Free Powerleveling Guide!

[kikpp]

I DO NOT TAKE CREDIT FOR THIS!!! I found on forums.worldofwarcraft.com and decided to share with all of you at MMOwned. Credit goes to Nethereal on DragonBlight.
Nethereal’s Guide to Powerleveling

Now, most of you probably are only looking at this thread right now because you saw powerleveling guide and thought, “Heh, bet it’s in all caps and recommends you quest the whole time”.

Not really

This guide is going to primarily look at instance running as a source of exp and revenue while trying to hit 60. I’ll also provide a few sections on specifics and advice, as what classes are superior runners, what levels match what instances, and other such. Unfortunately, since I’ve never really gotten too far with Alliance (Level 30 warrior ftw!), this will probably liberally lean towards Horde power leveling. If I get some good support posts from Alliance power-levelers, I’ll try to make it more neutral and helpful for both sides of the faction fence.

I plan on covering (Hopefully):

-Basics, like what to do and how this scales up in the long run
-Towing, by level / what instance
-What class provides the best runners
-Common mistakes while running
-Quest-Grinding
-Utilizing the Recruit-A-Friend system

Basics

Towing, is basically when you get a higher level to run your lower level through instances without much of your effort to gain experience.

Towing is both good in bad,
It is good because…
________________________________________
-Fast, easy EXP
-Not much effort for you, once your being run
-Free Gear
-Can run multiple people at once

However, the downsides are…
________________________________________
-Don’t experience content
-No reputation from quests, which can cost more when your repairing armor
-Don’t learn how to play your class (Do you want to be that one guy who has no idea what he’s doing?)
-Costly if you don’t get free runs

If the good outweighs the bad in your opinion, then please, continue to the next-next page.

Grinding, is a hybrid term, of sorts. It can both refer to Quest Grinding, which is where you do as many quests as possible and avoid doing anything else to get exp quickly; or Mob Grinding is the process of killing monsters and such to gain exp, and disregard quests.

Its generally accepted that the only classes that can Mob Grind effectively are classes with AOE abilities, such as mages. This is up for debate, but I’ll leave that to someone else, and at another time.

Quest Grinding

If you are starting your first character, or you’ve ever leveled all the way to 70, you more likely than not did this. In a nutshell, you find a zone that has quests your level and you do them all. Although you lose out on some of the gear you get in instances, and exp comes in bursts whenever you do quests, its generally fastest, unless you’re being towed. You can find these sorts of quests on the internet, just go search them.

TIPS:

- Turn on music or something to keep you entertained, so the boredom doesn’t eat you alive and you go do something else. Grinding isn’t really grinding if it’s slow and has lapses in itself.
- Get a quest add-on to help you track objectives. Generally, it’s accepted that the two sites you get these from are CURSE gaming and WOWACE. I generally use the first one.
- Stock up on supplies, in bulk, whenever you head to town. I use 2 stacks of food and water at any given time. Some people buy potions and use bandages, from First Aid, but I’ve never really used either, especially with the potion-nerf.
- Avoid TVs and give a big chunk of time to quest. If you spend more time turning around to watch the TV, or taking out garbage for your parents, its not very productive.

ZONES BY LEVEL:

From level 1 to level 30, zones are extremely created for the faction and race they represent. At 21 (except for The Barrens) Zones are PVP-Enabled on PVP servers. From 31 onward its generally neutral, with some exceptions, designated for H for Horde, A for Alliance, if there's a exception. Also note that Eversong, Ghostlands, Azuremyst Isles, and Bloodmyst Isles require The Burning Crusade to be installed and activated to be utilized.

Level Min-Max | WOW Zone Names| BC Zone Names

For The Horde:
____________________________________________________
01-10 | Tirisfal, Glades, Mulgore, and Durotar | Eversong Woods
10-20 | Silverpine Forest, The Barrens (10-25)...| Ghostlands
15-25 | Stonetalon Mountains
20-30 | Hillsbrad Foothills
25-35 | Thousand Needles
+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+
For The Alliance:
____________________________________________________
01-10 | Elwynn Forest , Teldrassil , Dun,Morogh| Azuremyst Isle
10-20 | Loch Modan, Westfall, Darkshore...............| Bloodmyst Isle
15-27 | Redridge Mountains
20-30 | Wetlands
+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+
All other zones are neutral unless otherwise noted. Thanks to WoWWiki for References.

Level Min-Max | WOW Zone Names (BC or WOTLK indicated)

18-30 | Ashenvale Forest, Duskwood
20-30 | Wetlands, Hillsbrad Foothills
25-35 | Thousand Needles
30-40 | Arathi Highlands, Desolace, Alterac Mountains
30-45 | Stranglethorn Vale
35-45 | Dustwallow Marsh, Badlands (H), Swamp of Sorrows (H)
40-50 | Hinterlands, Feralas, Tanaris
45-50 | Searing Gorge, Blasted Lands (A)
45-55 | Azshara
48-55 | Un'goro Crater, Burning Steppes
50-58 |Western Plaguelands
51-58 | Eastern Plaguelands
53-60 | Winterspring
53-60 | Moonglade
55-60 | Silithus
55-60 | Deadwind Pass
55-70 | Hellfire Peninsula (BC)
58-63 | Zangarmarsh (BC)
60-64 | Terokkar Forest (BC)
62-65 | Nagrand (BC)
64-67 | Blade's Edge Mountains (BC)
65-68 | Netherstorm (BC)
67-70 | Shadowmoon Valley (BC)
67-70 | Howling Fjord (WOTLK)
68-72 | Borean Tundra (WOTLK)
70-73 | Dragonblight (WOTLK)
74-76 | Zul'Drak (WOTLK)
73-76 | Grizzly Hills (WOTLK)
74-76 | Sholazar Basin (WOTLK)
75-78 | Storm Peaks (WOTLK)
77-80 | Icecrown Glacier (WOTLK)


Towing Specifics

Thanks to WoWWiki for reminding me of which instances match up with which level.
To start off, do quests till you hit around 10. You can’t enter an instance unless you’re a certain level.

At 10, Go to Either Deadmines or Shadowfang Keep. Do as many times as you feel necessary or until you hit somewhere around 22, or whenever mobs are more than 3 levels below you.

Next, hit Razorfen Kraul or Stormwind Stockades until you’re around 26.

Next, do Scarlet Monastery. This is the single easiest instance to grind at, it’s just perfect. Four instances right next to each other, and they’re all short! I recommend doing Library once for the key at the end, then do Cathedral as many times as possible, until around 35.

At roughly 35 do Zul’Farrak. At this point, running starts to get a little harder on the runner, since mobs are starting to hit a little more reliably and harder, so I pray your runner is decently geared. Work on this until around 40 ish.

Move onto Sunken Temple. This one’s a bit tricky, it’s kind of hard on the runner, since its only 20 levels below him. Make sure he’s a good runner and he’s well suited for running. Work on this until 50.

Now the running starts to get hard. Some people do Stratholme now, some do Blackrock Depths and others do Dire Maul West/North. Honestly, it doesn’t really matter, but you might need two runners.

You should be around 60, and at this point, running is starting to be pointless. You might want to do quests to 70/80. More on the running cap once I hit 80 in WOTLK.

Little Snipits about Towing

The obvious:

-Runner should be SIGNIFICANTLY higher than the dungeon
-Runner should know the layout. He should also have decent gear

The intuitive:

-Runner should have AOE. This is especially pertinent in higher level instance runs.
-Runner should have pots at the ready, in case he’s in a bit over his head
-The Power-leveled person should be giving something to the runner. Whether its return runs or gold, it doesn’t matter. Just don’t trade real money, for the love of god. If both you and the runner have 70's, you might want to trade runs. I've done it in the past, it works out pretty well. Just make sure you have both 70's, and both the lowbies parked ( Logging out somewhere, to come back to it later, specifically for the location you logged out at) at the instance.

The not-well-know and debated

-Some say that runs give more EXP with more people in the group, I’ve never checked, more on that later.
-Classes that can AOE, heal, and do damage are helpful. Taunts also help.
-Ret Paladins are great runners:
This is what I mean by debated. The advantage of the paladin is that he can heal, aoe, and damage at the same time. Sheath, Art of War, and Judgements of the Wise are all big helps for this job. This writes itself.
-Boomkins are good too
- Remember that when you’re looking for a runner…
AOE > Healing > Plate > DPS > Taunts

Recruit-A-Friend and FAQ

Recruit-A-Friend is a system where a person links his account to someone else’s, whereas that someone else has not played before. This is a big advancement in powerleveling, so much as to the point where I have know people achieving northwards of 40 levels in one night.

The benefit of this is:

-300% EXP when in the linked accounts group. That means that you’re effectively cutting run time in half. That alone would be enough to convince me to make a second account and link it to my current one. The only bad restriction is the two linked characters need to be within 3 levels of each other, so if you wish to self-RAF, then you'd have to Tri-Box (Your Lowbie, your second lowbie, and your main).Multi-oxing may be covered in the future.

-Free levels: When that linked person gains two levels, he gets a free level to transfer to the first character’s account. This is amazing, and it still stuns me that Blizzard implements this. This very useful, it could be upwards of two less runs through anything.

[SliderX]

aha then thx for sharing +rep x1

[amunro]

reposting is fine in my opinion as long as you give referances and its very hard to find. +2 rep

[kikpp]

thanks you guys...i thought it was a very helpful guide

[Rocker]

This is basically a general info guide you could almost find on the blizz website...'

I'm sorry but posting something like this seems like a waste of space XD

Like, first of all a powerlvling guide = A Guide that gives in depth details about how the higher level player would run, where, what kind of drops/Exp per hour
This is more like a how to not go insane while leveling playing Wow guide not a "Leveling" guide itself

[CoreyOwnedYou?]

Good as
i will put it to the test

[Wertizy]

cool ^^ very helpful.... tnx

[Jabaha]

I always suck at leveling and this helps me stay on track. Now with two monitors I don't even have to alt-tab out hahaha.

[dxhan18]

this is cool... i don't know why this wow leveling guide has different ways than those guides you mentioned... -.-

[014715]

You should check the date of the OP >.>

[azza]

at http://wow-pro.com you can get a free one with intergrated addon with tom tom arrow.

i been using thier guides since early bc they are very good.

[[Z]em]

thanks for this, has some things in it i didn't know about.