1-50 Leveling in Pre-Patch/Shadowlands

[z0k]

I spent some time on PTR and wanted to share what I know about leveling in pre-patch (so far) since this information is kind of disjointed.

1-10:

Everyone gets access to allied races. Allied races start at level 10 now. No matter what. If you don't give a shit about races, this is the obvious choice.

For non-allied races, there's a new starting zone. When you create a new character you get to choose between new starting zone and the character's natural starting zone. I did the horde one, it was pretty neat, I recommend doing it at least once. It took me 90 minutes to get through the horde starting zone, roughly. There were very few pickup quests. I would probably always choose the new starting zone since the questing experience is more similar to the new quest styles that are easier on us. I don't have any numbers to compare it to on leveling 1-10 through the other starting zones. My expectation is that they would take a little longer. Most of them have at least 1 or 2 annoying pickup quests that might be tough to skip when xp gets normalized.


Death Knights:
DKs still need to do their starting zone, and start at level 8. The exception is for Allied race DKs start at level 10 and instantly go to their main city hub. You'd have to really hate yourself to spend the time doing the DK starting zone.

DH:
There is no allied races for DHs. The starting zone isn't bad, but you also start at level 8.


10-50:
You are not married to the expansion you choose. In fact, you can swap your adventure on a total whim. The dungeon queues available to you change immediately and Chromie is in the middle of the Stormwind and Org. You don't get flying until level 30. Fast Flying isn't until 40. Please keep this in mind as you think through the possible strategies here.

Someone is going to figure out the absolute quickest path. I don't really care much about being 100% fastest if I'm being perfectly honest. I'd much rather do it in a way that keeps me sane rather than sleuthing to take 30 minutes off my 12-16 hour leveling experience. There are 6 options. You'll notice there is no "classic" option :) As you level from 10-50, more dungeons from each expansion will come open. Please keep in mind they're going to re-balance all of this content. I am assuming the balance of how difficult/quick things are today will be the same as they are in prepatch. It's all being done based on mathematics, so while the spectrum may change, every dungeon's relative place on that spectrum is unlikely to change(personal anecdote).

BC - Some dungeons are really quick/easy, some are very difficult or long. At first you'll get ramparts, blood furnace, and slave pens. 10-20 will be very easy in BC, but at 20, the harder dungeons start to come out.

Cataclysm - This option grants you access to the Classic Dungeons as well as the Cata dungeons. Best part? They're separate queues. You can go from 1-50 spamming normal classic dungeons. Classic dungeons are quick and easy for the most part.

MOP - Potentially viable. MOP dungeons were kind of long. Even if they weren't particularly difficult. In some cases they're not balanced well. I kinda remember MOP as being Mists of Pickup quests. I've done Hyjal from 80-90 for the past few months, so I'm not sure I will ever touch MoP unless someone gets creative and comes up with something neat for it.

WOD - The WOD starting is amazing. You can also fly there now whether or not you got pathfinder. This could be viable depending upon how the bonus objective quest xp plays out. Keep in mind you can just skip past the Garrison part.

Legion - I can't think of why you'd put yourself through the weapons questline if you didn't absolutely have to - I suppose this could change, and that stupid questline no longer becomes required. Pathfinder no longer required.

BFA - Pathfinder still required. You do not get flying at 10. I know these dungeons very well. Most of the dungeons are a total joke at normal difficulty if you know them. This could be a fast path if you got Freehold carries in. Freehold spamming may fall into the sleuthing category and for some reason I'd rather have 3 paladins on one account on one server than level 4 characters at once instead of 5.


Please share if anyone knows anything beyond this, I can update the OP.

[sevendash]

Amazing job and thank you so much for writing this up! Really helps those of use who love information overload but don't have the time to put into PTR testing.

[Ellay]

Also appreciate the info! The options available for leveling are going to be quite nice.

[z0k]

Updated notes on DH and DKs, based on findings from Grizmarkie in the ISboxer discord.

[tsincaat]

Great guide :)

Regarding skipping the weapon quest in Legion, I saw this post the other day here:

When my teams hit Legion I don't bother doing the intro quests which have to been done solo in scenarios...you can just drop off the side of Dalaran and then swim over and start questing.. I never unlocked flying in Legion so it my even be possible to just fly over...

[Hisha]

You don't have to do the weapon quest at all if you don't plan on using the random dungeon feature in Legion. You can just fall/fly over to the different areas and pickup flight points and quests/objectives, and with SL you get flying without the long grind. Just remember to talk to the flight master in Dalaran you don't get that flight point by default.....don't ask how I know!


Great guide :)

Regarding skipping the weapon quest in Legion, I saw this post the other day here:

[z0k]

That still does not sound ideal in the slightest, but thanks for sharing, because I did not know about this and always dread going into Legion as a result.

It would be really nice if they allowed you to skip it, and maybe that's a change they will make or have made in prepatch, but I haven't explored it.

[MiRai]

Death Knights:
DKs still need to do their starting zone, and start at level 8. The exception is for Allied race DKs start at level 10 and instantly go to their main city hub. You'd have to really hate yourself to spend the time doing the DK starting zone.
Mate, there must be dozens of us who enjoy the DK starting area.


You are not married to the expansion you choose. In fact, you can swap your adventure on a total whim. The dungeon queues available to you change immediately and Chromie is in the middle of the Stormwind and Org.
Now that's quite interesting. We could just sit in the city and queue for an expansion's dungeons until a certain level, then change it up and move to another expansion if we get bored. Is there an intro quest of some sort for each expansion before the dungeons are accessible in the LFD tool, or can you just talk to Chromie, switch it up, and then have access to that expansion's dungeons right then and there?


BC - Some dungeons are really quick/easy, some are very difficult or long. At first you'll get ramparts, blood furnace, and slave pens. 10-20 will be very easy in BC, but at 20, the harder dungeons start to come out.
Whoa, whoa, whoa... which TBC dungeons are we filing under "difficult?"


WOD - The WOD starting is amazing. You can also fly there now whether or not you got pathfinder. This could be viable depending upon how the bonus objective quest xp plays out.
I do believe the bonus objective XP is getting nerfed, but I could be mis-remembering what I heard, and it may just be treasures that are being nerfed? I can't recall.


Legion - I can't think of why you'd put yourself through the weapons questline if you didn't absolutely have to - I suppose this could change, and that stupid questline no longer becomes required. Pathfinder no longer required.
I assume invasions are still a thing? They may have not been active on the PTR, but if so, I hope that we could just do the same ol' log-in-when-the-invasion-is-up-to-quickly-get-a-chunk-of-XP to slowly level a team while not giving it too much time/thought. However, those may have been nerfed, as well.


Ultimately, I hope they don't end up over-tuning the dungeons, simply because with everyone being spread out across several different expansions, in parallel, and unable to easily access another expansion's dungeon queue (outside of the Cata/Classic combo), I would expect the tank and healer populations to be thinner than usual, at least in certain expansions. If dungeons go back to being more forgiving, as one would expect since they're just leveling content, then it will be easier for solo players to enjoy them, and in turn, multiboxers, as well. Right now, you can find that certain level ranges really don't offer themselves to leveling through dungeons, but after the upcoming level squish and expansion split, this sounds like it'd be easily avoided now that we can just pick and choose where we want to play.

[z0k]

Mate, there must be dozens of us who enjoy the DK starting area.
I want a watch of video, including webcam, of you doing the stupid quest where you have to poke them with the daggers to tell you the truth. That quest seldomly takes me less than 30 minutes for a 4-5DK team.


Whoa, whoa, whoa... which TBC dungeons are we filing under "difficult?"
The tuning on some of them has been pretty bad recently. Namely: Slave Pens last boss. Arcatraz has its moments, particularly with the tuning. Auchindoun has a couple trash pulls that aren't fun. You're right though, they're doable, and it's not as hit or miss as Cata/MOP on the overtuning, but I wouldn't want to do these from 1-50.


We could just sit in the city and queue for an expansion's dungeons until a certain level, then change it up and move to another expansion if we get bored. Is there an intro quest of some sort for each expansion before the dungeons are accessible in the LFD tool, or can you just talk to Chromie, switch it up, and then have access to that expansion's dungeons right then and there?
No intro quest, you're exactly correct. That's the behavior on PTR now. Shocked it is the way it is. There is an intro quest, but it's not required for queueing.


Ultimately, I hope they don't end up over-tuning the dungeons, simply because with everyone being spread out across several different expansions, in parallel, and unable to easily access another expansion's dungeon queue (outside of the Cata/Classic combo), I would expect the tank and healer populations to be thinner than usual, at least in certain expansions. If dungeons go back to being more forgiving, as one would expect since they're just leveling content, then it will be easier for solo players to enjoy them, and in turn, multiboxers, as well. Right now, you can find that certain level ranges really don't offer themselves to leveling through dungeons, but after the upcoming level squish and expansion split, this sounds like it'd be easily avoided now that we can just pick and choose where we want to play.
There is a mechanism in place where the game will prompt you if you wait too long in queue. I haven't seen it firsthand, but it asks you if you want to expand to other adventure timelines. You simply hit yes and you're presumably available to do dungeons from other timelines. I believe that is their response to this, because, yes, otherwise you could queue and no one else wants to do Cata. I suspect people will still have their favorite timeline and other timelines will get ignored quickly.

[Purpleflavor]

Mate, there must be dozens of us who enjoy the DK starting area.

o·ver·es·ti·mate





noun
noun: overestimate; plural noun: overestimates; noun: over-estimate; plural noun: over-estimates
/ˌōvərˈestəmət/


an excessively high estimate.

[kate]

For random dungeons, how many levels per run are we talking about? (Or, worst case, runs per level?)

[MiRai]

I want a watch of video, including webcam, of you doing the stupid quest where you have to poke them with the daggers to tell you the truth. That quest seldomly takes me less than 30 minutes for a 4-5DK team.
You were (mostly) granted this on the ISBoxer Discord (no camera), but for everyone else, here you go (https://youtu.be/mmqjZA13eHo?t=458) (with terrible audio quality).


The tuning on some of them has been pretty bad recently. Namely: Slave Pens last boss. Arcatraz has its moments, particularly with the tuning. Auchindoun has a couple trash pulls that aren't fun. You're right though, they're doable, and it's not as hit or miss as Cata/MOP on the overtuning, but I wouldn't want to do these from 1-50.
For me, everything up to the final boss of Arcatraz was quite terrible, so nothing's changed there, and Auchindoun has the very difficult beholder boss that can be a show-stopper (unless it's been nerfed, I don't know). On the other hand, Cata dungeons can go [redacted] right in their [redacted] for the [redacted] [redacted] that they are. Finally, I don't think I've multiboxed all of the MoP dungeons, but I've probably done most, while leveling. Right now, they can definitely pose some challenge to those who aren't familiar with them, so we'll have to see how the end up after the squish in SL.


No intro quest, you're exactly correct. That's the behavior on PTR now. Shocked it is the way it is. There is an intro quest, but it's not required for queueing.
I can dig it, and I hope it stays.


There is a mechanism in place where the game will prompt you if you wait too long in queue. I haven't seen it firsthand, but it asks you if you want to expand to other adventure timelines. You simply hit yes and you're presumably available to do dungeons from other timelines. I believe that is their response to this, because, yes, otherwise you could queue and no one else wants to do Cata. I suspect people will still have their favorite timeline and other timelines will get ignored quickly.
Okay - I figured that something had to be put in place for the less desirable/populated timelines, where the available dungeons are likely going to be somewhat dormant/avoided.

[Teknetron]

Regarding the DK starting zone, are you guys not using the daggers to poke the truth from officers?
I did a run a few months ago and either I was extremely lucky or officers are the way to do the quest, as each officer gave me the information first try. Would make sense to me because officers would have more information!

[Andreauk]

Gathering xp is nerfed by 60% in Shadowlands:

https://www.wowhead.com/news=317753/gathering-exp-nerf-in-shadowlands-neutral-pandas-race-to-120-before-pre-patch#:~:text=50-,Gathering%20Exp%20Nerf%20in%20Shadowlands%20%2D%2 0Neutral%20Pandas,to%20120%20Before%20Pre%2DPatch&text=Gathering%20professions%20appear%20to%20rewar d,completing%20quests%20or%20killing%20mobs.

[Brandish]

Love DK starting area, including the daggers. Not sure I need more DKs though.

I'm skeptical of the level collapse. Does it seem like it's going to work out, in general? I mean, certain items got overlooked in the item level crushes. Or at least one item, the Lucky Rockets(?) from Lunar Festival haven't been worthwhile in years. Just thinking there have to be some unforeseen effects of a player level crush.

Hmm. Can you still get the armor set for leveling an Allied Race without a boost token?

[Purpleflavor]

Regarding the DK starting zone, are you guys not using the daggers to poke the truth from officers?
I did a run a few months ago and either I was extremely lucky or officers are the way to do the quest, as each officer gave me the information first try. Would make sense to me because officers would have more information!

maybe it's buffed now, a month ago i did a group of DK's and it took 45minutes to get all 5 done. I was fuming.


Hmm. Can you still get the armor set for leveling an Allied Race without a boost token?


heritage armor will work the same, except the levels required are squished from something like level 8-60 instead of 20-120.

[schmonz]

Gathering xp is nerfed by 60% in Shadowlands:


preach reported in this video about a massive change to questing in shadowlands and to leveling:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENyKW9nsnLs

It seems you cannot get to level 60 just by questing anymore. But have to run other content, as like dungeons or anything else that gives XP.

This is what he found:

1.) It is a linear leveling expansion. Order is Bastion, Maldraxxus, Aredenweald and Revendreth in this order. Without any option.
2.) Bastion brings you up to level 54, being the most lucrative region. Just playing the campaign will bring you to level 54, at which point you can go to maldraxxus.
3.) Maldraxxus does only offer enough content for 2 levels, from 54 to 55. The final quest in maldraxxus, tho, starts at level 56, and you cannot progress anywhere before you hit it. Preach suggests this should be done by grinding.
4.) Ardenweald will allow you to quest up to level 56. It is a very linear experience with some few more opportunitues to do some side quests, which are on the linear story questchain path. Once you reached level 56, you can go to revendreth.
5.) Revendreath has a first quest hub you have to play, while it is easy forgotten if you focus on the story quest only. You should do that first quest hub, otherwise you wont have a lot of side quests in the whole leveling experience in revendreth. The final quest will be at level 60, while the questing content brings you up to level 58. Means, you need to grind dungeons or mobs to get to endgame and to the final quest. Endgame will not be unlocked until you did this final quest, no matter what level you are. You need to quest through the zones to get there.

Image:

https://www.dual-boxing.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=2400&stc=1

[Lyonheart]

Even with warmode on.. i also got to maldraxis at 54. I hate grinding mobs to level. Im wondering how fast it is to level via WQs on your alts if you choose to skip the story! I have a feeling, skipping the story is not a good idea.

[Andreauk]

Wouldn't party sync work at all?

[Tiny_d]

So interesting not sure if you can avoid this, 3 characters hit level 50 (out questing in Time Walking new feature) just now and you get 60 seconds before a forced port out of Time Walking....
Then my 4th a few minutes later and the catch up character was left alone.

Any way around this?

[Tin]

Gathering xp is nerfed by 60% in Shadowlands:

https://www.wowhead.com/news=317753/gathering-exp-nerf-in-shadowlands-neutral-pandas-race-to-120-before-pre-patch#:~:text=50-,Gathering%20Exp%20Nerf%20in%20Shadowlands%20%2D%2 0Neutral%20Pandas,to%20120%20Before%20Pre%2DPatch&text=Gathering%20professions%20appear%20to%20rewar d,completing%20quests%20or%20killing%20mobs.

Not seeing a big neff - or the neff is in SL zone.

Have just lv. a druid was 115 -> 47 - got 1.6K+ from every note with chromie time legion and restet xp - 1% a level
and DK was lv. 119 -> 49 - got 1.6k+ in BFA with restet xp from every note - 1% a level

[Barazanthul]

The new leveling is great. I startet a new group and lvld it to 46 before the prepatch and got squished to 20. Ran around WoD for a bit and ended up level 26 in what felt like no time. Probably took me two hours. Damn those collection quests.

[Lyonheart]

Has anyone figured out which expansion is best for us? I know most the collection quests from BFA> has the item available for the group for example. And click this item x-times will give credit to whole group if one toon clicks it..etc..

[z0k]

Has anyone figured out which expansion is best for us? I know most the collection quests from BFA> has the item available for the group for example. And click this item x-times will give credit to whole group if one toon clicks it..etc..

It's more than likely dealers choice when it comes to Legion vs BFA vs WOD. Your faction is going to play a role in that and any aversions you have to whatever leveling zones. Wrath and BC are older leveling styles. Lots of collection quests, would probably avoid unless you really want to play that content. Cata is probably ok, but it probably doesn't feel very fluid. Hell, I'm doing BFA right now and it feels WAY less fluid for 30-50 than it did for 110-120.

[Tiny_d]

I did legion invasions world quests and I got 2 levels 48-50 in no time like 30 minutes, had rested XP but still, was mental.

[DGiraldo]

Any input on best level paths for MB'ers? Tomorrow I am starting on my 5 groups of 5. DK's, Monks, Shamans, Druids and Priests. Would like to make it as efficient as possible as I will be leveling one group at a time.

Anyone have actual data yet of the best/easiest paths for us to hit 50?

[Purpleflavor]

Any input on best level paths for MB'ers? Tomorrow I am starting on my 5 groups of 5. DK's, Monks, Shamans, Druids and Priests. Would like to make it as efficient as possible as I will be leveling one group at a time.

Anyone have actual data yet of the best/easiest paths for us to hit 50?


i dont see how it wouldnt be WoD by far. Gorgrond just cant be beat for leveling it's the Usain Bolt of all leveling zones. It's like who would win if the earth and the Sun collided. Gorgrond is the Sun.

[EaTCarbS]

I want a watch of video, including webcam, of you doing the stupid quest where you have to poke them with the daggers to tell you the truth. That quest seldomly takes me less than 30 minutes for a 4-5DK team.
Just thinking about that quest hurts. *shudders*

[daviddoran]

So I decided to see how quick it would be to powerlevel 1 character, using a group of 4 level 50 characters (Vengeance DH and a Shadow Priest, Arcane mage, and an Affliction Warlock), with ilvl ~110, just spamming BFA dungeons. The low lvl character is a Priest.

I made an allied race, and manually went through the WoD starter quest to get a garrison started, got to about 18. Then just grinded dungeons, and the /played time was about 16 hours. I did AFK for a bit taking breaks here and there. The character was the healer, but the rest of the group didn't need heals, so I just used /focus to have it heal itself.

Toward the end I also swapped the DH to a level 47 paladin to tank, 3x BM Hunters and that worked even better. You could probably do it with just 2-3 high level geared characters if you wanted. I had a full set of ilvl 72 gear too by the end (though I have so much BoA gear it didn't even matter, other than rings/trinkets)

[z0k]

I really haven't had much opportunity to level thus far. I did get one team from 30-50 in about 8 hours which wasn't terrible. I did it by doing BFA questing. I know, I know, super original.

Prior to the prepatch, early levels (15-80) favored dungeons. Once you hit 80 and were forced into Cata/MOP dungeons it made more sense to level through questing. Dungeons were still viable sure but you would go slower. I think with the leveling speeds now it's probably going to be flipped. I'm thinking the fastest will be to quest up as quickly as possible from 1-30, then jump into dungeons.

Curious to see how other people end up playing it out. I can tell you a lot of dungeons do not feel good at level 10 right now and the speed of questing at low levels is pretty strong, assuming you know what you're doing.

[Purpleflavor]

Just a heads up for those that want to skip the WoD intro quests and start right at the garrison intro. There is a guide on wowhead explaining it in detail but you basically get the WoD quest from Chromie, go to the dark portal but do not talk to Khadgar, stand near the portal and drop all of your quests to empty your quest log, then walk through. From there you can start the garrison, or skip that and just fly to one of the quest hubs.

[Tin]

Every legion invasions world quests is around = 16% of a level and the bonus objectives gives the dobbel 32%
at lv. 40+ that was 5.6k and 11.2K xp

- BFA intro quest from 2.8K - 5.8K - BFA assault 8.4K

[Purpleflavor]

They just nerfed dungeon Boosting when the party is less than 5. @5 it's the same as before so that's good.

dungeon experience is split by the group, but if the group is missing a player then the missing spot in the group still gets a share of the exp meaning it is lost. If the group is 1 player soloing, 4 shares of the exp is lost. Harsh.

[DasButo]

16% XP bonus coming Sunday:

https://shadowlands.wowhead.com/spell=326396/wows-16th-anniversary

https://www.wowhead.com/news=318849/wow-16th-anniversary-in-game-event-moved-to-november-1st-22nd-ends-before-shadow?webhook