Going for Realm Firsts

[KysenMurrin]

This time around I've decided to try and push to get a Realm First, at least Realm First level 90 Shaman. Thought I'd start this thread to talk about the realm first push and collect/share thoughts and tips for anyone else who's trying it.

In Cataclysm, it took me 17 hours to level 80-85, but that was on a tank, I spent way too much time in Uldum, and went very slow on the last level. I lost Realm First Paladin by somewhere around 3-4 hours, but hadn't expected to get it. I intend to go much faster in MoP, on my dps toon with Heroic DS gear. What do you think the average is likely to be?

One question I'm not decided on: When you ding level 86 in Jade Forest, do you keep questing to the end of the zone, or do you take the time to run from Dawn's Blossom* to Valley of the Four Winds to try to get ahead of the crowd?

*Nectarbreeze Orchard is probably closer, but I don't think it's worth travelling there at all, because it's further away from the other quest hubs and you don't get the FP or a taxi automatically.


Seeing as every little bit is likely to help, some small mostly time-saving tips from my time trying out the questing path on Beta:

- When a chain asks you to run off to another part of the map for the next quest hub, watch your map along the route. There are quest hubs that do not have breadcrumb quests, but are marked with ! (or just a FP icon) on the world map, and you can hit them along your route to the next stop in the main chain. I've spotted these situations in Krasarang Wilds and Kun Lai Summit.

- [Spoilers] When you finish Vot4W and Krasarang, you go into a big battle at the wall in the Valley. The second-to-last quest involves helping the four students defeat some Elites, but on Beta when the quest begins you often find the student NPCs are all lying dead at their spawn point. This is because there's a spawn point for one of the regular Elite Mantid right on top of them. They will respawn only when you kill the elite - which is tough, but doable.

- [continued spoilers] The very last quest is to ride on a lizard then kill the giant bug - this is a vehicle quest, it's slow and the fight is intercut with cutscenes of the big bug staggering from the damage. Because it akes so long and there's no mob kill xp, it is probably worthwhile just skipping this last quest and moving to the next zone, which you should already have the quest for.

- In Kun Lai Summit (to the west), there's a quest chain involving Kafa beans and yetis on a mountain. At the end of this, you bring a giant Yeti down the mountain, and the next quest is a vehicle quest using the yeti to kill Hozen (which turns into a daily). Another skippable one for length & vehicle.

- After fighting with the Shado-Pan at the gate between Kun Lai and Townlong, you get a quest to ride a balloon up to the Monastery. Skip this and head to your next hub: after the ride is a quest with just a single mob kill, then you're left outside the dungeon entrance and have to go back down the mountain on foot.

[Newsom]

I'm conflicted. I have the time and resources to compete for at least Paladin realm first, but I'm not sure if I want to stress or take it slow and do Loremaster on the way instead.

[PsiVen]

I don't have experience with MoP questlines specifically, but I have heard that if you jump to the next zone ASAP you will run out of quests in the last zone. I will probably finish the area unless I hit a particularly inefficient looking quest chain, and do each dungeon once for those quests.

[stevos]

I am always slow at levelling, I am just not very efficient at it.

Interested to learn the tricks involved.

[KysenMurrin]

I don't have experience with MoP questlines specifically, but I have heard that if you jump to the next zone ASAP you will run out of quests in the last zone. I will probably finish the area unless I hit a particularly inefficient looking quest chain, and do each dungeon once for those quests.

I wouldn't do it for every zone. But the end of Jade Forest has a lot of taxi travel, and it'll be crowded as hell.


Remembered something else to skip: In the Monastery in Jade Forest, one of the trainers will have you down doing exercises with the line of students. It gives you a vehicle bar, and it's really bad at recognising when you've done it right so takes a while. After that is a bad quest killing two high health punchbags, which only gives kill credit if you're hitting the right one when it dies and if you're standing right on top of it. I'd avoid those two entirely if you're trying for fast xp. Might mean skipping the final reward for the hub, but you won't need the gear anyway.

[Fenrìr]

I'm personally going to skip out of Jade Forest once I hit 86; just to get a slight lead on the crowd.

[degre]

I believe you can skip Jade Forest all together at 85, unless it was for Beta testing purpose only, but I could give it a try later if I can still copy a character.

When I copied my toon the Jade Forest area was broken and couldn't be accessed, I remember being ported in the Valley of the Four winds at the village nearest to Jade Forest, where quests were already available at 85. After you have completed the initial quest chain might be worth spending 10 minutes walking around on your mount to get to get to a virgin area where pretty much nobody will be questing, if you want to do Jade Forest for Loremaster you can still go back at a later time when you won't find everyone and their mothers.

And I would still suggest moving on as soon as you reach the level for the next area, there won't be much crafting gear available the first few days, hence would be wise to move up to areas where the quest rewards are better, and no, you won't run out of quests, there's a truckload.


The village I was mentioning where you start in the Valley.

[Bellanka]

How does the questing experience fare against getting a full group of guildmates and spamming dungeons?

[Bellanka]

I believe you can skip Jade Forest all together at 85, unless it was for Beta testing purpose only, but I could give it a try later if I can still copy a character.

Pretty sure they dinged you 86 when you entered Vot4W.

[daishan]

There was a quest in SW that pushed you to level 86.

[Worldie]

Exp in dungeons is terrible. Don't do that. The exp per dungeon is extremely low (I believe less than 10% of lvl 85 per run)

[degre]

I believe you can skip Jade Forest all together at 85, unless it was for Beta testing purpose only, but I could give it a try later if I can still copy a character.

Pretty sure they dinged you 86 when you entered Vot4W.

Could be, I honestly don't remember, but in such case just ignore my above post and I'll save myself to reinstall the beta to verify

[Nooska]

There was indeed a beta quest in SW/Org that popped you to 0% xp level 86, so you actually could skip JF. It was only available while JF was being restructured.
With the reports of running out of quests befor ehitting 90 if you skip a little too much, I'll addin that I used teh quest to hit V4W at 86 precisely, and I hit 90 a little ways in to Dread Wastes - I did get to 87.6 before they upped teh exp requirements, but I was 90 before they lowered them a bit again - I think the ones running out of quests are due to xp% being kept when they converted the xprequired, so when they reduced it a bit again, the ones that were not at 0% lost a lot of xp from previously done quests on the level they were.

[KysenMurrin]

Ideal places to set hearth as you progress, anyone?

I've decided Dawn's Blossom in JF (you get a quest to introduce yourself to the innkeeper anyway), and Binan Village (the first place you arrive) in Ku-Lai, because the seperate quest chains take you from near there to opposite ends of the zone.

[Kihra]

Exp in dungeons is terrible. Don't do that. The exp per dungeon is extremely low (I believe less than 10% of lvl 85 per run)

Dungeon grinding is actually competitive with JF questing for 85-86 if you have a guild group of 5 H DS-geared folks who know what they are doing. It only falls behind after 86. This is mostly due to the questing in JF being absolutely horrible XP/min though compared with later zones.