The Straggler

Leveling with other people can be such a pain in the butt. It sounds like a great idea in the beginning - hey we can do quests together! We can do dungeons! We will be invincible!

But inevitably level gaps start happening. Either someone charges off into a much higher level and complains that no one else is catching up, or someone just falls behind and everyone else has to wait for them to catch up.

The problem gets exacerbated when you try to play with someone who has fallen behind. Most quests have a level requirement, and chances are if you're tackling a quest that is orange or yellow, that person who is 2-3 levels behind you will not be able to pick up that quest. Experience is also capped by your level and thus if you're doing dungeons that are too much beyond your level, your experience gain will be slower compared to the other people. All of this means that if you're behind, you will likely stay that way or even fall further behind.

What do you do in that situation? There's nothing to do except catch up!

The best way to level quickly in my opinion, is without a doubt questing. If you hate questing, too bad. It's the quickest and most reliable. Some say dungeons, but that's only if you're a beast tank leveling with a beast healer. Otherwise there's a fair chance you'll get stuck with a bad group and end up spending a long time in a dungeon with very little to show for it. There's also a good chance you'll get stuck in some low level dungeon and not get much xp out of it compared to what you would get if you had spent that time questing.

The best place to quest are where there are a large number of generic "kill this many of that" type quests in one hub. The worst thing you can do is do one-off quests over and over - you'll waste a lot of time just travelling back and forth. You want to be able to do at least 3-4 quests in one round without having to go back to turn them in.

It takes some experience to figure out where the best questing zones are. Some of my personal favorites are (in no particular order): Feralas, Un'goro Crater, Western Plaguelands, Stranglethorn Vale, the Hinterlands, Nagrand, and Borean Tundra. You will find a big cluster of quests in one questing hub and be able to knock out at least a couple levels in an hour.

And let me just take the time to say that if you're a completionist and feel like you have to do every single quest, even ones that have fallen beyond your level, then save that energy for when you hit level cap. When you're pre-85, your biggest goal should be to get to 85, not to dawdle here and there and try to get the loremaster title or whatever. Quests in the Azeroth zones take a mere fraction of the time when you're 85 than when you were level 45. If you really want that stupid loremaster, focus on leveling to cap then going back. Trust me, you will save yourself so much time that way and I honestly don't know anyone who actually got loremaster during the leveling process.

Some things that give absolutely garbage experience relative to the time you would spend doing them:
- gray level quests that you couldn't do 10 levels ago
- daily quests (most dailies are meant to be a level-cap grind anyways)
- escort quests
- any azeroth quests once you're past 60
- any outland quests once you're past 70
- any northrend quests once you're past 80

Some things you should be actively doing to speed up xp gain:
- gathering tradeskills - mining, herbing, skinning all give xp now, so when you see that node, go get it. It's usually 1.5-2x the xp you'd get for a creature kill, plus you get something nice out of it. Don't ignore nodes.
- always logging out at an inn
- skipping a quest if you just can't solo it, or if some ally is camping you. It wastes time, just don't do it.
- have a spec that minimizes downtime - you can always respec to raid if you're so inclined later on. Pick talents that maximize self-healing, mana conservation, burst damage and what have you so you can glide effortlessly from mob to mob getting your shit done.
- try to level your cooking - not because it helps you level faster, but it's one of those things that's a bitch to try to go back and do later on. At the least save all the meats and mats you're collecting.

Again, these are things you don't learn until you've leveled a toon up to 85 and kind of get a feel for what works and what doesn't. Just as a comparison, my rogue took over 6 months to get to 80, whereas my 2nd character paladin took less than 2 months. You just know better the second time around.