Malhoof’s: How to Level in Northrend!

With the expansion coming in only a few days, Spoon asked me to write up this little discussion about leveling.

I am not by any means the authority on power leveling, and that’s not what this article is about.  This is meant to be a small reminder about  what you are trying to accomplish as you are leveling.  A lot of people think that the best way to level is as fast as possible by grinding instances and worry about the little things when they are finished.  For some people this is a great way to get into endgame content.

Grinding instances can yield you some really fast experience if you can get a group in a timely manner and you can get some really nice gear from doing this.  I find however that I end with a slightly better character in the end if I take a little more time to level and really pay attention to what’s going on with the story line, and that I have a better selection of gear to better my character once I reach max level.  Taking a little more time to do the quests as you level and immerse yourself in the plot you can understand a little more about the world developing around you.

By taking a little more time to do a few extra quests, you will generally have less reputation to grind out once you hit max level.  In the World of Repcraft, you are almost certainly going to run into a vendor that has a really nice piece of gear or pattern/recipe/mount for you at exalted.

If you get tired really quickly of the “run and fetch” type quests, mix it up a little.  Do most of the quests in an area and once it starts feeling like you are turning into the quest giver’s errand boy, go do an instance or two.  Just make sure you have the quests for that instance so that you get maximum XP from it.  The time you spend LFG you can be working on your tradeskills or catch up on some in-game economics.  The point is Blizzard puts a lot of time into the quests and story of the game (they have a huge department of people just thinking up ways to deepen the story of the game) and it can be very much worth the time to have fun with the story.

-Malhoof.