Breakfast Topic: Do you ever level purely through dungeons?
by Olivia Grace 
Aug 25th 2012 at 8:00AM
So I've been skating around this question for a few Breakfast Topics now, but I'm just going to come out and ask the question. I'm sure this won't be a popular opinion, but I don't like questing. I know, I know, an MMORPG is all about questing and immersing yourself in the story. I did this on my first character. I finished zones because I was under the mistaken impression that you had to or you'd miss out on some key piece of information. I read quest text because I was sure the quest would eventually habor some great secrets and not just rant about needing basilisk livers for some bizarre experiment.
Then, on rolling my second character, a shaman healer, I made a decision. I'd been roundly derided for not using my paladin tank to tank dungeons while I was levelling, as it was, I was told, so much faster. So I decided that for the shaman, I would level purely by healing dungeons.
It was like a revelation. I far preferred dungeons to questing; to me, they were far more fun. I like the cooperative side of MMORPGs, you see, and working with (or in spite of) four other players was great fun for me. Yes, as a healer, I had it easy with the queue times, but my DPS characters have also been leveled mostly via dungeons, with a little bit of questing thrown in here and there. If you're putting out decent DPS and are kind and polite, you may well be able to stick with a group for a few high-speed dungeon runs. Of course, I also PvP at the relevant levels, but the lion's share of my leveling time is spent in dungeons.
After recent chats with fellow players and WoW Insider writers, I wonder if I'm a rarity. Almost everyone seems to like questing, while I don't. I've been worrying about the reputation grinding that seems to be required for Mists, only to be told that it's OK, just doing the quests to get to 90 will get you to honored. But I won't be doing them, I'll be leveling in dungeons. Like I always do.
So am I alone? Or do you sometimes level purely through dungeons? Would you, if queue times were faster? Or would you rather join the orderly queue of people who think I'm a bit of a muppet for playing the game like this?
Then, on rolling my second character, a shaman healer, I made a decision. I'd been roundly derided for not using my paladin tank to tank dungeons while I was levelling, as it was, I was told, so much faster. So I decided that for the shaman, I would level purely by healing dungeons.
It was like a revelation. I far preferred dungeons to questing; to me, they were far more fun. I like the cooperative side of MMORPGs, you see, and working with (or in spite of) four other players was great fun for me. Yes, as a healer, I had it easy with the queue times, but my DPS characters have also been leveled mostly via dungeons, with a little bit of questing thrown in here and there. If you're putting out decent DPS and are kind and polite, you may well be able to stick with a group for a few high-speed dungeon runs. Of course, I also PvP at the relevant levels, but the lion's share of my leveling time is spent in dungeons.
After recent chats with fellow players and WoW Insider writers, I wonder if I'm a rarity. Almost everyone seems to like questing, while I don't. I've been worrying about the reputation grinding that seems to be required for Mists, only to be told that it's OK, just doing the quests to get to 90 will get you to honored. But I won't be doing them, I'll be leveling in dungeons. Like I always do.
So am I alone? Or do you sometimes level purely through dungeons? Would you, if queue times were faster? Or would you rather join the orderly queue of people who think I'm a bit of a muppet for playing the game like this?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics
