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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast Topic: How and where do you prefer to level your alts?
by Brandon Cox 
Dec 9th 2011 at 8:00AM
With all the improvements to the leveling process, you'd be hard pressed to find a player immune to the ill effects of altoholism. Everybody (and with the new free-until-level 20 system, probably their grandmothers too) is rolling that one class they've really, really wanted to try but were too put off by the leveling process to actually do so. In many cases, they are rolling several new alts. All those alts adds up to a lot of leveling -- far more leveling than the current content can support, even. Even after three alts, many find themselves having exhausted the zones currently available in the game. It can get stale very, very quickly.
To prevent the dread condition known as burnout, alt-heavy players have to mix things up as they level -- different zones, different continents, dungeons, Battlegrounds ... Anything to break up the monotony. Personally, while there are several zones I never skip -- Zangarmarsh, Netherstorm, Howling Fjord and Grizzly Hills, for instance -- I make an effort to play through the zones in a new order, hopping continents as often as possible, and never running dungeons or Battlegrounds. Sure, the story may be massively fragmented this way, but I've played through it before. I know the story; I'm there for the gaming aspects the second time through. Sure, dungeons and Battlegrounds may be fun and provide quick experience, but questing lets me go at my own speed.
When you level alts, how do you navigate the zones? Do you have a select few favorites that you always level through, or do you try to forge new adventures in new zones as you make your way to 85? Or do you bypass the zones entirely and opt for dungeon or Battleground farming?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Guest Posts
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 3)
goldeneye Dec 11th 2011 2:14PM
I don't hate Hellfire. The questing layout is bearably (sp?) localized moving from the Dark Portal to the other end of the zone, then into Zangar. I don't like Nagrand questing though. The questing there sent me to the other side of the zone one too many times...
I love Netherstorm, but it's so near the range where Northrend opens up that I often end up skipping over it through letting the Dungeon Finder run while questing.
pace9 Dec 9th 2011 12:16PM
I've got 4 85s, one 83 (he'll be 85 with week) and 5 in the 27-70 range. I play every class and every race, as long as its alliance. For my warrior, my first toon, he was created in vanilla but didn't hit level cap til wrath. I have no idea how I finally managed to get him there cuz I had no idea what I was doing. I quested my DK to near cap in wrath, and then dungeoned him up with a max level guild I joined.
The interesting part is when I became an altaholic. When LFD came out, I thought to myself "wouldn't it be awesome to have a level 80 of every class?" I didn't get there. But I will defiantly get there before panda land.
For tank and healing classes, I've used the RDF
For dps, Zygor quest guide & RDF. I try to switch up my alts, but I always go through the Night Elf looking zones before searching for zones I haven't quested in a million times before. After leveling 7 character past Plaguelands, that is the one place I ALWAYS avoid.
dkhar Dec 9th 2011 12:36PM
I like to do the zones with the better story to them, the early undead zones are awesome, stonetalon mountains is nice as well, desolace sill kinda sucks, can't really get myself to level there at all. WPL and EPL are nice for both ally and horde, and I like how much blasted lands seems to have changed. Oh and badlands, for only one real reason that EVERYONE should do it, and that is for 'the day deathwing came' or whatever that quest chain is named, it is beyond awesome. Dwarf punching deathwing in the face, Gnome growing bigger than the zone itself and throwing deathwing to the other continent, an orc riding a 'hog' taking a 'chic' with him(in which you can pick the male BE if you want to for it) you HAVE to do those quests just for the 'lol's' :)
As soon as I hit 58 I go to outland to get the immediate gear upgrades, but I usually roam around till I hit 64 so I can do Nagrand, usually gets me to 67 and I then hit Netherstorm, because there is like a little circuit you can do with your quests that will get a level very quickly.
At northrend level, depends really, if Im horde, I do the quests that get me blue reward, hard to say what it is because it is completely different for horde and ally and I have leveled a ton of both. But the horde version has you do about 4 different small quest chains, that one of them leads you to Saurfang doing his super saiyan thing. And the ally version has you meeting Thausarian(no idea on spelling on that one lol) and a very brief meeting of the Lich King, great rewards for that quest chain that you can take to BG's if you want before hitting 70.
All the while, once AV opens up I do that BG as well as questing because you can get some very good xp in that BG, till about 70, then I stop for a long time, cause if you don't buy the honor gear it is pretty pointless to do em unless you hit 74, by then you should have good enough gear to compete, but that won't last for long, after 75 you are hit by the guys with cata gear and then they blow you away till you can get it.(As an off note I usually run around with heirloom stuff, or pvp stuff, or cata stuff to in those zones, but I don't fully equip myself out and can see why anybody who is new to this game would avoid BG's like the plague especially at those level's).
Roh Dec 9th 2011 1:20PM
I'm an altaholic and prefer questing to raiding or PVP. For the earliest levels I absolutely love the Blood Elf starting zone. I enjoy the scenery and can burn through the quests.
I'm actually a little bitter about the Cataclysm changes to leveling 1-10, because of how the game now forces players to stay within a certain race's starting zone (eg. goblins) or limits quest availability to certain races (eg. undead). I get that these changes follow the storyline of the expansion, but I'm really hoping that with MoP comes the option to level goblins through another starting zone.
Dan Dec 9th 2011 2:01PM
I level through dungeon finder.
djinnfoo Dec 9th 2011 3:42PM
I quest until I ding at 10, pvp until 15,LFG until 19 then pvp until 20,pvp until 25,LFG until 29 then pvp until 30...repeat for 40,50,60,70,80
this method works well for getting gear and seeing play at all levels. It does not make alot of money. All my alts are gathers for crit,stam,ect. and for loading up the crafters to DE to help twink out the alts.
I like the new content so I level all my 80-85 by questing and LFG only to complete quests.
jordiholleman Dec 9th 2011 5:13PM
At this given time I have 8 Level 85 Characters.
With all of the Characters I tried doing different zones, different types of leveling etc. to keep leveling a fun thing to do rather than a boring grind from 1 to max.
Altough I try to quest in different zones most of the time, I still prefer some zones over others, and I will probably not return to zones I have leveled once and found it a waste of time. So I still end up with doing 50% of all my time questing and leveling in some of my favourite zones, whilst the other 50% I try to mix things up. Maby try a different questline or skip some of the zones because I did dungeons and battleground.
bulc70 Dec 10th 2011 2:12PM
Always Duskwood, Winterspring, Nagrand, Grizzly Hills. Nagrand is special and glad others seem to think so.
Awesome Dec 10th 2011 10:37PM
Must quest in Northern Stranglethorn. I love that little raptor chain... and killing all those trolls >:)
More seriously, I ALWAYS do Eastern Plaguelands... that zone storyline is amazing, and the characters along the way are awesome too. Its important to do EVERY quest. Then the zone is perfect.
(no worries, I love playing troll, too)
Another thing I like to do is at least do one or two quest chains in the general zone where a dungeon might be. I don't like dungeoning only, or just questing forever, so I like to RP being in the zone, dealing with small problems, and then culminating into the big bad situation (the dungeon).
goldeneye Dec 11th 2011 2:19PM
I often quest on my dps chars, finishing up my current zone's questing even if I end up outleveling it by a (very) large margin. Meanwhile I leave the Dungeon Finder running (the cause of overleveling the zone).
if I feel like some heavy dungeoneering I switch to my budding Pally Tank or Priest Healer. Neither of them have left the capital cities since Cata hit (the Pally is an alt from Vanilla who saw some very erratic leveling until I switched my main to another server, for my birthday I transferred him as well).
zappel Dec 11th 2011 10:39PM
http://noice.lah.cc/2011/12/12/levelling-post-patch-4-3/
Evelinda Dec 12th 2011 8:28PM
Regardless of factions, nagrand and dragonblight are my "must do" zones. Usually I'll go through zangarmarsh too, but sometimes these days I'll be high enough level I can go straight to nagrand from hfp. I always do the mag'har/kurenai rep grind to exalted, because i think talbuks are the best (easily obtainable) mounts in the game. Hero of the mag'har was also my favourite chain.
When I level horde, i usually do eversong/ghostlands, partly for ease of levelling (i haven't levelled a horde char from scratch this expansion), but mostly because I love the feel of the zones. Eversong is so beautiful, and ghostlands so hauntingly depressing. I love them. Out of 8 85s, i think I'd levelled 5 through there (the others being alliance)
Alliance are more of a mixed bag. I'll usually just go with the racial starting zone, though that does mean I've seen a lot of bloodmyst/azuremyst, because i have a real weakness for draenei. I'll usually try to hit duskwood though; it's another gloriously gloomy zone, it's very immersive. From there... Wherever the winds take me, til I get to outland :)