How did you guys level to 80?

[Bigfish]

Still sitting at level 72. Damn the holiday season and work.

[Crayonbox]

I dont know. Find some nice peopel to talk to on vent while you quest and those collection quests arent so bad. I went through and did every single quest I came across with the single exception of bat dung in howling fjords.

I refused to dig through the crap again.

[rebjorn]

Well in response to the loot this many of that for a quest times 5 really really bites i finally got my shaman group first 5 box setup to 70 this weekend been out in borelean tundra since 68 but whats with the exp each shammy gets only 200 per kill yawn and the mass amount of loot quests is really really getting annoying i think im going to do the old time to run instances seems like i would level faster that way esp when i figue out how to run them faster but ehh what you think do all the quests cept for the loot ones unless u want the acheivements and mix that with all instances or do all quests no instances or all instances no quest cause i want to get 80 before i get my dk team currently at 61 to 80.

That's one of the longest sentences I've ever seen /tease

[Frosty]

I did instance:

70-71 Utgarde Keep
71-72 Nexus
72-72,5 Azjol-Nerub (It was decent exp, but couldn't live without loot!)
72,5-75 Ahn'kahet
75-78 Gundrak (did it around 30 times)
78-80 All level 80 instance.

I did Drak'tharon Keep and Violet Hold aswell, but only 1 or 2 times, but they sucked exp wise so went back to the others.

I must really suck, because my Paldin is still getting her butt handed to her in Utgarde Keep and is in an almost full set of crafted cobalt armor.
I tried it again last night at 71.. the dragons in the second room put the hurt on me. ;(

[Kaynin]

I did all quests in howling, borean and dragonblight. Then did half of the quests in grizzly, got too bored, did a handful of instance, got bored of that, tried zuldrak, hated it from the start, only did like 4 quests and the ring of blood there, then I was 77 and I went to basin. Ithas some gather quests but overall, this place is AWESOME. I had my best exp/hour. The quests are fun to do, and there's a lot of humor around. I leveled here close to 79 and did the rest in Storm Peaks leading up to the Sons of Hodin Dailies. And then Ice Crown questline leading up to the cool shield reward.

[suprafro]

5x Shaman

7 Grizzly hills pvp dalies everyday from 73-80 (140k quest exp in 15-20min)

70-72 (Nexus and Utguarde Keep exclusively)
72-74 (Mostly tundra/fjord questing with alittle more nexus/utguarde)
74-75 Grizzly hills questing and alittle Azjol-Nerub: Ahn'kahet: The Old Kingdom
75-77 Grundrak exclusively
77-79 Halls of Stone
79-80 Basin questing

I found that the instances were all very doable and fast except for the final bosses which tended to be alot harder in my experience, I never really pushed to kill most of them though im sure they are doable. I would usually just clear everything to last bosses and reset and re-run. All and all, the questing was definitely 10x more entertaining (surprise), instances get really stale after a few runs....but the exp from instances was incredible. Also I definitly agree with Kaynin that Basin is the best zone ever, hit it up if you havent yet. Also the "ring of blood" type arena quest lines

[Smahs]

Lol, if you want to hit 80 fast you have to play 72 hours straighte, when I bought WOTLK (two days after release) the guy said some guys took out 3 days of work just to play it, I kind of laughed and said thats how i'm getting lol, back to the thread..

You want to hit every zone and do every quest, it won't be fun. I am level 75 on my main and got tired of leveling it WELL get boring, and when it does, take a break, IT'S NOT A RACE

[Bovidae]

I just hit 80 a few hours ago. I quested my balls off, even those horrible low droprate collection quests. The fact is, they are prerequisites to finishing ANY chain...

I highly recommend doing the ring of blood style events in Zul'Drak and Icecrown. Not only do they have great rewards, but the XP+Gold+pots is huge (over 100k xp in the Icecrown event alone)

I also did a lot of the dailies. Some are designed to be quick and painless gold, well pre-80 they are also a quick way to get 22k xp.

[Hachoo]

I've gone through the entire Howling Fjord zone so far and am currently working on Borean Tundra. There are quite a few collection quests overall but honestly I don't think its any more than BC, and the drop rates are DEFINITELY better than the drop rates in BC.

I don't know why people expected something else - pre 3.0 xp nerf BC required quite a bit of instancing to not have to do collection quests, northrend seems about the same, the difference is some of th ecollection quests are a lot faster/easier.