Watching the Detectives

Not exactly sure why I decided on that title.  Maybe I've got Elvis Costello on my mind.  Whatever the reason I've decided to post about my working on some alts this weekend. 

I read a post yesterday over at the official forums about someone comparing Wrath to Cataclysm's 10 to 5 levels.  Some people said, erroneously I must add, that the 5 levels from Cataclysm is equal to the 10 levels from Wrath.  The believed the hype.  Didn't their momma every tell them not to believe everything they hear?  Have to love sheep.

People started going into the standard time it takes to level.  It seems the people that think they level fast are saying that 70 to 80 is between 48-60 hours and 80-85 is between 24-30 hours.  As funny as it sounds the majority of people on the forums agreed with those numbers, some said it was a little less but most agreed that is close to accurate.  See, the smarter people looked at numbers and did not believe the blizzard hype, they understand that 5 levels did take half of the time 10 levels did no matter what blizzard tried to trick people into believing.  Overall with their numbers, I must disagree.

60 hours + 30 hours = 90 hours which in turn equals 3.75 days.  They are saying this is the time needed for 70 to 80 and then 80 to 85.

My Warrior, which I started the weekend with at 75 is now 81.  My Warrior still has not even played 3.75 days.  Yeap.  Still not even at 4 days played.

Add to the fact my Warrior is near maxed (as in over 500) in all the following jewelcrafting, engineering, fishing, cooking and first aid, which we all know takes a crap load of time to level just from the time it takes crafting the items and to fish up things.

So I leveled 2 time consuming professions and all 3 secondary professions (pre cataclysm's archeology) in less then 4 days as well as leveling.  Of course I only quest on rested.  I do not play the character much at all but I can not see how I am such an efficient leveler and everyone else is really that bad at leveling.

What is there to it?  You quest, you kill things when questing, you turn in the quest, you move to the next quest.  It is not exactly rocket science. 

Cataclysm and new old world stuff take a little longer now however because some retard over at blizzard thought that linear questing was a good idea.  The key to me leveling so fast was the fact I would pick and choose to do the quests that where most efficient.  Can't do that any more.  Blizzard does not want anyone to have fun and play the way they want to play.  They want people to play their way and their way only.

If done correctly it is roughly 1 hour per level up to current content and 2 hours per level in current content when running on rested.  The people that say it took them longer to get from 84 to 85 then it took them to get from 80 to 84 are obviously exaggerating or doing something horribly wrong.  84 to 85 takes much less time than 83 to 84 did just because of the huge increase in experience gained from quests and mobs in twilight highlands.

So this weekend I took my Warrior from 75-81 in 6 hours, my Paladin from 70-72 in 2 hours and my Warlock from 55 to 57 in a little over 1 hour.

Maybe it has to do with the type of character that you are playing.  My Paladin will not beat my Warriors leveling time if only because when bored I fly around and just mine which is counter productive to speed leveling.  My Warlock might come close. 

My Warrior however is a leveling machine because it benefits me to never stop moving.  If I have rage I keep moving to use the rage.  Even if I finished my quest.  If there is another mob in the immediate area, so I can charge it, and I have rage, I go kill.  Same for my Paladin.  If I get an exorcism proc as I kill the mob, even if I do not need another kill for my quest, if there is something else close, I use the proc on it for another quick and easy kill.

Things like that are the reason I think I level faster then most.  I make the most use of my time.  If you want the true key to leveling quickly it is to never do dungeons unless you have a butt load of quests there. 

Now with how things changed it might be worth it but it was not like that when my Warrior leveled.  Then again, my Warrior was a tank.  As a tank I set the pace.  When I had a lot of quests for a dungeon I went into the dungeon and chain pulled the entire thing, finished my quests and got the hell out of there.  If you are trying to level fast dungeons are the worst thing you can ever do.  They are time sinks.  Time sinks are not effective.

I like to speed level sometimes just for fun.  I made a Warrior, a Hunter and a Paladin on a new server and wanted to see how fast I could level them.  The Hunter fell way behind to begin with because of my secret (only quest on rested) to leveling did not work with it.  My Warrior and Paladin however worked that perfectly.

Level 20 on both, less then 1 hour and 30 minutes played on both.  It is a new server so no help from any alts.  No heirloom gear.  No refer a friend or anything.  Just start the characters and play them.

I want to see if I can make 85 in less then 4 days played with them.  As it seems so far, it might be possible to get it in less then 3 days.  Just remember, those first few levels happen super fast so level 20 in a little over an hour is really not that impressive.

I think I can shave some time off that too if I tried harder.  To bad leveling in the old world was ruined otherwise this would be really fun.  Now, I just do not have interest in working on it as much as I used to.  Leveling is just not fun any more.  Cataclysm made sure of that.