Bolty,Jan 11 2005, 09:54 PM Wrote:Of course, you have to party for instance runs and elite quests. So do so.
I agree partying is inefficient (although entertaining). Where I don't agree is that you have to party for elite quests. Just wait till they're green. If you can heal yourself you may even be able to solo them yellow
For instances yes, although in terms of efficiency the only instances worth running as a power-leveller are the ones where the item will provide a significant boost to your levelling speed after. So Ragefire Chasm, the Horde level 15 instance, is a waste of time because people are very raw and the rewards are unremarkable.
You may wish to run an instance for a specific drop, especially if weapons define your killing speed (Warrior, Rogue, Hunter). Razorfen Kraul is a good instance to do this as it's fast, has some useful drops like Corpsemaker and Swinetusk Shank, and is just high enough that people should have a bit of a clue
Quote:You might think that tradeskills have no place in a powerleveling guide. Quite the contrary! Tradeskills SHOULD be developed as quickly as possible, because from an efficiency standpoint it makes a lot more sense to develop tradeskills as you level up, than to waste hours and hours later on developing them in zones that give you no experience.
I don't agree with this. Levelling up a craft like blacksmith or tailoring is a big big money and time sink. The main issue is the money. If you take two gatherer professions and simply AH everything and vendor what gets returned you will be able to buy mounts and AH blues which will speed up your levelling
Now I'm not advocating this, I like to stop and play around with crafting but I'm very aware it's a brake on my speed not a boost
Secondly it's much faster to skill up when you're level 60 and rich than when you're progressing through the game. If you're twinking the character with money from an older character that of course may change, but even so it's a big gold sink - if your main goal is exp you'd be better advised to buy AH blues and purples than splash out on tradeskilling
Also if you're levelling fast you will almost never be able to make yourself armour that keeps up with quest rewards. The natural pace of a tradeskill is behind the natural pace of levelling up a character. Typically a level 40 character can make stuff for a level 30 one unless you've put extra effort into grinding resources
The tradeskills I would recommend to a power-leveller are
1) Enchanting. Mainly as a gatherer skill. Simply disenchant all your BoP items that don't get obviously high vendor prices and first AH, then disenchant if returned all your BoE items. Vendor the shards. Enchanting as a gatherer skill has the unique property that it takes negative bag space to perform since you can disenchant stuff in the field if you're full
2) Mining. The stuff sells well and it sells fast. Occasional gems are often a great cash bonus, especially with Engineering becoming increasingly popular amongst the general playing population. Stuff that doesn't sell vendors reasonably well. With a pick plus ore plus bars plus gems it is heavy on bag space
3) Herbalism. A lot of very sought after herbs and a lot of dross. Briarthorn and Swiftthistle sell well as does Fadeleaf (Swiftness Potions, Blinding powder). Silverleaf, Briarthorn, Goldthorn are key herbs for levelling up alchemy. Herbs generally vendor for very little, at least that helps put them up for Auction cheap. Heavy on bag space too, especially when zone hopping
4) Skinning. To my mind the worst of the gather for money skills. Your main customers are leatherworkers who can nearly all skin for themselves anyway. There aren't that many special hides that are worth anything - and to get much of them you would need to postpone questing and grind a very specific mob. Lastly it's the most time-consuming, you need to stop and spend time every fight (if you're fighting skinnable mobs).
5) First Aid. Very powerful, takes minimum effort to skill up
PvP
On a PvP server PvP makes you become a more competent player, gains you ranks, but does nothing to give you a higher level character. PvP is directly counter to power-levelling and the more time you spend pvping the slower you'll level.
Stats
The basic idea is that green mobs can barely hit you, certainly not enough to slow your killing by much. This means that stamina, armour, resists are marginal and that damage is key
This leads to a very simple list of optimum stats
Warrior, Paladin, enhancement Shaman: Strength, Agility a long way second (for crits)
Rogue: Agility, Strength
Hunter: Agility
Mage: Intelligence
Warlock, Priest, nuking Druid or Shaman: Spirit
Feral Druid: Strength, Agility
The melee choices are obvious.
For the casters Spirit beats Intelligence for grinding unless you constantly drink. Mages can constantly drink as a class feature. For the other nukers all that Intelligence (and in the Warlock's case, Stamina) adds is a bigger gas tank (aside from a negligible chance to crit). Since when killing fast your mana bar will almost never be full when you pull it doesn't make much difference whether you're 1200/2000 or 1200/1600. It does make a difference how fast you regain the thousand mana you dump on a mob to kill it