Run 5 chars up slowly, or use a lvl 70 to speed through 4?

[Gallo]

Alright, so now I have: Priest (lvl 20), 2 Mages (lvl 20), Warlock (lvl 20), and a Paladin (lvl 30).

I've been running deadmines, slow and steady, clearing pretty easily.

Here's my question to you guys. I have a lvl 70 warrior, geared in half blues half epics, that is on the same account as the paladin. For the sake of time, should I just use the warrior to plow through the levels? I ran him through deadmines with the other 4 only follow and I cruised through in 15 minutes... and I believe I'm getting full xp (not sure how long that will last... maybe till lvl 50).

Would it be way faster in the long run to do it this way? My goal is running heroics, so the warrior tank could still work out well.

[Dor]

the lvl 70 just kills the xp id maybe use him to run thru some instances and stuff but for questing/grinding just keep the 5 man

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Pure solo on my enhance shammy was about 12 days /played (first char in the game). (300 miner/engineer)
Pure solo to 60 on my mage was about 8 days /played. (no professions)
Pure solo to 60 on my hunter was about 7 days /played. (skinning only)
My 4-hunter group hit 60 in about 10 days /played. (no professions)
My 4-priest group hit 60 in right about 12 days /played and 70 in 18 days /played (tons of professions on these).
My 4-mage group hit 60 in about 10 days /played and 70 in just under 16 days /played. (herb/mining/skinning only)
My priest+locks group is sitting at about 9 days /played at 51, so I imagine it will end up around 12(60)/18(70) or so for these guys, though I could be off as I'm doing professions on all 5.

Short version is that you'll save time leveling if you do it all at once versus trying to break things up. And having a 70 "powerlevel" you is not as uber as you might think.

[jrox]

If you've got a 70 epic mage, you can *scream* through levels if you know how to do it, but only to about 43 - 45ish

Mind passing on your wisdom? A group of friends and I did this about 5 months ago and at some points it was REALLY fast, and some points it dragged.

Basically we always had a full group, 4 of our new guys + the 70 mage, and we would just wait around while the mage would gather up big pulls and ae them. Then move forward in the instance.

We started in deadmines, i'm not sure what level, maybe 15 ish? Once we got up to about 20 we started doing stockades and that went really fast. At some point we moved on to SM were able to run all 3 of those effectively. We did the middle part of uldaman for a while, and even had some success AE'ing stratholme with some help from the 50'ish chars we were leveling up.

I'm thinking about doing this again and was wondering if there were some guidelines for making this as quick as possible.

Is it best to have a full group? It seemed like the group bonus was adding tons of exp. But I never tried it with a group of 2.

Do you have rule of thumb for the levels of the dungeons? What level should my low guy be in relation to the mobs for max exp?

Any special grouping arrangement that helps the exp? Anything different than character being leveled stands in spot x, mage kills abunch of mobs nearby at spot y? I remember reading about someone using a warlock to dot abunch of mobs, then zone out of the instance right before they die and the group was getting unpenalized exp.

Any info on the fastest way to do this would be great.

Thanks!

(woops just stopped lurking)

[Gallo]

Jrox, running through deadmines with my 70 warrior was super fast. Using Whirlwind and cleave and retaliation on huge packs of mobs, I cleared it quickly.

I'm going to do a run tomorrow with the 70 warrior + 4 new guys, and a run with 30 paladin + 4 new guys, and see which one has the better XP/hr.

I'll post my results.

[peejosity]

if you have a 70 Circle of Healig priest, on either ur 5th account or maybe even a 6th account, just have them stay out of the party so they don't steal XP and just heal your party as ur party pulls / dps'... makes things much easier!

[trainwr3ck]

A level 70 protection paladin is slower than a mage but can literally pull whole instances for a long time. Even when I was getting gear for my paladin, I ran my priest through all of BRD with him, including the seven undead dwarf bosses. Protection paladins can solo most of the old world instances. They're just a lot slower at it than a mage.

[Blokus]

You can use Warlock pets (and probably Hunter pets too, haven't tried) to help powerlevel characters.

You must have 2 or more lowbies grouped together and 1 or more warlocks ungrouped. Tag with the lowbies, and kill with JUST the Warlock pets. FULL XP for the kills for the lowbies. Don't use any Warlock damage spells or it will reduce XP.

It DOES NOT matter what the level difference is between the lowbies and the Warlocks. You will get FULL XP regardless!!

I have two Warlocks that just got to 70 this past weekend. I re-specced them to demo to get the Felguards. Now I'm using them to level a couple of Mages. All the toons follow one of the mages. I put that mage on autorun and go non-stop tagging and bagging. I don't stop to loot anything. It's very nice when it can be combined with a killing quest.

Mages are really good for this as lowbies, especially with 2 or more. I just run by some mob, tag it with Fire Blast from one mage which is instant and doesn't require stopping, and does immediate damage (i.e. not a DOT). I then send in the two Felguards. Quick kill. Fast enough that I keep running for the next mob and Fire Blast with the other mage. By that time the first mage's Fire Blast is off cooldown and ready for another mob.

The mages are in their low 30's and the kills are getting a little slower, so at some point the non-stop run-and-gun will come to an end. BUT then I'll have two mages who essentially have pets, LOL. I'll also have the Warlock's Fear and any other spells/abilities that don't cause damage.

Works only outdoors and not in instances of course, since the lowbies and Warlocks aren't grouped together.

Also it's best to have Cleave turned ON for the Felguards and they will kill faster. However, if you are in a really dense mob area ,turn Cleave OFF so you don't accidentally tag nearby mobs with the Pets since the lowbies won't get credit. I have turning Cleave on and off hotkeyed.

Is this method faster? Heck, I don't know but its a lot of fun!!

[Scribbler]

If you've got a 70 mage, you can get to level 43 in 16 hours /played. :)

http://edgeofnowhere.cc/viewtopic.php?t=367073

[Gallo]

So, I did a test for Deadmines today. Here's how it went:

*note that there was no rested xp on any characters.

4 lvl 20's + lvl 70 warrior: 26,000 xp / hr
4 lvl 20's + lvl 30 paladin: 8,500 xp / hr
4 lvl 21's (they dinged) + lvl 70 warrior: 20,000 xp/hr

For the first 2 runs, I skipped all loot except bosses. The last run I felt I could loot due to the fact that I proved my point.

Now, I'm wondering when the speed of using the warrior will stop being such an advantage compared to slowly going through with a paladin. I figure that I can cruise right through SM and get up to lvl 45-50 before I start to notice.

[Shogun]

Ok, been using my 70 warlock to lvl my priest/hunter duo and 2 friends. We're up to Scarlet Monastery now that they're 20+.

At around lvl 23-24 for my alts, and 29-30 for my 2 friends I was pulling in up to 40k XP an hour.

The warlock has around 1200 shadow damage + trinkets + any pots/food buffs. I just run around and throw Curse of Agony and Siphon Life on everything, don't forget to leave fire shield from the imp on auto-cast, helps alot more than you'd think... this works out to be the most mana/speed efficient way to kill and stay at 100% life/mana with a lifetap giving back around 2k mana, or dark pact doing the same.

Fastest clear time is under 12mins for the Cathedral, 8mins for the armory, I only do the library if someone needs the key or loot. It only gets slower when one of my friends on follow manages to come too far into a room and aggro half of it, and I need to run around picking it all up ... I kill the last bosses and loot the 2 blues to sell and cover repairs, the others loot the rest, then trade me some stacks of cloth for gold etc...

Prior to SM I ran Deadmines from 10-15 or so, 15-20 in Shadowfang Keep, 20-30 will be SM, then 30+ in uldaman. I'll update what I do at 45+, but I have some ideas ;)

[Gallo]

Yeah shogun, I think that running through at speeds like that is a lot better XP than running a regular 5man group.

Also, if you're only running 2 friends through, you're getting them less XP than I am.

With a group of 2, you get no bonus. Group of 3 the multiplier is 1.166, group of 5 is 1.4

Woooo bonus!

I'd do Uldaman for a couple levels if I were you... then move on to ZF.

:)

[Shogun]

Yeah ZF will be on the cards, then more than likely BRD until 60 (joy...)

[Texic]

This looks promising. I have a 70 priest already and my mage is now 68 so when he hits 70 I may do some aoe leveling in instances to level up 4 warlocks and then when they hit outlands use my priest to help quest.

[Shogun]

One of the biggest advantages I can see with using an affliction lock (with some points in demo for stamina, int, spell power and imp. imp) is that if the mobs run in fear it doesn't matter, they're dying either way.

And letting an instant howl of terror off so that the dotted/feared mobs go gather more for you is great :)

[Texic]

I have a 70 lock as well that I could use but their aoe is lacking and having ice block to bunch up mobs for aoe is just so nice.

[Shogun]

Don't need to AoE with a lock though, and it's just as fast imo. To gather them up for AoE you need to run up to every mob and aggro it, with the lock by the time you've reached the mob, it's got CoA and SL on it, and then it follows you along hitting you taking damage from fire shield until running in fear/dying... :)

[Texic]

Ehh well having to target each mob to dot it would take more effort :lol: I will probably try both to see how it goes.

[Texic]

I think I have found out something with those screen shots.. I have been doing the whole aoe leveling with my 4 warlocks and 70 mage and I am noticing /played time is not accurate. I have been at a level for 20 minutes yet it is displaying only 4 minutes played. Something tells me the 16 hours is incredibly inaccurate. I am guessing theres some sort of bug with zoning repeatedly thats affecting /played time or something.

[Vyndree]

You can use Warlock pets (and probably Hunter pets too, haven't tried) to help powerlevel characters.

You must have 2 or more lowbies grouped together and 1 or more warlocks ungrouped. Tag with the lowbies, and kill with JUST the Warlock pets. FULL XP for the kills for the lowbies. Don't use any Warlock damage spells or it will reduce XP.

It DOES NOT matter what the level difference is between the lowbies and the Warlocks. You will get FULL XP regardless!!

I have two Warlocks that just got to 70 this past weekend. I re-specced them to demo to get the Felguards. Now I'm using them to level a couple of Mages. All the toons follow one of the mages. I put that mage on autorun and go non-stop tagging and bagging. I don't stop to loot anything. It's very nice when it can be combined with a killing quest.

Mages are really good for this as lowbies, especially with 2 or more. I just run by some mob, tag it with Fire Blast from one mage which is instant and doesn't require stopping, and does immediate damage (i.e. not a DOT). I then send in the two Felguards. Quick kill. Fast enough that I keep running for the next mob and Fire Blast with the other mage. By that time the first mage's Fire Blast is off cooldown and ready for another mob.

The mages are in their low 30's and the kills are getting a little slower, so at some point the non-stop run-and-gun will come to an end. BUT then I'll have two mages who essentially have pets, LOL. I'll also have the Warlock's Fear and any other spells/abilities that don't cause damage.

Works only outdoors and not in instances of course, since the lowbies and Warlocks aren't grouped together.

Also it's best to have Cleave turned ON for the Felguards and they will kill faster. However, if you are in a really dense mob area ,turn Cleave OFF so you don't accidentally tag nearby mobs with the Pets since the lowbies won't get credit. I have turning Cleave on and off hotkeyed.

Is this method faster? Heck, I don't know but its a lot of fun!!

Sorry for the huge quote, but I don't want to lose this.

What level mobs are you tagging and bagging with the petkill method? Suvega and I were talking about this and were curious how high of a level you could reliably tag without getting one-shot and then send in a hunter/warlock pet. Does the XP degrade if you get too high above your lowbie's level?

[Jaws5]

It depends if your on a pvp server.

If not a pvp server then I have found to have an alliance hunter, mage, other dps, kill every thing you tag. Horde char gets full exp for kill since damage was from other faction. I have not confirmed this still works but I used to have both my hunters help each other in outland on grp guests.

Hunter doing the quest would tag and make mob go gray. Hunter needing quest would then help kill. Hunter that taged always got full solo exp.

Reason I tried this I could not decide what char to lvl to 70 first Orc hunter (HWL) or Dwarf hunter (GM). Since both where very well geared i decided to play both at the same time. worked well. but you can not go into instances that way.

If you are starting on a new server then play all 5 at once.

If you have a lvl 70 Ice mage, then use 70 to run 4 chars though the instances as soon as they can get into the instance. much faster. 70 mage can clear instances alway up to lvl 50 in less than 15 mins per run.

exp at 35 with 5 in SM about 180-200 pe kill, with 70 mage killing all about 130-140 per kill. Mage clears all in 15 min. 5 man takes 45 mins.

Just my 2 cents

[jrox]

So I tried to test out the warlock pet power leveling technique tonight to no avail.

Here is what I saw using a level 60 warlock out of group with felguard pet.

Level 1 shaman kills a level 3 mob, gains 50exp.

Level 1 shaman tags a level 3 mobs with 1 lightning bolt, felguard finishes the kill, gain 15 exp.

Level 1 shaman grouped with a level 3 shaman, shoot a level 3 mob with 1 lightning bolt, felguard finishes the kill, gain 17 exp.

This trick has apparently been fixed? Let me know if I did something wrong.

[Gallo]

So I tried to test out the warlock pet power leveling technique tonight to no avail.

Here is what I saw using a level 60 warlock out of group with felguard pet.

Level 1 shaman kills a level 3 mob, gains 50exp.

Level 1 shaman tags a level 3 mobs with 1 lightning bolt, felguard finishes the kill, gain 15 exp.

Level 1 shaman grouped with a level 3 shaman, shoot a level 3 mob with 1 lightning bolt, felguard finishes the kill, gain 17 exp.

This trick has apparently been fixed? Let me know if I did something wrong.

I dont think the trick is fixed... but when in an instance setting and 5-boxing, not only do you get a higher XP multiplier for being grouped (1.4x the XP) but you mow through things at a fast rate.

With my 70 warrior, I think I am getting more XP per hour by dragging my 4 chars through the instance than I would be if I did a normal run with someone my level.

[jrox]

I dont think the trick is fixed... but when in an instance setting and 5-boxing, not only do you get a higher XP multiplier for being grouped (1.4x the XP) but you mow through things at a fast rate.

With my 70 warrior, I think I am getting more XP per hour by dragging my 4 chars through the instance than I would be if I did a normal run with someone my level.

Thats a different method. I'm talking about the method quoted in Vyndree's post above. They were talking about how you could kill a mob with a pet that has been tagged by your lowbee and still get full exp. I tested it out and didn't find it to work.

[Vyndree]

So I tried to test out the warlock pet power leveling technique tonight to no avail.
......
This trick has apparently been fixed? Let me know if I did something wrong.

I dont think the trick is fixed... but when in an instance setting and 5-boxing, not only do you get a higher XP multiplier for being grouped (1.4x the XP) but you mow through things at a fast rate.

You didn't see Suvega's an my experiment.

We ported our lowbies to shattrath and tried killing some mid-60's mobs. Max XP we got out of a rested 19 hunter was 140 XP. We tried this with a felguard, BM hunter pet, and marks hunter pet and the XP was always the same.

It seems that XP is capped at 5 levels above you -- as long as it's red to you, it gives you the same amount of XP whether it's 5 or 40 levels higher than you are. (Note: Elites do give a bit more XP)

Anyway, it's probably pretty quick if you're doing all outdoor questing and happent to have a higher level lock/hunter, but it's not anything huge. If you're 5 boxing, you can almost 1-shot things anyway.

[Blokus]

So I tried to test out the warlock pet power leveling technique tonight to no avail.

Here is what I saw using a level 60 warlock out of group with felguard pet.

Level 1 shaman kills a level 3 mob, gains 50exp.

Level 1 shaman tags a level 3 mobs with 1 lightning bolt, felguard finishes the kill, gain 15 exp.

Level 1 shaman grouped with a level 3 shaman, shoot a level 3 mob with 1 lightning bolt, felguard finishes the kill, gain 17 exp.

This trick has apparently been fixed? Let me know if I did something wrong.

I do this trick all the time with two warlocks helping two lowbies and it worked at least up until last week. Perhaps Tuesday's maintenance nerfed it.

I will try tonight to see what happens with my lowbies and warlocks and report on the results.

The ONLY thing I can think of is that the level difference in your lowbies might have an affect on the math. You have a level 1 and a level 3 grouped. They each got 17 points which is a total of 34 points. Perhaps the level difference killed the other 16 points.

[Blokus]

What level mobs are you tagging and bagging with the petkill method? Suvega and I were talking about this and were curious how high of a level you could reliably tag without getting one-shot and then send in a hunter/warlock pet. Does the XP degrade if you get too high above your lowbie's level?

I usually don't go more than 7 levels above as it's just two hard to get a successful tag. Typically I'm in the +4 to 5 level range and only hit something higher if it happens to be in the area i'm grinding.

As I believe you stated in another post it really doesn't do any good to go any higher because the XP is capped.

[Vyndree]

What level mobs are you tagging and bagging with the petkill method? Suvega and I were talking about this and were curious how high of a level you could reliably tag without getting one-shot and then send in a hunter/warlock pet. Does the XP degrade if you get too high above your lowbie's level?

I usually don't go more than 7 levels above as it's just two hard to get a successful tag. Typically I'm in the +4 to 5 level range and only hit something higher if it happens to be in the area i'm grinding.

As I believe you stated in another post it really doesn't do any good to go any higher because the XP is capped.

Miss rate is also capped. You'll get quite a few misses on red mobs, but there will be no difference between 5 or 40 levels.

We used a hunter, that seemed to tag things pretty quick. :)