600k+ xp per hour while farming

[zenga]

So last night I dinged 80 on my paladin, my 4 shammies were still at 79,5 (7-800k/1.6m). As this is my first wow account I didn't feel like keep on questing to cap my other toons right away, too excited :P. After some sleep I'm really fed up with the questing, for sure cause the ones that are ahead of me are either quests where I have to use a vehicle or collection ones. No, i wanted to ding 80 asap so my first idea was to run them through an instance. I have zero experience with instances and it seems to be a steep learning curver. So i googled a bit on farming mobs and cam across this (http://thottbot.com/c32255) mob/place. They are called 'converted hero' and are located in the west of icecrown.

They walk into packs of 5+ and are really close to eachother. So i gave it a try and was amazed: in my first 10 minutes i gained over 120k xp. So i kept doing that for an hour and got over 600k xp (was rested). Of course it gets boring after a while, but when you see your xp bar going up this fast this close to the cap ... i didn't bother too much.

I just run into a pack, drop 4x magma, consecration + chain lightening and they die within 10-15 seconds. Kill my totems and up to the next pack.

For me this was the ideal way to bridge the gap to lvl 80. *For me* means: 4 shammy + paladin tank, no xp with instances and in quest green/blues. I must add that i didn't loot the mobs,i just cared about the xp.

Now i know that questing / instancing is the proper way to level, but for any level 77+ boxer with some aoe abilities this might be a nice break away from questing with fast / easy xp.

Thought i'd share this as some might find it useful :)

edit: forgot to add 2 things:
- they stun you, so for me it was hard to pull multiple packs at once
- you do not want to pull a pack of 80 skeletal reavers, doing nothing and waiting for your totems to kill them, and notice only they are elites with 65k hp once your first guy dies :p

cheers
a very happy Z with his brand new 80s :P

[HPAVC]

Right at that level range is when I think most people are unlocking the daily quests, then doing the actual dailies for the first time along with that icecrown ebon and the coastal chain with the trial. Those quests alone get you from when you get them to 80.

[Acidburning]

thanks for the tip. Just dinged 68 last night, and started a few quests in northrend.

I am dreading collection quests, lol :D

[Starbuck_Jones]

Yea, I did a transfer not to long ago and was thinking about killing these guys with my 80 paladin and letting my new 70 shaman soak up the xp. Unfortunatly I cant get them the flying book as the 80's on thoes accounts are on a diff server, Not sure I could keep them alive down there as they would be agro magnets. Otherwise I would just fly them 20 yards off the ground and leech.

I dont recall these guys stunning, they will slow you down with a shout, but they die so fast.

[cmeche]

I have two 4-man groups Im trying to lvl atm.....druids and shaman. Im trying to add more toons to my 5 man pvp team, which would be fricken bad ass once i get there. But for the life of me I cant stand the thought of 2 more lvls to go just to start northrend quests.
I tried grinding the rhinos like ive done in the past with good results....but this time I would rather watch the oprah than thinking about looging in to do that.

So what do i end up doing? PvP with my 80s? Nope. Random Heroics with my 80s? Nope.
Start a new 4man pally ret team? Yep!!!!!!
I do have raf....so lvling is obviously easy, but for some odd reason....I like playing (and waisting my time) with this group.

[Crel]

@cmeche- I for one actually like the process of leveling toons, half the time they dont make it past 62 :) as long as you enjoy it, your doing fine.

Also thanks for the tip, working some druids up and my "mindless grind" area has been the hordes of undead outside the argent stand in zul'drak. I'll give it a shot when they can handle it.

[Fursphere]

I wonder if these packs would be any good for a lower level group?

My second "team" is 80/80/77/75/74 - and its just PAINFULL to level them instance grinding (I've given up on quests - between phasing and "lol get me 400 pieces of bear poop" I just don't want to do it)

[Shodokan]

I wonder if these packs would be any good for a lower level group?

My second "team" is 80/80/77/75/74 - and its just PAINFULL to level them instance grinding (I've given up on quests - between phasing and "lol get me 400 pieces of bear poop" I just don't want to do it)

"Hobbs" boosted his friend's druid from 77-80 in ~4 hours on his 80 geared prot pally. Group experience would be less obviously so you're likely looking at at least 2.5 hours per level. He also got ~1k gold worth of items every hour so if you loot while doing that it is nice.

This was done on the same mob packs as the OP talks about in western icecrown.

There are videos to prove this.

[d0z3rr]

Tried this last night on my 5 paladins at level 77. It is really hard to pull two groups, never was able to pull 3 at once. Most of the time you're only able to pull one then you get slowed and by the time you make it to another group, the initial one has de-aggroed.

Not to mention it was mind numbing boredom, and the xp wasn't really that fast.

[Fursphere]

Balance Druid Starfall makes large pulls really easy to gather. Just make sure you get aggro off the druid. :)

[Drommon]

I wonder if these packs would be any good for a lower level group?

My second "team" is 80/80/77/75/74 - and its just PAINFULL to level them instance grinding (I've given up on quests - between phasing and "lol get me 400 pieces of bear poop" I just don't want to do it)

Hey Fur!

Welcome to my world. I have been leveling a team 80/80/76/76/76. It is a big PITA. Hate quests and barely tolerate instances. I have been mixing it up with AV (for the 76 level toons), instancing and questing. I feel your pain. In NR you are better off leveling with everyone the same level. Sigh... Lesson learned,

[-silencer-]

Ah, the converted heroes looked like a great spot when I was checking areas to grind (the crystallized fire drop cave in Storm Peaks being another..) out to 80 on my paladin/4xshaman team. I'm halfway through 76 right now, and as soon as I hit 77, it's flying time to Icecrown along with the Sons of Hodir quest chain & dailies.

Instance grinding isn't too bad though. I went nearly all of lvl 73 with around half a dozen UK runs on rested xp. A big chunk of level 75 was a couple OK runs. This far along, I'd rather do just about anything but questing.. especially since I'm currently in the mad collection quest zone known as Grizzly Hills.

[thinus]

I was questing in Icecrown last night and did That's Abominable! (http://www.wowhead.com/?quest=13289). Could be a good AoE spot as well. Very fast respawns and clustered tightly. Map (http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=31147).

[Starbuck_Jones]

The mobs you kill for that quest do not grant xp or loot, just like the mobs in sholizhar basin on the ice flow.

[thinus]

The mobs you kill for that quest do not grant xp or loot, just like the mobs in sholizhar basin on the ice flow.

I was looting last night. If you don't tag them and use the abomination to blow them up then, yes, you don't get xp or loot. I rounded up loads with the pally and AoEd like mad and they would start respawning before I could finish looting.

EDIT: Seems like some of them drop loot and some don't going by WoWHead comments.

[Starbuck_Jones]

The ones nearby that wander in are normal mobs, but the ones behind the blockade fence and the icecrown wall do not. I mounted up and gathered like 50 of them, killed them all and got nothing.

This was months ago however, its quite possible im getting alzheimer's or one of the updates between then have changed this.

[zenga]

Tried this last night on my 5 paladins at level 77. It is really hard to pull two groups, never was able to pull 3 at once. Most of the time you're only able to pull one then you get slowed and by the time you make it to another group, the initial one has de-aggroed.

Not to mention it was mind numbing boredom, and the xp wasn't really that fast.

There aint many packs that are really close together to make a successful pull. I don't see the need myself to do massive pulls in that zone, takes about the same time anyways when you have good aoe (4x magma, consecrate & 4x light bolt) does the job in around 10 seconds per pack for me. Occasionally i finish off with a thunderstorm.

Anyways, I use flying to go from pack to pack. There are like 2-3 areas where there are packs close enough to eachother to pull (for me). I have a set a 2nd different key for each toon to mount/dismount. So i fly to 1 pack really low, when i just passed it i dismount one shaman in the flight and spam my follow key right away. I'm flying to the 2nd pack and dismount my other 4 in front of the next pack. So the shaman just pulls the other mobs to my main: aoe & :W. Up to next. I've done this with3 groups as well. It might sound complicated but it isn't once I got the hang of it.

Yeah it's boring as hell after a while. But it's nice easy xp when you just want to Rambo instead of questing for a while.