I have been adding a lot of different guides that I have found to be very useful to many of you. I have been getting a lot of requests for new wow guides specifically powerleveling guides. I have been searching the internet a whole lot and I have found this short guide to be extremely helpful, especially to new players that can't wait to get to level 60.
This guide was found on the internet and most of the points made here are really good but I want to make sure that everyone understands that I do not agree with point #4.
I don't recommend botting as a good way to powerlevel any character and that is what I feel as the only way to really cheat at world of warcraft. I feel that if you think you have to run bots to play then you shouldn't be playing world of warcraft at all! This is my little disclaimer about botting.
Main Principle In Power Leveling
DOWN-TIME is your enemy! Down time is defined as either sitting around waiting for manna, waiting for health, or running to and from the graves. How do you minimize down time? By killing that which is WEAKER than you and thus the numerous smaller XP gains will rack up faster than the slower, bulky XP gains. Read on for more.
POINT ONE: QUESTS ARE BETTER THAN NOT!
This has been a big debate in this game. Some people just want to kill and grind without bothering to do quests. But I disagree. I believe that quests are an important component of powerlevelling as they give additional EXP, money, and items. BigDwarf starts the game in Dun Morogh, near an icy field full of lvl 1-3 wolves and such. He immediately runs to the field and starts hammering wolves. He gets to level 3 fast enough, in about 40 minutes, after killing dozens of wolves. He then starts talking to the NPC's nearby that have Yellow "!" (exclamation marks) on top of their heads (a yellow ! means the NPC has a quest for you)
So BigDwarf talks to an NPC who gives him a quest to kill 15 wolves, and when he does he gets extra exp and extra copper. The problem is, of course, that now BigDwarf has to go back to the fields and kill wolves again. Had BigDwarf taken the quest at the start, he would have greatly increased the efficiency of his character gains and would have the quest completed! Grinding is always good, but the benefits of questing is that you get additional exp for finishing a quest, and cash or valued items.
POINT TWO: MULTIPLE QUESTS ARE BETTER THAN ONE AT A TIME
Learn this lesson now, or waste numerous hours to learn it the hard way. In fact, this is certainly what I would call a key to the game. This principle becomes more profound the more you advance in levels. Numerous times I found myself accepting a quest to kill "10 of X monster" that I had already killed 20 of! Its so tempting to do this:
talk to NPC --> Get Quest --> Do Quest --> Return
Trust me! Once you get out of the first newbie stage and are past level 5, this approach will slow you down. You want to gain maximum levels, at maximum speed! The right approach, therefore looks like this:
Talk to all NPC's in the greater vacinity --> Get All The Quests you can muster. Collect quests like candy. Accept them from NPC's, accept them from other players (when you are in a group, players can 'share' quests).
Quest A may say "Kill 10 of monster X", and Quest B may say "Kill 10 of monster Y". You will find that as you kill monster X, you have to plow your way through several monster Y's. In essence, you are completing two quests simultaneously. Doing multiple quests at once is the only way to fly.
POINT THREE: MULTI-ZONING
I play maybe 2 hours at most on any given night. Given the small amount of time I have been able to play my main WoW char, I am doing extremely well, far better and way more efficient than most others for the amount of time I have played. A few days ago, I was in Elwynn Forest with a newbie char doing the missions there. Nearly everyone was human. I was the only dwarf I saw all night. Why? Because all the dwarves were up in Dun Morogh, their own starting region. Because I was already level 9 when I hit Elwynn Forest, I breezed through all the missions there, rapidly gaining EXP.
At level 9 in Dun Morogh, I left the region because the remaining quests there were either at my level (9), or were a few levels above me. Trying to do quests that are higher levels than you can take many trips to the graveyard, and is not very efficient. I didn't feel like running around trying to find a team, so I left the region and headed for Elwynn Forest.
I quickly did the primary missions in Elwynn Forest, jumped to Westfall and did several quests there, until the only quests left were orange and red ones. Rather than wasting time doing an orange quest (a quest 2-3 levels higher than me), I simply returned to Dun Morogh at level 14, and finished up all those level 9-12 quests. I cant tell you how fast you can level by doing quests 2-3 levels beneath you (green ones), rather than 2-3 levels above you! Every 6 levels or so, you should be leaving your current zone, and taking the quests in the neighboring zone. But make sure you dont wait too long! If you wait until level 20 as a human to go do the Dwarf Quests in Dun Morogh, you wont get hardly any exp for them because everything you kill will be a gray.
A powerleveller is someone who maximizes quest EXP. Killing things 2-3 levels beneath you gives smaller amounts of EXP per kill, BUT you can rack it up so much faster. It was awesome last night as a level 17 priest being able to tank my way through a level 13 cave solo while everyone else was grouping up. They may have wondered, "what is this guy doing here? He isn't getting any exp for this." Wrong! A level 17 gets about 40 EXP per kill on level 13 critters. And I was killing them en-masse, plowing through my quests, and then getting 900-1000 EXP per quest. It really adds up! So....dont just sit around in your racial zones, but make sure you hop to the nearest "other" zone and take those quests too. You will fly through the levels. If all the quests in your quest log are yellow or orange, consider 'grinding' up 1-2 levels until they become green. Then, not only will you breeze through the quests, but you will have higher levels. And the goal is level 60....right?
POINT FOUR: BOTTING
This is where it can get hairy. I love botting. I believe in it. You see, I dont have time to play all that much. Some people spend 24/7 on this game and get to level 60. I pay as much as they do, yet because I have so much else going on in life, I don't get the chance to sit and play all the time. So I bot. I wrote the Realm Bot just for this purpose. Also, the WoW helper is a great utility that speeds up repetitive combat actions. The Bot is for when you are AFK, and the helper is for while you are actually playing. You don't have to use them, of course, because you run the risk of being banned, but I do it anyway. What you do is up to you
POINT FIVE: SOLOING VS GROUPING
Believe me, I know all about power-gaming. Its a solo endeavor. I have played numerous online games, and have wrote third party macros for UO, SWG, DAOC (and now this game). But there is a cold hard truth you must understand here and now: WoW is a group-oriented game. There are numerous....numerous quests that you just wont be able to solo, or if you do, you will spend 10x as much time on them than if you were in a group of 2 or 3. A few classes, such as Rogue, Shaman and Paladin are generally better at soloing than most, but even they will need to team up for many quests, and most of the 'elite' quests. The fastest way to power-level this game is to find two or three other players, get in a group, and steamroll through multiple quests. Note: You do NOT need to find permanent "buddies". You can form or join a group and simply 'use' them to solve a mission, then be on your way! This is what I do.
Example:
I have a quest to kill Monster X. He is guarded by 10 hard monsters, It could take hours to solo this. So I simply announce to the region by typing
/1 Is anyone doing the MonsterX quest?
typing "/1" will broadcast to the regional channel. The other way I do it is simply go to the location of monsterX (providing the server is populated enough), and either invite people or send a /tell message to them (typing /tell *name* will instant message someone). There is always someone nice enough to let you join, or someone who will hook up with you.
The point is, GET IN A GROUP and you will see the EXP gains as well as the quests fly. Having said that, I must mention that if you group, make sure the group is coordinated and not just some fly-by-night group of inefficient morons. If the people in your group are not serious about getting the job done, leave. You will fare better solo any day than you would in a chaotic group. And if you can't find a group, just 'skip' that quest and go to the next one, and return later when you can. Solo when you can, but don't push it and waste 3 hours trying to solo a mission you could do in 20 minutes if you were in a group.
How to SOLO nearly Everything:
So you just don't go for that team crap eh? No problem. If you are bent on soloing the entire levelling process, your secret will be to always try and stay a few levels ahead of the areas you are in. For example, most players enter a region such as Duskwood that is level 21-30 when they reach level 24-25. You will enter this level at 28 or 29. Everything at level 22-26 or will be green to you... still worth EXP but EASY to kill. You will take all the quests and plow through them solo. The only exceptions may be the elite quests which might still require you to team. And if you enter an area and everything is yellow, then you should 'level grind' until its mostly green. Level grind means going back to an easier area and killing a ton of either greens or yellows (so long as you can kill a yellow w/o much down time). The main strategy while powerlevelling is to MINIMIZE down time. You want to be killing constantly w/o needed much rest in between.
