1-50 Leveling in Pre-Patch/Shadowlands

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.

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.

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

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

Great guide :)

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

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Originally Posted by Truelle

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...

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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!

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Originally Posted by tsincaat

Great guide :)

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

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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.

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Originally Posted by z0k

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.

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

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Originally Posted by z0k

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.

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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?

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Originally Posted by z0k

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.

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Whoa, whoa, whoa... which TBC dungeons are we filing under "difficult?"

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Originally Posted by z0k

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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by z0k

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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by MiRai

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

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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.

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Originally Posted by MiRai

Whoa, whoa, whoa... which TBC dungeons are we filing under "difficult?"

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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.

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Originally Posted by MiRai

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?

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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.

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Originally Posted by MiRai

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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by MiRai

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

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o·ver·es·ti·mate




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


an excessively high estimate.