How To Level Up Faster And Easier Using Inscription And Herbalism

When it comes to leveling fast there is no doubt that Gavin Garrett is the undisputed king of the solo speed run.  And even though his methods are no secret, they can be hard to duplicate if you don’t know exactly where to go and what to do, and what NOT to do.

The methods are no secret since anyone can duplicate them, and thousands have done just that using the Horde Leveling Guide.  Gavin’s in-game mod guides you every step of the way from 1 all the way to 80 using exactly the same formula I’ve developed to break world records.  We’ve also given out dozens of my very best leveling tips here at Dominate Your Server over the last three years.

The real key to leveling fast: waste less time and you’ll hit 80 faster than you can imagine.

Before you all start yelling we need to cover a couple of things.  There is NO substitute for the Refer a Friend program if you need a level 80 right now, today.  RaF and a decent level 80 toon can have your alt to 60 in just a few hours, but since not every single person (and that’s 12 million+ folks) can, or will, do an RaF uber powerleveling run, that means there are millions of you stuck doing it the old fashioned way, and that’s where this tip comes in.

The comment above may not sound earth shattering in any way.  But it really is the key to my world record for solo leveling.  Think about it; if you spend an extra 5 minutes running the wrong direction just once during each level, you’ll add an extra 6 hours to your time from 1-80.  Just a few extra seconds at the vendor a couple of times each level and there’s another 4 or 5 hours.  Every single second you waste messing around can end up adding up to an entire day to your time.

I don’t know about you, but cutting out 10-20 hours of the time it takes to get to 80 is time I can spend doing other thing that are a lot more fun.  So here is one thing I always do to make sure I never waste a single minute on travel time, getting my mounts, or finding certain quest items on every single run I ever do.  It’s also the very best way for a pure melee toon to ensure you don’t ever have to make a time killing corpse run.

Two Ways To Cut More Than 10 Hours Off Your Leveling Time From 1-80

• Herbalism

Herbalism does several things for you while you level.  First, it makes it incredibly easy to find certain quest items on your mini map.  It seems that there are dozens of quests where someone is asking you to get 10 Tiger Lilies or something of the sort.  Herbalism makes these quest items far easier to grab.  Time saved: 1 hour.

Herbalism is also a nifty way to make some extra cash while you level.  I only pick the herbs that are close to my mob kills, but they can add up really fast.  Just mail them to a banker and sell them at the AH and your mount costs should easily be in the bank before you ever need them.  Running around when you could be on an epic mount is a killer.  Time Saved: push.

But the best part of using herbalism to level is the herbalism only skill Lifeblood.  Lifeblood gives any class or race a heal that can keep you alive when things go wonky.  As a general rule, Lifeblood will heal you for about 25% of your health bar, and that’s probably as good as whatever bandages you could be using, but requires no mats.  Lifeblood and a bandage and you can reduce the time you spend eating to regain health by a ton.  Do your pulls right and you can cut out the number of times you stop to eat.  Time Saved: 4 hours.

• Inscription

Inscription is a beast.  It takes a load of mats and is very tough to get a decent return at level 80 using it as a gold making profession. (Remember, I never spend gold on a profession, or anything else for that matter, where I don’t get a decent dividend on the investment, and I wrote the Guide to making gold with Inscription).  But the return for Inscription when leveling can mean the difference between a world record and a very pedestrian time.

The key here is in the Scroll of Recall.  Ever since Blizz lowered the time on the hearthstone cooldown to 30 minutes, my leveling times have been better.  But when you use your regular hearthstone AND the scrolls of recall, you can get back to your primary quest hub 6 times every hour!

Since my leveling method is to take maximum advantage of multiple quest turn-ins, it means Inscription is a serious time saver.  Since I am always using Herbalism anyway, I also have the mats for the scrolls, so the synergy is there.  I can just go pick up a round of quests, head out and complete them all and then hearth or recall right back to the quest hub no matter how far the quests took me.  By not having to run back to the quest hub you can save gargantuan amounts of time on your way to 80.  Time saved: 6+ hours.

So What Are You Waiting For?

For a warrior, rogue or mage with no self healing capacity, the herbalism is a huge benefit in the form of Lifeblood.  And every class can see their very best leveling times drop by a huge amount using the scrolls of recall any time they are up and you’ve got quests to turn in.

I don’t normally keep Inscription beyond level 80, but it is undoubtedly the single greatest tool you can have when it comes to leveling faster than you ever have before.  So the next time you decide to run a toon, make sure you have the tools the masters use to really Dominate!