Well basically the last time I did 1-60 was two years ago and I seem to remember it took me about 30 days or so. A far cry from the 3 months it took me when the game first came out. So for various reasons posted in another thread I am replacing one of my mages with a Shaman and my hunter with a Druid. The basic reasons are I am replacing two ranged DPS with two ranged DPS only they both bring more buffs, healing, cleansing etc to the table.

So I buy a new account and RAF it with a vet account. I fire up the Drood and the Shammie and summon them over. I start doing the quests to get them to level 10 and with the Triple Xp this goes pretty fast about 2 hours with macro setup. I then bring my DK and mage over have my two lowbies hop onto my DKs mammoth, after kicking Hakmud with much protest from him, and ride off into fast leveling glory. Or so I thought.

So I take them out to DM getting flight points along the way and DM is just a slow clunky hard to pull dungeon. With lots of non elites hidden back in corners I find it very hard to pull them all without zig zagging back and forth. After my lowbies got wiped a few times I decide to try SFK.

Here is what I find in SFK. If I move my lowbies up to the bars my DK actually pulls the whole dungeon in three pulls and they never have to move. He goes entrance to the mage who opens the door. Since I have to wait on the mage I clear out the mobs on my DK then sit and eat. Once the Mage pops the door I pull everything in the courtyard, kitchen, baron room take a right and get all those mobs off to the side and back into the courtyard to pick up any stragglers AOE them down and my toons go from 11.2 to 13.5 and I am very happy. Then I pull everything from behind the Baron all the way up to the room with the Dog in it and kill everything there and my guys goto 14.4. I try pulling everything from there up to the forced to kill and open a door but my guys are no longer in range for xp. The next clear I try to pull Argul and everyone back to the dog room but it is just so slow and clunky I realize stopping at the dog room is more effcient than trying to go any further and then have to back track. I repeat this about 3 more times, takes about an hour and my guys are 20. So hop on the mammoth and off to SM.

I run the library just to get key for my DK and the two new toons. This goes very slow and clunky with the mobs off in alcoves I miss and when I bring the lowbies up after the pull they get owned. Once I clear library I move to the Cathedral. After a few pulls I realize this seems to be the best way to do it. SM Cathedral is basically three areas the lower courtyard, the upper courtyard, and the cathedral itself. The courtyards themselves have two layers of mobs and are basically U shaped. One layer of mobs are in the covered walkways in the outer part of the U and the others are in the grass on the inner part of the U. So what I do is leave my lowbies at the door and pull the first court yard by running into it and taking a left and following the outer part of the U. I stay along the outer wall aggroing all the mobs along there. Once I hit the wall I follow back on my route only now I run the inside part of the U all the way around aggroing all the grass mobs. Once I get to the end of that I run down the outer part of the U that I have not covered yet. This puts me back at the entrance tunnel with all the lower courtyard mobs on me. I pull them about halfway down the Hall and AOE them down.

I then move my lowbies to the stairs and do the same thing for the upper courtyard. I run along the outer part of the U pulling all the mobs then come back along the same right only now I am on the grass pulling the inner part of the U. I use the dip in the stairs to break LOS for the casters and AOE them all down on the stairs.

Now I move to the easy part of the whole thing the cathedral itself. I park my lowbies halfway up the stiars to the entrance to the cathedral and open the doors. I run towards the commander and when he is in Death Grip range I DG him and run back towards the entrance. He is kind enough to call all the mobs in the cahtedral to help him making my job really easy. I AOE them down and then do the little ressurection event. I bring up my lowbies loot the boss mobs and leave the dungeon. As a sidenote you cannot kill the woman until after the event. She has I think 4900ish HP and I crit her for 7k and she just goes to one HP and then starts the little event.

What I discovered is that I was doing 5 instances of the cathedral in about 55 minutes and was getting 1.5 o 1 level per clear. It started at 1.5 and 29 to 30 acutally took 1 cathedral clear and then part of another cathedral clear.

My guys right now are 33 Shaman and 32 Druid. I had to stop and do some class quests for various skills work up their macros and get them gear. They were level 30+ and still wearing starting zone gear. I didnt go crazy I just got them some basic greens with lots of Stamina so if an errant AOE does hit them they don't die.

All and all 1 to 30 was probably about 6 hours of actualy grinding and 4 hours of travel/figuring out pulls. Not as fast as I had read, some people claming 1-60 in 4 to 8 hours played, but certainly faster than in the past leveling solo toons via quests.

Now I know there is a guide but it just shows links to something called tour guide and does not really give any details.

So at this point I have a few questions.

Does it seem like I am behind the curve levleling speed wise? I have to admit 1-30 in ten hours is much faster than days gone by but not as fast as I was thinking.

What is my next step another few levels in the Cathedral then off to ZF for mounted pulls at 35 or move over to Uldum for 30 to 35 then goto ZF?

What is your preferred instance grinding 1-60?

Thanks.