When the going gets tough
by Allison Robert 
May 27th 2008 at 11:00AM
A few friends and I have begun leveling alts in the interests of having a few more 70's around for Wrath, and I got a comment on my Warrior after she dinged 29. "We'll need to get you some good blues," said a buddy, a 70-Paladin-turned-10-Shaman (in hindsight, probably cringing over said toon's Armory profile). "Warrior 30-40 is kinda tough."It didn't mean much to me at the time, but I started thinking about it while contemplating the possibility of starting a Hordeside Hunter. A 1-10 Hunter without a pet is a fairly unpleasant (if mercifully quick) experience, but that one is pretty obvious while others seem less so. There's a strange alchemy of level, quest drops, scaling, gear, dungeons, and skills that seem to combine to make life tougher in certain level ranges.
A 2005 guide to classes' relative leveling speed insisted that classes alternately sped and slowed as they aged and that the difference could be tracked statistically, and while I'm not sure I trust all of their math (and the information's outdated anyway), you can't fault the amount of work that went into it. Moreover, as the commenters point out, someone who picks a Rogue as a main is not necessarily playing the game with the same goals in mind as someone who picked, say, a Priest. A less scientific, but more detailed, look at leveling speed and class difficulties was written by Breanni of WarcraftPets.com, and her experiences seem to gel a bit more with conventional wisdom, particularly with respect to the speed of Hunter and Warlock leveling. That being said, Druid 1-20 was pretty ugly, Shaman late-30's is a parade of mana inefficiency, and I'm not looking forward to getting another Hunter to 10.
Filed under: Druid, Classes, Leveling, Analysis / Opinion, Warrior, Warlock, Shaman, Hunter, Alts, Rogue, Priest
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
antilucid May 27th 2008 11:12AM
Level 1 to 70 as a resto druid was a lesson in patience. When I leveled a Warlock next, I started as demon and then went affliction. It went so much faster. And for my rogue, even faster. The numbers on that site seem failry accurate.
Callandra May 27th 2008 11:29AM
If I get a new character to level 60 in greater than 6-7 days its a failure.
In my experience...
1-20, rogue was the fastest.
Druids have a slump until they get pounce and then mangle speeds it all up.
Warlocks are a joke to level, so easy (as affliction)
Warrior wasn't bad, 10 days pre-BC
Hunter was super easy, no downtime with mana management.
Priest wasn't bad. Much better with Mind Flay & S-Form.
mcsaeki May 27th 2008 11:31AM
Bah. I leveled a clothadin because I damned well wanted to, and it was fantabulous. I had 10 days /played at 55 because I decided I couldn't go on without being covered in purps.
Clothadins with an Eye of Flame FTW!
Soriel Angelfyre May 27th 2008 11:34AM
with the deadzone reduction on hunter they are a lot more livable those first 10 levels than they used to be.
In my experience, leveling isn't that hard, as long as you know what to look for as far as gear/spec and even then, just knowing the mobs and quests tends to be more important to leveling
Having leveled at least one of each class to at least 60 (shaman, rogue, priest and hunter, i lost interest in about the 62 mark, though i did just start leveling a new hunter last week....level 38 so far ;) )
Tinious May 27th 2008 12:48PM
wow, it's funny you mention hunters. I really stumbled with my 'lock from 20-30, but it's been smooth through to almost 50 now. But I started to level a hunter for giggles and gave up at 7 as I figured I was just too dumb - and he has become my auctioneer alt :). I started leveling a priest and that has been super smooth so far through 10.
Blind May 27th 2008 2:59PM
To be honest, I found the first 10 levels of a priest to be hardest. Its all downhill from there, which is hard to believe
vlad May 27th 2008 11:43AM
i have a 70 lock,druid,priest,rogue and hunter and have to say these charts are fairly accurate. the priest leveld so fast compared to all the others. however, the lock also levels quite fast so that part of the chart was wrong. the druid HAH. slooow
Milktub May 27th 2008 11:45AM
That link with the graphs is a joke. The differences really look huge. I mean, with mage way down at the bottom and druid way up at the top, it seems like a druid takes like 10x longer to level.
Then you look at the scale in the graph, and remember that moment in stats class where the professor gave a lecture about how easy it is to fib with stats. Graph scale is the easiest way to misrepresent data.
wild May 27th 2008 12:01PM
You have to remember it's from 2005, I am not sure if it's doable now but Mage AOE leveling was the fastest and easiest way to get to 60. I remember going to Go shek farm and seeing ice mages solo clear that whole place over and over and over again.
Quite a few things have changed since then so I am not sure it's as accurate anymore.
Milktub May 27th 2008 1:22PM
Wild, I'm not disputing that things like mage AoE farming. I'm disputing the graphs that are used. By setting the min-max for the Y-axis very near to the min/max values, you mislead the viewer into thinking that the slowest leveler is incredibly slower than the fastest leveler, when the difference is actually a statistically insignificant figure.
It's like if you drew a graph of my hourly wages over the past 10 years. With a minimum of $0/hour, the graph would be a steadily climbing plateau. But if you were to set the minimum as being just a bit above my hourly wage 10 years ago, it would appear as if my earning power has skyrocketed over the past 10 years.
matt May 27th 2008 2:05PM
The graphs are clearly labeled. They only fool the illiterate.
Nick S May 27th 2008 5:07PM
unless the intent was to emphasize that the range of data points was very narrow, the graph is laid out appropriately. the goal of the project was to show the difference in leveling speeds between various classes - setting the axis to read from 0 to max would make the data harder to read.
lying with statistics only works if the audiences bother to think about the data.
Milktub May 27th 2008 5:41PM
A good graph shouldn't need reading of the value labels. One should only need to see "Average Time" on the Y-axis and "Class" on the X-axis and be able to derive nearly all relevant information from the graph.
The intent of the graph is what's really in question. The text above the graphs says "Between levels 1-20 [sic], mages level 10% faster than druids" -- but the relational positions of the values on the graph show a difference in speed much, much greater than 10%. Only by further studying the graph does it become clear that the y-axis begins at 95 minutes.
Then again, I'm not arguing about WoW right now. I'm arguing about basic graphical accessibility, which this graph fails in. Successful graphic representations of information should convey the maximum amount of desired info within the shortest amount of time. That's why water on a map is blue, rather than the same color as land, but labeled "water." You can make an argument that a colorless map fully labeled presents the same info, but a colored map succeeds where the black and white map fails.
Crazydaisy May 27th 2008 11:51AM
I still don't understand some peoples need to level so gosh darned fast. My rogue was a very slow and thoughtful levelling. Why? Because I'm more interested in mastering my technique instead of being just another sinister strike/ stab/stab toon. When you "understand" your class a deeper level the invites and guild invites never stop coming.
I think when your a noob to a new class and level so fast you miss out really learning some of the new spells and how to properly use them.
My priest is level 50 now in 5 months. I've re-specced 3 times already and always PvP along the way. I guess I really enjoy the long ride.
matta May 27th 2008 12:58PM
no way it takes 20+ days to level a hunter.
I did 1-70 in 15 days /played, that includes PVPing or a few hours at 19/29/39/49/59/69
Unagieater May 27th 2008 1:12PM
My hunter had a ridiculous /played time when I finished, but that's probably more the person behind the keyboard not the character. lol
It was like 23 days. xD
JParris May 27th 2008 12:18PM
A friend and I are leveling Alliance Druids after having 5 Horde level 70s, just for the heck of it. Allianceingeneral have a bugger of a time at 35-45, but these Druids are just stagnating at around 45-50. Once we get Mangle I'm sure things will go faster,but 40-50 on a druid seems like a heck of a slump.
Sedna May 27th 2008 12:23PM
Something I've noticed (though the buffs to leveling have reduced it somewhat) are one or two level-wide dead spots where you're too high-level for your current zone (or quests in it) but not high enough for a new one (or new quests in the same zone). STV has a couple of these; I seem to remember also having some trouble in Hillsbrad Foothills. Frustrating.
Rudi May 27th 2008 12:24PM
I've been pleasantly surprised at how quickly my priest is leveling. After playing a warrior and a mage it's really not that bad. At low levels a good wand + power word: shield was really efficient.
Zarzuur May 27th 2008 12:26PM
I have done three 70s, levelling the rest at 33 each atm. The main class bonuses are: pets, spell interrupts/stuns, run speed increases for travel, and escape/shield panic options.
The dangers are: bad pulls, and going oom (on classes other than mage/warlock).
My levelling 33s are:
Rogue/Cat: kill quick, die quick, rogue has more cool tricks here
Bear: slower but able to stun (and beat Kurzen Medicine Men)
Paladin: the art of learning mob aggro range to pull singles (!)
Priest: shield, dwarf chastise, spirit tap, without stopping
Shaman: ghost wolf, windfury, shocks, but really need mana spring totem
Warrior: gift of the naaru, improved revenge, shield bash, concussion ftw! (fun to level really)