Advice For Level 53+ While Leveling?

WARNING: frustrated post.

Team:
Warr prot
3x Mage frost
Pala holy

I had great fun in SM AoE'ing like a champ, got to zf. Demo shout was nerfed. I cried.
But it was still okayish, slow but ok.

Now after 50 its too slow, I feel like giving up. 52-53 I had 12-13 hours played, alot afk time and profession leveling etc, but still.
3 hours played 25% into level 53.
BRD is ok, but I can't AoE anymore at all. Single target is slow. Also tank feels super squishy, even with oil of immolation etc. to try to build AoE threat I then struggle with survivability so I can't really do any big pulls due to survivability even if I did have the threat.

I've been farming arena for now to atleast get some loot, and trying to push further and wiping.
Questing is also kinda shit;
I feel like I only get 2-3 quests in felwood, then the rest is too high level (or hardcore loot 100 things quests).
Same thing in WPL/EPL, I get a couple of bars and then have to look for a new zone.

Any advice GREATLY appreciated.

I've adjusted the title of the thread so that it isn't huge and doesn't get cut off.
Please keep the titles of threads concise and to the point.

-MiRai

Try and do some XP tracking for a couple of hours and see what you get - post it here and you can compare against other boxers and that way you'll find out if you're doing something wrong if you just have to get used to the pace of classic :-)

While the nerf does such, some comps have gotten to 60 with 4 mages and priest, so warrior is not a precondition. I'm only doing RFK at the moment so can't really comment on higher level instances, but I've had no issues just spamming battle shout and ae'ing. Eventually my mages will pull aggro, but not until the mobs are around 40% and it can be healed through. So maybe just do smaller pulls? Usually I just stick to pulls of around 6-9 mobs depending on the special abilities of the mobs.

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Originally Posted by Fuzzyboy

Try and do some XP tracking for a couple of hours and see what you get - post it here and you can compare against other boxers and that way you'll find out if you're doing something wrong if you just have to get used to the pace of classic :-)

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That is literally the last thing I would do in his shoes, because let’s be honest here guys, half the people to be claiming to Zerg the last levels are lying. We all know it. Now 100% some guys did get the XP/hour they claim but when it comes to the dick measuring contest of who can level fastest people will lie to make themselves feel better... if your going to compare yourself to that your only going to get frustrated... not everyone operates the same. It would be like a bronze overwatch player frustrated he’s loosing to golds while watching grandmasters stop the same golds and think he should be able to do the same.

id take a step back and look at it. Your in BRD right? I’m pretty sure some of your preraid BIS Drop in the there... I would take my time, concentrate on getting that. Go single pulls and work on your timing/mechanics. It might take your three or four full runs to get your drops in which case you’re probably already a level higher... consider BRD the start of your endgame. You’re there. You’ve done it. Now just start gearing up. Set more attainable short term goals. It’s a game not a race!

You could also take a step back questing.. ungoro is around lvl 51 isn’t it? I think I remember a good few kill quests in there(it’s been about 14 years since I was there!!!), it’s not optimal, but at least it keeps it moving in the right direction.

Or take a small break and work on something else for a bit.

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Originally Posted by Vipeax

https://i.imgur.com/6SbIQrL.png

I finished my grind.

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This was me on the 8th of September, so I guess I can post here? At that level you should just do the '8' loop in BRD if we're talking purely XP.

https://i.imgur.com/J5id3Vq.png

I did this until level 56. I then went to The Barrens to use the Swarmer scorpids to up the defense skill of all my mages (most were 20-30 below the maximum of their levels) and then I farmed the first part of LBRS as shown by the white line here:
https://i.imgur.com/oZ8lmxj.png

For BRD a 2-3 hour session would result in about 50K xp/hr. Closer to 60K xp/hr if you would not take breaks and really try to speed it up. For LBRS I was substaining a consistent 75K xp/hr, and by tryharding I guess 85 up to 90K/hr should be doable.

If you want to farm gear while leveling than none of this applies. Including bosses (except for the 3 tank-and-spank ones that are part of the 8-shape BRD route since they are super easy to kill) will have impact on your XP rates so including those in the leveling process is a decision you have to make for yourself. I do have my question marks about the 'squishy' and 'cannot AOE' parts of your post though. At that level your defense level of the warrior should be ample to farm the initial mobs with no issues.

BRD isn't really that good, especially after the demo shout nerf. I'm a little surprised you're having issues with mages in it, but it was a train wreck for my warrior group initially, so much so that I had to go to sunken temple where I was able to actually pound out the upper ring with the 6 bosses (I didn't do the bosses), until level 55 at around 40-45k an hour.

I went back to BRD at 55, and I was able to do the prison/arena and the Bael'Gar area with my 4 warriors "ok". It wasn't as fast as ST. Since your DPS is coming from mages, your issue really must be your tank, and mage efficiency drops way off if you're not doing bigger pulls with the way that arcane explosion is, and at 52-53, you're simply not going to be able to aoe grind that area of the prison beyond 3-4 elite mobs at a time, and that isn't going to lend itself to much efficiency for mage aoe imo.

Vipeax is different because he didn't use a tank, he finessed it with 4 mages which probably gave him the wiggle room on his aoe dps to kill stuff fast enough, in large enough groups, to stay efficient. I don't know if 3 mages can do what he did with a warrior slotting in that 4th spot, that's a pretty significant chunk of damage lost.

My advice might be to go check out ST for a couple of levels. I was clearing the upper loop in about 13-15 minutes, doing 40-45k an hour with reset, which was literally double what I could manage in BRD initially. I might not be the same for you due to mana vs rage, but, it's worth a try. I'm talking about the undread troll warriors, corpse eaters, and witch doctors, with the little imps. Packs of 4-6 or 7 mobs, with 2-4 elites.

I can pull like 4-6 mobs on the warrior and tank it for a while. But if I aoe with mages I either have to spend like 10 seconds+ with only warrior building threat before dealing damage at all or the mages will pull aggro and they die in less than 5 seconds if they pull aggro sometimes.
I also have a pala, so no instant shield to save the mage, flash of light is usually too little healing if the warrior has more than 2 mobs on it or if a mage gets aggro. So I have to holy light spam.

So if I try to AoE its not super effective because 1) warrior has to spend alot of time building threat 2) healer might go oom if warrior takes too heavy dmg over too long time 3) if mages get aggro its best case 1 ress after pull, worst case a wipe.
If I sheep as many as I can while frostbolting 1 by 1 target it works okay, but its quite slow. each mob dies after ~4 (x3) frostbolts. so its 10 seconds per mob, instead of like 10 seconds per 4-6 mobs or more if AoE'ing.

It feels like if I had a prot pala instead of prot warr life would be alot easier. Or if I had your setup with more aoe dmg and healing, since that has obviously worked very well for you.
It seems I have done the mistake of landing somewhere in between 2 decent setups. I am unable to use my mages aoe effeciently because the warrior is holding me back, and I am also not optimized for killing stuff 1 by 1 like a warrior cleave because the mages need to drink alot.

In SM I could pull 10-13 mobs at a time and tank them all with demo shout spam, so the current situation is really alot of steps back. :(

A few levels can make a world of difference...

I would try Merc's recommendation to go to Sunken Temple through 55 and head back to BRD at ~56 and do Vipeax's figure 8 until you feel like that is easy and then branch out.

Please report back what you decide to do and how it goes as it will help others...

Also try to look on the bright side...

You are in the home stretch and some of us are still in the 20s, 30s, & 40s...

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Originally Posted by Spinach

I can pull like 4-6 mobs on the warrior and tank it for a while. But if I aoe with mages I either have to spend like 10 seconds+ with only warrior building threat before dealing damage at all or the mages will pull aggro and they die in less than 5 seconds if they pull aggro sometimes.

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Spec your tank Arms with 2 hander and grab initial aggro on packs by charging in, sweeping strikes, whirlwinding, and then stance dance back to protection with a sword and board weapon swap, shout, sunder ect. Your mages shouldnt be able to pull aggro and can aoe them all down right away. You'll find after stance dancing back to sword and board you are just as tanky as Arms, as you were spec'ed prot and the only difference is the first few seconds of locking down initial threat.

Get on some alts for a few days to get that rested experience?

Then go back into BRD and hit up the first couple spots again with slow, single pulls. At least then you will get rested experience.

This would be a perfect plan if your group had some pets, but:

Try using battle shout (while in range of all friendly targets) for spammable threat. It does a funny thing in classic where you get additional threat for every friendly target it hits.

Also remember that dps/healers get an additional 20 or 30 percent threat if they're in melee range, so if you're using arcane explosion for dps that might be why your tank can't hold it.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

I have now quested SLOWLY and gotten to 55, went back to BRD to try.
Tried the tactic someone suggested with going arms and getting some fast threat with sweeping strikes->WW so I can aoe.
My warrior dies in seconds if I aggro more than 2 mobs without a shield.
Even at 55, and the mobs in BRD are 48-50. Still getting absolutely fucking wrecked. I've just done 5 ghost runs to BRD, now on the 6th after wiping on wave 1 in arena(non-elites died in seconds with healing). I am so frustrated I am actually considering just straight up quitting atm.

The only thing I can do is charge 2 mobs, and cleave them with warr and single target frostbolt on them one by one, which is quite a bit faster than doing the same but as prot on warr, since arms cleave is really good damage.
The questing to get from 53-55 was so slow it was painful.

So atm for me:
Questing sucks ass. 1-5 quests in one zone, then travel and do 1-5 quests -repeat. I'm 45% into 55 on warr, 6 hours played, I am suffering.
BRD is killing my spirit, not only is it slow, every time I try to speed it up I just get rewarded with ghost walks.

I actually don't know what to do as I am not having fun at all atm and can't see a way to get up to 60.
I could get there, slow and steady, but playing in this super ineffiecent manner demotivates me so much. Its fine that I can' get like 80k xp/h like some, I would accept HALF that. 40k or 30k I could do it. Its fine. 5 hours per level would be slow, but acceptable.
Atleast I am getting five chars leveled at the same time as some trade off for being slow. But seeing close to 12hrs per level. fuck me.
I am stuck at barely 15k xp/h atm and its too slow.

I guess I will just have to try to play it safe and cleave 2 mobs at a time with warr and frostbolting 1by1 target and see what my results are. Never pull more than 2 and always sheep etc.

Advice to anyone else if you want to do a tank+spellcleave:
Use a prot paladin, not a warrior. Pre-demoshout nerf it was fine, post demo-shout nerf it is a struggle.
I also think a priest healer would be better than a pala healer in general.
But if you have a pala tank and that actually keeps aggro I guess the pala healer would be fine as you only have one heal target anyway.

If I find a way to effeciently boost up some alts like use the high level pala as prot to boost I will get a warlock and a priest up so I can play: prot pala, hpriest, lock, mage, mage.
I want to main the warrior, but if I am to use the 5 accounts for dungeon farming for gold etc. I want to have a easier team to grind with.
If anyone has any advice on boosting lowbies I would love to hear it.

Edit: I guess if I get a Force reactive disk on warr etc. maybe stuff could work out, that will be my first plan I guess.

Spinach,

I am so sorry to hear your plight. I commend you for your perseverance and since you want to main a Warrior I hope you will be so happy in the end.

As close as you are to cap I can't see power-leveling new/low level alts as being a less effort solution.

Did you ever try Sunken Temple?

Considering your BRD pain, if things are still "green" in Sunken Temple I would grind Sunken Temple till they are grey (not green at all anymore)... If that can get you to 56 or 57 even better before messing with BRD for you...

When you can please post your Warrior's build and current gear (mainly focus for now on 1H+Shield) so folks can give you some feedback on that. If you are having trouble holding aggro on your Warrior the Force Reactive Disk could help but if you go that route I would make at least 2 as they wear out pretty quickly and will become useless until you can get it repaired.

I did try Sunken Temple, but I was experimenting there as well with arms vs prot. I should probably have tried harder there. I also disliked the witch doctors polymorph. And I ended up killing jammal'an for the quest and I hated the maze feeling of the dungeon. But I mean that wouldn't matter if I were to only farm the ring, tho I hate to spirit run back in with the swimming and maze and all :p

As for gear on warrior:
Trash Blade + Stoneshell Guard / Gatorbite Axe
3449 hp 4857 armor with shield
3359 hp 2954 with 2h
+12 def rating.

Currently as arms spec
18% crit in zerker stance (/w axe spec).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Spinach

I have now quested SLOWLY and gotten to 55, went back to BRD to try.
Tried the tactic someone suggested with going arms and getting some fast threat with sweeping strikes->WW so I can aoe.
My warrior dies in seconds if I aggro more than 2 mobs without a shield.
Even at 55, and the mobs in BRD are 48-50. Still getting absolutely fucking wrecked. I've just done 5 ghost runs to BRD, now on the 6th after wiping on wave 1 in arena(non-elites died in seconds with healing). I am so frustrated I am actually considering just straight up quitting atm.

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sorry, bud. Here's a decent tutorial to check out and see if it helps.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8P9b23SWJ8

Here's a non-ravager Arms tanking.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHsytWhHKNA

Not sure why you're taking so much damage. The tldr of it is that shields and blocking are detrimental against anything less than 5 mobs or raid bosses. You produce less damage and less threat for a very small amount of damage prevented.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Spinach

I did try Sunken Temple, but I was experimenting there as well with arms vs prot. I should probably have tried harder there. ...

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Bottom line is that while leveling, if you are having any issues, I would focus on content that is way green to you (almost grey).

Try to be as high level as you can be to the content in question (yet still getting XP).

As Vipeax said, I always head to BRD asap.

There are a ton of mobs there for grinding but the bosses also drop a ton of useful loot for just about every class. Even the quests have really nice rewards.

Also, the humanoid mobs in BRD will debuff your tank with curses and DoT's that will periodically stun your tank, reduce healing, etc. Make sure you are macroing decurses between arcane explosion spam. Being able to decurse easily is one of the benefits of mages as DPS. If your tank feels extra squishy in BRD, that might be why. You can't block/dodge/parry while stunned.