Loading ...The Road that I’ll follow to 80
As many of you probably know, I’m not a fan of leveling. I don’t have any kind of guide for leveling from 1-70 here because I never plan on leveling a Warrior from level 1 to 70 ever again. It’s just not what this site is about. That being said, I’ll let it slide this 1 time to share with you the guide that I’ll be following from 70 to 80 courtesy of Xav of Premonition.
Xav’s Instance grinding to 80 outline
For those looking for something a little less party oriented and a little more solo oriented with a bit more advice, check out Ciderhelm’s Wrath of the Lich King Survival Guide.
November 12th, 2008 at 8:36 am
You said it! Instancing is the way I will be going as well. Though I hadn’t heard of Xav’s guide before this, it is pretty much the route I was thinking. I am glad you linked it though because there were a few things I missed that this covers.
Here’s my number one reason for instance grinding though, money and reputation! Once I hit level 80, there will be so many things to buy, not to mention professions to level, so money will be needed. By going back to every zone and doing the quests you skipped over, not only do you get major money (since no exp is rewarded), but you also build up the remaining reputation needed to get from Revered to Exalted with most factions. Its almost a gurantee to go from at least Neutral to Honored with most factions if you grind the instances enough, so questions and championing heroics will make it that much quicker in the long run.
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November 12th, 2008 at 8:50 am
It’s a great plan, but a word of caution in my opinion. Players without a lot of free time may find themselves able to level faster through questing & with the help of an unintrusive addon called “Lightheaded.”
What this addon does is parse XML information directly from www.wowhead.com (the author has permission) & presents it in a small window the size of your combat log. You simply click on a quest in your log, the window slides out from the quest log & shows all the quest information on the first page. Any subsequent pages allow you to read the comments, left by users like you & me, to help you find the most information about that particular quest.
I believe questing will be faster for those with limited time, but naturally every player can benefit from doing the dungeons at least a couple times on the path to 80. We have rested XP, dungeon quests, & Heroics to learn — let’s ease the learning curve by checking out our new abilities in a group setting so everyone has a smoother transition at 80.
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rochelle reply on November 12, 2008 1:10 pm:
Lightheaded is indeed and amazing tool while leveling. It is even better when you combine it with Cartographer and Cartographer_Waypoints so that when there are coordinates given in Lightheaded to tell you where something is, the coordinate will show up in blue looking like a hyperlink and if you click it, it will set a cartographer waypoint that will point in the direction you need to go and tell you how many yards till you hit that waypoint and even how long it will take you to get there at your current speed.
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Kodora reply on November 17, 2008 10:56 am:
Alternatively, you can get questhelper. It’s also very good for instantly finding where and what to do for quests.
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November 12th, 2008 at 9:39 am
i find the idea to lvl inside instances very good, but i;d liek to know how much XP one earns in a single run in Utgrade Keep for example.
thanx
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Mel reply on November 15, 2008 4:02 am:
About 3 and a half bubbles at 71.
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November 12th, 2008 at 9:54 am
We’ll have to see whether I can keep up with everyone to keep putting dungeon groups together. And whether it’s worth running the same dungeon over and over until you’re sick of it and burned out, no one wants that!
It’ll be really interesting to see how the evolution of leveling / questing mods effects peoples play, and how that might effect the next generation of leveling in response.
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November 12th, 2008 at 10:03 am
vene, thank you for the links! very very helpful and just what I was hoping to find in time for release. I kind of enjoy lvling (I have a dps g/f who helps), but I very much wanted to know where all the best tank gear is in quests as I go.
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November 12th, 2008 at 10:58 am
You know, I found leveling a warrior is far easier since the new patch came out. I actually leveled from 45-70 since the patch, and it was a breeze. Just regular solo play has become so much more enjoyable if you’re protection spec, so I’m just going to take my time and do quests, take in everything the game has to offer.
Of course, I’m not saying that instance grinding is the wrong way to do things, it’s certainly a great idea, especially as Braver points out, reputation is a great thing to have for when you hit 80. I’m just going to take things easy, do lots of solo quests, and take in instances on my way to 80.
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November 12th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Appreciate the links. I might have to respec fury and tank back and forth now arrghh
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November 12th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Might want to rethink instance leveling. They nerfed the xp rate for it significantly and it takes roughly 1.5 to 2 times as long as questing to level. You get *FAR* less cash and no rep now (before 80 when you can champion factions).
It really is the worst possible way to level, even considering probable crowds and server stability.
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Mojin reply on November 12, 2008 2:56 pm:
Really? Damn, I hadn’t heard that. Do you recall where you read that? I’d be very interested in confirming it before I end up instance grinding on Thursday.
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admin reply on November 12, 2008 3:01 pm:
1.5 to 2 times as long based on…? I’m not trying to discount your claim, but you’ll have to actually post something other than your opinion to back this point up for it to be relevant.
The instance grinding guide is from a BETA tester that averaged 3 hours/level doing it. You’re saying then that you’ll be leveling at 1.5 to 2 hours/level by doing quests?
And while, I agree you’ll get far less cash initially, you’ll get far more cash when you go back at do the quests at 80 where that experience is all converted to extra money.
Not to mention, Heroics give 200%-300% more rep than regular instances… so one could even make the claim that it’s better to do the rep grinds at 80 instead too.
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fr0d0b0ls0n reply on November 13, 2008 4:11 am:
Maybe you could get 3 hours/level on BETA , but that must have been with Rested XP. We don’t have any rested, so is not the best way right now IMHO.
I can do 5 hours/level questing (doing once every instance for quests), maybe 6 if is a bit crowded. And that’s with minimal rested xp.
Anyway I’ll never level instancing, because you’ll need to do massive instancing at 80, and gets boring fast
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Veneretio reply on November 13, 2008 7:37 am:
That’s with zero rested XP.
Armagon reply on November 13, 2008 4:16 pm:
I needed 4h for 70->71, solo questing as prot in Borean Tundra. I was 2nd Horde to 71 and at the same time there were 2 Alliance 71 on my server.
Went really smooth, although I only had S2 gear + Kara/Mag/ZA DPS gear with Shield + King’s Defender.
November 12th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Just take it easy and enjoy the solo quests while you can. It won’t be long until we’re all 80 and doing the same raids over and over again. Really, it’s not all that bad
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November 12th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
I plan on doing as many instances as possible for two reasons. One being that I really like instances. The other is that I’m on a PvP server and I’m terrible at PvP. Once you’re inside, it’s a gank-free zone.
I just hope that they really do make the heroic token rewards so I don’t end up running the wrath equivalent of Underbog 300 times in order to get gear upgrades. Knowing my luck with drops I’ll already be running something every day to get that reanimated chest or whatever. I don’t need an additional token grind.
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November 13th, 2008 at 7:52 am
Running the Nexus and Utgarde Keep netted about 15% experience from 70-71 combined.
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November 13th, 2008 at 9:16 am
After two runs of utgard keep I had 260k xp. I believe that was all rested. The quest xp from the 2 quests is around 65k. the instance runs were very fast around 25 minutes.
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Vrathmat reply on November 13, 2008 10:15 am:
How do you already have that much rested xp built up?
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November 13th, 2008 at 9:35 am
I got 100K exp in about an hour by solo’ing the first two mobs in Utgarde Keep over and over. My guildies couldn’t get over to Northrend to run the instance before I had to get some sleep.
I plan to do a lot of instances to level because I think that’s the best way to continue growing my tanking skills and give me knowledge of each instance to make heroics run faster. Then the heroics will give me the gear to raid Naxx. I’ll still do quests when I can’t find any guildies to run instances.
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November 13th, 2008 at 9:52 am
But you’ll miss out on all that great lore, silly…
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Tankette reply on November 13, 2008 10:18 am:
I’ll catch up on lore later. I’ll focus on killing stuff for now.
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Sygvox reply on November 13, 2008 1:02 pm:
do I detect a hint of sarcasm here? lol
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November 13th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
One thing I think I’ll be doing (my copy of Wrath still hasn’t arrived yet) when I get the game, is blacksmithing.
I actually used to be a blacksmith on my warrior before, but dropped it for skinning so as to make money. I quickly took it up again yesterday, and powerleveled it to 370 skill for one very simple reason: Shields.
There are 3 shields that a blacksmith can make that are taught by trainers, a level 73 and 77 shield that will be amazing tank gear (6000+ armor on both) while leveling, and an extremely good level 80 epic shield you can craft:
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=42508
The Titansteel Shield Wall, from what I’ve seen of other level 80 shields in wrath, is comparable to shields you get from raids! Not exactly endgame content, but it’s looking to be one of the highest level shields that’ll work for raids and blitz instances, it’s craftable, and it’s bind on equip!
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Adamas reply on November 18, 2008 1:40 am:
I’m leveling blacksmithing too on my main, just because I have never tried it and thought this was a good moment to start as some craftables can help to fill up gaps while leveling and gearing up. (other profession is engineering, got a mining alt)
But what is up with all these bloody DeathKnights? Every deathknight is leveling blacksmithing on my server, so materials are insanely expensive (up to 40g for a stack of mithril) and in the mining areas we are fighting to get to a mineral node.
Bad timing I guess…
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November 14th, 2008 at 10:32 am
We ran Utgarde Keep 4 times last night. The exp is 130K per run without being rested and without quest turn ins. By the 3rd run we were doing the instance in 30 minutes. I’ve heared of others doing it in half the time. Still, 2 runs an hour = 260K exp per hour. You can probably go faster by questing if you have an addon to help but the dungeon grinds aren’t too shabby.
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Veneretio reply on November 14, 2008 11:00 am:
Yup, ran it 4 times myself. By the 4th run, we’re doing it in 15 minutes. It wasn’t super fun though tbh as I don’t have my Ventrilo keybinding set in a good place yet. So it was either pull fast or talk. I don’t like having to make that decision lol.
Suffice to say, it’s a boring way to level, but it’s far, far more effective than questing especially with everyone else around. That being said, I’ll probably be “enjoying the ride” a bit more than I originally thought. Things could change though based on tonight.
Happy Leveling folks!
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Kavtor reply on November 14, 2008 3:09 pm:
So is your mic working better now?
=P
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Veneretio reply on November 14, 2008 4:52 pm:
The new one is still crap unfortunately :/
November 15th, 2008 at 11:31 am
Not sure where to ask this.. Do you know where I could find the Defense cap for raid bosses from 70 to 80? We are still doing a few raids here and there when leveling gets really boring. Diminishing returns on Defense Rating to Defense conversion when leveling makes Defense goes down where it should be going up (to reach 540 at level 80). I could draw a line between 490@70 and 540@80 to get an approximate of the cap but I am just unsure if it’s linear or not. If it is linear, I would need 515@ lvl 75.
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Megatrohn reply on November 16, 2008 3:00 am:
Elunes, the easier way to calculate this is to know that you basically need 140 additional defense in addition to the 5 you get per character level to negate crits from raid bosses.
So, yes, at level 75, you need 515 defense.
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Kodora reply on November 17, 2008 10:55 am:
You can also just make sure resiliance and defense adds up to 5.6% reduction.
I don’t think boss crit rate is changing so as long as it adds up to that you’ll be good to go.
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Meatgazer reply on November 18, 2008 9:34 am:
It actually wouldn’t need to be that.
+140 defense skill is what you need to be uncrittable by bosses 3 levels above yo u (5.6%). If you’re fighting bosses of your level, you only need 5%, and if you’re fighting bosses lower level than you, it requires even less.
November 17th, 2008 at 1:42 am
I have been questing as Fury and have found that the Axe from UK has +70 hit to DWing 2 of them means that i rarely miss with TG
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November 18th, 2008 at 8:28 am
Sorry off topic, but I’m wondering.
Dunno how you manage to level one level in 3 hours. I’m avereging 250 k XP an hour and that’s using questhelper. I love questing and believe I’m pretty efficient when doing them. Still took me about 6 hrs to get to 71. And another 6-7 to 72.
(only ran Nexus twice, and only for quests)
On topic:
Great guides both of them! I will follow Cider’s
*$
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Irghen reply on November 19, 2008 7:18 pm:
Kill EVERYTHING in your path. Greatly accelerates me.
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fr0d0b0ls0n reply on November 20, 2008 12:42 am:
3 hours is pretty hard to do questing without rested XP. I got to 80 on 42 hours, so 4hours 12 minutes promedium each level. I did every leveling instance once and leveling Leatherworking as I leveled.
3 hours 30 mins is viable without resting XP, quest knowledge and ignoring instances/proffesions.
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