Low 60's team - Spend time on gear in Outlands or head straight to WotLK?

[Greythan]

Title says it all.

Curious what my plan should be as I close in on 68. Should I spend time in Outlands getting to a certain level of 70 gear or head straight to Northrend and begin quest/drop gear upgrading in expansion? While slow, I am a leveler by nature so my bias would be to move straight to expansion. However, if a basic geared group (i'm doing a combination of quests/instances for my leveling to 68) would be really disadvantaged starting out in Northrend, I'd like to know.

Thanks.

[Fef]

My first group is also closing in on 68.
I just plan to level them to 70 with a mix of quest and instances. After that, I will continue exploring Burning Crusade for a while, not for gear, just for fun. Most of them I never even played.

I will probably move a bit in level 70 by doing that, perhaps up to 70.5, which might save me a couple collection quests later

[emesis]

Title says it all.

Curious what my plan should be as I close in on 68. Should I spend time in Outlands getting to a certain level of 70 gear or head straight to Northrend and begin quest/drop gear upgrading in expansion? While slow, I am a leveler by nature so my bias would be to move straight to expansion. However, if a basic geared group (i'm doing a combination of quests/instances for my leveling to 68) would be really disadvantaged starting out in Northrend, I'd like to know.

Thanks.

Nearly all the starting zone quests in Northrend are designed as solo quests, so you should have no problems with them at 68 as a boxer. Quest rewards are comparable to level 70 blues so that will clearly be an immediate upgrade path for you. Mobs are 69 or so so you won't have significant hit issues.

I have a 5 man shammy group at 73 in Northrend and a mixed group (DK/pally/mage/druids) at around 65 in Outlands. The shammies were at 70 when WOTLK came out, but I have a similar situation to you for the mixed group. Although from a gear perspective taking them to Northrend at 68 is clearly the way to go, I'm a little concerned myself over leveling speed in Northrend, and I'm thinking about trying to get to 70 in Outlands. This is particularly because of the phasing issues people have mentioned later in Northrend, given that I want to equalize the teams and give myself the opportunity to mix-and-match the teams.

That being said, it's gonna be pretty hard not to head to the North as soon as my second team dings 68.

[Greythan]

Thanks for the feedback.

Anyone have a sense of how leveling speed will compare between Outland and Northrend for the 68 to 70 run? I'm certainly having fun in Outlands so far with the instances/questing with my group so its not like I feel compelled to hit Northrend right at 68. However, I have enough of a min/max makeup to not want to be overly inefficient.

The other factor that is real for me is the concern of forcing myself into a massive array of collection quests in Northrend if I go too early. Talk about inefficient!

[Greythan]

Thanks Fur.

I do want to do/see some of the content, but I'll admit it: doing it with an overgeared group (i.e., Northrend gear) sounds fun.

Any thoughts on the question of being able to avoid some collection quests by leveling 68 to 70 in Outlands? I'm wondering if the fastest (i.e., most efficient) route is getting to 70 first so you can avoid some of the collection quests or hitting Northrend right at 68?

[Jheusse]

On a similar vein, is there a monetary reason to finish up in Outlands before heading to northrend? We all know about either getting to 60 in azeroth or doing a lot of instancing so as to save at least 2 or more areas worth of quests in Outlands that would yield big coin when done at L70.

Does northrend look to have a similar mechanic/approach at work? If you go to northrend at 68 should you try and go heavy on instances to get on pace or ahead of pace and save some quest hubs or areas for pure gold earning?

[Vyndree]

I, personally, am following Suvega's guide and hitting both starting zones.

I am 79, exalted with Valiance Expedition, and on-track with all of the level requirements in the guide. I hit Howling Fjord first and then Borean, but you can swap and still do fine. I'm recording everything with TourGuide so once I ding 80 I'll throw it on our website.

I was level 62 when Wrath came out, and IMMEDIATELY on hitting 68 went straight to Northrend. Most of my characters were boosted so I had less than 200g spread across all of them. At 77, I bought normal flying mounts (self-funded) and cold-weather flying for Northrend and had over 1k gold per character to spare (which I'm saving for epic flying).

I was about 25% into 77 on my slowest character when I started doing Sholazar Basin. Suvega only did 1 starting zone and said he had some trouble making sure he was 67 for that zone since there are prerequisite levels for some quests.

If you're 70, you can do 1 single starting zone and still be on-track with all the level requirements in the guide. However, if you care about your rep I'd suggest doing both starting zones anyway -- you'll hit 74 by the end of the two starting zones and it'll be much easier to fend off PvP encounters in future zones if you're at the higher range.

[Gaffy]

I am 69, exalted with Valiance Expedition,

HOW?!?!?!?! /boggle

What he said!!!!! :!:

[Greythan]

Vyn,

Suvega's guide is for alliance or is it something horde characters can follow as well?

[algol]

I, personally, am following Suvega's guide and hitting both starting zones.

...IMMEDIATELY on hitting 68 went straight to Northrend. Most of my characters were boosted so I had less than 200g spread across all of them. At 67, I bought normal flying mounts (self-funded) and cold-weather flying for Northrend and had over 1k gold per character to spare (which I'm saving for epic flying).

Thanks. I've been wondering about that.