Leveling Guide For An Alliance Toon in Shadowlands…

['Ster]

Notes:
- Expansion: Shadowlands, version 9.1+
- Rolled an Alliance Night Elf rogue, Outlaw spec. NightElf for ShadowMeld, Rogue for Vanish, Outlaw for Find Treasure.
- Other classes will work, such as hunter (has Feign Death), druid (Prowl), etc.
- No holidays in progress.
- Joined Wowironman guild for 15 minute hearth.
- I am a “nibble quester”. I will do entry easy quests, kill a single NPC or loot an item, pick things off the ground quests, etc. If the quest calls for killing 6 of these guys, 8 of those guys, and 1 named dude - I skip those kind of grindy quests. Don’t worry, you will run out of levels, not quests to do.
- You don’t need to enable Chromie time until level 30 when you have flight.
- 4 days to go from 1 to 51. And 17 days to do 51-60.

Born: Sunday, July 18, 2021 Finished, Sunday, August 8th, 2021 for a total of 21 days duration. Played time was roughly 4 days.

Levels 1-10, time elapsed: 70 minutes
- Starting zone: Nightelf’s Shadowglen (Teldrassil, Kalimdor)
- Do all quests presented, they are easy.
- Kill rares, loot chests.
- Set hearth at Dolanaar Inn
- Use Chauffeur mount to get around faster
- Don’t bother with weapon or armor purchases

Level 10

- Pick Outlaw spec, enable Find Treasure
- Head to Darnassus, learn to ride, put drops on AH to earn money especially Footpad’s Vest and Pants
- Turn in any remaining quests, time to leave starting zone, no need to complete all quests.
- Back to Darnassus, at Rut’theran Village, boat ramp, take portal to Stormwind
- Upgrade armor and weapons if / when you have gold.
- In Stormwind, grab / perform these quests: Blown Away, Harlan Needs a Resupply, Wine Shop Advert, and Package for Thurman.
  You’ll ding 11, also grab quest Stormpike’s Delivery (breadcrumb to Ironforge)

Levels 11-14, time elapsed 80 minutes

- Time to open Garrison
- Garrison: - Go to SW Mage Tower, select Stormshield, Ashran. Grab FP, swim (or fly) to the Garrison starting quest, Eventide Bay, Shadowmoon Valley. Stay out of fatigue zones, but not too close to shoreline.
- Do Garrison opening quests, earn Garrison hearthstone. After killing Quakefist, go back down to shore landing, grab 3 unguarded chests. Now turn in Quakefist quest, do Pale Moonlight and Ship Salvage quests, grab garrison resources around camp. Upgrade garrison, rescue Qiana Moonshadow, start first garrison mission, go to Stormshield, do quests offered, now you have 2 followers.

Level 14, time elapsed 15 minutes

- Let’s open Legion, use War Board to acquire Legion: The Legion Returns.
- Speak to Recruiter Lee, skip intro quests, arrive in Dalaran, acquire Legion hearthstone. Grab FP in Dalaran for future.
- As a rogue, you get invite with Call of the Uncrowned, do for easy XP, then stop. All done for now. If playing non-rogue, stop, don’t chase weapon quests.

Levels 14-15, time elapsed 15 minutes

- Time to open Battle for Azeroth (BfA)
- Go to SW keep to turn in Tides of War, then The Nation of Kul Tiras. Be sure to skip the prison quest, arrive at Mariner’s Row, BfA
- Do entry BfA quests like Get Your Bearings to tour Tradewinds Market, open portals, etc. There’s a chest in cave near docks, loot.
- Now that it is open, you can use stealth and SAP to collect daily treasure chests for XP. Advance to other BfA zones as you level (Drustvar, Stormsong Valley).
- I like to set my main hearthstone to the Boralus Harbor inn for fast access to BfA without taking the boat. If you need SW, just hearth to BfA, take SW portal downstairs from FP. All done for now

Levels 15-20, time elapsed, 90 minutes

- Recap: so in less than 3 hours, you’re now level 15, have 3 hearthstones and already over 100 gold and more coming in soon.
- I like to head over to Loch Modan, and using stealth and SAP, grab the 6 doc quests. Save them when you hit 29, turn in for instant ding to level 30. Just doing simple Loch quests, rares, named ones, and chests, dinged 17.
- Levels 15-20, go to your favorite starting zones, back to Teldrassil or Goldshire, or Westfall or Dustwallow Marsh. Open the Cub daily in Winterspring.
- Do easy, high reward quests, skip grindy quests. Kill, loot, turn-in, move on.
- Check in on Garrison, launch new missions. Save chests for when you have flight.

Levels 20-28 - About 5 hours of play

- Upgrade ground mount and armor / weapons if you have the gold.
- Soon your toon won’t be able to kill rares / named ones as easy. Do quest chains that you enjoy - such as Dustwallow Marsh then 1K Needles.
- Continue to go up/down Eastern Kingdoms, stopping at each zone, doing the entry / pick-up / easy / non-grindy quests. When you run out, simple go to next.
- Some of my favorite zones during these levels: WinterSpring, Badlands, entry quests in Duskwood, Arathi, and Dustwallow Marsh.

Level 29 - Elapsed time: 2 minutes

- Woot - head over to Loch Modan and turn in those 6+1 doc quests to instantly ding level 30.

Levels 30-34 - About 2 hours of play

- Upgrade to a flying mount if you have the gold. With flight, it is so easy to hop around zones, swoop down to loot chests, explore XP, etc.
- Go to Stormwind, and enable Chromie Time. I like to pick Mist of Pandaria to and start the farming dailies at Halfhill.
- Repeat Chromie for each of the zones like Northrend, Outland, and Cata. Go to each and start doing entry quests and getting Flight Points.

Level 35

- Level 35 is the final level that opens up all areas / zones in Old World, Cata, Legion, and especially BfA. Keep going !
- Buy mats for easy XP - when you go to Outlands, Shattrath and Zangarmarsh has a few quests where it is easier to just buy stuff you need to farm. I.e., go buy a Fel Armament, 10x each of Mark of Kil’jaeden and Sargeras, 6 Bog Lord Tendrils, 6 Fertile Spores, 10 Unidentified Plant parts. Turn in for fast XP, why farm?

Levels 35-45- Hit 45 on Wednesday, 3 days after starting toon on Sunday.

- Upgrade to fast flying when you can afford it.
- So many dailies to chase in BfA, Northrend, Mists of Pandara, etc. You can spend an hour each day just doing them all. Be sure to visit Tol Barad too.

Level 45-50

- By now, you realize you will hit 50 before you ever hit all zones.
- I save Legion for level 50 - the chests are not worth anything, but just flying around to all the areas in Legion will ding you to 51.
- Keep doing dailies, do easy quests everywhere.
- I don’t do BfA quests, but I do the loop around all the islands for chests.
- Around level 47, I will go collect all the chests in Draenor, especially SMV, Spires, and Nagrand. Good for 2 levels.

Level 50 - roughly 24 hours of game play.

- Dinged on Thursday, so 4-5 days elapsed since creating on Sunday.
- Before going to Shadow Lands, at least get to level 51. You can do this a couple
  of ways. If you do the loop of collecting chests in BfA, that is only 2 days effort, for
  the chests still pay high XP. Another way is to simply use flight and discover zones
  that you have not been to - for me, just flying around WoD and Legion. If you see a
  treasure chest, swoop down and collect it. At 50, you now 1-shot kill anything in
  old world, so that’s not an issue. Except BfA - mobs are level 50, they still hit hard.

Level 51 - Time for Shadow Lands - 51-60

- If desired, you can still use the above technique to get to level 52. Or head on over
  to Shadow Lands by going thru the Maw. That adventure is a different posting.
  Going thru the Maw, dinged 52 to start my adventures in Shadow Lands.
- As my friend Xaya will point out, you can level even faster in Shadow Lands if you
  have flight. Use flight to discover, go directly to daily World Quests, etc.
- How to level in Shadowlands? Obviously, do as many regular quests that you can.
  Always use a scout to determine which quests are safe for your toon’s class/race.
- My daily routine was to go do Iron-safe daily World Quests. This thread has a list
  of doable quests: Shadowlands Safe World Quests


Enjoy !!!

[Xaya]

if you have flight in BfA (I think Ster doesn't), you can easily get chests from both faction island (and explore too) by doing the quest to get to the other one

---

Xayabashann lvl 57 bloodthirsty human hunter (yellow flagged) Wyrmrest Accord
Xayagandia lvl 17 greenman draenai paladin Wyrmrest Accord
Iron champions : MoP, WoD, BfA, SL (6)
Green champion : BfA
Workingman champion : BfA
Pacifist champion : BfA, SL
Tinman champion : BfA, SL

[ironbru]

Hi
Just got an ironman char to L60 at last! (Human hunter Ironbrue)
Thought I would give a rogue a try, so will follow your lead on this.
Any advice for killing Quakefist?
Tried quite a few times and came pretty close to death but managed to run away.
Lots of posts on general forums about how hard he is to kill even with proper levelling gear, but with ironman gear?
I have tried everything I can think of....any tips?

[Xaya]

Aug 15, 2021 4:57:08 GMT -5 ironbru said:

Hi
Just got an ironman char to L60 at last! (Human hunter Ironbrue)
Thought I would give a rogue a try, so will follow your lead on this.
Any advice for killing Quakefist?
Tried quite a few times and came pretty close to death but managed to run away.
Lots of posts on general forums about how hard he is to kill even with proper levelling gear, but with ironman gear?
I have tried everything I can think of....any tips?

I wasn't able to kill Quakefist on a rogue, but I think Ster found a way

---

Xayabashann lvl 57 bloodthirsty human hunter (yellow flagged) Wyrmrest Accord
Xayagandia lvl 17 greenman draenai paladin Wyrmrest Accord
Iron champions : MoP, WoD, BfA, SL (6)
Green champion : BfA
Workingman champion : BfA
Pacifist champion : BfA, SL
Tinman champion : BfA, SL

['Ster]

Couple of things. Go over very close after dinging level 10, like levels 10-14. Next, take a engineering item called a F.R.I.E.D. and Shieldtronic Shield with you, put on action bar. At such a low level, can't remember if you can use the shield, but FRIED should work. They are cheap on the AH.

Next, a few tips about Quakefist:
- When you do attack him, don't pull him too far out of cave, he will reset.
- Before you start your attack, kill a creature outside of cave and leave all 5 dots up, so that you hit Quakefist with hardest finishing move.
- When he is about to stomp, I run thru and past him, to avoid the hit. With practice, you get good at it.
- Crimson Vial if you have it.
- If you run far enough away from him while he is in stomp cycle, you can apply a bandage.
- Each fight is different. If fight is not going good, abandon, wait for cool downs, try again.

Good luck!

[ironbru]

Thx for the tips. (I gave up trying Quakefist eventually as too risky and, as the area is deserted of players who might attack him, headed back to Eastern Kingdoms). By the by I was killed at 23 fighting a pretty normal mob in Dun Morogh.
Tried again and at least I have managed to get to L30 (still NE outlaw rogue)
What I wanted to ask is...is it usual when fighting a normal mob at this level (Mid 20s to 30) that you lose half of your health on a good fight and too much more for comfort if the mob gets a couple of crits?
I have already concluded that rares and named quest mobs are virtually impossible now.
Just wondered if I am doing anything wrong? Clearly white gear and no talents makes a big difference, but I am wondering if this continues, in a few levels I will struggle to kill anything...and fighting anything will be high risk.
I can fly now, so could add a few levels exploring, but was going to save that for high 40s.
Just unlocked roll the bones, which may help, but wondered if as you unlock abilities it gets any easier (by easier I mean less panic attack inducing!)
As it is I am beginning to feel that almost any fight could kill me if they get a few lucky crits.
Asking really because of lack of experience on a melee Ironman....usually have done hunters, so used to watching my pet's health while mine stays up!
Thanks

[Xaya]

it doesn't really get any easier. While not always there, flashing screeens are to be expected, always have food. With flight, sap, blind and vanish (SM if available), chest hunting is a way to get xp, and there are many quests with no fights all over. At this point, you can use one of your dead toons to scout what is doable and what is not

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Xayavandre lvl 32 ironman night elf druid Wyrmrest Accord
Xayabashann lvl 57 bloodthirsty human hunter (yellow flagged) Wyrmrest Accord
Xayagandia lvl 17 greenman draenai paladin Wyrmrest Accord
Iron champions : MoP, WoD, BfA, SL (6)
Green champion : BfA
Workingman champion : BfA
Pacifist champion : BfA, SL
Tinman champion : BfA, SL

[ironbru]

Tips very much appreciated, thanks. Got to 36 no- so far so good!
Can't help thinking the Maw might be quite tricky...maybe not so bad if it is busy!

[ferrestella]

Getting thru the Maw isn't as bad as one might think it would be. The key is to let the NPC's do the killing wherever possible. You can initiate an attack on a Mawsworn, for example, and then let Mograine finish them off. That first named boss is tricky and I definitely suggest doing it when other people are also around and doing it. This particular fight is why I always take a scout of the same class thru the Maw first to figure out your tactics. During the escort quests with Jaina, again. let the NPC's do the work; just stay out of the way and out of any ground effects. For the fight near Baine, the NPC's don't help. Depending on my class, I do hope for other players doing it. Most important thing about the Maw is to scout it on the class/spec/gear that you plan to use on your Challenge toon. Good luck!!

['Ster]

What Ferr said. The Maw is not too bad for rogue (stealth, vanish) or druid (prowl, SM) and those with decent heals. Go in after you ding 51. And when a fight starts, let your helper do most the fighting, you run around stealthed and staying out of swirls on the ground.

Here's a Maw tip: when you first go in the Maw, you get 3 initial quests to complete. Do NOT turn in any of the 3 quests until all 3 are completed. If you turn in early, you could lose your helper.