Learning how to level fast in WoW Classic

The most obvious way to level quickly in WoW Classic is to be good at the game. WoW Classic has so many nuance mechanics that it can feel like a deep dive into a Master’s degree in statistics. Most people who are leveling casually do not put much forethought into their gametime. Here are a few tips and tricks to speed up your leveling with a little preparation.

Without further ado, let’s learn some things to level faster…

The 5 Second Rule and your spell rotatation (applies to casters)

In WoW Classic, mana will only start to regenerate after you have stopped casting for 5 seconds. So if you are spreading out your spell casting then odds are you are never maximizing your mana regeneration. This can affect your uptime when grinding mobs or completing quests. But how do you maximize this? Simple. Focus on burst damage and cast all your spells at once. I know that sounds counter intuitive, but here is an example. Let’s say you are playing a priest and you come across a melee mob. You have two rotations to choose from.

1. Open with Shadow Word: Pain to pull the mob. While he is running to you, cast Mind Blast non stop until Shadow Word Pain runs out then reapply. If your health runs low cast Power Word: Shield.
2. Open with Mind Blast and as soon as it hits the mob cast Shadow Word: Pain. Cast a second Mind Blast and the mob will have just reached you. Preemptively cast Power Word: Shield and start auto attacking with your wand.

While option 1 might kill the mob faster, option 2 will allow you to regen more mana during the fight, allowing you to get right back to the grind with little downtime. The reasoning for this is simple, you spend more time casting spread out spells with rotation 1.

If you cast Shadow Word Pain followed by a Mindblast, you start the 5 second countdown right as SWP costs you mana. You then have to wait for the global cooldown (GCD)  to then cast Mind Blast, meaning another 3 to 4 seconds later, resetting your 5 second timer again. So by casting this way you are unable to regen mana for at least 8 seconds.

Now, if you cast Mind Blast followed by Shadow Word Pain, it’s a bit different. As you start casting Mind Blast the global cooldown starts it’s cooldown, so after the 1.5 second cast you are already off the global cooldown. As soon as the spell completes, your 5 second timer starts, but now you can immediately cast Shadow Word Pain. As an instant cast, your only delay will be your reaction time. Meaning that the closer you can cast SW:P to the completed MB the closer to only 5 seconds of no mana regen you are.

Because of this, you want to open with your best burst rotation, then clean up the mob with auto attacks. Casters, feel free to use your wands as they do not count as spells and are actually decent damage. Casters that have melee abilities (im looking at you Shamans) feel free to just melee them down. Sure, you will take a few hits, but your HP doesn’t matter as long as it is above zero. Once you get your burst rotation down you can also weave in melee kiting between your auto attacks, which is running away from the mob while your auto attack is on cooldown and only turning to face them again when you are ready to attack again. This will decrease the damage you take overall as well as help you move closer to your destination while fighting.

Learning your class

Start off by researching your class. You would be surprised at how useful the information can be. For example, as a melee class what weapons can you learn? What weapons can you spec into? What weapons are best for what spec? Do you have abilities that require a specific weapon and are those abilities even useful? What abilities should you buy right away and which ones aren’t worth the gold?

As you can see, these questions are pretty simple questions but many players do not even think about them until it’s time to make a choice. Then they either randomly pick something, or spend time looking it up right then. If you plan it out prior to playing then you already have a plan of attack and know what to aim for. If you are playing a warrior and just dinged level 24, what new abilities are now available to you? Is it something you should run to the closest trainer and learn or is it something you don’t need? If you do want to learn it then where is the closest trainer? With a little preparation you can have all these answered and more.

Find some good grinding spots for your class. Look online and see where your class does well at grinding. Some classes do extremely well against certain mobs and this will drastically increase your XP per hour with minimal risks. The universally renowned Frost Mage excels at farming melee mobs. With their slows, freezes, and amazing AOE damage melee only mobs have zero chance against frost mages unless the player makes a misstep. This can be said for many other casters as well. If you are able to kite mobs that have no ranged attacks then those are the exact kinds of enemies you should be seeking out.

Now just the opposite is true for melee classes. Caster mobs typically have much less health and armor that melee mobs, so players love targeting the squishy XP. If you have interrupts, even better. Each time you see the mob trying to cast you can prevent that damage and therefore increase your longevity. A side note to interrupting, wait until the last possible second to interrupt especially if it is a very long cast. This is because while casting a spell they cannot auto attack. So the longer the spell the longer you go without taking damage. As soon as you interrupt them however, they will resume attacking so milk that casting bar for all you can.

Plan a leveling route. Know where the best quests hubs are and what quests you should target and which you should ignore. Classic, being the incarnation of an early MMO, was rough around a lot of edges and questing is certainly one of the roughest. So look up a leveling path that will guide you between worthwhile quests with grinding in between the trip. There was always a lot of criticism that early WoW didn’t have enough quests, but this is only partially true. It is true that the majority of quests are inefficient, but if you know where to look there are plenty to pick from. But in the end, quests are thinly veiled grinding encouragements so if you are unsure of what you should be doing, just grind. As long as you are killing mobs you will surly see level cap before you know it.