Our class experts gave the adventurers leveling advice.


Advice for Ziinjaabi, an <It came from the Blog> guildie, from Dawn Moore, Spiritual Guidance

Ziinjaabi may want to check out:

• this forum post
• this guide from Plus Heal
• the second page of my Disc 101 article

In general, it's really more about how you play, not what you talent at low, low levels. Healing in dungeons early on involves one spell: Lesser Heal, Heal or Greater Heal (respective to whatever level you are.) You can use Renew on the tank, but if it's used too liberally, you will go OOM. He should expect to be drinking between at least every other pull. Sad, but such is the life of priesting.

Advice for Faience from Rich Maloy, Totem Talk

Your kill strategy doesn't change much from what you've been doing (LB, FS, then melee and ES until dead), but you will notice your weapons are doing more damage thanks to Thundering Strikes, Elemental Weapons and finally Flurry! Those should be the only places you're spending points to get down the enhance tree as quickly as possible. At level 30, however, the fun really begins with Windfury. It's the quintessential enhance shaman spell. Put that on your weapon and when those procs kick, the mobs will be begging for mercy in a blink of an eye. For the full 21-30 rundown, check out this recent post.

Advice for Robinemia from Christian Belt, Arcane Brilliance

The 20-30 level range for frost mages is all about two talents: Icy Veins at 20, your first and best DPS cooldown spell, and Shatter at 24, which (when combined with Frostbite, Ice Shards and Frost Nova) will make you into a devastating crit machine. Shatter combos are simply splendid. Once you've got your hands on all three points of Shatter, start investing in Precision for the lowered mana cost (and of course, the mandatory hit rating, but that's more important later) and then all three points of Piercing Ice, because more damage is, well, more damage. If AoE grinding is part of your leveling strategy, hold off on Precision and snag Improved Blizzard. God love you, you've got more patience than I do. Even if you aren't going to be rounding up hordes of mobs and slaughtering them methodically very often, a point in Improved Blizzard isn't a bad idea, simply for the extra control option against multiple mobs that it offers. Your talent spec at 30 should look something like this.

As far as glyphs go, do yourself a favor and grab Glyph of Evocation as your first major glyph. I'm not even kidding. Glyph of Evocate is a leveling mage's wet dream made real. Over a short eight seconds every four minutes, you can basically reset your mana and health to full. Your downtime will reduce drastically and you'll have a non-potion/bandage means of emergency healing yourself in combat. Just sheep or Frost Nova (or both; who doesn't like frozen sheep?) and get some distance so you don't get interrupted. None of the minor glyphs for mages are of much practical use, but I do enjoy Glyph of Slow Fall while leveling because it frees up a precious inventory space (no more stupid Light Feathers to carry around) and makes using Slow Fall a consequence-free decision. It's hard to fully understand how useful this is until you have the glyph, at which point you'll find yourself slow falling as a mode of transportation all the damn time. At level 30, frost mages don't have a whole lot of good options available for that second major glyph slot, but you can do worse than Glyph of Frost Nova. More control for longer is nice. You could also glyph your armor with Glyph of Ice Armor, giving you less squishiness.


Advice for Patent from Chase Christian, Encrypted Text

Levels 20-30 are where rogues pick up the majority of their signature techniques. Vanish will be your best friend while leveling up (bind it to an easy-to-use key); use it any time that it will save you a repair bill. If you accidentally pull more than you can chew, you can work down one mob and then vanish before you get turned into mud. You'll also be gaining Cheap Shot at level 24, which will drastically change the way you approach an enemy. Prior to having CS available, you can just walk up to mobs and just start smacking them in the face. Once you have the ability to open with a potent stun and an extra two combo points, you might find yourself stealthing around more often, and it definitely gives you an edge against tougher mobs. To supplement your DPS in this range, I suggest using the Glyph of Eviscerate and Glyph of Sinister Strike, as these will yield very tangible results; they're the only two damaging attacks you'll be using, anyway -- well, that is until you pick up Riposte, which is so great that you should use it every time it's active. Your DPS will be increasing significantly with each passing level, as the top tier of the combat tree hosts quite a few potent talents. Don't forget to regularly update your poisons as well. There are only two ranks of Instant Poison from 20-30, but you will want to get in the habit of buying and refreshing your poison stocks.

Advice for Grayfields from Brian Wood, Scattered Shots

You already have all of the key hunter tools in your toolbox; anything new you get at this point is just gravy (or useless) for leveling. You have a pet and Mend Pet for all your tanking needs, and you have Concussive Shot and Wing Clip for your kiting needs. You and your pet are already a leveling army. It's time to take your fledgling hunter skills to the next level. Never pull just one mob -- always take multiples at a time. Have your pet tank a few, toss up a Mend Pet, then go kite another one or two to death. Keep pushing things to find your limits, then push those limits. If you prefer dungeon finder leveling, find another four hunter friends to run the instances with -- other classes just hold you back from your true potential. Also remember, hit rating is your friend! Your hit rating means your pet will hit more, be dodged and parried less, have growl resisted less and hold aggro better. At the end of this stage of leveling, you officially become a real hunter and are bestowed with Feign Death.

Advice for Annephora from Matthew Rossi, The Care and Feeding of Warriors.

The problem is, there's not really much to say between 10 and 20 for any warrior. And frankly, I don't find prot to be terribly useful for a low level warrior. But assuming she's forced to level prot, her first task is to get a good solid 1h and shield pronto and keep them up to date as best she can. Warriors need to keep their gear current more than any other class. (This may or may not be fixed in Cataclysm.)

Secondly, I'd go with full Shield Spec and Incite off the bat. Incite will be very helpful when trying to actually do any damage when not in an instance and is useful for threat when tanking, while Shield Spec will help with rage gen while blocking hits with that shield. For real tanking, Anticipation is key, but I don't know that it's worth losing Imp Bloodrage, Imp TC or even Imp Revenge (which you can have a point in by level 20.)

Don't worry about stats like defense at this level. Just get strength, stamina and agility for now. (In that order.)

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