Section I: Leveling
Ok, in the Priesting: 101 section I covered the basics of leveling as a priest. Here I'm going to talk about leveling in general and how to do it fast.
Levels 1-10: There's not a whole lot to know about this. Just pick up all the quests and do them. If you get stuck, read the quest. Humans might want to go to the Dwarf/Gnome starting area since a lot of the Elwynn quests have you run around for not much XP, but it's not a huge difference. I also grab the Redridge flightpath when I'm near the border so I don't have to make the epic run from Westfall to Redridge before I do Deadmines.
Levels 10+ : By now you're noticing that each level takes a little longer than the last one. Efficient questing is the name of the game from now 'til 70. The concept is to always be completing quests, killing mobs you need for quests, and always be on your way to pick up or turn in a quest. WoW is a huge game, and doing the research to learn the best way to do this would take many days of /played time. Since I don't want to do that, I always use leveling guides. The following is a list of the best guides on the web.
James' Guide: This guide's all right. Just type the name in any search engine and you should be able to find it. It's most redeeming quality is that it's FREE. I should also point out that portions of the guide can't be solo'd by all classes.
Brian Kopp's Guide: This guide costs money, but it's vastly superior to James' Guide. In addition to being thoughtful and detailed, it uses MetaMap to display the locations of quest objectives on your map. This feature makes the leveling process much smoother. I had little trouble with the quests even though the guide is intended for hunters. Horde players should look for Joanna's Guide instead.
iDemise: This guide has everything Brian Kopp's guide is missing. The entire guide is built into the MetaMap interface which means you don't have to tab back and forth all the time to read the guide then look up the coordinates, etc. It's also slightly cheaper :). Get it Here.
Just a couple more tips before we get to the money part. Always invest in talent points that maximize your damage output and grinding speed. What do I mean by this? Well...let's say you're a rogue. Assassination talents let you do loads of frontloaded damage, but it focuses on dagger attacks. With daggers you have a weaker auto attack and have to stealth for each fight. It would be better to focus on swords or maces because of the higher, more reliable damage output. Also you won't waste as much time creeping around in stealth. I hope I'm making sense... Anyway, the second tip is to kill everything in your path until you get a mount, then mount when you need to travel. Maybe this seems obvious, but my point is that grinding your way from place to place gives better XP than running--even if it does take a bit longer. Then you get a mount and that's not true anymore.
Section II: Earning
The following is a list of tips that will help you maximize your income.
- Always have the biggest bags you can afford. I got 16-slotters in the upper 20s and they payed off for themselves within 10 levels. In addition to letting you carry more junk, big bags let you stay in the field longer which improves your XP.
- Nothing is nothing. When I can't use a quest reward, I always pick the most expensive one and vendor it. Some grey quality items vendor for more than you think. Any item that's Common or better gets at least one go on the AH; I'm still shocked at some of the crap people buy.
- Make a bank alt. I'm sure you've seen all the naked lvl1's running around the IF and SW Auction Houses. No, not the gold spammers. Many players use these toons as "banks". When your inventory is full you can send all your excess loot to your bank toon. This will give you virtually unlimited storage space and a convenient way to post auctions.
- Use the mods listed in the Add Ons section. They help out a lot.
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