by ShikamaruIntro
How do some people level way too fast? How is this possible.. there are two ways. Grinding, or Questing. But not ordinary grinding & questing by any way, there are special routes to take, at certain levels, that will keep you dinging in the shortest of time.
The easiest way really, is to grind imo. Although its terribly boring, and it can make you *hate* playing WoW, I have to admit that I find grinding the fastest way to level, for me that is. There are other routes you can take. You can quest only, and if you knew where you’re going and this and that, you could probably level faster than grinding.
I have leveled about 3 characters to 60 using this method. I actually have 5 60’s though, one of them was my very first 60 and like everyone else, i screwed around and hit 60 in about 30 days played(laugh at me.) The other 60 was my brother’s rogue, but yeah.
I recommend you have 4x 16-slot bags ready for your character. Also, make sure you always rest at an inn when you are logging out for more than a couple hours.
Class
Some classes have it easy, some classes have it tough. Mana-user classes can sometimes be rough because of the need to regen mana after killing mobs. Also, some classes, such as Paladins and Warriors, have a slower kill-rate than classes such as Rogues, Mages, Shadow Priests. This is proven, and this is a fact, There are some ways to improve their kill-rate, such as being an Engineer, or getting decked in blue/epic gear. Some classes are made to have it tough, some aren’t. Here’s a little chart I made that will help you understand things a bit better:
Difficulty of Leveling w/ each class
Rogue – Easy/Medium
Hunter – Very Easy
Priests – Very Easy
Mages – Easy
Warrior – Medium/Hard
Paladin – Hard
Warlock – Easy/Medium
Druid – Medium
Shaman – Medium
Money
You will make lots of money, while you level fast. It is best to spend the -least- amount possible, avoid buying level 19 blues when you will replace it in the next 10 levels. Avoid low-level instance running unless you are searching for a weapon that will improve your kill rate by a huge margin. Upgrade your gear every 10 levels or so, if you are melee, upgrade your weapon every 6-7 levels or so. Make sure you have plans for your talent build, make sure they are the best build for solo leveling, most likely DPS builds.
XP per Hour
In order to keep track of this, I use TitanPanel. Whether you like it or not, the mod isn’t necessary and not very important, but for those who like to keep track might want to go download them at any WoW UI websites. I prefer ui.worldofwar.net or curse-gaming.net.
Remember not to worry about the amount of XP you make per hour too much. Trying out different locations to see if you get a boost might sometimes waste a lot of precious time.
Leveling Path
Which do you prefer? Quests followed by more and more quests with few grindage? Or do you want maximum grindage? If you are a casual player, I highly recommend questing and following James Alliance/Horde Guide. If you have lots of free time, and you have high tolerance(which means you won’t give up after 10 minutes of grinding), the best way to gain the fastest XP may be grinding. Nevertheless, always take a break once in a while. Grinding can be a bore, trust me.
Grinding Spots
Because of the fact that grinding doesn’t truly shine until you reach the level of 30-35, I recommend plain-old questing til you reach the 30 area.
20+: Tarren Mill(H), Stonetalon Mountains(H)
Kill mobs and quest
25-29: Galak humanoids in Thousand Needles
These guys(and i guess some are girls..) die so fast that my Paladin was able to level extremely fast killing these, even when they were green to me.
30+: Stranglethorn Vale, Tigers/Panthers & Quest. Thousand Needles, Shimmering Flats, Basilisks/Turtles/Birds & Quest
Self-explanitory.
31-34: Yetis – Hillsbrad Foothills
Yeti’s in Hillsbrad are kick ass. Also great for skinners who need some free leather.
34-37: Venture Co. Goblins in STV
These mobs are great! They die quick, and their casters. Their lightning bolts tend to hit a bit hard for their level, take caution.
37-39: Murlocs in STV
These guys are also great. Enjoy the sun, the sound of the murlocs, and enjoy that pool because you’re gonna be dippin in there for quite a while.
40+: Rock Elementals & Whelps in Badlands
This is one way to go once you hit 40 and get your brand new spankin mount. These mobs will help you get your money back. Rock Elementals drop very nice vendor-trash loot and Whelps have a chance to drop Dragon pets which should sell for a bit in the AH. On my server, they probably don’t but Whelps are also easy to kill. There is also quests for rock elementals, consider that a little bonus.
40-44: Wastewander in Tanaris
These are what I usually grind on. Some of these mob gouges you, and theres also a higher level patrol which can make this place a bit irritating. But this place is still a very good grinding place, and you’ll get a lot of mageweave. Mageweave on my server usually go for around 3g-5g a stack, usually because you don’t see as many Mageweave in the AH, not as much as Runecloth, Netherweave, Silk and Linen. Theres also quests for Wastewanders.
44-49: Dem Filthy Nagaz stole my bike, in Feralas
These mobs are extremely kick ass. They die so fast.. its not even funny. The only thing that I didn’t like about this place is the loot, having 30 pearls in your bag can get quite annoying. Other than that, this is probably the #1 leveling spot.
47-49: Dunemaul Ogres in Tanaris
I’ll be honest here, this place is great for some Mageweave and Silver drops, even a blue sometimes. I however, did not like this place on Melee characters I leveled with. This place was great for casters though, mainly Shadow Priests. Worth a shot to try these guys, and see if your XP/hr is decent enough.
49-51: Thistleshrubs in Tanaris
This place is also similar to Dunemaul Ogres, a bit easier, but their root totems can get quite annoying. There’s also a quest for these guys, for the Noggenfogger quest. I didn’t like this place too much with my Paladin, but i loved it on casters.
50+: Un’goro Crater
Welcome to level 50. Time to wander a bit in Un’goro, OR you could come back here at around 52. But other than that, this place is self-explatinory. You can get pretty nice xp, killing mobs and doin all the quests there.
50-54: Skeletons, Zombies in WPL -OR- Sorrow Hill
These mobs are pretty cool. They die fast enough, they drop scourge tokens & bone fragments which can sell for a bit, or can be saved up for Argent Dawn rewards. One level and I got about.. 200 ish Bone fragments and 100 tokens. Also, lots of runecloth here. I got to 300 Firstaid in this area. As you get a few more levels, you can move on from the far west area to the ones a bit more to the east(Dawson Creek or w/e).
53-56: Blood Elves of Ashzara
These are probably #2 on my best leveling spot list. They die super-fast, and they drop fantastic loot. Few cons though, are the fact that this place is crowded with farmers & other levelers(probably other Blood Elves or Draenai.) This place is also quite rough at the lower levels, two or more blood elf mobs can nuke you down pretty quick, they hurt. They also heal, but that isn’t such a big problem.
56+: Ice Cave Yeti’s of Winterspring
Few Cons/Pros about this place. They die quick, they drop nice loot(and leather for skinners), there are tons of them, and there is a quest for them for small bonus xp. You even get your own minature yeti! Now here’s what I don’t like bout em, they freeze. As a melee class, I tend to hate being frozen for more than 3 seconds. Few of them also hit a bit hard, I forgot if they enrage or not. This place is better suited for casters imo, but melee should do fine here too.
57-60: Ghosts of Winterspring
This was the final grinding place for my Warrior. These drop nice loot, sometimes enchanting patterns for Unholy(I think) and can get lots of xp from these.
58+: Hellfire Peninsula
This is completely up to you, there are tons of people at 58 goin here. In all honesty, I wouldn’t even want to visit this place til im at least 60.
58+: Instance
Last few levels may be somewhat hard. But by this level, you are most likely able to go to Scholo/Strath/DM, or Ramparts even, with a group of friends you know.
58+: Grind in previous locations
By this level, if you don’t want to instance, or go to Hellfire just yet, I would recommend goin back to the Blood Elves in Ashzara or Ice Cave Yeti’s in Winterspring and rip through shit, they should all be greens after all.
And this concludes my leveling guide. Remember that, this guide is for dedicated peeps who are interested in *grinding*. I know tons of people who hate grinding, believe me. Grinding will test your patience, I’d recommend lookin at the guide on improving your grinding pace, if you ever feel that you need to that is. Good luck! 
-edited
Pallies are harder when youPallies are harder when you have only played them up to level 10 :p lol but 2 me there easy.
http://www.thottbot.comhttp://www.thottbot.com
depends on classGrinding can be better than questing for certain classes (if you can power through a ton of enemies) but if you are a casting class or a fragile class of any sort, or have trouble killing enemies quickly, then questing is better. Some classes are just meant to grind while some are meant to quest. I personally find grinding quicker than questing, but other classes or players who know what they are doing can level just as quickly and quicker than grinders.
Problem is with questing, if you break the chain with a certain quest then you are stuffed 🙁 or you will be very far behind.
all hail grinding! }:) finally I can kill some stuff! I dont mind the quest guides around here, and James’ guide is great, but I hate questing and stuff like that 😛 I prefer just to pwn and own everything that gets in my way (then wait for them to respawn turn back the other way and do it again!). Thanks for writing this guide, I can now have some structure to my endless choppy choppy action 😀
For anyone reading thisFor anyone reading this nowadays (i.e. since WotLK expansion – well actually before that but this i when i’m writing this), Blizzard buffed quests and so you can get a whole lot more experience questing now than just grinding alone. The only problem is knowing which quests and when. For that follow James guide here…
If you still want to quest, Pallys and mages are now amongst the easiest to grind with as you can AoE grind with very good efficiency. Namely stack with +sp dmg gear and +int and then just run around a specific area and nuke everything that attacks you all at once.
I would like to point out that while levelling my priest I kept up and surpassed a paladin grinding (i kept seeign them now and again in similar aras to me but I went past them in levels) with questing. I also hit 70 in around 8 days /played but that was including a lot of time when I hadn’t played for a while and also a lot of time spent levelling both Tailoring and the all money sucking enchanting.
Grinding may work but unless you are just levelling for the sake of it I couldn’t imagien anything more boring and isn’t quicker if you know where you are going for quests…
I am using the guide and itsI am using the guide and its working great right now, I am level 39 at 2 days 5 hours 1 minutes of played time
WarlocksI have a well geared warlock and i find extremely easy to grind ive also got a large rested bonus which helped 😀 Another thing i found is that dps and a pet…usally warlock or hunter makes grinding fast and easy just some suggestions i found warlocks and very easy as well as hunters pallys too however warriors i found are one of the worst classes to level and i found some first aid can turn a warrior into a grinding machine druids are fairly easy or hard it all depends on gear and if you know how to use them…mages i have found to be the hardest of all classes again..you gotta know how to use em rogues are easy preists are easy too. I found this guide a great guide while on rested bonus…not so fun without 😛 but still it helps
Priest levelingA few people made comments about leveling a priest. I find leveling my priest so easy it’s not even funny. Only I did not spec shadow, except for spirit tap (5 in there). The rest of the talents went into discipline tree. I’m at level 32 now, and have the improved pw:s and the talent that lets you regenerate mana while you cast. This pretty much means the mob almost never touches me, and I finish the fight with full mana. My friend leveled to 63 so far doing discipline tree. I still don’t see all the fuss about shadow. I’ll give it a try again after 40. With discipline tree I might not kill a mob as fast as a mage, but then again I don’t have to sit there and drink for 20 sec after a couple of mobs.
Depends on the levelImo it depends on the level. When you don’t have cat it takes ages to level a druid. And paladin slays fast till lvl 20-25
What?!Rogue easy/hard? That is SO invalid, espeially with the way they can moaw through things. I’d say 40-60 Priests would be very easy, and Warrior is not easy at all. It would be Hard/Very Hard, same with Pally, as they are slow, very slow.
looooongjust levelled my new belf mage 1-20 in just over 10 hours /played. maybe it’s just quicker now.
GrindingFirst of all I would like to say thanks for the gr8 guide, I used it about 1+ year ago.
As you all now Blizz released some patches which made the grinding give less exp than previous. Blizz wants people to do quests and not grind to lvl.
As you’ve notice, each quest gives more EXP and money unlike before. And grinding now isnt as effective as before.
Good Luck guys.
Pallys are hard?I personally find pallies one of the EASIEST classes to level….i hit 20 in 1 day /played time doing nothing but grindindg and a little questing…
Because you pay for a guideBecause you pay for a guide doesn’t mean they are better. 🙂
I received dozens of comments telling me that they bought a leveling guide and then tried mine, and found mine was much better.
Someone recently reported hitting level 70 in 6 days 20 hours /played following my guide for example.
TRUEyeah. lv 40 in 40 hours if u follow the questing guides..even with the free ones u can get to lv 60 in 4 days played..if u buy a nice guide u can get to lv 70 in less than 7 days played. But keep in mind each day is 24 hours, so it won’t take just 1 week. And always remember to camp at an inn when u aren’t playing so u get nice n rested for more xp when u log back on.
Good, but…Good guide, but its sometimes hard to find places to grind. you tell us what zone there in, but not where they are in that zone.
31-34For non-casters, go for the harpies in thousand needelels, before the exp reduction I leveled a level on 2h using lvl 18 rares and rest mostly 18-22 greens. They silence a lot so casters dont even consider it. Dunno is locks can keep some distance to avoid it, I havent bothered to lvl one that far
Mages are easyI leveled my mage all the way to 70 as fire, exept some frostgrinding from 50-52. It is quite easy really. Though you die A LOT (at least I did) 16-24. Anyway, frost is better for lvling imo in the early levels, never compared the highers. But its awesome exp grinding on the bloodelf casters in Terokar as fire 63-67.
2.3Anyone try this since 2.3?
tankadinsyou said paladins are hard to level but if you build them right, its a breeze, i have a 53 paladin right now and i can take up to about 5-6 lvl 53/54 mobs at once without heals and i put out loads of aoe dps this makes grindin’ super fast.
although i do have a problem with casters >.<
have you ever played am mage ?Theres no class were levelling is more difficult
ok you can do it if youre a ice mage but its hard compared too warlocks eg
…i grinded to 70 in 14 days /played on my first char..
nice guide btw 🙂
GrindingCouple of Comments –
Grinding “Quests” are definitely the way to go – you gat all of the additional XP to boot plus it makes grinding a little less boring if you have a goal.
Druids – I am levelling a Tauren Druid at the moment – very efficient as Feral; kills are extremely fast – I would say easy for the most part.
Hellfire – HIGHLY recommneded to go there at level 58 especially if you have rested XP. I was getting 1100-1200 XP per kill with rested – I never levelled anywhere as fast (except up to level 10 of course :-))
Other than that – pretty much what I grinded in between quests
Level 70 Tauren Warrior
Grinding spotsHere are some more grinding spots I found very helpful.
Level 16-19: (Horde) The valley just a little north of Ratchet in the Barrens has plainstriders, raptors, hyenas and giraffes that die so easily – I got from level 16-19 in just a few hours grinding here, and I’m not even a regular grinder.
Level 39-42: (Both) Mistvale Valley a little north of Booty Bay in Strangethorn Vale is brilliant for levelling. Perhaps one of the best grinding locations. Not to mention, I got Staff of Jordan here. 😉 Got to level 42 EASY here.
Level 30-33 (maybe 34): (Preferably Alliance) Basilisks and scorpids just outside of Nijel’s Point in Desolace make easy grinding for these levels.
Level 27-30: (Alliance) Stags and wolves in Ashenvale just before reaching Felwood are super grinding. I powered through these 3 levels on them.
Level 17-20: (Alliance) Boars by Lakeshire in Redridge Mountains are really easy, I got from level 17 to 20 so fast on these.
Level 42-45 (maybe 46): (Both) Yetis in southern high wilderness of Feralas make super grinding.
^^^^^
Hope it helped, these are some of my top grinding locations (although I prefer questing until I’ve got a quarter of the bar left until ding, then I grind the rest of the way).
Bhahahaha /played 30Bhahahaha /played 30 days!!
I leveled my char up to 60 in 14 days /played !!
Dont waste your time grinding, and do some Qs. Else u will never get good rep and rep rewards!!
Classes :S ??? 😕
this is wrong 😉
Rogue – Easy/Hard (Depending on targets armor, same lvl counts)
Hunter – Very Easy
Priests – Medium (Wanding people to death while having some dots on isnt that easy all the time)
Mages – Easy/Very easy (Frostspec) Medium/hard (firespec)
Warrior – Very Easy – Medium (Depending on gear)
Paladin – Hard
Warlock – Very Easy (Same as hunter, slower killers if affliction but easy as it comes)
Druid – Easy (If u can play em)
Shaman – Easy/medium
Difficulty of Leveling w/ each classI dont agree with your “Difficulty of Leveling w/ each class” at all.
“Rogue – Easy/Medium”
I suppose you have never leveled a Rogue.
Grinding green mobs as a rogue with remorsless atks and coldblood, rest combat is one of the fastest levelers in the game.
I’d say its Very Easy.
“Priests – Very Easy”
Grinding as a Priest from 1-40 is terrible… 40-60 is OK. But not excellent. they go oom rather fast even if you have spirit tap with much spirit.
I’d say its Medium.
“Warlock – Easy/Medium”
Warlock is imo the second best grinder after Hunter.
Either you go Affliction and DoT up everything then fear away. Or you go Felguard wich is excellent solo grinding build with no downtime.
I’d say its very easy.
“Druid – Medium”
A Feral Druid can kill almost as fast as a Rogue but with no downtime.
I’d say its easy.
Besides from that I kinda agree.
– Xaniuz
2 more spotsTo expand on your list, here are 2 more popualr grinding spots:
44-48 (level might be slightly off) Harpies in Feralas: By the Ruins of Ravenwind. These things have very low HP, drop nice vendor trash and respawn quickly.
49-54 Timbermaw Furblogs in Felwood: There are 2 main camps, one in the south with lower levels and the other in the north with mobs from 51-54 (if i remember correctly). They die fast, drop good loot and give timbermaw rep which is nice for enchanters and tailors.
fsdfsadfsi just wanted to say that on my other comment that is supposed to be the lol
idkidk if i’ll try this grinding bores that crap out of me but you made it sound good with all the drops and how much money you can make
Interesting. Might try thisInteresting. Might try this some time..i’m not a grinder though.