(This post updated for WotLK – updated information here.)

Let’s talk about the grind of leveling a little bit. The really fun stuff only starts at level 70; and that dead period starting at about level 30 where you nearly have to live in Stranglethorn Vale is something we all hate once we’ve done it a few times.

The are two ways to take the pain out of leveling and do it faster and more efficiently than you ever thought possible. Joanna’s guide brags about making it from 1-60 in 6 days played time. But when you look at the rest of his characters they are a much more modest 7 or 8 days played time to level 60. Still sounds fast, right? You can do it too, without having to memorize every quest in the game and without having done it a hundred times before. Guys like that spend all their time doing only that. They love creating new characters on new servers and racing everybody to level 70. Not me, that’s the grind part, unfortunately it must be done.

Now, keep in mind that Gavin and I are working on making leveling a serious breeze even going solo.  (And Gavin is going to hit 70 WAY faster than 6 days!)  Our horde leveling guide is going to walk you through every single step from 1-80.  That’s right, I said 80, more on that in the next few days.

Gavin is a solo nut.  He gets a real thrill out of leveling which is just not my bag.  I prefer another method.  It took me some time to convince him to try it with me, and I’m not sure he’ll ever like it as much as going solo, but at least he can see what I mean now.  The screenshot for this post is Gavin and me as we worked on our quest pathing in Hellfire.

There are other things much more fun about this game than making leveling itself a race. It’s also really hard to do un-twinked. If you are starting from scratch on a new server, it’s tough to level really fast because you have to spend at least a little time gathering and selling something or you’ll be too broke to afford repairs and get your training.

Furthermore, I hate getting one character all the way to level 70 and then stopping and going back to level 1 with another toon and having to do it all over again. There’s a better way of doing it. There are two parts to this – two rules I level by. The first rule is: never quest out of rest. The second one: Never roll alone.

Don’t Quest Out of Rest.

If you will create three or four toons on your account, plus one banker, you can pretty much play all the time and almost never run out of rested experience bonus. When you kill mobs under the rested bonus you get 200% experience. Plus, if you combine it with questing you can get almost two full levels of experience from one full bar of rest. That’s because every time you turn in a quest, it pushes your rest bar further along since you are gaining experience without killing anything.

One quest turn-in generally speaking is about the same as killing ten mobs at a minimum at low levels, the higher you go the more a quest turn in is worth in relationship to time. If you are killing mobs about the right level you can get one or two lines per ten kills up to about level 30 or so. So if you do 5 quests and kill 125-150 mobs, that’s 1 level – especially at lower levels.

If you are killing a mob every 10-20 seconds that’s 3-6 kills per minute, meaning you can gain a level every hour or so as long as you don’t run out of quests to do. This will work up to about level 20, and then it’s going to take you up to two hours per level. Past level 30 you can count on about three hours a level, around 40 will take four hours, after 50 nearly five hours; and watch out for level 65 plus, they take some time.

If you just can’t stand it and have to do something with your toon and you’re out of rest, use that time for farming (which I never do) or grinding for rep, or running instances for gear.   Of course, there isn’t much of a need any more to grind out rep until you hit 70 anyway, so if you must go looking for herbs or something do those kinds of things when your rested bonus ends.  Since I never farm you can see why I can make a hard and fast rule that I just don’t do much of anything out of rest.

Just for grins let’s say you follow my rule and never quest out of rest much. How long will it take to hit level 70 if you can average the leveling times I listed above? Seven days 5 hours. Considering even Brian Kopp is showing some of his toons hitting 60 in 6 days, that’s pretty good! Seven days playing it easy too. We’re not talking about trying to achieve perfection or break any records. Just by questing in rest, you can take your time and have some fun. Run a few instances and do a profession; help out a friend or two along the way – keep it a game for Pete’s sake! This brings us to rule number two.

Never roll alone.

Now you can certainly go from level one to around level ten much faster solo questing. You might even go up to 16 or even 20, but after that I recommend going questing in a group of two. Two people can kill mobs 125% faster than you can alone. Even though you have to share experience, if you are questing in the rest bonus it’s the same amount of experience you would be getting if you were feeling “normal!” Plus; if you can kill 100 mobs per hour alone (if the mobs are your level or lower) you will be able to kill about 225–250 mobs per hour with a friend. And you will be killing mobs up to two levels higher than you. This means you can take another day or so off of your leveling time to level 65 just by doing everything with a buddy.

Even if you don’t buy the argument that it’s faster in leveling time, you can certainly agree that two people with some skill can do almost anything but run instances.  You can bag every rare elite you come across, do all of the team quests, and even quest in areas two to three levels higher than you could solo.  Plus, it’s just a LOT more fun.

Sure, you have to kill twice as many mobs for the loot quests that require you to get 10 of something, but it will end up taking less time to get 20 for two people than it would for one person to get 10 by himself. I can pretty much count on getting a ding every time I sit down to play, most of the time two, on every character I log in without having to grind it out for hours at a time.

As an added bonus, if you are cycling through characters like this, by the time you are done you’ve got three or four level 70 characters with awesome gear ready for just about anything and probably less than 25 days played time. Now THAT sounds like a lot of time, but my first toon didn’t hit level 70 until 23 days played time (dang I was a nub). Granted, it was faster the next time out, but both of my first 2 70’s took me more than 30 days. If I had known this back then I could have had four or five level 70’s in the same amount of played time.

The other really cool thing about playing with a friend is that you’ve got some good company and many things that will make you mad trying to do solo are almost too easy with two players. So get back to having a good time and have more of it – quest under rest and roll with your crew. It will bring the fun back into the greatest game around.