Getting leveled in WoW is easier than ever before. Questing, dungeoning, PvP, it’s all good.
Used to be that 6 days (in game time) to 60 was pretty speedy, now you can expect to hit the newest level cap in about the same time, or less, plus you get to level in the dungeons and/or PvP (battlegrounds) and there are also various gimmicks to speed up your leveling (eg: Heirlooms.)
And with Shadowlands, with level 120 smashed down to 50, it’s even faster.
Of course, if you hop into the Classic WoW, you won’t have to worry about those gimmicks. (wink)
Leveling Contents:
Our Leveling Guides
This page covers various tips to help you to get leveled faster, and they will work regardless of the current expansion. These guides linked just below also cover current tips, races, abilities, builds and “how to” specific to each class.
For a nifty in-game guide on where to go and what to do, check out Zygor’s.
- Death Knight leveling guide
- Demon Hunter guide
- Druid leveling guide
- Hunter leveling guide
- Mage leveling guide
- Monk leveling guide
- Paladin leveling guide
- Priest leveling guide
- Shaman leveling guide
- Rogue leveling guide
- Warlock leveling guide
- Warrior leveling guide
- Dungeon Leveling – This guide is very old, but… Skip the grinding, skip the questing (most of it) and get better loot and better XP using the many dungeons in WoW. Tips and notes to get the most out of the dungeoning experience. Note that if you do Classic WoW you will have to walk or ride to each dungeon and gather your team, as there will not be a Dungeon Finder tool.
General WoW Leveling Tips
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Fast leveling in Shadowlands, Click Here Now! The Auction House carries a variety of Quest Items. If you’re having a hard time gathering bits for some “Collect X GoreTusk Livers” quest then you can buy them off the AH, frequently at shockingly low prices (and, ahem, sometimes not so low…) Buy the stuff, hand it in, finish the quest in a fraction of the time. It helps to have a bank alt for this as it will save you lots of travel time. The alt buys it and mails it to your questing character.
- Buy the biggest bags you can afford (Frostweave bags have 20 slots, hexweave bags 30) but when just started a new character even four 6-slot bags make life much easier.
- Set yourself up so that you don’t have to go to town very often.
- Stock up on buffing foods (buy them or level up your cooking skill.) They’ll buff your Stamina at low level, and other stats at higher level.
- Stock up on bandages even if you’re a healer. Your healer won’t use it often, but there are the odd times when nothing else will do. Besides, it’s fun to troll someone with your Druid healer by using a bandage on him. If he’s cool then you can give him a real heal.
- Stock up on potions and scrolls. Scrolls can buff any of your stats and last for 30 min. Potions and scrolls do not stack.
- If you’re using edged weapons look into the Sharpening Stones made by Blacksmiths. The stones are usually dirt cheap. Similar enchants are quite expensive. Maces are hard to sharpen, so get a “weightstone” for those.
- Upgrade your weapon(s) every few levels, the rest of the stuff can generally lag a bit behind. Pet classes (eg: Hunters) can lag on their gear more than melee classes (eg: Warriors.) If you have heirlooms than you can forget the upgrades.
- Grinding? (Why???) Consider getting the local “kill X of this beast…” quests for more XP, if you’re going to be killing them anyway…
- Learn to use HotKeys and macros and then memorize them. All of your game experience will be much faster and more efficient and somewhat less tedious. Gamepedia has a nice “how to macro” page.
- Or hop over to YouTube and search for WoW keybindings or WoW macros. Here is a keybinding video.
- The Gathering:
- Get the skinning skill if you’re killing beasts (and you’ll be killing a lot of them.) The gold you make from the skins will easily buy your mounts. If you like, kill a bunch and then skin them. Feel free to skin what others kill.
- Herbalism and Mining are also good money makers, but they also award nice XP for each time you exercise the skill.
- The Grinding – Note that since Cataclysm grinding is an exercise in masochism. Questing is much faster.
- If you have a choice between killing beasts and humanoids go for the latter, the drops are better.
- When you hit Outlands and Northrend start doing the quests. Yeah, I know. Do them anyway.
- In Classic WoW you might find that grinding is actually a good choice.
- Zygor’s is our favorite fast leveling guide, to whatever the current level cap is. Check out our full review.
More Leveling Tips
- Always log out at an inn, for the rest XP when you come back.
- If you rotate two or more characters you can play the first, log out when you’re out of rest XP, start the next, and so on.
- If you’re not using a leveling guide then use your main map and group quests so that you can finish them off in the most efficient order.
- Taking time to work on professions will slow you down. Taking time to gather (herbalism or mining) pays enough XP to be worth it.
- A DPS (Damage,) Tanking, or PvP build will work just fine for leveling (questing,) though if you’re actually dungeoning or PvPing then you’ll want the appropriate build.
- Gear doesn’t matter too much when questing, but better gear lets you kill things and groups of things much more effectively. A set of enchanted heirlooms will help a lot.
Which Class and Race?
Race?
It doesn’t matter whether or not Gnomes make the best Mages if you can’t stand the sight of them. Ditto Troll Hunters. So pick whichever race works for you. Most races can be most classes (not all) and the leveling guide for each class lists all of the races.
Class?
If you’re solo leveling (questing) then anything other than a healer will do just fine, though some are faster than others. Even healers will be Ok, it’s just that things will be slower than with other builds. Or follow your tank buddy around. He can gather large groups of enemies and kill them while your keep him healthy. Pretty nice XP.
Tanks don’t do a lot of damage, but they’re hard to kill and can burn down large groups of mobs.
Learn to fight groups of mobs, even if not a tank. It adds to the challenge and the fun.
Once they get to level 10 a Hunter will pretty much outrun everyone to the level cap. Their pets are extremely useful and the pair just works very well at killing very quickly. Warning: You’ll be automatically stuck with the label Huntard. Try to learn your hunter well enough to lose the label.
Monks also do very well and have a little bonus. They can do a daily quest that gives them a 50% XP boost for an hour.
Warlocks can level about as well as Hunters, they’re just a little more complicated.
Mages throw lots of damage, but they’re fragile. This is dangerous on PvP servers. A well-played mage will move quite quickly, though. Frost mages do a little less damage, but have more survivability than the other flavors.
Rogues and Warriors and Retribution Paladins and Feral Druids and Shammies all move along well. Of course their tank forms (sorry Rogues and Shamen) are right there if you find a large group of enemies ripe for the crushing.
Priest – Go shadow and be patient until your Shadow powers mature.
Healing classes will find leveling painful unless you’re grouping.
Death Knights? Well, they mow everything down.
A leveling guide will make sure you have all the quests lined up in a neat row so that you can knock them off (and level) ASAP. That it’s always updated for the latest patches and expansions is a nice bonus.
Dungeon leveling
Open up the Dungeon Finder tool and you can “Queue” for the dungeon of your choice or even a random dungeon of the tool’s choice.
Then you wait. If you’re a damage class, such as a Rogue or Hunter or Arms/Fury Warrior or others.
But, if you’re a tank or healer then your queue to get into dungeons with the Dungeon Finder tool will generally be very short.
Get a decent group and dungeons can be fun and fast XP, not to mention getting you into some nice gear.
But what about classic WoW? No dungeon finder. Gather a group and walk, run, ride, or fly to the nearest dungeon.
If you’re decked head to toe in heirlooms then dungeoning can really speed your leveling up and you won’t have to worry about gear rolls. If you don’t have the heirlooms then you should keep any eye on the Auction House for better gear than what you have. While there IS good gear to be had in the dungeons you’ll level quickly enough to outgrow it and you still need to win the rolls.
- DPS classes (Warriors, Mages, etc.,) will have longer waits for dungeons than tanks. Do your quests while waiting for your queue to pop.
- Tanks can literally camp in the big city and get into dungeons whenever they want.
- Healers are somewhere between the two for wait times. .
PvP Leveling
Used to be that PvP in the battlegrounds gave zero XP. That changed. If your side is winning, then you can pick up very fast XP. Help your side to win.
Don’t be like so many of the BG clowns. Figure out what it takes to win and help your team do that. Fighting other players on the roads or the middle zones is fun, gets you a bit of honor, and helps your team to lose. You also get far less XP and honor by losing, but lots of people seem to prefer than for some reason.
Well, Ok, they like to grind kills for the achievements and glory, but wins bring more XP and honor points.
Some of your opposition will be much better geared than you, but many won’t, so don’t worry about it too much. Grow a thick skin, jump in, have fun, get leveled. Or heck, turn off your XP, twink out (with Heirlooms,) and stick to one level for awhile. Works better on Classic WoW. Here’s a forum discussing this.
About Powerleveling
There are three kinds of powerleveling. Generally they’re used by people who are either lazy or who just don’t want to do the leveling grind to hit the end game content. Yeah… grinding from 1 to max level takes a bit…
- You pay PowerLeveling4you something and they level your character to whatever level for some amount of money. Nice and easy, if you have the money, and a good way to get banned if you’re caught. We like to play the game (why bother, otherwise?) so we don’t do this. If you want to, and want to risk your account, then go to your favorite search engine and look it up. No, we’re not providing clues, you’re smart enough to figure it out. Oh yes, there are rumors that some of these companies are less than honest. Assuming that’s true, consider yourself warned.
- Botting is using a set of scripts to play your character for you. You set it up, teach it where to go, and so on. Hated by many players and frowned upon by Blizzard. Bliz will ban your account if you’re caught and they’re pretty good at finding out.
- Rushing is where a high level character (friend, guildie, or someone found through chat) takes you through the lower level dungeons. He kills everything and you get XP and, depending on your agreement, you get the loot. This can make for very fast leveling. The downside?
- You don’t learn to play your character (if you get a lot of levels this way.)
- Skills are not part of the process. Do you actually care?
The upside? Fast levels and nice gear. Perfectly legal.
- Buy your levels from Bliz. As I write this you can buy a level boost to 50 for any character. You’ll have decent gear, some cash, and will be ready to leap into Shadowlands and start smashing heads. Currently costs $60, but compared to 6 or so days of grind? Might be worth it.
- Oh, by the way, you can also buy Gold from Bliz. indirectly. Go to the Blizzard site and buy a Token for $20. You can then sell it on the Auction House. Currently the buy price is around $120k gold. (It varies) So… $20 for around $120k gold.
- Leveling Guides – These are in-game guides that show you where to go and what to do and will track your tasks (how many killed, things collected, etc.,) and do a better job than the in-game system. They also show you the best order in which to do the quests. Zygor’s guide is our favorite of the paid leveling guides (much less than $60 and you can use it for all of your characters.) Highly recommended and we do use it. A lot. Conveniently, the guide is always ready for whatever the current level cap or expansion happens to be, and comes with a bunch of goodies. Go here to learn more.
Crank Yourself to Max Level, Fast
The Hulk came by and SMASHED the levels.
What was 120 is now 50.
But Zygor has your back. Starting up a new character, or mid-range, just pick your zone and level. Blast through and then leap into the Shadowlands.
Never again wonder where to go or what to do. Zygor will point the wait with a waypoint arrow and tell you who to see, what to do, what to kill, etc.
Much nicer than the in-game quest help. Or you could just blow $60 and boost your new character to 50 and explore the rest on your own. Go here and see if Zygor works for you.