Wrath of the Lich King Classic Leveling Guide (2024)

While this is a general leveling guide, we have dedicated levelingguides for all WotLK classes.

There are two basic leveling methods: questing and Dungeons. If your goal isto reach Level 80 as fast as possible, dungeons will often be faster, especially ifyou do not have experience with the questing process.

Questing can also be efficient, but some classes are better than others, andit can be easy to get side-tracked. On the other hand, questing allows you todo other things, such as Professions and PvP, while leveling,which can be both enjoyable and help set you up for playing at Level 80.

There are pros and cons to each, which will be discussed further below. Keepin mind that, while you can solely stick to one strategy, you do not have to.Mixing Dungeons and questing can be a great way to keep thingsinteresting while leveling and will let you pick up dungeon gear, while getting thebenefits of questing as well.

Dungeon grinding can be an incredibly efficient source of experience in WotLKClassic. With a group of 5 players, you can clear through instances for fast andefficient XP while getting dungeon drops that will almost certainly beupgrades over the gear you may have from questing. When executedwell it is incredibly lucrative, but if not planned properly it can be muchworse, especially if you have to constantly find new group members after everydungeon clear.

Dungeon grinding can be efficient, but you become reliant on a group. If youdo not have a set group of 5 people that plan to go together most of the way,then you are going to be reliant on finding people to do dungeons with in-game.Every server may have a "Looking For Group" and "World" chat where you can findplayers for dungeons, but it can be hard to find people looking to play on thesame schedule as you outside of the initial rush of launch. If you end up havingto find new people every 1-2 clears of a dungeon, then your XP/hour will dropdrastically. For the fastest possible leveling, you will want a consistentgroup that you can run with for minimal downtime.

Another potential issue with dungeon grinding is that you become isolatedfrom the world for prolonged periods of time. While this can be great on PvPservers (to avoid getting killed by players) and for avoiding congestion onhigh-population realms, there are some downsides. It is almost impossible tokeep most Professions leveled as you do dungeons, meaning you will beforced to wait until 80 to train them. A big selling point of WoW is the community andopen world, which dungeon grinding can take away from by forcing you to onlyinteract with a select few people and keeping you in small, isolated areas. Butagain, this is more of a personal preference issue and should not deter youfrom trying it out if you desire.

Questing is the default and most common way of leveling. You can play onyour schedule, there is always content to do, and you are not reliant on anyoneelse if you are questing solo. If you do not have a set group for dungeongrinding, this can easily be more efficient and will minimize yourdowntime.

Your time spent while questing can be broken down into three basic parts:combat, recovery, and travel time. Combat is the time you take to kill enemies,recovery is the downtime while you recover Mana or health in between killingenemies, and travel is when you need to move between quests or zones. Lots ofpeople focus solely on optimizing combat times, but the most efficient playerswill focus on optimizing their time as a whole. Check out theclass leveling guides tosee class-specific tips on how to better optimize your leveling speed.

Contrary to popular belief, grouping can actually be a great way to quest.Whether or not it is worth grouping comes down to your personal preference andkill speed while solo. First and foremost, leveling with a friend can be muchmore enjoyable than playing solo, so do not hesitate to do what is mostenjoyable to you. If all you care about is efficiency, though, then you need tolook at kill rates. Most classes benefit greatly from pairing up into a duo orgroup, but some less so than others. Hunters, for example, alreadyhave one of the fastest kill rates in the game solo, so putting them into a duo is onlygoing to slow down their XP/hour compared to being solo for the most part.Warlocks also have an excellent kill rate while solo, but giving them a duopartner who can tank or heal allows them to purely focus on damage which cangreatly increase their kill rate, making them a great class for duos. To figureout if it is worth it or not, you need to know how XP is affected in groups.

Let us start by assuming you are going to kill an enemy, and that enemy willaward 100 XP for the kill. The list below shows how much each player would earnfrom killing that enemy in different-sized groups.

• Solo: 100 XP;
• Two: 50 XP per person;
• Three: ~39 XP per person;
• Four: ~33 XP per person;
• Five: ~28 XP per person.

To determine if grouping is beneficial, you need to compare the XP reductionthat you get to the group's increased kill speed. For lots of players, thesafety and kill speed increase of being with a group ends up being morebeneficial than playing solo. It is worth noting that this only affects your XPrates for killing enemies and will not affect your quest XP. Grouping also canbe better since you can complete quests faster, but sometimes can be worse ifthere are not lots of quests or if an area has a low mob density meaning yourkill rate will not be as high as it could. Lastly, grouping can sometimes beworse if you and your group have different play schedules. Tying yourself tosomeone else's schedule can limit your playtime, which might end up slowing youdown over just questing yourself. The answer is different for every player andit is up to you to decide if grouping is worth it.

Like TBC Classic, grinding is a poor option in Wrath of the Lich King for leveling.There are more than enough quests in Northrend to get you from Level 70-80,and grinding just is not worth it compared to questing in the zones. You couldgrind mobs if you choose to, but it is not recommended. Grinding will get youless XP, less gear, and is more boring to most people than questing.

Having a route planned out ahead of time for what zones you want to go to,or even going so far as knowing what quests you want to complete, is the mainway that people get more efficient at leveling. The more precise your route,the faster your leveling will be. It is a long journey from 70-80, though, andknowing everything that you will do is unrealistic without a ton of practice.For most players, the best compromise is just to know the order you should goto zones in. When changing zones, there is no hard or fast rule on when tochange. In Wrath of the Lich King Classic, you generally will want to go to zones at their levelto do the content. Most zones will give you 1-2 levels, with some particularlylucrative zones offering far more.

A general zone order to follow is listed below. Both Alliance and Horde canfollow the same path in WotLK Classic; the only thing different will be thelocation of their questing hubs within some of the zones.

1. Howling Fjord / Borean Tundra (68-72)
2. Dragonblight (71-75)
3. Grizzly Hills (73-75)
4. Zul'drak (74-76)
5. Sholazar Basin (76-78)
6. Icecrown (77-80)
7. Storm Peaks (77-80)

There is one important thing to note for this order: if, on launch, Howling Fjordis far too crowded on your server, then you can choose to go to Borean Tundrainstead.

Having a route is important, but knowing some of the basic time-savingstrategies is also useful. Here are some general tips that can improve yourefficiency while leveling:

Leveling takes a long time, so it is easy to think that breaks might notmatter overall. But, over the course of leveling, even lots of small breaks canadd up to hours of lost time. It is unrealistic to never take breaks whileleveling, but you can be strategic about them to improve your efficiency.Flight paths are a great way to travel between zones and, most importantly,require no input from you while your character is flying. This is a great timeto go to the bathroom, get food, or do whatever else you need to do. Some zonesare also relatively flat, and you can run in a straight line for longdistances. Auto-run is dangerous to do unsupervised, but can be used to haveyou character run in a direction while you step away for a minute. Use thedefault keybind of "Num Lock" to toggle auto-running in this way.

Some classes benefit from gear more than others. For Physical damagedealers, weapon upgrades are hugely important. For casters that can use wands,wands are also incredibly important due to their high DPS and zero Mana usage.

While you will not use or have access to many buff consumables whileleveling, food and water will be very important. If you only try to passivelyregenerate health and Mana, your regeneration time will be absurdly long,especially at higher levels. You should keep food on you at all times and, ifyou are a Mana user, should keep water on you as well. Befriending a Magewho can create these for you is a great way to save gold, but you can also buythem from a vendor as well.

Ideally, you should have an epic mount before entering Northrend. If you areplaying on a freshly-boosted character, this may be difficult however. As soonas you can get the gold required for Epicriding training — and the gold for the mount if you need that as well— you should immediately buy an Epic mount.It is one of the most important purchases you will ever make.

While leveling up, you are going to need to visit various trainers. Themost important trainers that you will need to visit are your class trainers.

As you level up, you will get access to more skills. Every level, you willhave new abilities or ranks of abilities available to train at your classtrainer. Class trainers are found in the major cities around the world.Training is important, since it is one of the ways you gain power as you level;it increases the damage and healing your spells will do. Be aware that majorcities will not have every class trainer, such as Undercity not having a Druidtrainer. Talk to the guards in the cities to see if your class trainer is inthat city or if you need directions to anything.

While Professions might slow you down during leveling, they are incrediblyimportant at Level 80 and can be worth the time investment.Skinning, Mining, and Herbalismspecifically can be worth it, since you are traveling around the world anywayand can earn skill-ups for them as you go. Professions likeBlacksmithing, Leatherworking, andTailoring can also be great for making armor upgrades while youlevel. You can choose any professions that you want, but think about whether youwant to spend the time getting the up while you level or if you would ratherrush to Level 80 without worrying about them.

While leveling professions is generally optional while leveling,First Aid is not. First Aid allows you to use the cloth you getfrom killing enemies to craft bandages, which are a Mana-free means of healingyourself quickly. This is a secondary profession, meaning it does not counttoward your two primary profession slots. You should absolutely keep thisup-to-date while leveling and you will be able to get good usage out of thebandages. Check out our First Aid guide for more information.

There are many addons that can help you while questing, but the only onethat is required is Questie. By default,no quest objectives, pick-ups, turn-ins, or locations will be shown on yourmap. Questie will put all of these on your map, and is vital to ensuring youalways know where to go.