Warcraft Leveling eBooks

Following on from the roundup of free WoW lvling guides in the last post, here is a list of the paid ebook guides. Why pay for a guide? I guess it comes down to getting what you pay for. The free guides mentioned in the previous post aren't bad, but they do lack some detail, and you will find yourself struggling for enough information to finish the quests. The paid guides are very comprehensive and up-to-date. It's hard, for example, to find a decent free guide for lvls 60 to 70. The paid guides cover these hard leveles comprehensively.

The old standards are Joana's Guide for Horde and Brian Kopp's Guide for Alliance and it is inevitable that any new Warcraft guide will be judged by their standards. Both very similar in detail and outlook, but totally different zones and quests obviously. They take the form of a PDF ebook file with a detailed list of steps to take at every level and for every quest. Joana's Guide includes fast-motion video guides for most of the levels and quests. To be honest these don't add that much, there's ample information in the ebook, but they are fun to watch for a while and can help you if you are stuck. Both excellent guides IMO.

New to the scene is the iDemise Alliance Guide. They claim the record for the fastest to level 70. An incredible 6 days and 5 hours played. This guide takes the form of an addon to the game itself. Quite legal according to Blizzard and it comes with detailed and easy-to-follow instructions. This is an idea so simple that it makes you wonder why nobody though to do this before. Instead of having to Alt-Tab between the ebook and the game, all the information you need is right there in-game.

One of the biggest problems with any written PDF guide is that they can't show you exactly where to go. An in-game addon can. This brilliant program puts a dot on your map that will show you exactly where you have to go to complete your quests.

Simply for ease of use (and their record leveling time) I'm going to say that the iDemise guide gets my vote for the best Alliance Guide while Joana's Guide is the best for Horde.

If you have a need to level up characters on both sides, it's worth considering Zygor's Horde and Alliance Guides. These are two seperate guides but very similar in function and use. They are a sort of hybrid between a printed guide and a game addon. By purchasing both guides at the same time you will save a ton of money.

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Free World of Warcraft Leveling Guides

There's a wide range of free and paid guides to help with WoW leveling. Some of them are downright useless or even misleading. Other free WoW guides are every bit as good as some of the paid Warcraft guides. I've spent some time going through both the free and the paid guides to try and sort out the best. I'll cover the free World of Warcraft guides in this post and the paid guides at a later time.

I'll split these into Alliance and Horde guides.

Firstly, the best of the Alliance leveling guides:

First up is FinaL.FreeDoM's 1-60 Grinding Guide - this is a little different from most guides in that it completely ignores quests and focuses on grinding out the levels. It's not for me but if you like the boring repetition, without having to think, then go for it.

Jame's Alliance Leveling Guide has long been the recognized free Alliance leveling guide. Unfortunately this only covers 30 to 70. Plenty of detail in this guide that comes close to the paid guide from Bill Kopp. It would be great if Jame could find the time to detail levels 10 to 30. In the meantime use Boston's 12 to 30 guides. This is in two sections, covering 12 to 20 and 20 to 30. If you can't get to level 12 without help, you should probably be playing a different game :)

For the Horde, Jame did it once again with his Horde 21 to 65 guide. I have to say it isn't quite up to Joanna's Guide but still a great leveling guide if you need a freebie. For levels 12 to 20 all you need is a Barrens Guide. Where else would a Horde level? Almost worth being there just for the infamous Barrens chat. If you are into grinding there's also a Basic Horde Ginding Guide

As I said there's a bunch of other guides out there but these are my personal favorites.

WoW Leveling Guides

With the release of Burning Crusade expansion last year you can now level up to 70. Since patch 2.3 this should be even faster. Well, faster up to level 60 anyway, assuming you spend all your time questing.

Many of the best leveling guides have also been updated and these are available for immediately download.

Joana's Horde Guide author was a beta tester for BC and has a level 60 to 70 Burning Crusade update ready for download. Joana was the record holder for the fastest to level 60 (well under 5 days /played) on a new server and I'm sure will have a similar record for reaching level 70.

Bill Kopp also has an Alliance level 60 to 70 update guide:

"So you get all the class guides, any updated tweaks to the guide, and the 60-70 Burning Crusade Guides. "

WoW Gold Secrets also has a BC update:

"I was fortunate enough to have received a beta invite to the Burning Crusade. So what have I been doing since being invited? Researching gold-making strategies of course! "

WoW Twinking for Faster Leveling

Twinking in WoW is where you would use items or item/weapon enchants that would not be available to a low level character with only a little gold.

These enhancements enable a level 10 character to take on mobs three or four levels higher with impunity and hence speed up leveling. Obviously if this is your first, and poor, character you won't have the option, unless you can buy or beg gold.

I'm NOT talking about twinking to a very high degree which is used in PvP battlegrounds, only adding a minor boost when fighting mobs for experience.

Assuming you have some spare gold from a previous character or a wealthy friend or guildmate, should you bother with twinking?

Although it will indeed level you faster, I generally don't bother myself for these reasons:

1. It take a good while to gather items or stand around in a city looking for enchants. You can be up a level or two while you hang around waiting for an enchanter to appear.

2. It costs lots of gold that I can use for decent gear later on. The low level gear gets discarded soon enough.

3. It takes away from the sense of achievement in doing it on your own. You may as well employ a paid levelling service.

A couple of things that you should consider, even if you aren't twinking, are the first aid skill and engineering.

Warcraft First aid is fast enough to level – all you need are stacks of cloth. You can get to skill 150 at level 5 without wasting much time. Just buy stacks of linen, wool and silk in the AH. You can then use heavy silk bandages for a fast heal between fights.

Engineering enables you to equip some nice items that are otherwise unavailable. This will still be a useful skill at 60. For example you can't get a head item at low levels but if you have engineering as a profession you can use Green Tinted Goggles right from level five and upgrade them to Master Engineer's Goggles later. You also get to make dynamite and bombs which are useful in dealing with mobs.

Should You Group or Solo

World of Warcraft has bonus experience if you group. Blizzard are a bit vague about the amount of bonus for grouping but it's there.

So it makes sense to group up for extra experience, right?

No, not necessarily.

If you are looking for a social game, the chance to interact with other players, the sure go group. Run some instances. If you want to level fast it's about the worse thing you can do. Forming a group takes time. You will spend so much time looking for a group, or looking for somebody to join your group, you will lose far more experience than if you were out hunting and gaining some xp. I've spent 2 or 3 hours looking for a group on the less popular mid-level instances - usually falling apart for lack of a healer or tank.

If you happen to see somebody on the same quest as you throw them an invite if they are already there at the quest site. If you see a group of four ready and waiting at the instance summoning stone, get in there quick. Otherwise, don't bother. If you find somebody in the zone chat channel for the quest, the chances are that they will take so long to get to the quest it would have been quicker to do it solo.

I've leveled a lot of characters to 65, and three to 70, and I've had much faster leveling solo.

Now obviously this advice is somewhat class-specific. It make sense for full-time healers to go for the grouping option and they normally don't have trouble getting a group quickly. Hunters are the other extreme. They can solo "hard" mobs all day long. Most classes fit somewhere in between the two.

To Quest or Grind

There is only the one way to level in World of Warcraft and that is to gain more experience. Experience can be gained in two ways. From completing quests or by killing monsters of high enough level to give experience.

The only monsters that will give experience are those that are within a few levels below your current level and up. Attacking mobs more than 3 or 4 levels above you will probably be a quick trip to the local graveyard and a long run back to your corpse.

The repeated killing of experience level mobs is know as grinding. Boring? Yes, it is. Killing mobs 1 or 2 levels below you is the fastest experience. They give slightly less experience than monsters your level but the recovery time is less and they die faster

Completing quests is more interesting, although it can sometimes involve a bit amount of grinding when you are looking for rarer items. With quests you can complete errands for Non-Player Characters (NPCs). This may involve something as simple as running a message to another NPC but usually involves... well... killing mobs.

Whether you gain your experience, and thus progress to the next level, by questing or grinding really comes down to your own choice. Bored by killing? Go quest. Need a quick level for the battlefields? Go grind it out.

Since patch 2.3 quest between level 30 and level 50 give more experience. This patch also reduced the amount of xp needed for levels 20 through 50.

My personal choice is to quest whenever I can, especially since level 2.3. Actually, my first choice is to run instances in a group but it isn't always possible to find enough players for a group. The time waiting around for a group on a low population server spoils any experience advantage the group may give you.

I play Warcraft for pleasure, not to gain levels faster than anybody else.

Your choice may be different.

World of Warcraft Leveling

Welcome to my humble World of Warcraft leveling blog where I will attempt to show the fastest ways to level in WoW. Each step from 1 to 70 including the Burning Crusade expansion. I've been playing for 3 years and have leveled many characters to 70 on different servers. My favorites are hunters and rogues but I'll try and include tips for all classes and races.

I should add the legal disclaimer that this blog is not associated with, nor endorsed by Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. World of Warcraft is a trademark of Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. Their official site can be found at World of Warcraft