Posts with tag Leveling

No, this feat isn't impossible. A WoW-player named Watola has managed to level 100 characters up to level 100, which has a nice symmetry to it. Watola started work on this project towards the end of Mists, working with two accounts (each account is limited to 50 characters, so this is a must) to level two characters at once with Recruit-a-Friend bonuses. Always leveling with one tank meant getting into dungeons and clearing them, even solo, was easy XP. Getting to 85 in this way took Watola 5-8 hours, depending on the class -- likely taking advantage of rested XP (easy to gain when leveling so many alts) and heirloom bonuses.

At 85, an alt would be paired with a max-level hunter to farm Pandaria elites, which, if they were tagged by the alt before being killed by the hunter, the alt would get full experience for. This would earn a level every 20 or 30 minutes with full rested, and Watola would cycle through rested alts to maximize XP gain. At 90, Watola took his army of alts to Timeless Isle, gearing them up to an average ilvl of 507 to be ready for questing in Warlords.

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Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.

Let's all agree to lay off of Wildstar today, eh?

@crusaderesper asked:

Is the leveling in WoD filled with rares and events like the Timeless Isle?

In the new theorycrafting sticky on the Warlords of Draenor Alpha forums, there's a big post by Celestalon that explains how we're going to be able to solo old raids and such with the item squish making us proportionately less powerful in those raids. It's worth breaking down here, for those of us (like me) who enjoy that sort of thing for either fun or transmog.

First up, all players will gain a damage reduction factors when attacked by creatures that are lower level, starting at Cataclysm content and heading down from there. Creatures from Mists of Pandaria and, presumably Warlords of Draenor will not be affected by this. So once a creature from Cataclysm content or below (Wrath, BC and Vanilla) attacks a character that outlevels them, there will be a formula that determines how little damage the character takes. Celestalon presented it as such.

LevelDiff = PlayerLevel - CreatureLevel
if (CreatureExpansion < Pandaria) then
// 10% DR per level diff, with a floor of 10%
DamageTakenFactor = max(1.0 - 0.1 * LevelDiff, 0.1)
else
DamageTakenFactor = 1.0
end

What this means is that, when your level 100 character goes inside a level 80 Wrath raid, they'll have a very large reduction in how much damage they take.

This is one of those title says it all posts, but I'll elaborate: the fact that there is neither a new class nor a new race in Warlords of Draenor isn't a problem. First up, there's the obvious fact that we're getting redesigns for the eight original races plus draenei and blood elves. In terms of art design, that's an incredible amount of work, far more than designing one or even two new races. Racial abilities for each race are also being redesigned, meaning each will play differently. Moreover, by not introducing a new race or class, we don't need to have a starter zone designed for them, meaning that content design can focus on content for the 90 to 100 player, especially since thanks to the level 90 boost, it can be assumed that anyone who picks up Warlords and wants to play it can.

As has been said elsewhere, new races and classes are not content in and of themselves. They consume time and development resources to create them, and often they have content associated with them, and that content is usually only playable when you create one of them (although the monk did not actually get that treatment - save for one location in Pandaria that offered monk only quests, as a kind of home base, monks didn't see the death knight starter zone style experience) but by themselves a new race or class is just a different way to experience content. This is not to say they are not important. New classes offer new gameplay options, new abilities and spells, and sometimes new roles for players who did not enjoy, say, tanking or healing on previous classes.

But I think it's fair to say that World of Warcraft doesn't need the added complexity of three new specializations to balance right now. There's going to be a lot of work needed to balance out new spells and abilities, adjust item levels, change the way healing works while ensuring it does still work, implement entirely new gameplay like garrisons without also figuring out how to keep another class in the mix with the other 34 specializations we already have. Similarly, while I mourn for my alliance ogre paladin and horde arakkoa druid, do we need two more groups of racials to balance out?

Right now in WoW is a time many of us know all too well: the pre-expansion lull. The last major content patch of Mists of Pandaria is out, and we're not going to see much new stuff until whenever 6.0 shows up on the horizon. Many of us are casting about looking for things to keep us occupied in the game until then--things such as finishing up old rep grinds, working on achievements, collecting mounts, and putting together the perfect transmog set.

Something else you might consider doing is going back and finishing up some old, low-level quests, even if you're not working on your Loremaster title. And why might you want to do this? Because some low-level quests are pretty dang fun, good for a laugh, and offer some interesting perspectives in terms of fleshing-out Azeroth's world. I've picked out eight low-level quests (or quest chains) that are a particular delight. I've tried to focus on those in some of the world's more overlooked areas, so as to highlight a few fun adventures you might have missed. Unless otherwise marked, all listed quests are available to both factions.

By now, most of us have leveled alts, and probably a lot of them. And while the leveling game was probably fun the first time and even the second, by the third, fourth, fifth and beyond, you're probably painfully bored of doing the same quests again. And again. And again.

Sure, there are all sorts of tricks you can use to speed up your leveling, but what do you do when you just can't stand to quest through the same zone again? That's when you turn to alternative leveling methods. These aren't the fastest or the most efficient ways to get to max level, but they do all have the advantage of not being the same old quest grind.

So whether you're leveling a character up for the first time or the hundredth, here are our 6 favorite alternative ways to get the XP you need.

So I've been leveling my lowbie hunter through the fifties, in part because I'm such a fan of Happy Days (note - that's not at all true) and mostly because I got the bow off of Garrosh so it's time to get my hunter to max level. Ironically, it was the fact that I got this heirloom that has me realizing that I hate heirlooms. Why? Why do I hate these bringers of bonus XP, these delightfully powerful pieces that free you from the tyranny of gear upgrades for up to 85 levels? How could I have anything but praise for them? Well, here's how.

1. The first, and most often cited reason, is that they make dungeon loot unimportant. You end up chaining dungeons, and almost any and all gear that you get is sharded or vendored. When boots or gloves drop it's a party, but helms, shoulders, chests, legs, cloaks and weapons are at best saved for future transmog. (Being a mog addict, that's what I'm doing anyway.)
2. You can't even reasonably forgo heirlooms - I've actually tried to do so, and switching to the various quest greens and blue drops over my heirlooms means doing markedly less DPS (I'm a hunter, DPS is all I do) and getting crap in my dungeon runs from the heirloom clad tank and even, in some cases, the heirloom clad healer over it. Heirlooms are the expected norm nowadays - if you don't have them it's noticeable.
3. Doing PvP on an heirloom clad hunter? Trivial. No one can stop me. I've actually stopped going. I tried going heirloomless for a while - all the people I'd annoyed seemed to come out of the woodwork for revenge.

Ultimately, for myself at least, there's two issues with heirlooms - I like and want to preserve the bonus XP they grant, while disliking and wanting to remove the way they grant power and remove the fun of gear acquisition. So what am I suggesting?

Good morning! Are you just sneaking in the Breakfast Topic daily, or are you lucky enough to be able to run the whole front page before lunchtime? Yeah, I don't normally play in the morning, either. It stinks. Sometimes the boss will catch me online during work hours, yeah -- but it's just to grab a quick screenshot for a new Breakfast Topic, know what I mean? It's not like I'm trying to slip through all my dailies or anything ...

Chit-chat. We love it in the WoW Insider comments, we love in game, and we especially love and recommend it among groupmates, where it helps foster a spirit of cooperation and camaraderie. A friendly greeting at the outset of random groups or raids sets the stage for a more relaxed, personal experience and paves the way for questions, suggestions and comments about the content ahead.

Once you've greeted your groupmates, though, do you keep up the friendly chatter? As a healer, I'm frequently too absorbed by the breakneck pace of most experienced tanks to type much once we've begun. I don't mind others who do, though, especially if they weave in a workmanlike mix of suggestions and gentle joking about our performance. I'll admit to tuning out when the talk turns to sports scores, though. That's when you'll notice players randomly making a Confession or Levitating gently through the instance on puffy little clouds. Oh yeah, sports talk. I'm bored.

So do you chit-chat during random groups? Do you feel awkward when you get matched with an SBD (Silent But Deadly) group? Do you have a patented icebreaker for new groups?

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Chances are, you've spent a lot of time in World of Warcraft leveling, because for most of us having just a single main character isn't enough. Once you've leveled your main, maybe you want to see what it's like to play a different class or race. Maybe you want to see what the horde experience is like after playing alliance, or maybe you want to check out Kalimdor after leveling in the Eastern Kingdoms. Whatever the reason, most of us have alts for a change of pace -- and some die-hard alt-a-holics even aim to hit max level with every class or faction. All this adds up to an awful lot of leveling... and it probably leaves you with a really good grasp of the game's leveling zones.

So today we're asking: what's your favorite leveling spot? Is there a zone or quest hub you just can't miss? A dungeon run you just can't get enough of? Tell us all about it!

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Getting to level 90 may seem like old hat this late in the expansion cycle, but I bet you all remember just when and where you first (or last) hit the level cap. For my part, after skipping out of WoW for all of Cataclysm, I decided to play all the way through each Cataclysm zone with my monk before moving on to Pandaria. The result? I hit level 90 pretty early in Valley of the Four Winds, before even getting around to doing any of Hemet Nessingwary's grind-tastic -- and experience-tastic -- quests. Though after that, I wound up jumping over the wall into the Vale in order to train flying because I'd not yet done the gate opening quests... so it's probably not a leveling experience I'll repeat.

Now that I've shared my level 90 story, how about yours? When and where did you hit level 90?

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If you're working on picking up levels or reputations on any characters, today there's a confluence of holidays that will help you along the way. But you'll have to act fast, since Pilgrim's Bounty and the 9th Anniversary event end today. Here's what you need to do to get the most out of your grinding:

• The Pilgrim's Bounty Spirit of Sharing buff grants +10% reputation for an hour. Get it by going to any Pilgrim's Bounty table and chowing down on each type of food 5 times.
• The Darkmoon Faire WHEE! buff grants +10% experience and reputation for up to an hour. Just visit the Faire and ride the carousel until the buff stacks up to an hour. Alternatively, you could use the Darkmoon Top Hat to get the same buff -- but bear in mind the two buffs won't stack.
• Use your 9th Anniversary Celebration Package for +9% experience and reputation for an hour.

The downside, as you may have already guessed, is that these buffs are limited duration, and the Pilgrim's Bounty buff and Darkmoon buff (unless you use the top hat) both require you to visit places to get them. Still, an hour of bonuses isn't bad. Plus, these can stack with other excellent leveling buffs like the monk's Enlightenment daily buff, heirloom buffs, and the Guild Battle Standard buff. So hurry up and get leveling!

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Sometimes I actually love Twitter for how it can bring the players and the developers together in a more immediate way. Case in point, this tweet from Ghostcrawler. When asked about crafting professions falling behind as the expansion progressed, the answer was clear and unambiguous that Blizzard agrees it's a problem.

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@JakeSteel423 Yes, but no immediate announcements. We agree it's a problem.

- Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) August 23, 2013

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While it's light on specifics I'm glad to see they get the problem. At this point I'm only keeping blacksmithing for the extra sockets, and I know a lot of JC's who were mighty disappointed when they found out there would be no epic gems this time around. Maybe a return to BC style scaling items is in order? Maybe not. Making my original Lionheart Blade was a pain.

I still remember the first day I played this game on live servers, even though it's been nearly nine years since I looked at the login screen and tried to muddle out what to pick. Friends of mine had already made an Alliance guild and encouraged me to join them. When I mentioned I wanted to play a rogue, I was told that they really needed healers, not rogues. However, my friend suggested I roll a druid, as they could not only heal, but they could turn into a cat and stealth around like a rogue does. That seemed suitable to me, so I rolled a night elf druid, logged in and began to play.

Several months and sixty levels later, that experience remains full of fond memories of endless frustration with the class and how it played. It absolutely did not help that giant improvements for that class were rolled out in a patch shortly after I hit 60. I rolled Horde, and the rest is history ... or it was, anyway. The druid remained at level 60, years after I hit 70, 80, 85 and 90, frozen in a distinct period of time. Several months ago, while idly looking at the login screen and pondering what to play, I decided to actually level the druid and get it caught up. Furthermore, I decided to make the trip without heirloom gear -- after all, it didn't exist when I originally played the character.

This is the story of a peculiar alt that used to be a main, and what happens when you crack open a time capsule from 2005.