New Leveling Path Results - the Long Way Isn't - Ding! Level 90 #8

So I managed to get my rogue to level 90 today, so have the first set of results on the delayed leveling route.  This involves staying in the earlier zones a few bars longer than you otherwise would before skipping to the next zone.  So I stayed in Jade Forest until about 6 bars into 86, stayed in Valley of the Four Winds / Krasarang until just a few bars from 88, stayed in Kun Lai until half way to 89, and stayed in Townlong until 7 bars into 89.

For my previous 6 toons, not counting the character I started on launch day (always slower), my leveling times have ranged from 21 hours to 25 hours played time from 85 to 90.

For this character with the slightly delayed leveling approach, his total played time to 90 was 20 hours.  Imagine my surprise to find that doing it the "long way" actually resulted in a faster leveling time.

I'm now somewhat curious as to what the speed would be to totally play out each of the early zones.

A New MoP Questing Path

So I've been hearing a lot of chatter lately about the potential benefits of a different questing path than the one that I've been using in MoP.  My strategy with my seven previous characters to date that I've leveled to 90 is to immediately switch to Kun Lai upon hitting level 87, then immediately switch to Townlong Steppes at 88 and Dread Wastes at 89.  There is a substantial difference in the xp awarded per quest in each of those zones, so in theory, everything should go much faster taking advantage of the higher xp quest turn ins.

The counter argument that I've been hearing is that the quests are so much harder at those levels for the gear that you have, that it takes quite a bit longer to complete them than it would if you just stayed in the earlier zones, so the average xp or the xp per hour that you're getting ends up being lower.

So with character #8, my rogue, I've decided to try the other approach and go "the long way".  This is going to involve fully questing out Valley of the Four Winds and Krasarang, which should get me to the point where I'm just a few bars from 88.  Then going to Kun Lai and probably questing there until I'm probably almost half way to 89, then switching to Dread Wastes when I'm about 30-40% in towards 90.  My average leveling time from 85 to 90 on my first 7 toons ended up being between 21 and 25 hours, so it'll be interesting to see if the rogue falls significantly outside of this range.

The next character up after the rogue is my warrior, so if the results from the rogue aren't conclusive, I'll give the same approach a try on the warrior for additional data.

Ding! Level 90 #7

So this is a little bit delayed, because I actually hit 90 on the mage on Thursday of this past week, but I'm a little slow in updating the blog.  The leveling time on the mage was a bit disappointing - 25 hours played from 85 to 90.  That basically ties him for last with the paladin (excluding the toon that I started leveling on launch day).

I'm going to try a different approach with the next couple of toons and am going to stay in the earlier zones longer to see what kind of an impact that has on my leveling times.  There's obviously a huge increase in quest turn in xp as you progress to the next zone, but I'm wondering if the difficulty in doing those quests earlier on slows me down enough to compensate for that.

So the next two characters at least I plan to do by delaying a bit before heading to Kun Lai, Townlong, etc.  We'll see what kind of difference that makes.

Closing in on #7

I managed to hit level 89 on my mage yesterday, so he's in the home stretch toward becoming my 7th max level character in MoP.  After feeling a bit squishy and underpowered at level 87, the mage has really started to strengthen back up at 88 and the quests in Townlong went much better than Kun Lai did.

Server maintenance today is likely going to delay me getting there until Wednesday, but it should still be getting done shortly.

I'm also down to just running one or two LFR wings per week on my warlock.  All he really needs at this point are two more Tier pieces which both drop in the second half of Heart of Fear.  I may actually start gearing another character since both the warlock and the priest are essentially fully geared at this point as well as being all rep'd up.

After finishing the mage, I'm likely going to go back to leveling the rogue, who is about half way through the Valley of the Four Winds. 

Happy New Year

So I took a bit of a break from WoW over the holidays and have just now started to get back into playing a little bit.  I did get a chance to do relatively full LFR runs on both my shadow priest and my warlock over the weekend. My warlock is now sitting at a total of 8 Sigils of Wisdom, with another shot tomorrow at finishing it up and getting the legendary gem from Wrathion.

My shadow priest actually has 10 Sigils of Wisdom, but no sha-touched weapon to put a gem in.  Doesn't that just figure.

I've been leveling both the rogue and the mage a little bit, and both are currently sitting at 86. Both so far have been incredibly easy to level and both have fared very well against the soul crushing virmin warrens of the Valley of the Four Winds.  Keeping recuperate and leeching poison up on the rogue makes him essentially indestructible.  The mages ability to freeze, blink away and then huge burst makes him equally good against packs of multiple mobs.

I've also been playing a little bit of Rift in between.  I'm still working on getting my mage to the new max level, and he's now at level 53 and working his way through Seratos and Eastern Holdings.  I'm still having a hard time getting into the new Storm Legion zones as the questing and story line just doesn't seem to progress as well as it did in the earlier levels, and I find myself quickly out of quests to do and getting outleveled by the zones.

The new carnage quests are interesting in the sense that it brings a new twist to the "go kill 10 boars" quests in that, the first time you kill a boar, you'll be automatically granted the quest and can turn it in right from your screen as soon as you kill the 10th boar.

The only problem is that there are so many mobs that trigger these carnage quests and the amounts involved tend to be pretty large - typically around 16 each.  There's no rhyme or reason as to why you're killing these things and after a while it gets a bit overwhelming.