Level 80x4 in 5 days, 9 hours - here's how

Just for the record, I thought I'd put down exactly how I leveled my 4x Ret Pallys to 80. I know almost 6 days isn't setting any records, but I thought some people might find it useful. I started these guys right before x-mas and finished Jan 13th.

It took about 5 days, 9 hours to 80 total. I used RAF from 1 - 60 which took 20 hours total. Without RAF I estimate it would take an additional 2 days.

I also used Heirloom items once I got to 60, which gave me 20% more quest and kill exp. Without these, you can expect to spend an extra ~20 hours. So without RAF and Heirloom it would be about 8.5 - 9 days - at the speed I played.

1-10 questing
10-15 Deadmines - boosted by 80 pally
15-22 Stockades - boosted by 80 pally (about 1 level per run)
22-42 SM - - boosted by 80 pally (a level per run)
42-45 ZF (I just took it slow here) (not quite a level per run)
45-60 Scholomance This was awesome - just sit on the bridge and have the 80 kill everything - 0 wipes
60 Go to Outlands and buy flying mount
60 Say goodbye to your 80 booster, you won't need it from here on out
60-70 quest in outlands - I did 0 collection quests - I skipped everyone that I had to collect more than 3 items.
61-70 Q for AV as much as you can stand - it breaks up the grind
70 Have your mains buy cold weather flying and send them to your alts (Heirloom item)
71-80 Q for AV as much as you can stand
71-78 Quest - the only collection quests I did so far is Wrathgate line
74 - Start doing the grizzly hills PVP quests every day, and continue questings
78-80 Quest in Icecrown and unlock everything- I had to do several collection quests in Icecrown to unlock everything, probably at least 6

When I hit 80, I had about 1500g on each guy - but I loaned each guy 600g for cold weather flying and 300g for spells - so net maybe 600g each. I didn't start looting until Northrend and vendored all unneeded quest items.

I also had 60K honor at 80 and earned a total of about 200 AV badges.

-Kicksome

i think doing randoms from 69-80 would have the edge over questing and you can still use your boosting main if hes a tank

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Originally Posted by simpletom

i think doing randoms from 69-80 would have the edge over questing and you can still use your boosting main if hes a tank

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I have to question this...just this morning I tried to do a random dungeon with my main (80 druid tank) and 4 level 71s. Over and over I got a message of "not everyone meets the level requirements for this instance", or something to that affect.

I got this message regardless of who was leader and queuing the group, and I tried a couple dozen times. Has anyone successfully gotten an instance to fire off using unequal level toons?

I know that when I queue for regulars with my 80, I NEVER get an instance such as UK. It's always one of the level 80 instances, which makes me think that perhaps the dungeon finder looks at the highest level toon and finds an appropriate instance off of him/her.

thoughts?

>zip

Good work. It took me just over 8 days to do 5. I didn't have cold weather flying or heirlooms though.

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Originally Posted by zipzip

I have to question this...just this morning I tried to do a random dungeon with my main (80 druid tank) and 4 level 71s. Over and over I got a message of "not everyone meets the level requirements for this instance", or something to that affect.

I got this message regardless of who was leader and queuing the group, and I tried a couple dozen times. Has anyone successfully gotten an instance to fire off using unequal level toons?

I know that when I queue for regulars with my 80, I NEVER get an instance such as UK. It's always one of the level 80 instances, which makes me think that perhaps the dungeon finder looks at the highest level toon and finds an appropriate instance off of him/her.

thoughts?

>zip

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You can do it by Q'ing up people of the appropriate level then dropping one, and putting in your 80.

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Originally Posted by Kicksome

74 - Do the grizzly hills PVP quests
78-80 Quest in Icecrown and unlock everything- I had to do several collection quests in Icecrown to unlock everything, probably at least 6

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That's like what, 2-3 bars a day? So you did the grizzly hills dallies for like a month?

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Originally Posted by heyaz

That's like what, 2-3 bars a day? So you did the grizzly hills dallies for like a month?

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Sorry, I just meant starting doing the quests at level 74, and continue questing.

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Originally Posted by Kicksome

You can do it by Q'ing up people of the appropriate level then dropping one, and putting in your 80.

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So simple, so brilliant. excellent!

I would flush out the 70-80 range a lot more, this is likely battlgroup specific i am guessing. AV for me was nonexistent and while it seemed to break up the grind it was a set back xp wise.

I am around your timeline just grinding UK->DK->VH->GUN->COS.

Hitting Kirin Tor quests so they can gain rep in COS.

Just curious, but I would think running dungeons from 70 - 80 would lose a lot of quest gold unless you planned on going back and doing those quests at 80 for the extra gold?
Also is it really any faster than questing if you have a good guide for quests and avoid most of the collection quests?
Just wondering :)

The quest gold i got for leveling 4 pals was something like 10-12k from lvl 68-80.

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Originally Posted by crowdx

Just curious, but I would think running dungeons from 70 - 80 would lose a lot of quest gold unless you planned on going back and doing those quests at 80 for the extra gold?
Also is it really any faster than questing if you have a good guide for quests and avoid most of the collection quests?
Just wondering :)

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My plan is to run a lot of WOTLK instances simply so that I have experience with my team for heroics. There's no challenge in flying around and blowing through quests purely to level as fast as possible, and there's a real danger that any time you save will be wasted later as you sit back and try to figure out how to play your team. Plus, I think you're a fool to not do a daily random dungeon for badges each day as you level...

getting daily badges would depend on how fast you can get through the dungeon. Is it possible to have 80 healer and tank in a team and still get badges?

I'd be really impressed if someone leveled 4 new characters with professions maxed out. It was so much pain to go back to power level professions.

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Originally Posted by crowdx

Just curious, but I would think running dungeons from 70 - 80 would lose a lot of quest gold unless you planned on going back and doing those quests at 80 for the extra gold?
Also is it really any faster than questing if you have a good guide for quests and avoid most of the collection quests?
Just wondering :)

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You can DE greens and unused blues, and then sell the mats. Green items with an ilvl of 154 or higher yield up to 4 - 7 infinite dust or 1 - 2 greater cosmic essences.

Cheers,
S.

Once you get to grizzly hills the items will normally DE for 5.5 infinite dust or so. I personally have never gotten 5 always 6 or 7. I'm level 78 and i've gotten...

flying (about 1k total)
power lvled enchanting (cost 4.5k)
cold weather flying (5k total)
training (no idea what this costs, i know that to 60 was like 250g per char)
and each char still has 2k

Total of over 20k easy. I forsee getting another 800-1k gold per level till 80 as well. I'd have much more if i was not DEing items. Though infinite dust sells for nearly 2g each on my server so 40 stacks is worth about 1600g and the stacks of GCE sell for 150g per stack or so. It'll end up being about 30k gold worth from questing etc.

i was given no gold and have not used anything other than the quest items and trash drops to get gold. All materials DE'd are in my bank (41 stacks of infinite dust, 7 stacks of GCE)

If you're rich, grinding dungeons with your tank main from 68 - 80 is an option, but if you're not and you plan to buy fast flying skill + cold weather flying (which speeds up questing xp a LOT), you should probably go the questing route. It's a lot of greens and quest gold you're missing if you don't. If you have the money to spend on buying epic flyers for your levelling toons, definitely do it!

I recently started up 4 new chars. I didn't use RAF, which has the added advantage of slaves not having to be close to the main for getting xp - all the instances below I never moved my chars from entrance area - my suggestion would be:

1-8 questing (get heirlooms right away - i usually mail them and bring my booster toon over with a mailbox to drop in the newbie area)

8-10: Boost RFC - pull the mobs to the beginning of the chamber with the bridges and slaves will get xp at entrance) - no resets since you'll be level 10 before you're locked out.

10-20: Boost SFK - great xp and you can pull the whole instance in one pull - jump down the roof when you're done to get to the slaves

20 - 40: Boost SM - boring, but worthwhile. Do cathedral and armory, then reset.

40 - 45: Boost BRD - fun change from SM and better XP / hr. You can do both "rings", the initial big room and the whole area around Baelgar. Might be best with a druid or paladin though, since you need some sort of way out of the nets (blessing of freedom, bubble, shapeshift etc.)

45 - 55: Boost Stratholme - great fun, there's a good video about boosting strath on this site. You can do it in one pull, but two is safer and you'll get locked out for a long time anyway.

55 - 60: Boost Ramparts - still great xp at level 60. You can stay until 62 if you want, although after 61 it slows down. Also do a run of blood furnace - it's not as good xp / hr, but one run is good for the quests.

60/62 - 66: Questing - if you start questing at 61/62 and with heirloom you can skip all collection quests.

66 - 67: Boost Sethekk halls - great boosting xp again.

67 - 68: Netherstorm. This zone has sooo many good quests - especially the area around Kirin'var village.

68 - 80: Northrend questing all day long - you'll probably need the gold and with heirlooms and fast flying, it's actually just as fast as instancing (although you might want to do each instance once for the nice rewards and quests). Also, remember to go Icecrown as soon as you hit 77, since you need to unlock some areas and factions anyway.

I followed this route with my rogues and when they dinged 80 they had around 7k gold each (which in turn paid for the riding skills + flyers).

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Originally Posted by Kicksome

You can do it by Q'ing up people of the appropriate level then dropping one, and putting in your 80.

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You mean queueing with an alt as the 5th or with a random guy? If the latter then i'll never use that tactic for sure. Imagine you have been queueing for a while and you got booted as soon as you enter the dungeon?

You can queue up WITH the 80 for any Northrend instance, starting of course with Utgarde Keep.

If you're doing them just for xp, you can dungeon hop starting around maybe 72 and clear the first few heavily populated areas in each instance. Then leave group, reset, and start over.