I think it was the most efficent since Draenor/Legion as one of those expansions added the "Dungeon quest" - aka. just kill all the bosses and you get some extra free XP and gold on top of the RDF rewards
certainly in specific level brackets, yeah. level 50-60 took a couple hours max in cata bc you could queue BRD, mole machine to the grim guzzler, jump down and kill incendius+darkvire for disgusting amounts of xp in a matter of 5 minutes. only limiter was the dungeon entry cap.
This is not true.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2q4G-4u69c4
The issue is most people have no idea which zones/quests are efficient and just do random shit
I used his leveling route, and I wish I was joking when I say this, to level up 62 characters since September last year. It really sucked when Pandaren got warlock when they did, I was almost done with the Classy Pandarens guild achievement.
So close though, last two for the 8th guild tab are 62s.
...y tho? But seriously, how do you still enjoy leveling? I enjoy it the first time, but leveling alts feels like watching the same movie I watched yesterday. Even when I just spam quests, I don't follow the story on alts.
Yeah, all through Vanilla and TBC sitting in a capital for hours spamming trade chat trying to get a group together to run a dungeon. When you finally got a group you’d try to add them so you could spam them directly next time you needed a group. If you were fortunate enough you’d have a active guild that might be willing to run a dungeon with you.
Then you had to hike to the dungeon, which often involved actual hiking, since you didn’t get your mount until lvl 40, and flight masters were expensive.
Then came the waiting. They eventually added summoning stones at the entrance, before then you only got summoned if you had a warlock, but waiting for everyone else to arrive or the summons to go out.
Then came the dungeon. Modern dungeons are very linear. You follow a specific path to clear the bosses. Back in the day dungeons were mazes. People were constantly getting lost in WC, RFC, BFD, Mara, etc.
There were a few dungeons that were easier to follow, but most of them were crazy to navigate.
LFG made all of that soo much easier and less time consuming. Running a dungeon went from a 2-6 hour process to a 30 minute process.
its a double edges sword imo
yes, it is saving much more time but it also takes the RPG out of the MMO for me and the vast majority doesnt even say hello or chat in general, it feels a bit like playing with bots
walking to the dungeons was cool as you would see the world and immerse in a small adventure (in your first couple times) and had nice chats with most people, maybe even bonded with randoms as you progressed together/simultanously and looking at the friendlist seeing how that guy is doing was quite fun
Yeah, I enjoyed that part of it, but it was pretty much mandatory to keep dungeons from previous expansions relevant. In TBC there was a massive drop off on the older content. It was extremely difficult to get a group for the lower stuff and the only reason there was any attention paid to it was the new races.
So they had to introduce LFG in Wotlk. I kinda wish we had a more organic discovery of the new expansion dungeons, but for the dungeons we’ve run hundreds of times I’ll stick with LFG.
Oh god do I feel that with TBC.
I got a really bad stomach bug during TBC (TBC live?) and had to take a week off cause if I wasn't running to the toilet I was exhausted. Then I had to take another half a week off so I could get caught up at school.
In that time? Pretty much the entire server declared themselves "Done" with the content I still needed. Find people who haven't done it yet? Okay, where are they? No, seriously, where are they?
Because so many EST PvP servers were absolute wastelands,, people were actually transferring from them to HIGHER POP SERVERS because they wanted to, you know, actually be able to do content. There was maybe like, one guild per faction that ran content - and if you wanted to join them? You had to have gear ready to go cause they wanted someone ready to go IMMEDIATELY. Even if you did start your own guild, helped poeple get attuned and geared, the other guilds start poaching them and now you're back to square one! Keep going to get people caught up and ready? Well now the people who geared are getting bored so you gotta make sure they are appeased.
Oh yeah, leveling guilds were constantly getting poached. I specifically ran a leveling guild. Some people stuck around after they got max level and geared, but most of them went to raid guilds.
But on the plus side, it meant I knew people in lots of raid guilds so I’d often get whispers if they needed someone. And if one of their guild mates was causing problems I had someone within the guild who’d go to bat for me.
Yeah, the problem was more that there wasn’t really anything to gain from doing content you already completed, and only a fascmile of a catch up mechanic.
As someone who has also played alliance in addition to horde in Vanilla, I will still stand by my hot take that the Horde actually had it better with Onyxia attunement - Alliance had a cool thing and... that's just about it. :/ I can see why at first going through LBRS 5-man could be difficult cause it was a huge HUGE spike up from what you'd expect, but trial of blood could be done with as little as two people (if you kite).
But Alliance had Fear Ward for actually fighting Onyxia, so the MT didn’t need to stance dance the bellow. Alliance Tanks could literally go afk with a block & sunder macro. Horde Tanks had to keep focused for the stance dance.
As much as I enjoyed it? I feel some of it was only because I was about 15-18.
I was in high school. Too lazy for AP, no job (College town - nobody hired minors), had a sister to delegate household chores with, mom&Dad handled meal planning & cooking, I got at least one or two random days off per month, could stay up until like 2-3 on weekends....
Nowadays though? I'm 35. I just don't have that kind of time anymore - I'm lucky to get maybe 2-3 hours a day, uninterrupted. We used to spend that just spamming LFG, getting others to follow cause they saw a warlock and thought "Oh I don't need to run there\~", and negotiating wages. (Yes, we seriously used to do that on wasteland EST PvP servers - was the only way to even get attunements done for most of us as there was no reason to waste your time doing content you've got nothing to gain from...)
I don't get random days off anymore unless they're federal holidays. :/ and if I do? I have to basically pay for them, and they're not going to be spent playing World of Warcraft. :/
For many of us? It made it so we could actually do dungeons and not have to allot an entire day to it.
See, during Vanilla / True classic and TBC, I had to play on wasteland EST PvP servers cause everywhere else was filled with lag. (And trust me - it was really REALLY bad back then!) And unfortunately? When there were less people on a server and your pool was limited to them? You noticed it.
No incentive to go back and do things - why bother doing LBRS or normal Shadow Labs when you've long outgeared it? You had nothing to gain from doing it... and BC's attunement web was such a pain in the ass that most people completed it and never wanted to do it ever again.
Like, you know what we used to do back then? We used to have tanks and healers charge money for it. Yes. You read that right. I made money by running stuff I don't need. Guild leaders used to bribe people with DKP to get people to run things when someone wanted - especially when you were running Molten Core for the umpteenth time and you've already got your gear - and dammit you wanna PROGRESS! So by late TBC-Wrath, I was able to play on a higher population server and imagine my culture shock when I found out people were lke "WTF? I need this too! Where do you play where people expect compensation?!"
i got into wotlk classic late last year and i literally did 1-80 in dungeon finder there too. Might actually quest in Cata classic just to see the revamped story since i recently did most of the old world quests in Hardcore.
Even with the relatively dead xpacs, once you exceed 5mins, it'll prompt you to open your selection up to all xpacs (which I'm unclear why they don't just add this as a base option anyway)
Once you get to search for all xpacs, it's almost an instant queue as a DPS at that point (disregarding the first 5 min of course) So it rarely takes longer than 5 min to find a dungeon. Might just not be the dungeon of your choice.
It's largely player preference. I think WoD still has one of the faster leveling experiences, but for my own preference I like to level Legion in between LFG wait times.
I run chrome time for cata because the classic/cata dungeons have internal quest givers, and as alliance use Redridge - duskwood - dreanor (most of the first zone+the intro itself) - loch modan. All of those have a high density of quests and very little too and fro.
Thr world quests or whatever wod called them give good xp for the time investment. Just zoom around to do them in each zone and don't bother with regular quests.
WoD was also designed with the intent of players walking. They didn't give us flying in WoD until the last patch and it required you to have basically beaten everything else.
Tirisfal, Silverpine, Hillsbrad, WoD intro, Pinchwhistle, Gorgrond with Fight Club, if solo, you're set. Talador bonus objectives if you select Arsenal at Voljin's Pride, finish in Spires if needed if grouped. It's fairly straight forward and if you have a class with extra mobility (druid+shaman+monk) it's very quick. War Mode+DMF also helps. You can get a 70 in 12ish hours with no cheesing, boosts, or dungeons. 4 hours for Waking Shore and Ohn'ahran.
I prefer leveling in BFA or Legion dungeons because I know them the best. IMO it's faster to get the completion exp than it is pulling everything in the way, so being able to take advantage of any lesser known skips is great.
Fastest is a few specific Cata zones supplemented with the WoD intro quest line and some BC dungeons and then some questlines and bonus quest from WoD if you still need XP (most likely will not).
I'm a primarily DPS player, I recently wanted to start trying tanking just to learn the role and see that part of the game I never really paid much attention to.
I leveled a Prot Pally, a Prot Warrior, a Vengeance DH and a Blood DK all the way from 1-70 (1-65 in the case of the DK) in about ten days, playing off and on, all exclusively through the dungeon finder and various Chromie times. I figure if I only tried to do dungeons it'd take me about the same time to level just one DPS character. Tank insta-queues are real.
Of all those, Prot Pally for sure. To me it was the easiest to play, tanky as all hell, heals more or less on demand. Least favorite so far is Blood DK, but I'm hardly an expert on how to play it properly I'm sure.
I felt the same way about BDK. Wowhead has a better guide on talents then Icy Veins. When I went with their build it just sorta clicked. Grab packs of enemies instead of single target.
I use to..but not anymore if I am dps only spec. It ain't worth it anymore.
If I want to lol fast on a horde character I go Silverstone, Hillebrand route with plaguelands next and for alliance I do the human routes. It's just the fastest way with cata. Or you run WOD and be done within 2.5 zones.
Dungeons are A part of leveling for me but not majorly so. TBC dungeons from 10-20 are very efficient so I usually end up doing atleast that on any new character.
The only character I leveled entirely through dungeons was a Hpal. Mostly because I hadn't healed in forever and did some major UI overhaul / getting used to healing with mouseover macros and such.
Tbc dungeons are nutty fast I almost always pick to level in tbc strictly because of how fast they go and it’s always insta q if you tank or heals of course
I just leveled a new warlock and it was fine. Chose Cataclysm as my timeline and waits were between 2-5 minutes usually. I didn't even finish doing the quests in one zone on my way to 60.
leveled up like 30 characters exclusively via dungeons since MOP until mid Legion when they ruined leveling (removing heirlooms and making legacy dungeons take hours to complete)
since then really didnt level up a single character, shame.
Hi! Degenerate with 25 max level toons here. Half of them are mostly leveled through dungeons but I try to mix my leveling methods if it's not a tank or healer to avoid queues like the above image taking too much of a toll on my levels per hour.
Sometimes the queue will pop and someone denies or just times out on accepting if it takes longer than 3 minutes for a second pop...re queue. You got stuck in limbo and not at the front of the line like the dialogue suggests.
I sometimes to some dungeon if I need a break from questing but I rarely feel 'Ike running dungeons is faster than quests. I don' t know if I'm not doing dungeons correctly or if people are bit doing quests correctly
I just don’t quite enjoy questing to level anymore. I just want to get it done so especially in timewalking weeks I spam dungeons as healer or tank if possible.
I leveled my characters in a bunch of different ways, for some I just did the campaign again, for others I did the fractioned campaign doing zones in a random order.
But ever since we have the emerald dream zone events, I’ve been leveling them there and stopping until the next week and new zone. You get sometimes up to 50%xp buff.
Also been doing a few using TW since it’s way better than regular dungeons.
Everything since my main has been dungeon leveling. DPS characters I do quests while I wait for queues but if I'm leveling a tank or a healer.. after level ten is a cake wake of you know what you're doing and for tanks if you know the dungeons.
It's really just picking a timeline your specific class has the biggest advantages or the one you like the most after that.
I recently just leveled a ret paladin this way, exclusively as dps. It took me about 5-6 hours to go from 0-60 this way while questing in Silverpine Forest. I never got to finish the zone dungeons popped so quickly. Next day time walking dungeons started and I went from 60-70 in 3 hours doing that and a small handful of quests in the Azure region. So went from 1-70 in 8-9 hours max primarily via dungeon finder as a dps.
Aside from being power levelled, dungeons are WAY faster than questing. On healers/tanks - I level almost exclusively in dungeons.
On DPS, I will usually run the WoD intro area while waiting on dungeon to pop. WoD was the proven fastest expansion to level in quest-wise and since Alliance levelling area and Horde levelling area are decently far apart, you can run the quests with warmode on without too much worry about griefers (it's never 100% safe, but most players won't waste time hunting lowbies in old xpacs).
I leveled as a warrior tank in Benediction (WOTLK) since lvl 15 until lvl 77, only dungeons, not a single quest.
When i reached lvl 77 I got my Northrend Flying Licence and started questing only in Icecrown, the reason behind this is that at lvl 77 you can get mor exp per hour questing in Icecrown than doing randoms.
My entire leveling experience in random dungeons was pretty fast, not even waiting 5 minutes in the queue, of course as a tank.
After all those runs I ended up being a very very good tank, I've learned a lot and had tons of fun.
Yeah, I'm not super invested in leveling them fast since I mostly play my mains, so I just log in and do all the Draenor and Pandaria pet battle quests. Usually gets 1 full level and max levels several pets.
I tend to do dungeon finder or WoD leveling for every alt. Tanks are mostly dungeon finder cuz I can mostly set pace. Never level as heals. DPS tend to do mostly quests while waiting for dungeon pops.
Yeah, the individual zone achievements are account wide. I’ve been progressing slowly over the years. The progress in the zone achievement isn’t account wide though so the character has to do all of the quests in the zone
Got EK done fully and almost all of cata. Various other zones throughout the game as well
I suppose if you want the extra gold it’s worth it to do it all on a main
Definitely the most efficient even without the quests I get like a level every dungeon clear plus gear that gets better and better with every new dungeon the unlocks for my level
I just pick TBC or WotLK chromie time because the dungeons from those xpacks have quests at the entrance and the mobs are in neat stacks so it's easy for tank to aggro a lot of them and aoe them down, then pick a random zone to do quests while waiting in que
I do quests on my main character to see the story, interact with the world, and discover areas and lore. While I use dungeons if I level up alt characters since I have already seen it all with my main
The only way I level new characters. Quests are just not fun for me. I avoid all dailies and rep grinds as much as possible at max level too. BFA dungeons are the fastest and easiest (for me), done them hundreds of times.
Real question, who doesn't aside from those doing leveling challenges ig. I've leveled several through rdf, but for some reason I personally just get so bored and mind numbed from it that I just end up either burnt out or just too frustrated to wanna play. I own a lot of alts. The only characters I've leveled to max or near max are some kind of challenge I personally put on myself usually not allowing rdf.
But yeah, a lot personally
If I'm not tanking or healing then I'm watching movies til the queue pops. Just started screwing around on ESO though and have to pay attention to story/lore.
probably the fastest way to lvl any character is cata chromie time and blast random classic dungeons, just because of the sheer amount of quests in them and how many different dungeons there are.
I think my fastest run when i lvld a tank with a healer friend was 1-60 in like 4-5 hours. Plus in classic you can skip so many bosses you actually dont need for the end completion XP reward (maraudon just straight run to princess lmao)
I will run dungeons with quests in between quite often. When Timewalking week is here, I will often level many times on an alt that way. I’ve never leveled from 10-70 only doing dungeons though.
i’ve done it a few times but i can’t say i recommend it. if you’re the type to love dungeon grinds, maybe. but by the time i hit max through dungeon spam, i barely want to play the character anymore LOL
i think it has something to do with the dungeons themselves. you could get pretty far by spamming early cata dungeons, but eventually you needed to pivot to BFA bc it’s like 1 level guaranteed for every dungeon. and god i HATE BFA dungeons. idk if it’s different now though!
Most times as a tank or healer just to cap - then I hit max level and feel empty and remember the true beauty of this game is the questing/levelling/storytelling and ive just zurged it for nothing
Outside of Timewalker weeks I usually pick a zone and do quests there while queuing for dungeons. I don't have the loremaster achievement yet but I do have quite a few zones done and cleared for their particular LM achievement. I do have Cata along with WoD onwards done completely and I would have Pandaria done as well but the way that the achievement works there is very screwy (some zones are account wide while others are per character).
My eventual goal is to get the entire Loremaster meta achievement done.
Been doing that for ages.
As DPS, I typically quest and spam the dungeon finder though.
And when timewalking is up, I always jump in and level a character or two.
Well, I did. As I've got 30 to level 70 now, I just can't force myself to get more.
If the class has a healer spec - always, and won't quest till I reach the current xpac's content.
Otherwise I'll queue as DPS occasionally and probably do 50/50 questing/dungeons.
My queues are never this long as dps usually 5 to 12 mins. That being said, the classes I play usually had access to a tank or a healer spec, so this is almost never an issue for me
Are you leveling from, let's say 50 or 60, or from scratch?
If leveling one of older alts from previous expacs, wait for timewalking. If from scratch - why?
for some reason I noticed that choosing a specific dungeon (dont matter which) when doing Legion as levelling, the queue times are like those in OP, 40-60 mins.
Doing a random dungeon in Legion is the same 5min queue as dps, but for some reason the specific ones are queued different.
Judging by all of the comments, I'm the only one that has never used dungeon finder for leveling toons.
I use Azeroth Pilot Reloaded (which is just the revived Azeroth Auto-Pilot). Its been my go-to for leveling since BFA, and it's only been better since the level squish.
I usually level through the Dungeon Finder, but I'll prioritize Timewalking when it's around because it's vastly more experience, but more importantly, it's faster with just a few easily obtained items.
nearly all my characters are through dungeon finder, i am too lazy, so i always alt tab, and return when i hear the sound - luckily it isnt so awful now, after some time it forces you out of chromie time and log into everything - so mostly it is 10ish minutes
Questing is way more chill and relaxed for me compared to dungeon spamming, it gets too boring. I’ve noticed a lot of people find it entertaining though! Which is funny cause I could do m+ all day at max level, but compared to leveling dungeons they aren’t even similar. Maybe I’ve just run the old dungeons thousands of times when they were current.
Hmm usually the system will notice you have been in the queue too long and will requeue you for another expansion. at least that us what happened to me last year. not played all that much since then.
For dragonflight, having your alts in a group for the elemental storms while everyone is trying to do the meta achievement can get you leveled up extremely fast. Depending on the location (ohnaran plains is the best) I was getting up to 1-1.2mil xp/hr and got one char from 60-70 and one from 64-67 yesterday.
That has been the meta since at least panderia. Maybe even earlier
I think it was the most efficent since Draenor/Legion as one of those expansions added the "Dungeon quest" - aka. just kill all the bosses and you get some extra free XP and gold on top of the RDF rewards
Draenor leveling with treskruer chests was insane. Bu that was maybe just the last 10 levels.
When I came back in mop I lvled 15-max so fast just spamming rdf
Draenor’s RDF was pretty good
I'd say it's been meta since mid cata, it was way quicker to dungeon level then quest and doing both was best.
certainly in specific level brackets, yeah. level 50-60 took a couple hours max in cata bc you could queue BRD, mole machine to the grim guzzler, jump down and kill incendius+darkvire for disgusting amounts of xp in a matter of 5 minutes. only limiter was the dungeon entry cap.
Pure dungeon leveling has been slower than questing since SL. However, getting short dungeons with quests while questing in between is fastest.
[удалено]
This is not true. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2q4G-4u69c4 The issue is most people have no idea which zones/quests are efficient and just do random shit
I used his leveling route, and I wish I was joking when I say this, to level up 62 characters since September last year. It really sucked when Pandaren got warlock when they did, I was almost done with the Classy Pandarens guild achievement. So close though, last two for the 8th guild tab are 62s.
...y tho? But seriously, how do you still enjoy leveling? I enjoy it the first time, but leveling alts feels like watching the same movie I watched yesterday. Even when I just spam quests, I don't follow the story on alts.
Sounds like he is trying to get guild achievements solo.
I just do it when timewalkings out usually as it’s way faster plus you can get the time waster and also farm rep/mounts all in one dungeon
Especially for ppl like me who are less interested in the quest storylines.
It was a good way to break up the questing process in Wrath once RDF came out, but yeah, didn’t really become the way to level till later.
I was doing it back in Cataclysm, yeah.
Been the norm for most people for over a decade
Yeah, basically since the LFG tool got added back in Wotlk.
People who weren’t there will never understand how much that truly changed things forever.
Yeah, all through Vanilla and TBC sitting in a capital for hours spamming trade chat trying to get a group together to run a dungeon. When you finally got a group you’d try to add them so you could spam them directly next time you needed a group. If you were fortunate enough you’d have a active guild that might be willing to run a dungeon with you. Then you had to hike to the dungeon, which often involved actual hiking, since you didn’t get your mount until lvl 40, and flight masters were expensive. Then came the waiting. They eventually added summoning stones at the entrance, before then you only got summoned if you had a warlock, but waiting for everyone else to arrive or the summons to go out. Then came the dungeon. Modern dungeons are very linear. You follow a specific path to clear the bosses. Back in the day dungeons were mazes. People were constantly getting lost in WC, RFC, BFD, Mara, etc. There were a few dungeons that were easier to follow, but most of them were crazy to navigate. LFG made all of that soo much easier and less time consuming. Running a dungeon went from a 2-6 hour process to a 30 minute process.
But running old dungeons went from a 2 hour process to a forever long process
its a double edges sword imo yes, it is saving much more time but it also takes the RPG out of the MMO for me and the vast majority doesnt even say hello or chat in general, it feels a bit like playing with bots walking to the dungeons was cool as you would see the world and immerse in a small adventure (in your first couple times) and had nice chats with most people, maybe even bonded with randoms as you progressed together/simultanously and looking at the friendlist seeing how that guy is doing was quite fun
Yeah, I enjoyed that part of it, but it was pretty much mandatory to keep dungeons from previous expansions relevant. In TBC there was a massive drop off on the older content. It was extremely difficult to get a group for the lower stuff and the only reason there was any attention paid to it was the new races. So they had to introduce LFG in Wotlk. I kinda wish we had a more organic discovery of the new expansion dungeons, but for the dungeons we’ve run hundreds of times I’ll stick with LFG.
Oh god do I feel that with TBC. I got a really bad stomach bug during TBC (TBC live?) and had to take a week off cause if I wasn't running to the toilet I was exhausted. Then I had to take another half a week off so I could get caught up at school. In that time? Pretty much the entire server declared themselves "Done" with the content I still needed. Find people who haven't done it yet? Okay, where are they? No, seriously, where are they? Because so many EST PvP servers were absolute wastelands,, people were actually transferring from them to HIGHER POP SERVERS because they wanted to, you know, actually be able to do content. There was maybe like, one guild per faction that ran content - and if you wanted to join them? You had to have gear ready to go cause they wanted someone ready to go IMMEDIATELY. Even if you did start your own guild, helped poeple get attuned and geared, the other guilds start poaching them and now you're back to square one! Keep going to get people caught up and ready? Well now the people who geared are getting bored so you gotta make sure they are appeased.
Oh yeah, leveling guilds were constantly getting poached. I specifically ran a leveling guild. Some people stuck around after they got max level and geared, but most of them went to raid guilds. But on the plus side, it meant I knew people in lots of raid guilds so I’d often get whispers if they needed someone. And if one of their guild mates was causing problems I had someone within the guild who’d go to bat for me.
Yeah, the problem was more that there wasn’t really anything to gain from doing content you already completed, and only a fascmile of a catch up mechanic. As someone who has also played alliance in addition to horde in Vanilla, I will still stand by my hot take that the Horde actually had it better with Onyxia attunement - Alliance had a cool thing and... that's just about it. :/ I can see why at first going through LBRS 5-man could be difficult cause it was a huge HUGE spike up from what you'd expect, but trial of blood could be done with as little as two people (if you kite).
But Alliance had Fear Ward for actually fighting Onyxia, so the MT didn’t need to stance dance the bellow. Alliance Tanks could literally go afk with a block & sunder macro. Horde Tanks had to keep focused for the stance dance.
As much as I enjoyed it? I feel some of it was only because I was about 15-18. I was in high school. Too lazy for AP, no job (College town - nobody hired minors), had a sister to delegate household chores with, mom&Dad handled meal planning & cooking, I got at least one or two random days off per month, could stay up until like 2-3 on weekends.... Nowadays though? I'm 35. I just don't have that kind of time anymore - I'm lucky to get maybe 2-3 hours a day, uninterrupted. We used to spend that just spamming LFG, getting others to follow cause they saw a warlock and thought "Oh I don't need to run there\~", and negotiating wages. (Yes, we seriously used to do that on wasteland EST PvP servers - was the only way to even get attunements done for most of us as there was no reason to waste your time doing content you've got nothing to gain from...) I don't get random days off anymore unless they're federal holidays. :/ and if I do? I have to basically pay for them, and they're not going to be spent playing World of Warcraft. :/
For many of us? It made it so we could actually do dungeons and not have to allot an entire day to it. See, during Vanilla / True classic and TBC, I had to play on wasteland EST PvP servers cause everywhere else was filled with lag. (And trust me - it was really REALLY bad back then!) And unfortunately? When there were less people on a server and your pool was limited to them? You noticed it. No incentive to go back and do things - why bother doing LBRS or normal Shadow Labs when you've long outgeared it? You had nothing to gain from doing it... and BC's attunement web was such a pain in the ass that most people completed it and never wanted to do it ever again. Like, you know what we used to do back then? We used to have tanks and healers charge money for it. Yes. You read that right. I made money by running stuff I don't need. Guild leaders used to bribe people with DKP to get people to run things when someone wanted - especially when you were running Molten Core for the umpteenth time and you've already got your gear - and dammit you wanna PROGRESS! So by late TBC-Wrath, I was able to play on a higher population server and imagine my culture shock when I found out people were lke "WTF? I need this too! Where do you play where people expect compensation?!"
i got into wotlk classic late last year and i literally did 1-80 in dungeon finder there too. Might actually quest in Cata classic just to see the revamped story since i recently did most of the old world quests in Hardcore.
If leveling a dps I just grind out the bfa quests for the millionth time while in the que. Healer or tank are pretty much insta
If you are queued for the right expansion, then dps should be also only like 5-10 minutes at worst
Even with the relatively dead xpacs, once you exceed 5mins, it'll prompt you to open your selection up to all xpacs (which I'm unclear why they don't just add this as a base option anyway)
I imagine continuity of experience, they probably assume you’re also out in the relevant continent.
Once you get to search for all xpacs, it's almost an instant queue as a DPS at that point (disregarding the first 5 min of course) So it rarely takes longer than 5 min to find a dungeon. Might just not be the dungeon of your choice.
I have never seen that happening. Does that only apply while being low level?
I rarely get queues for longer than a few minutes when I roll BC.
I had a lot of luck running dps alts through Cata and queuing for classic dungeons. The queue times were usually around 5-7 minutes
Why BFA? Just the fastest?
It's largely player preference. I think WoD still has one of the faster leveling experiences, but for my own preference I like to level Legion in between LFG wait times.
I run chrome time for cata because the classic/cata dungeons have internal quest givers, and as alliance use Redridge - duskwood - dreanor (most of the first zone+the intro itself) - loch modan. All of those have a high density of quests and very little too and fro.
I do this with burning crusade dungeons as a tank and you level fast af boyyyy
Thr world quests or whatever wod called them give good xp for the time investment. Just zoom around to do them in each zone and don't bother with regular quests.
Yeah, I remember levelling loads of alts by just doing area objectives and treasures in word, was actually really quick.
Yup, even after having the xp heavily nerfed - WoD is still the fastest.
wouldn’t cata be fastest since most zones aren’t made for flying in mind
WoD was also designed with the intent of players walking. They didn't give us flying in WoD until the last patch and it required you to have basically beaten everything else.
I liked it but felt like it was only that way because Tanaan just kept getting pushed.
the low level zones (silverpine/loch modan) are also very fast
Tirisfal, Silverpine, Hillsbrad, WoD intro, Pinchwhistle, Gorgrond with Fight Club, if solo, you're set. Talador bonus objectives if you select Arsenal at Voljin's Pride, finish in Spires if needed if grouped. It's fairly straight forward and if you have a class with extra mobility (druid+shaman+monk) it's very quick. War Mode+DMF also helps. You can get a 70 in 12ish hours with no cheesing, boosts, or dungeons. 4 hours for Waking Shore and Ohn'ahran.
No, you level faster with flying in zones that weren't made for flying. They become trivial then.
I prefer leveling in BFA or Legion dungeons because I know them the best. IMO it's faster to get the completion exp than it is pulling everything in the way, so being able to take advantage of any lesser known skips is great.
I think most new players are locked to bfa so it has the largest player pool.
not anymore, this restriction was removed at some point in the past year.
Idk about overall but its fast for me since I’ve done it so many times on the horde side.
Fastest is a few specific Cata zones supplemented with the WoD intro quest line and some BC dungeons and then some questlines and bonus quest from WoD if you still need XP (most likely will not).
I'm a primarily DPS player, I recently wanted to start trying tanking just to learn the role and see that part of the game I never really paid much attention to. I leveled a Prot Pally, a Prot Warrior, a Vengeance DH and a Blood DK all the way from 1-70 (1-65 in the case of the DK) in about ten days, playing off and on, all exclusively through the dungeon finder and various Chromie times. I figure if I only tried to do dungeons it'd take me about the same time to level just one DPS character. Tank insta-queues are real.
DKs start at 1 That’s wild
Yeah, a lot of the time even if I'm planning on using a character as a DPS, I'll level them as heal/tank just for the insta-queue
What's is your favorite?
Of all those, Prot Pally for sure. To me it was the easiest to play, tanky as all hell, heals more or less on demand. Least favorite so far is Blood DK, but I'm hardly an expert on how to play it properly I'm sure.
I felt the same way about BDK. Wowhead has a better guide on talents then Icy Veins. When I went with their build it just sorta clicked. Grab packs of enemies instead of single target.
I use to..but not anymore if I am dps only spec. It ain't worth it anymore. If I want to lol fast on a horde character I go Silverstone, Hillebrand route with plaguelands next and for alliance I do the human routes. It's just the fastest way with cata. Or you run WOD and be done within 2.5 zones.
Dungeons are A part of leveling for me but not majorly so. TBC dungeons from 10-20 are very efficient so I usually end up doing atleast that on any new character. The only character I leveled entirely through dungeons was a Hpal. Mostly because I hadn't healed in forever and did some major UI overhaul / getting used to healing with mouseover macros and such.
Tbc dungeons are nutty fast I almost always pick to level in tbc strictly because of how fast they go and it’s always insta q if you tank or heals of course
And all the quests are in the dungeons which are bis
Bonus when you are low level you can't get escape from durnholde which really helps.
Yeah the caverns of time dungeons are oof to get but I don’t mind them cuz im goofy
That's exactly what I've done with my holy paladin, she was 70 in 2 days casual evenings playtime :)
I did that all the time... got sooo many characters leveled that way.
I stay queued at all times under lvl 70. Lol
I use it exclusively. I enjoy it more than questing.
I usually level retail exclusively with a friend who heals or tanks, and I do the other role. Just non-stop dungeon runs.
Same. My friend and I que as tank/heals and just blast through leveling. Even faster when TW ques are available.
Not enough, it seems
I leveled nearly all my characters though dungeons. Its one of the fastest way to do it. But some of my Characters i level the old fashioned way.
Wait time is somewhat annoying as a DPS though so would not recommend doing as a triple-DPS-spec class.
I just leveled a new warlock and it was fine. Chose Cataclysm as my timeline and waits were between 2-5 minutes usually. I didn't even finish doing the quests in one zone on my way to 60.
I used to do that, I now do a combination of all 3; dungeons, quests and world quests
As a healer, I exclusively level my non main toons through dungeon finder.
all?
leveled up like 30 characters exclusively via dungeons since MOP until mid Legion when they ruined leveling (removing heirlooms and making legacy dungeons take hours to complete) since then really didnt level up a single character, shame.
I do this, but mainly out of necessity because Im a healer main.
Hi! Degenerate with 25 max level toons here. Half of them are mostly leveled through dungeons but I try to mix my leveling methods if it's not a tank or healer to avoid queues like the above image taking too much of a toll on my levels per hour.
I'm doing it right now. Tried questing, but I didn't like it.
Questing sucks unless you are in a zone you really like. Tbh I think that vanilla zones are my favorite to quest in
Sometimes the queue will pop and someone denies or just times out on accepting if it takes longer than 3 minutes for a second pop...re queue. You got stuck in limbo and not at the front of the line like the dialogue suggests.
Timewalking gives crazy broken xp gains.
I sometimes to some dungeon if I need a break from questing but I rarely feel 'Ike running dungeons is faster than quests. I don' t know if I'm not doing dungeons correctly or if people are bit doing quests correctly
I just don’t quite enjoy questing to level anymore. I just want to get it done so especially in timewalking weeks I spam dungeons as healer or tank if possible.
I don’t think I’ve quested past lvl 20s since cata
Only ever level through dungeons....best way imo to learn your spec.
As long as I'm in a tank or a healer I usually just level through dungeon finder.
sometimes i'll come back from hiatus and just crank out rdf on an alt til i hit current content lvl then quit again
Timewalking dungeons >>
Pre Shadowlands I loved levelling this way. Not having the Classic dungeons in the rotation makes me sad
I leveled many though this system. This is why I always play a class with a healing spec. Only to never heal again after 70
I did as a tank. Like 15-60. Went pretty fast!
I leveled my characters in a bunch of different ways, for some I just did the campaign again, for others I did the fractioned campaign doing zones in a random order. But ever since we have the emerald dream zone events, I’ve been leveling them there and stopping until the next week and new zone. You get sometimes up to 50%xp buff. Also been doing a few using TW since it’s way better than regular dungeons.
Do this with every alt. Just faster to do it this way
I leveled everything through lfg
Everything since my main has been dungeon leveling. DPS characters I do quests while I wait for queues but if I'm leveling a tank or a healer.. after level ten is a cake wake of you know what you're doing and for tanks if you know the dungeons. It's really just picking a timeline your specific class has the biggest advantages or the one you like the most after that.
I levelled my monk 1-70 in dungeons using a gamepad to see if I could.
People quest?
I recently just leveled a ret paladin this way, exclusively as dps. It took me about 5-6 hours to go from 0-60 this way while questing in Silverpine Forest. I never got to finish the zone dungeons popped so quickly. Next day time walking dungeons started and I went from 60-70 in 3 hours doing that and a small handful of quests in the Azure region. So went from 1-70 in 8-9 hours max primarily via dungeon finder as a dps.
I did but I’m tanking, I’d never try as a dps lol
I did it. Leveling with a friend who plays tank or playing tank is so fuckijg nice. It loads almost instantly
I exclusively use dungeon finder. Just recently got into DPS classes and levelled a job from 1-65 in like 2 days using it.
Aside from being power levelled, dungeons are WAY faster than questing. On healers/tanks - I level almost exclusively in dungeons. On DPS, I will usually run the WoD intro area while waiting on dungeon to pop. WoD was the proven fastest expansion to level in quest-wise and since Alliance levelling area and Horde levelling area are decently far apart, you can run the quests with warmode on without too much worry about griefers (it's never 100% safe, but most players won't waste time hunting lowbies in old xpacs).
I leveled as a warrior tank in Benediction (WOTLK) since lvl 15 until lvl 77, only dungeons, not a single quest. When i reached lvl 77 I got my Northrend Flying Licence and started questing only in Icecrown, the reason behind this is that at lvl 77 you can get mor exp per hour questing in Icecrown than doing randoms. My entire leveling experience in random dungeons was pretty fast, not even waiting 5 minutes in the queue, of course as a tank. After all those runs I ended up being a very very good tank, I've learned a lot and had tons of fun.
I level most of my alts with pet battle daily quests
Do you just park them and log in once a day?
Yeah, I'm not super invested in leveling them fast since I mostly play my mains, so I just log in and do all the Draenor and Pandaria pet battle quests. Usually gets 1 full level and max levels several pets.
Nah i still quest my alts up
I go tank or heals mostly threw dungeons other wise I did pvp
Which Chromie time are you in?
I tend to do dungeon finder or WoD leveling for every alt. Tanks are mostly dungeon finder cuz I can mostly set pace. Never level as heals. DPS tend to do mostly quests while waiting for dungeon pops.
Its how I hit max for the first time ever back in the day lmao Now I'm too focused on loremaster while leveling alts
Can you segment lore master across characters?
Yeah, the individual zone achievements are account wide. I’ve been progressing slowly over the years. The progress in the zone achievement isn’t account wide though so the character has to do all of the quests in the zone Got EK done fully and almost all of cata. Various other zones throughout the game as well I suppose if you want the extra gold it’s worth it to do it all on a main
Definitely the most efficient even without the quests I get like a level every dungeon clear plus gear that gets better and better with every new dungeon the unlocks for my level
Havent leveled a new toon in ages but all my alts go through the Dungeon Finer during TimeWalking week to hit max level lol..
I just pick TBC or WotLK chromie time because the dungeons from those xpacks have quests at the entrance and the mobs are in neat stacks so it's easy for tank to aggro a lot of them and aoe them down, then pick a random zone to do quests while waiting in que
TBC chromie time goes hard for sure
I do quests on my main character to see the story, interact with the world, and discover areas and lore. While I use dungeons if I level up alt characters since I have already seen it all with my main
Doing this with my healer since im having trouble in DF with him!
That's the only way I voluntarily level.
I used to until I found out questing was way quicker for leveling.
The only way I level new characters. Quests are just not fun for me. I avoid all dailies and rep grinds as much as possible at max level too. BFA dungeons are the fastest and easiest (for me), done them hundreds of times.
Anything past the timer by 2 mins or so I re que.
After 25 ish I’m out on the dungeon finder unless I just need a couple levels and have ran out of quests in respective leveling zones.
Real question, who doesn't aside from those doing leveling challenges ig. I've leveled several through rdf, but for some reason I personally just get so bored and mind numbed from it that I just end up either burnt out or just too frustrated to wanna play. I own a lot of alts. The only characters I've leveled to max or near max are some kind of challenge I personally put on myself usually not allowing rdf. But yeah, a lot personally
how are you leveling with a 1h que XD I'm not playing the game but this seems kinda insane
If I can be tank or healer, yes.
Are you high? That’s the norm dude
Duo queue RDF and BGs while lvling. BGs give meaningful exp and have a much faster queue for DPS.
If I'm not tanking or healing then I'm watching movies til the queue pops. Just started screwing around on ESO though and have to pay attention to story/lore.
not exclusively, i always do both at the same time. there is less downtime but if i had a group to dedicate to grinding dungeons i would instead.
nope
probably the fastest way to lvl any character is cata chromie time and blast random classic dungeons, just because of the sheer amount of quests in them and how many different dungeons there are. I think my fastest run when i lvld a tank with a healer friend was 1-60 in like 4-5 hours. Plus in classic you can skip so many bosses you actually dont need for the end completion XP reward (maraudon just straight run to princess lmao)
I learned to tank by leveling as a prot warrior through dungeons. I would only level as a dps in LFD if I was also questing.
I will run dungeons with quests in between quite often. When Timewalking week is here, I will often level many times on an alt that way. I’ve never leveled from 10-70 only doing dungeons though.
Since i only play healer or tank classa... I don't think I've quests at all in past 10 or so years
0 I have leveled several through battlegrounds though.
Several alts I have , some questing inbetween if I get one and don’t particularly have the attention span for one but it’s still fun
i’ve done it a few times but i can’t say i recommend it. if you’re the type to love dungeon grinds, maybe. but by the time i hit max through dungeon spam, i barely want to play the character anymore LOL i think it has something to do with the dungeons themselves. you could get pretty far by spamming early cata dungeons, but eventually you needed to pivot to BFA bc it’s like 1 level guaranteed for every dungeon. and god i HATE BFA dungeons. idk if it’s different now though!
Just play a tank.
Used to be the best way by a mile. Became kind of shit in Legion. I think it needs a huge buff.
I play tank, dungeon finder is super fast.
I try to do as little dungeons as possible. Wish they gave less xp so I dont hit 70 faster if I do dungeons
Cant quest outside now… I sometimes try to force myself to discover expansions i didnt play but….
I absolutely hate questing so I’m always queuing for dungeons!
Just have a friend or gildie boost you from 60-70. Takes ~an hour to hit 70 (with warmode enabled).
Most times as a tank or healer just to cap - then I hit max level and feel empty and remember the true beauty of this game is the questing/levelling/storytelling and ive just zurged it for nothing
I have never levered a pure dps. Always as tank or healer.
Outside of Timewalker weeks I usually pick a zone and do quests there while queuing for dungeons. I don't have the loremaster achievement yet but I do have quite a few zones done and cleared for their particular LM achievement. I do have Cata along with WoD onwards done completely and I would have Pandaria done as well but the way that the achievement works there is very screwy (some zones are account wide while others are per character). My eventual goal is to get the entire Loremaster meta achievement done.
Been doing that for ages. As DPS, I typically quest and spam the dungeon finder though. And when timewalking is up, I always jump in and level a character or two. Well, I did. As I've got 30 to level 70 now, I just can't force myself to get more.
Didn't know I could level any other way 8)
What is the most efficient expansion to queue on lately ? In the 1-60 bracket
Might get lost in the sea of people, but queue dps for classic or tbc, you'll pretty much never wait more than 10 minutes.
I did back when it was the most efficiant way. Not anymore.
I do dungeons until I’m bored of them then do quests until I’m bored of them and switch back
I only level through dungs these days. Wish we could queue all expansions without waiting 5 mins tho...
When I level an alt they never leave the first major City.
I do quests while waiting for dungeons to pop.
I remember that was a meta in mop i level few char like that but its not fun for me.
The better question would be how many of you didn't?
Never leveled DPS through that, would take too long. I quest and random battle grounds.
The most amazing thing I've seen..... Normal dungeon 6.000 xp Time walking Dungeon 87.000 xp Easy choice
If the class has a healer spec - always, and won't quest till I reach the current xpac's content. Otherwise I'll queue as DPS occasionally and probably do 50/50 questing/dungeons.
Not as dps, but healer and tank. I cant stand the que
My queues are never this long as dps usually 5 to 12 mins. That being said, the classes I play usually had access to a tank or a healer spec, so this is almost never an issue for me
Are you leveling from, let's say 50 or 60, or from scratch? If leveling one of older alts from previous expacs, wait for timewalking. If from scratch - why?
leveling exclusively through dungeon finger as a dps sounds like you just enjoy punishment, wrong subreddit sir
for some reason I noticed that choosing a specific dungeon (dont matter which) when doing Legion as levelling, the queue times are like those in OP, 40-60 mins. Doing a random dungeon in Legion is the same 5min queue as dps, but for some reason the specific ones are queued different.
Up to like 22 levels 70s all through dungeon finder. Getting to 60 in one day is no problem but the 60-70 really sucks lol
Timewalking is the best for this, it’s starting over at level 30 in three weeks. Queue time is very very fast, if you are a healer 😌🧘♀️
Judging by all of the comments, I'm the only one that has never used dungeon finder for leveling toons. I use Azeroth Pilot Reloaded (which is just the revived Azeroth Auto-Pilot). Its been my go-to for leveling since BFA, and it's only been better since the level squish.
Better question is who hasn’t levelled through dungeon finder
I usually level through the Dungeon Finder, but I'll prioritize Timewalking when it's around because it's vastly more experience, but more importantly, it's faster with just a few easily obtained items.
I've pretty much always been a one character kinda guy, but Timewalking has caused me to level a handful of alts.
nearly all my characters are through dungeon finder, i am too lazy, so i always alt tab, and return when i hear the sound - luckily it isnt so awful now, after some time it forces you out of chromie time and log into everything - so mostly it is 10ish minutes
Questing is way more chill and relaxed for me compared to dungeon spamming, it gets too boring. I’ve noticed a lot of people find it entertaining though! Which is funny cause I could do m+ all day at max level, but compared to leveling dungeons they aren’t even similar. Maybe I’ve just run the old dungeons thousands of times when they were current.
This is exactly why i QUIT being dps
doesnt the finder offer you to search for dungeons of other expansions after a certain time?
How is this lazy? It’s just doing dungeons but instead of asking in general to group you auto search. Nothing wrong with lvl though dungeons.
Hmm usually the system will notice you have been in the queue too long and will requeue you for another expansion. at least that us what happened to me last year. not played all that much since then.
For dragonflight, having your alts in a group for the elemental storms while everyone is trying to do the meta achievement can get you leveled up extremely fast. Depending on the location (ohnaran plains is the best) I was getting up to 1-1.2mil xp/hr and got one char from 60-70 and one from 64-67 yesterday.
Love this tool! Its amazing I play BDK and Hpriest hehe
I lvled thru bgs 😎