How to level, and how to make gold while doing it.

[TehGoggles]

0. Disclaimer

1.) Stats

2.) Specs

3.) Professions

4.) Tips



0.Disclaimer: A lot of this is common sense, I know. But not everyone is gifted with common sense, I know that for a fact after reading over the boards for the last 2-3 days. I have leveled every class to 80, some even twice. Some of the characters were for myself, some I leveled as gifts to friends, and some people just paid me to do it. And on every single character, I always had enough money for Dual spec, Cold weather flying, and normal flying by the time I was 80. (It's a lot easier now with the new mount changes too.) This guide will help you know what stats you need, What specs are best for leveling, and some of my personal gold making tips while leveling. This guide is designed for new players, or people starting on a new server.

1. Stats:

Warrior: Pre-60: Strength, Stamina, Agility. Post 60- Strength, Stamina, Crit rating, Hit rating. Armor pen and Haste are nice, but don't strive for them.

Rogue: Pre-60 Agility, Stamina. Post 60- Agility, Stamina, Hit rating, Armor pen and haste are nice as well.

Hunter: Pre 60- Agility, Stamina, and some int. Post 60- Agility, Stamina, Intellect, Hit rating. DO NOT EVER ROLL ON STRENGTH GEAR. DO NOT ROLL AGAINST FERAL DRUIDS OR ROGUES ON LEATHER. If they're no kitties or rogues in the group, and the leather stats are better, then go ahead.

Death Knight: Strength, Stamina, Crit-rating, Hit rating, Armor pen for Blood, Haste for Unholy. Do not ever wear spell power gear, period.

Feral Druids: Agility, Stamina, Hit rating, armor pen and haste are nice as well. I do not remark on Boomkin leveling, I found it slow, if anyone else wants to remark on it, feel free.

Priests: Spirit, Stamina, Intellect, Spellpower.

Mages: Spellpower, Int, Crit rating, Hit rating, and a decent amount of spirit, do not stack it though.

Warlocks: Spellpower, Int, Crit rating, Hit rating, and a decent amount of spirit, do not stack it though.

Paladins: Pre 60- Stamina, Strength , Agility. Post 60- Stamina, Strength, Crit-rating, Hit rating, Defense (If Prot).

Shamans: Pre 60- Stamina, Agility, Strength. Post 60- If Enhancement, Crit rating, Hit rating, Agility, Int, Attack power. If Ele- Crit rating, Hit rating, Int, haste is nice as well.

2. Specs:(Note, these are my personal preferences, if you like something better, go ahead and spec it. Also, the specs that I list are what you should have by 80. And yes, I have copied some of the specs off of the wow-forums, it saves me time from doing it myself.)

Warriors: Arms till 58, Then either continue with arms or spec prot. Prot is pretty awesome now for leveling, not like the old days where it made you want to stab your eyes out. Arms is the least gear dependent while leveling. All you really need is a good 2her. Prot is basically you trade some damage for a lot more survivability. Fury is horrible for leveling, unless you can afford to keep yourself in amazing gear from 10-80

Arms:
10 to 40: The World of Warcraft Armory

40 to 60: The World of Warcraft Armory

60 to 79: The World of Warcraft Armory

Prot:
10 to 60: The World of Warcraft Armory

60 to 80: The World of Warcraft Armory

Rogue: Combat, Combat, Combat. It's awesome for leveling. Assassination becomes viable at 50, when you gain mutliate. But it's still slower than combat.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Hunter: Beast mastery, always. It has the most survivability, and it's much faster till the late Northrend levels. And yes, I've tried all 3 specs for leveling. I've leveled four hunters to 80. But once you hit 80 and start raiding, PLEASE spec to survival or marks.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Deathknight: Man, this is easy. All three specs are very viable for leveling. It all depends on what you want. Blood for survivability, Unholy for AoE, and Frost for a mix between the two. Stick with the 2her while leveling. Blood is the most gear dependent. I honestly just spec towards my 80 raiding spec while leveling.

Blood: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Unholy Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Feral Druids: 1-26 is harsh, after that, it gets a whole lot better.
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Priests: Do whatever you want 10-40, I don't see much difference between any of the specs. Shadow really starts to face melt in the 40-50 range.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Mages: 10-80, I always do frost, always. It has the best survivablity, period. Which is very nice for squishy mages.
The World of Warcraft Armory

Warlocks: Affliction till 50, then either continue with affliction till 80 or respec demo and go with the felguard. Destro is lackluster till Northrend, I personally never tried it.

Affliction: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
Demo: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Paladins: Ret is nice if you want to roflstomp your way to 80 very easily. Prot is nice if you want to do ok while questing, aoeing like a champ, and tanking. Holy is nice if you want to smack your head against a desk while questing, I do not reccomend it. Just pick up holy gear (Int, SP, Crit) and heal as ret or prot. It's fairly easy to do till northrend. Prot is slow till 44 or so. After that, as long as you're killing 3-7 mobs at the same time, while questing, it's around the speed as ret.

Ret: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
Prot: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Shaman: Enhancement till 60. 1-30 is slow, but after windfury it speeds up, a lot. Use a slow 2hander till 40, then get some slow 1hers. Around 60, you can get acess to ele gear, and you can try that out.

Enhancement: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Ele: http://talent.************.com/?sham...3&version=9806

Phew, that's done. Now let's move onto the gold making aspect of leveling, and money saving tips, Oh oh, and professions.

3. Professions:


Always take Skinning And Herb, or Skinning and mining for leveling. Once you're at 80, then worry about crafting professions.


Well, Goggles, what decides if I should take herb or Mining? They're two reasons.

Reason one, which buff do you like? Lifeblood is nice, it's saved my ass many times while leveling. However, Herbs tend to sell poorly at lower levels, and then start to pick up in Outlands and Northrend. The Stamina increase is nice from mining, and Copper, Iron, Mithril, Thorium, all tend to sell for a lot on most servers.

Reason two, which one sells better? Herb is nice near endgame, while mining is nice at the begining. Skinning is nice during the Heavy, Thick, Rugged, and Knothide leather stages, but Light leather and Borean leather is a big giant meh.


So, do some research, find out which one will sell for more, and if you'd rather have the stamina increase or the heal.


4. Tips:


1. This first tip all really depends if you're starting out completely new, or on a new server. If you're starting new on a server, and have a level 55 somewhere else, make a death knight, and level him to 60. Why? Because Getting the deathknight through the opening quests takes about a hour or two, then getting him to 60 takes about another two hours. Once he hits 60, he'll have around 150-200 gold for your new character to spend. Then you send it to your new character, and delete the DK or make the death knight your bank alt, which brings us to tip numero two.


2. Make a bank alt. This frees up bag space and traveling time. Troll/Orc for horde, or Human for alliance. They get to the main cities the fastest. Plus, Stormwind and Org tend to be the most active cities (besides dalaran).


3. When you finish a quest, and none of the rewards are upgrades. Pick the one that sells for the most. It amazes me how many people do not know this. If you have a choice between two mail chest peices, a staff, or cloth pants, and you're a warrior. Pick up the staff, and sell it. This becomes a whole lot easier since 3.2. Since now it tells you how much items will vendor for.


4. The only classes that should reguraly buying gear off the auction house are Paladins, Rogues, warriors, and to an extent Shamans and Hunters. As long as you're weapon keeps up to date, and your armor isn't 15 levels old, you're good to go.


5. Keep an eye on the auction house, if Thick leather isn't selling for much today due to tons of it on the AH, wait a few days to sell it. Why sell a stack for 3 gold when after 3-5 days, it'll raise back up to 8 gold?


6. Don't be afraid to grind some materials if they're selling for a lot. I know while I was leveling my lastest hunter, Rugged leather was selling for 20 gold a stack, so I spent one level grinding the Apes in un goro. Made around 250 gold from one level. Mageweave and Wool also tend to sell for a lot on the AH.

7. First Aid. Warriors and Rogues pretty much need this if they want to level at a decent speed. All the other classes don't NEED it, but it's nice to have. I reccomend getting it.

8. Go out of your way for Herb and Mine nodes. You never know what else will be in there. (This becomes especially important at Northrend+, when every herb spawn has a chance to have a frost lotus in it.)

9. If you want to make gold, stay away from Battleground leveling. It's ok to do a battleground here and there, but you make barely any gold while doing this method.

10. Find an enchanter friend. They can disenchant the useless BoE greens that you sometimes pick up. Or, some enchanters will even offer to buy it from you directly. As in, They'll pay you 15 gold for every Northrend green you send them, ect ect.

11. Run instances reguarly, they help keep you up to date on gear. Check wowhead.com for instance drops.

Now you're 80, now what?

Well, you have plenty of options to you now. You can either become a raider, or a pvper. Or do both. It's up to you. I don't have extensive knowledge of every pvp spec or things like that. If you want to raid, get hit capped (8% for Melee, 17% for spell, not including talents) and start running heroics. Trial of the Champion both Heroic and Normal settings is a great way to gear up. I'm not a huge fan of WoW PvP, but they're other guides here for that.

I tend to use

World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Forum Index
And
Elitist Jerks

For all my raiding and pvp questions.

Well, That's all for now. I'll update as I find out new tips, or things change while leveling.

-TehGoggles

(Sorry if it's hard to read the Hyperlinks to the talent specs, It won't let me change the color)

[Sychotix]

Or you can level and farm when your 80.

[TehGoggles]

Not helpful at all. This isn't a guide to make bajillions amount of gold while leveling. It's guide on specs to level, what stats are important for your class, and being financially comfortable while leveling. I hate seeing level 60's begging for money for flying, or level 40's begging for money for epic mount. With this guide, you'll have all of that, and a little more. I'm guessing you didn't even read it, if you did, you'd realize it's a lot more than just money making.

[BaboonX]

There are some really fast methods of making gold on lower level characters. When I got raf with a friend me and him decided to start on a whole new server, I was able to buy both of our mounts (back when they where level 30) and buy bags and make out own guild.

How I did it?

If your alliance I strongly recommend fishing deviate fish. It's fast, easy, and quick gold. It's a bit of a walk, but overall people are willing to pay decent money for this fish. On horde to but I find on alliance it sells faster and quicker.

While at WC I ran into the rare spawn and I killed him a few times. I had my RAF to grant me levels on a alt, and I logged a alt in WC to fish and check for the rare spawn. That sword that drops I sold for like 40g or so! You can also log your alt at other rare spawns or at a vendor that sells some low level BoE's. On this server I was on, the lower levels where a bit populated so I found they Sold fast and well .

I then leveled herbalism when I got my mount, it payed for my mount cost very fast. I farmed lower level herbs for a while, and was able to get some bags and other fun things . You can farm minerals to if you want.

I then ended up playing around with the AH and made 500g on this server, I am still not level 60 on this character because my RAF left lol, but level 46 and enjoying my epic mount and the gold on this server . I don't really know if i well end up playing this character again, but I found it fun starting on a knew server.

Chances are if you are level 80 and starting on a new server you well know how to make gold, just sharing my experience.

[TehGoggles]

Thanks for the input, +rep.

[Flawl]

There are some really fast methods of making gold on lower level characters. When I got raf with a friend me and him decided to start on a whole new server, I was able to buy both of our mounts (back when they where level 30) and buy bags and make out own guild.

How I did it?

If your alliance I strongly recommend fishing deviate fish. It's fast, easy, and quick gold. It's a bit of a walk, but overall people are willing to pay decent money for this fish. On horde to but I find on alliance it sells faster and quicker.

While at WC I ran into the rare spawn and I killed him a few times. I had my RAF to grant me levels on a alt, and I logged a alt in WC to fish and check for the rare spawn. That sword that drops I sold for like 40g or so! You can also log your alt at other rare spawns or at a vendor that sells some low level BoE's. On this server I was on, the lower levels where a bit populated so I found they Sold fast and well .

I then leveled herbalism when I got my mount, it payed for my mount cost very fast. I farmed lower level herbs for a while, and was able to get some bags and other fun things . You can farm minerals to if you want.

I then ended up playing around with the AH and made 500g on this server, I am still not level 60 on this character because my RAF left lol, but level 46 and enjoying my epic mount and the gold on this server . I don't really know if i well end up playing this character again, but I found it fun starting on a knew server.

Chances are if you are level 80 and starting on a new server you well know how to make gold, just sharing my experience.

I lol'd
(filler)

[Ziddy1337]

You say dont stack spirit for a warlock, but as heavy Demo / Affliction spec, i do exactly that. Stack Stamina and Spirit. Dont need much mana as you have life tap, the amount of spirit you have increases your spell power by 39% plus you get 240 haste rating and 1% additional DoT damage from the Demonic Spellstone at 80.

Should point out that i use this spec for leveling, not instances.

[Prototype-C]

Good guide, just wanna let you know the shaman elemental talent link isnt working anymore