Hi all,

Lowbie Powerleveling: 1 -> 22
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here's my 2 cents worth. I'm definitely not an expert, but this is what i experienced playing around with power leveling a new set of toons. I ended up changing servers/factions before getting too far. This was done a few months ago, so i can't remember specific times unfortunately.

I hadn't played more than a few months of casual WoW, it didn't grab me until I saw some of Xzin's "work", then decided to give it a go. I'd tried most classes to about level 15, liked hunters and thought, cool, I'll run hunters. A gloss over the web indicated hunters were fast to level. I ended up with 3 level 70 hunters and got to know Horde quest lines and the game in general. Still a newbie tho.

Needless to say, 3 hunters, with no tank and no healer don't get far in the PvE world, I looked around at how i could level some alts. The first thing i noticed with a level 70 trying to power level a level 1, is finding mobs to kill fast enough. You can't. So I ended up in instances, the one place you can run around and pull a whole lot and the one place that has a garunteed mob population.

Starting setup:
- 1 level 70 hunter, blue gear (epics are expensive to repair) ... stam +AP
- anyone else x4
- horde
- familiarity with the quests
- pet with dash and cobra reflexes

Phase One (1-11):
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Basically getting ready for RFC. This isn't especially fast, but lots of good rep. Chance to get flight paths, etc.
- quests in durotar and another zone (i used undead, but not important)
- almost no collection quests done, ie. don't pick up 5 of anything
- aspect of the pack
- running, lots of running
- hunter will be one shotting everything

Phase Two: (12-17):
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RFC .. run forest crun

Basically, you do the following, in different parts of the instance.

Part 1:
- run down to the bridge killing a dozen or so mobs
- stop just before the lowbies would pull the first pair of guards
- leave lowbies back just in xp range
- make sure pet has Dash and Growl on, everything else off
- stand on the left side and look over the edge and back behind the lowbies
- attack furthest away mob pet will attack
- while he's running, target another mob as far down the end as you can
- wait for the pet to hit the first target, send it after the second target
- (optionally) repeat on a third target on the right hand side of the bridge down below
- set explosive trap and feign death
- call pet back and set on passive

Having made friends, most of the mobs will come say hi. It won't take long to figure out how to get them all to join in. While they are patting your pet, scratching behind it's ears and stuff, your explosive trap will be earning a bit of XP. Once they're all there you can let your pet scratch back.

As soon as the trap cooldown is up, re apply it and loose some gold as your armour gets a few scratches of it's own.

Only danger is using FD and having aggro go to the lowbies. Doesn't take long to get your head around it.


Now move further in doing it again...

Part 2:
- clear to the boulder elementals then pull that room using the pet
- i was making sure the pet got a hit on EVERY target in here
- set trap, pull pet back, fd, etc...

Part 3:
- same again in the area with the first boss in the middle of 4 bridges
- pull well back because of the pats aggroing onto the lowbies
- make sure your graphics is drawing as far as possible away
- stand on the edge of the bridges and get your pet to pull as much as is useful
- explosive trap/fd/etc

Part 4:
- you can get the next two bosses
- top one targetable without having to go up the ramp
- CAREFUL .. get too far away from your pet and he despawns


For the fastest xp, repeat Part 1 over and over, don't even go in further. Only problem is you'll quickly use up the number of instances you are allowed to reset in an hour.

Was leveling every 10-15 minutes from memory (bit longer when going further in).


Phase Three: (17+):
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Wailing Caverns

Rinse and repeat of the above. The first room is basically a loop. You pet can run around and pull 90% of the mobs in a few minutes with Dash. Explosive trap, kaboom, run out, reset, repeat. Maybe 15-20 minutes per level. But in that 15-20 minutes you could reach your hourly limit. You can go in further, but there is nothing else in WC like that first room.

From vague memory, the played time to 20 was around 12 hours, but most of that was the initial questing and exploration. Might have been a bit quicker tho. It was definitely low stress: pet holds aggro, and once you get used to it you know when not to feign death, so lowbies never get attacked.


For a better setup, I'd suggest enough survival to maximise your trap damage. If spell damage effects traps (and volley) .. well, it could get even easier.

What about beyond level 22? I don't think it scales well. Healing, fear and cc mobs add up when you pull 30 of them. Also much better if there are open rooms full of melee mobs. Maybe SM graveyard.

So if you have access to a hunter, RFC and WC, 12->22 can be a breeze in terms of effort and time. It's fastest if you only hit the first rooms in each instance, but you need something else to go do while your instances/per hour is on cooldown. Personally, the barrens is so full of quests I'd just mix it in.

There are so many level 70 hunters out there, hopefully this helps someone.