance of Rest State, if you're the 2-hours-a-day type of player.
2) Your inventory is full.
3) You have to hand in a quest to get the next part of that quest, so that you can hit a bunch of quests more expediently in a different part of the zone.
A common newbie mistake is to think "Oh boy, I completed this quest! I'll go back to town and cash it in!" for each and every quest they do. Ugh. Look, if you're going back to town for a reason other than those 3 above, you're wasting time traveling around back and forth.
My record for number of quests accomplished before heading back to town is 9, which I did in the beta over on the Horde side with that lovely powerleveling-rich zone known as the Barrens. The joy of returning to town to cash in a whopping 9 quests at once is quite fun to feel. I had 8 quests done at once in the Hillsbrad Foothills the other day. That's pure efficiency.
So, it's clear that bag space is of the utmost importance. If you have to return to town a lot to clear out your bags, do everything you can to get more bag space! Beg, borrow, and steal to get bigger bags. I was fortunate to be twinked out with bags from day 1, which is very key to getting that level-20-in-20-hours goal. If you're going from scratch with no support, having to find or buy bag space as you go, it's going to slow you down significantly. Not much that can be done there, except to use whatever spare cash you have buying bigger bags. 8-slot bags cost 25 silver each, and a full set of those can be a huge asset to a starting player.
Hearthstones
Use hearthstones strategically. Sometimes it's better to leave your hearthstone in a far-off town than the one in the zone you're working. Better to have a 5-minute run to town and an instant port to a key destination, than an instant port to town followed by 15 minutes of flight path and cross-continent travel. Always be keeping in mind where your hearthstone is, and try to determine the most strategic placement of it.
Mages get an extra edge here - they can teleport to the major towns, so they can keep their hearthstones in more out-of-the-way places. Travel time costs you in efficiency and some cash, so try to limit it as much as possible. In general, you want to keep your stone in major "hub" areas - like Stormwind or Ironforge.
Tradeskills
You might think that tradeskills have no place in a powerleveling guide. Quite the contrary! Tradeskills SHOULD be developed as quickly as possible, because from an efficiency standpoint it makes a lot more sense to develop tradeskills as you level up, than to waste hours and hours later on developing them in zones that give you no experience.
The material-gathering skills - mining, herbalism, skinning - should be obtained as quickly as possible. Make sure to build them up as you play, for you'll find that if you fall behind you'll have to waste time going back to easier areas to build them up. As the monsters in an area go up in level, so too do the levels of the mining nodes, herb nodes, and the skinning requirement for said monsters. Keep up with the curve.
Also, develop your production tradeskills, mostly just to keep your inventory and bank clear of materials. Taking time out to get the materials needed for any specific item, though, is probably a waste of time. What's important is that you get it skilled up so you can make the really good stuff later on. THEN you can take the time to make those killer items.
Instances
Do instances for the quests. Then don't do them again. Instances give fairly decent exp-per-time, but soloing non-elite quests is actually a bit faster. What's key with instances though is that the equipment you can get as drops is *far* better than non-instance loot. You will find that if you don't run instances enough, your equipment will lag behind that of players who run instances over and over. It's up to you to decide if the better equipment is worth the slower leveling or not. But since we're talking only of pure speed, instances should be a one-and-done affair.
How to get to 20 in 20
Or, Level 20 in 20 hours /played
To me, all character levels before 20 are the "newbie" stage of character development. You don't even have talents before level 10, and you still don't have anywhere near your total number of spell abilities. The quests are almost all non-elite, and tend to be of the boring fed-ex or kill x to get y variety. I want to blow through them as fast as possible. At level 20, at least on the Alliance side, you can start hitting up the instances with a trip to the Deadmines. That's when things start to get interesting to me. So I like to rush to 20 with all my chars.
Note that in these early levels, you usually can't really find quests that are green. That's not so much of an issue because the quests are very easy anyway and designed as such for newbie players.
Since most Lurkers are playing on the Alliance side on the Stormrage server, I'll put up a short mini-guide on the general way to get up to level 20 fast if you're an Alliance character.
Dwarves and Gnomes, levels 1-10:
You hit the "I lose" button, at least in terms of the initial ability to get to level 10. For some reason, Dun Morogh just continues to lag far behind Elwynn Forest and Teldrassil with the lack of quests for pre-level 10 characters. There are enough, yes, but they're kind of spread out and that adds to "wasted time" getting around from place to place.
Try to limit the number of times you have to travel between Kharanos and Brewnall Village. Do the Kharanos and Steelgrill's Depot quests first, then take the quest that sends you out to Brewnall village and do the quest to get the brew back to Kharanos. If you're ready to get new spells, return, else do the Frostmane Hold. Shimmer Stout is one of the hardest early quests in the game, because those troll mages hit hard. Good luck.
After Kharanos and Brewnall village are cleaned out, you need to take the stout to the southern outpost. Hit the quarry along the way, along with the farm with the Ram breeders to kill Vagash. You might need help with Vagash, he's elite. The north outpost has another quest to find a missing adventurer, and the south outpost has the delivery quest that leads on to Thelsamar in Loch Modan. This is, of course, irritating, since you'll have to backtrack in SOME way eventually. Don't forget to pick up the fedex quest in the northern guard tower of Loch Modan to deliver to Stormwind. Then head to Elwynn Forest to pick up some green quests there to do.
Humans, levels 1-10:
Elwynn Forest is a great early-level zone, with only moderate travel from Guard Howe's location to Goldshire and Stormwind. Do the farm quests alongside the Jangolode Mine quests, since they're inter-related. In general, you want to do as many quests over on the eastern side (Guard Howe) as you can before returning to Goldshire, and vice-versa. Keep the quests grouped up and avoid having to run back and forth between the eastern and western parts of the zone.
Don't forget to do the Gnoll quests in the southwestern part of the zone once you're getting near level 10.
Night Elves, levels 1-10:
You hit the "I win" button, as Teldrassil is just quest-rich and positively overrun with newbie content. Not a good place to start out if you're a miner, though, because there are no mining zones there (it's a giant tree, remember?). This will make keeping up with the mining curve a little harder.
The quests here are packed together tightly, there's little travel time, and the quests are placed such that when you have to go from the newbie town to Darnassus and back again, there's usually a quest or two you can do along the way! Keep in mind that rescuing Mist (the tiger) in the super-northwestern end of the map with the harpies is useless, since the quest is STILL broken. Don't miss the two glowing-purple trees in Teldrassil. One is on the way to killing the Furbolg boss from the newbie town (southern area of map), and one is by the harpies, north of the Oracle Glade.
Night Elves, levels 11-20:
Unfortunately, you're cut off somewhat from the human and dwarf lands. After doing whatever quests you can in Darkshore before the curve gets away from you, you'll have to make the run from Menethil Harbor (the boat takes you from Darkshore to Menethil) all the way down to Loch Modan and beyond. Don't forget to grab the flight path in Menethil! While traveling from Loch Modan to Ironforge, pick up the flight path at Thelsamar and the delivery quest from the northern guard tower, along with whatever green quests you find and do those. Then pick up the human quests that are good for your level and go from there (see below). You can return to Darkshore easily after a few more levels, because you picked up the flight paths along the way! So after you make the run, you have access to all three primary 11 to 20 zones: Darkshore, Loch Modan, and Westfall. Just keep alternating between the three and you'll level very fast.
Humans/Dwarves/Gnomes, level 11-20:
You lack easy access to Darkshore, but you still have two of the three primary 11 to 20 zones: Loch Modan and Westfall. While you can make the run to Menethil and get to Darkshore if you run out of questable material, that's usually not necessary. It's also not efficient, since at level 20 you can get a quest in Loch Modan to travel that way anyhow, along with a quest at the Loch Modan dam that has you talk to someone in the Wetlands. So if you can stand waiting until level 20 before going to the Wetlands and visiting Menethil, that's the better way to go.
Westfall's Defias Brotherhood line will require you to go to Lakeshire. Gotta do it eventually, so while you're there don't forget to do the Foreman toolbox quest (it's right in the lake, just grab it and run) and the lost necklace quest from the kids on the dock. Those are both easy and can be done without fighting anything, along with Guard Parker's quests between him and his girlfriend. The magistrate in town gives out fedex quests asking for help from first Stormwind, then Westfall, then Duskwood - feel free to do those when you're making trips anyway. Don't make separate trips just for those, it's a waste of time, but as you get around, it's worth doing.
Also, pick up the delivery from the blacksmith to Goldshire, and the bartender's quest to go around picking up grog from many places. Again, the grog quest is something you do while you're getting around, so don't make separate trips just for that.
When in Westfall, save the Flasks of Oil and the Hops you get off of Harvest Watchers. You need 5 of each for quests at the Lighthouse and the brewmaster up in the hills of southern Westfall (part of the Lakeshire grog quest).
Loch Modan's quests include deliveries back and forth from Ironforge - do those when convenient. Never do a fedex quest by itself, it's a waste of time. The Defense of the King's Lands quest line can be done alongside Bingles' Missing Tools quest, for troggs of all kinds are on that island. The Mo'Grosh ogres quests (Chok'sul and Mercenaries) can wait until you're at the last part of the Dam quest, because you'll need a Mo'Grosh crystal that they drop. So you'll be doing those at levels 20-21 with a party anyhow.
The Dwarven District of Stormwind has three Deadmines quests. Don't miss those for when you finally go down there.
Just keep switching between Westfall and Loch Modan as necessary to keep yourself leveling quickly. There are a few fedex quests involved to make the travel between the two areas a little less painful, since you're at least getting some exp for making the trips.
At level 20, after you make the trip to Menethil, you're ready for the Deadmines, or you can jump over to Darkshore for some very easy leveling off of all that Night Elf content you didn't get to yet.
Level 20 and Beyond
From there on, you're on your own - the number of zones you can level at keeps going up as you level, because the level difference at which you still get experience from monsters keeps growing. By the time you're 40, there are just a huge slew of zones you can go to for quests, so it becomes more of a matter of personal preference.
For example, from levels 20-30, you can level up in these zones (in order of estimated difficulty by my reckoning, easiest first):
Loch Modan
Darkshore
The Deadmines
Redridge Mountains
Ashenvale
Wetlands
Duskwood
Stonetalon Mountains
The Stockade
Blackfathom Deeps
Gnomeregan
Thousand Needles
You'll never do all the quests in these zones unless you're just nuts about seeing all the content. But then again, won't you play more than one character?
Hope you enjoyed the guide - remember that powerleveling is not for everyone, and you'll get much more enjoyment out of the game if you just ignore this and do your own thing. But maybe, by the time you're on your 3rd and 4th character, you'll just want to blow through the early stuff - and then you can pull this out and reference it. It's pretty nice to be able to generate a level 20 instance-ready character in less than 20 hours of playtime. Over the course of a weekend (Friday-Saturday-Sunday), if you're left alone, that can be done. Or a 2-hour-a-night player can have that accomplished in 2 weeks, which isn't bad at all.
Nitpicks, thoughts, comments, disagreements?
-Bolty
Quote:Considering the mods here are generally liberals who seem to have a soft spot for fascism and white supremacy (despite them saying otherwise), me being perma-banned at some point is probably not out of the question.
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