Breakfast Topic: The last few levels
by Jennie Lees 
Apr 26th 2006 at 7:55AM
Benig in the late 50s is a tricky position. Depending on your guild, you might start ramping up to the
endgame, or you may be trundling with your head down towards 60. If your guild isn't going all-out to get you levelled,
then it can get depressing logging in, spending hours mindlessly killing, and not getting a level out of it.A few tricks to break up the tedium of that final stretch include: explore new areas and quests; pick a faction (such as the Timbermaw or Argent Dawn) and grind reputation, focusing on that rather than your level; spend some time in PvP, which has a small experience reward; try farming for money or drops instead of xp; and do some instances. You could also concentrate on your tradeskills if you've been neglecting them.
Of course, nothing really changes the fact that it does take a while to level, and if you haven't the stomach for grinding, you may get bored. I've found breaking up grinding with some PvP works well, and I also used the WoWVid player for a while to entertain me through the killing. Have you any tips to make the home stretch go by quicker?
Filed under: Tips, Tricks, Breakfast Topics, Quests
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Lummox Apr 26th 2006 8:49AM
Two words: Double XP.
Take a break, play an alt, or just go outside and get some fresh air for a day or two. When you get back you should have several bubbles of double XP, which takes a lot longer to burn through at those late 50s levels since the XP requirement to level is so much greater than at lower levels. Sure made going from 57-60 a piece of cake (and only took me about a week with all of it in double XP).
Peter Apr 26th 2006 9:37AM
Lummox is right -- the way to go is Rested XP. But I don't do it just for the 50s. I do it for all my levels. For me, when the XP bar is purple, I feel like I'm wasting time because my XP is going at half the rate -- for me, "Rested" play is full xp, "Non-rested" play is half xp. It's a different perspective, but it allows me to play a lot of different classes and keep it all interesting! Sometimes, I'll go a week w/o playing my main so I have tons of Rested XP stored up. Remember, you're earning XP even when you're not playing -- that's what rested XP is...free XP that you're earning while you're playing an alt, having dinner with the wife, working, etc. It's just happened to be XP that you haven't collected yet but it never goes away!
And always do quests! It's been 4.5 months to 60 for me (my first, i have 10K xp left which is about 16 mobs at 600+ rested xp per mob...) and it's never been a grind! Most of this was solo play too. When you break up the fighting by achieving quest goals, those levels just melt away.
Besides, doing quests bumps your Rested XP needle further out so it feels like you have even more of that good ol blue stuff!
jennie Apr 26th 2006 9:41AM
Fair point Lummox! Personally I've so many alts that I'm always on rested xp -- but the last few levels are still going by slowly.
spicytuna Apr 26th 2006 9:46AM
Simple, do 5-man instances from level 55 on. BRD, LBRS, Strat and Scholo. You'll be grinding gear and leveling. From level 55 on I don't watch my xp bar, just concentrate on getting loot.
tibbsy Apr 26th 2006 10:26AM
I totally agree with #1 there. Double XP is really all you should be grinding on, if you can. I'm a lot more active than many of my friends that played with me, so I ended up making alts to stall the level progression of my main. Because she just sat in the inn for lots of time, she built up huge rest xp.
I would say two things in particular made my last few levels quick and fairly painless: instance runs, and grinding quests. Look for quests that are like "hey go find a 73 Yeti nostrils". You'll get xp for the kills and for completing the quest, and often those quests will involving grinding in a fairly condensed area (ie. no riding across zones to go from patch to patch of the mobs). Instance runs are also an awesome way to get through the last few levels. 5-man BRD runs are a solid way to earn xp fast and gain some gear in the process.
While some of the earlier faction quests (such as killing Scourge for Argent Dawn) are both useful and xp-productive, I did feel like I was droning on after all the one-time quests are done and you're back to repeatable "hand in 5 of these things" quests.
The key, I guess, is just to do things that will make you focus on other things rather than that XP bar.
Quicksilver Apr 26th 2006 10:33AM
What mod are you using that tells you how many more kills you need to level. I have titan but idk if that mod is bundled with what i have.
THanks
xinhaijian Apr 26th 2006 11:26AM
Cosmos has a nice function for determining xp and kills to level. It shows you xp/hour this level and this session. Estimates the time till you ding by your average xp/hour this level and this session, and when you mouse over mobs it will tell you specifically how many of those mobs it will take for you to ding. it's a really nice grinding ui
Mat Apr 26th 2006 11:30AM
Lummox is right... I did 52-60 on full rest and I rarely felt like I was grinding.
I do have admit though that I got my last 10k by soloing the elite giants in azshara. Those bad boys dole out 800-1100 exp when you're rested, even at 59!
Confirmatus Apr 26th 2006 11:45AM
The levels between 50 and 58 were easy, I just did quests in the western and eastern plaguelands, but at level 58 I needed to start grinding. I just went to tyrs hand and grinded with a mage from my guild because it is hard to kill the mobs there with a def warrior.
spencer Apr 26th 2006 12:23PM
For the last bunch of levels I try to just run as many instances as possible. XP doesn't suck, you need the loot to start gearing up, and it's always more fun to play with other people.
Molly Apr 26th 2006 2:00PM
Quicksilver, it is TitanBar that has it. It should be one of the options when you click on the experience section on the bar.
Marsh Apr 26th 2006 3:05PM
Yeah, I always play on rested XP, and I never felt like I was grinding even in the last levels. I think at the worst it took me 12 hours of focused (by which I mean low-travel, stacked 'kill x of y' quests, or instances) play to gain a level.
If I was screwing around it took longer. But hey, screwing around is fun :)