aoe grinding exp

[Feyray]

I know I know...Ret's faster. But my guild is leveling a lot of toons to 80 and we do tons of instance grinding so i'm leveling prot.

This is my first toon to level to 80 and I'm not familiar with LK yet but I was just hoping for some quick and dirty hot spots that are the fave's for aoe grinding. Thanks.

[masterpoobaa]

Nothing wrong with levelling as prot.
I did it from 40 to 80 without going ret once.

You dont have to purely aoe grind, you can still do quests. Just a bit slower than ret and with a tankadin style -
round em up and nuke them down.
Having some tank mitigation gear helps.
And while slower than ret, you are also MUCH tougher to kill. Solo most of the 2,3, and even 5 man quests in Northrend.
Plus being a tank, u probably will never have to wait for a 5man instance slot

As for AoE spots, take your fancy. Hierloom gear + rested exp is stronly advised.
Helps if you pick an aoe spot that also benefits one of you professions.
EG aoe'ing humanoids that drop cloth if you are a tailor, mammoths, worms, worgs or rhino's if you are a skinner.

Boring Tundra - rhino fields between the horde & ally cities.
Wintergrasp - humans North of Naxx, Worms in the cave up north for meat.
Grizz hills - Worg packs around the horde outpost.
Howling Fjord - Worg, Shoveltusk packs, iron dwarves (and once upon a time endless dwarves in the cave)
Zul-drakk - undead, raptors (chance of mini-pet drop).
Stormpeaks - packs of mammoth, cave with worms, cave(s) with elementals that drop crystallized water/fire/air
Icecrown - undead, humanoids at scarlet outpost.
sholz - whatever moves.

[hoho]

My tankadin leveled from 33->80 as prot. I didn't specifically grind, just when I had to kill something for drops I mounted up, gathered arund 4-6 mobs up and aoe'd them down. Quests+aoe = win.

[Euphoria]

Staying in combat for the entirety of "Chasing Amy" (the movie, not the quest) won me a case of beer once.

I piddled through the 2nd field in WPL at level 52 killing zombies for about 2.5 hours. Hard to kill is an understatement for a well geared paladin tank that's leveling up.

[Feyray]

tyvm poobaa

[Vioarr]

Probably worth mentioning that there is nothing stopping you from using ret gear when you're not on quests that involve killing multiple mobs at once. It's not as fast as ret, but not as slow as using tank gear.

[Lindreth]

You can also run to the coast near Southshore (lvl 30-35?) and round up the nagas on one end and murlocs on the other for some decent aoe grinding if you're still at that level. In Hellfire, if you go to the area with the demons (imps and overlords), you can round them up, drop HW and then consecrate them for some nice 58-60-ish exp.

Also, try to keep as many bandages/pots on you as you can as even though tankadins can withstand a lot of damage, it's always nice to have some insurance.

[andx]

i leveled 1-80 as prot. It really helps if you grab a priest friend, my priest friend and i made it 1-80 in 3 days playtime. solo i've made it 1-80 as prot in 6 days playtime.

[isomme]

I know I know...Ret's faster. But my guild is leveling a lot of toons to 80 and we do tons of instance grinding so i'm leveling prot.

This is my first toon to level to 80 and I'm not familiar with LK yet but I was just hoping for some quick and dirty hot spots that are the fave's for aoe grinding. Thanks.

It would help to know what level you are, then we'd be able to grant more specific advice on where to go.

I'm a big fan of grinding the elite Jormungar (lvl 73-74) in Northern Dragonblight between 72-75, easy XP and saves the quests for the rougher levels. Killing 3-4 of these is worth a quest reward at those levels, granting the equivalent XP of one quest completed every 2 minutes or so. They're easy to kill and low health (~34000 or so). It's nice, but not worth it anymore by 76-77.

[Feyray]

It would help to know what level you are, then we'd be able to grant more specific advice on where to go.

I'm a big fan of grinding the elite Jormungar (lvl 73-74) in Northern Dragonblight between 72-75, easy XP and saves the quests for the rougher levels. Killing 3-4 of these is worth a quest reward at those levels, granting the equivalent XP of one quest completed every 2 minutes or so. They're easy to kill and low health (~34000 or so). It's nice, but not worth it anymore by 76-77.

Sorry I was lvl 71 I think when I posted. Now I'll ding 77 in a couple hours. My favorite spot so far has been the dig site in Sholazar. I started grinding groups of 4-5 of those bad boys at that level. Now I take on half the camp. Guess it's time to find a new spot, but at least this one should last me till 80.

[Shoju]

I leveled 1-70 as prot. Always a shield + 1h'er, and from the time I had SoW and SoL (it's been a while.) I AoE'd EVERYTHING, and still did quests.

I did every single quest I could find that required kill counts, or drops. I started getting heavy into the AoE in the mid 30s.

I started in 1kn at the racetrack and AoE'd everything.
I went to Desolace and did the centaur lines, the satyr line, and the twlight hammer line
I went to STV a little late, but did all the Troll and nessy quests.
I went to Feralas and did all the AoE friendly quests there
I went to hinterlands (as a horde) and did all the quests there, including all of Jintha'alor AoE
I went to Felwood and AoE'd everythign I could there, including the quests I got out of Ferales.
I went to WP and AoE'd the farm lines, and all the little one shot quests at the farms
I went to Winterspring and AoE quested until 58.

A couple of notes on how to make it work well.

1.) Spec Reckoning.
2.) Get a VERY NICE Weapon. As a horde, I got towed through SM to get the 1h'd sword and put Crusader on it. I used this until 51. At 51, I went TO Alterac Valley. There is a quest given in the Alterac Mountains outside the entrance on both sides to defeat the other leader in AV. All you have to do is win, go back to the guy outside, and he will give you another quest to pick up a weapon. Cold Forged Hammer. It was a little slower than what I wanted, but it got the job done. As a horde you would probably want to just do the Muisek Lines in Ferales + Hinterlands and get Spirit of the Faerie Dragon Also slow, but the stamina is very very nice.
3.) Get a VERY NICE SHIELD. I went from the SM shield, to a shield out of Mauradon, to the shield out of ST to the skullflame shield. The Skullflame shield + Shield spike was AWESOME for AoE grinding.
4.) Gear for stamina. Yes I know it's leveling, but seriously, the more stamina you have, the better off you are.
5.) Do some homework and make a route on how, when, and where you want to go. You can make a nice path through Azeroth and AoE quest.


Don't be afraid to die a couple of times. I found that I died a lot from 35-40 figuring out just how much I could take. Best I was ever able to do while leveling was 16 Grimtotem guys in Ferales. I have a SS somewhere.

It is very possible to AoE quest, it just takes a little more planning to continuously AoE.

I would expect that with the changes to Blessing of Sanctuary, Judgements and Seals you could probably do it faster with less downtime than I was able to do it during TBC. Outside of tanking an instance I grouped up for 0 quests in old world. I was able to solo anything and everything. I bet you could do even better now. I'm thinking about leveling another paladin and see if it is possible to solo instances at level on a paladin now the way I'm soloing things on my DK. (I just solo'd Sethekk Halls on her at 68).

[masterpoobaa]

Yup, the mana returns added to blessing of Sanc changes low level aoe'ing significantly.
99% of mana you will get from this, 4 mobs or ore beating on your shield should be enough to keep you up.
With BoSanc you are also relieved of having to use (for the most part) SoW/JoW, so you can use SoL/JoL almost exclusivly - keeping your health higher and/or being able to pull more mobs.
Also means you can get away with a smaller mana pool, so have less "of the eagle" gear, and more "of the bear" or just plain stamina gear.

Runing with devo aura and improved devo aura talent is an option also. Cut down your incomming damage, and boosts your self healing. Something like this spec:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#sZV0xA0d

After that, start working down reckoning > sacred duty > 1 handed weapon specialisation > holy shield or into the ret tree for deflection (+5% parry)

Prot is so much more user friendly for aoe today
When i first started it was quite a delicate balance between SoL/SoW and downranking consecrate to conserve mana

[olih27]

Right now my pally is at level 64, i am following jame's levelling guide which means i should hit northrend at around 71, from then i plan levelling from there to 80 purely aoe grinding or bg's so that i hit 80 with more or less 0 quests completed in northrend (will then do loremaster of northrend, which i predict will give me 10k + gold).

What i am wondering is whether people think the grinding or bg would be faster,
also i have both of the heirloom swords which would you think is best?
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=44096
http://thottbot.com/i42945

[uke]

Right now my pally is at level 64, i am following jame's levelling guide which means i should hit northrend at around 71, from then i plan levelling from there to 80 purely aoe grinding or bg's so that i hit 80 with more or less 0 quests completed in northrend (will then do loremaster of northrend, which i predict will give me 10k + gold).

What i am wondering is whether people think the grinding or bg would be faster,
also i have both of the heirloom swords which would you think is best?
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=44096
http://thottbot.com/i42945

The main problem with leveling via BG's, and what made me not do it on my hunter alt, is the fact that you don't get any gold or items from it like you do when questing. If you have a ton of gold on hand and a slate of BOE blues to equip while going from 70-80, then I guess it's no big deal, but that wasn't me .

Between quest reward I don't use, green gear drops from mobs, skinning everything while leveling, and gold rewards from quests I'm pretty sure I've made about 3k gold just questing in Northrend from 68-78, not to mention the gear upgrades along the way. I can't get that from BG's.

[uke]

Feyray, you didn't say what level you were, that might help in recommending spots to aoe grind.

Anyways, by far my perferred aoe grinding spot in Northrend is the gorilla packs in eastern Sholazar Basin. Lots of them close together, all melee, and definately nice if you're a skinner (which I am). My hunter and boomkin had tons of fun there in rounding up critters for skinning. I think I got the last 1/4 of the way from 79-80 on the gorillas on my druid.

My pally (first 80 for me) on the other hand, actually hadn't set foot in Sholazar until well after he was 80, lol?