Heya guys!!  So you’re not gonna get a whole lot out of me today, I’m helping a friend of mine with leveling in WoW and just hanging out!!   But, while they are getting their 2nd toon up to level 10 to enter Deadmines, lets talk a little bit about Power Leveling options available to you, the Death Knight.

**Addendum as I am writing…  OK, you’re gonna get a lot out of me today.  Correction.  Still waiting on the second toon to get to 10, so I’m writing my lil heart out here on this PL’ing guide.

Recruit a Friend

While most would scoff at the Recruit a Friend package put forth by Blizzard as a way to just eek more money out of their consumers, I have to say it is an amazing offer.  Even for just the solo player who will use both accounts for their own purposes, this package is just amazing!!  And a hell of a lot of fun.

Summoning

The summoning is one of the best parts really, though no competition to the 300% exp bonus.  For example, today my friend had her primary toon at level 11, but had not started the 2nd one yet.  So I took her down to Deadmines for a run to just have some fun real quick.  But once we were done, and she rolled the 2nd toon, I wanted to help her reduce travel time while giving her an idea how to use the account summoning to her advantage.

I went to Dalaran and left her at Deadmines (on the level 11).  I got a buddy of mine to log in his Lock and meet me up at Dalaran then, while I had her get the level 11 and the level 1 online.  I had her use the account RAF summon on the level 11 to summon the level 1 to Deadmines.  Then we used the Lock to summon her to Dalaran.  Once her Hearth was set, we then used the level 1 to use the account RAF summon to bring the level 11 back to DM.  Then she hearthed on the level 1 back to the newbie zone to continue leveling.  We left the level 11 logged out at Deadmines, and when she finishes leveling the level 1 to 10, the level 11 main can then summon the second character through the account RAF summons back to DM.

So we’ve managed to completely cut out almost all travel time, which would have taken at least an hour of real life time to complete.  And on top of that, the main toon can now summon other toons to Dalaran later on and let them set their Hearth there as well.

Bonus Exps

Basically the way this works is that you get +300% exp.  But it’s not that straight forward.  So let’s look at this in depth for a moment.  When you group with another player you lose some of the exp.  It basically gets halfed.  But then you also get the group bonus exp as well.  But the group bonus and penalty does not impact your Quest exps ever.  Which means that you do get a full 300% bonus from Quest exps.

When you run the math on it all, if you keep both toons together and the same level you get roughly a permanent +170% to 220% exp bonus in reality.  The range comes more from how much you actually quest.  The more you quest, the more effective your exp bonus becomes.  You get the full 300% modifier on all quest bonuses, and all quests below level 60 grant bonus awards now.  The more you just grind exps however, the less exps you will end up generating.

Being power leveled through instances by a higher level toon will still be the most effective choice.  However outside of that option, Questing will always beat Grinding for exp gains now whether you are using RAF or not.  With RAF it just becomes vastly superior.

Always remember that you only get the bonus exps if you are the same level or lower level than the other grouped RAF toon, and it has to be in exp range.  More than a 3+ level range also means no bonus as well.

Special Mount

If you get a RAF and then pay for 3 months total, you get a free special mount.  To most people this is a sign of “being a sell out”.  However honestly it’s a unique mount, and a lot of people like it.  Personally I’m not a huge fan because it has no barding to speak off, making it look….chinky….in my book.  But I know lots of people who would love it.  And if you’re an achievement whore, this is a mount that is not easy to get.

A 3rd freebie level 60?!?

One of the other big advanatages to the RAF account is the freebie levels you can grant to another character.  And a lot of people use these improperly.  So I’m going to tell you how to use this correctly.  The most common use is for the person who spends the most time playing to be on the account that can grant free levels.  That way if they outlevel the other person too much, they can just give them free levels until they are within 3 levels of them again.  This is a bad move.

Go start up a 3rd character.  Whether you 2box with the RAF account or not is immaterial.  It’s really dependent on whether you want to work on a 4th+ toon.  But even if you don’t, having a RAF follow you around will be a faster exp train in the long run.  But that is up to you. 

Basically you level up a 3rd toon on the side to level 30 on the account that cannot grant freebie levels away.  Once there, you park that toon and sit on it.  Once you get both of the primary toons to level 60, then you gift the level 30 with 30 free levels from the primary 60.  I didn’t read the fine print, so I’d maybe do this when they reach level 59.  I know at some point you lose the ability to gift free levels away.  I can’t remember if it’s just time sensitive, or if you lose it when you get to 60 or 61.  You can read up on RAF to double check though.

Cheap City!!

So you don’t have a lot of real life cash to spend?  As long as you don’t mind ignoring Alliance Shaman/Draenei or Horde Paladin/Blood Elf choices for the secondary toon on the RAF account there is a cheap way to do this.  You can go pick up a basic copy of WoW from the site itself.  Assuming you’ve already got it installed on your comp this is the easiest thing to do as you don’t even have to go to a store to find a copy.  Spend $20 (the first month is free) for a new account and just finish using it withing 30 days.  Simple.

So long story short, if you get a 2nd account and RAF it up, you can actually get 3 level 60’s in the time it would have taken you to level 1 60 solo.  Pretty crazy eh?

Power Leveling

There are a lot of approaches to this concept, and likewise a lot of them work.  But I’ll tell you the best ways.

2 People

You can do everything on your own, but it will never be as efficient were you to do this with one other person.  If you have 2 people you have 2 options in front of you.  If you’re both newbs to WoW, then you can both play the toons.  Faster kill times, more teamwork, less downtime, etc…  You will basically exp at a much faster rate than if you 2box’d two level 1’s to 60 on your own.

If one of you is not a newb however and has a higher level toon, then you’re ready for super easy mode.  If one higher level toon runs through an instance killing mobs, the speed at which they can do this greatly outweighs the exp penalties for bringing the higher level character into the instance.  You basically have one person run the two lowbies.  Keeping them out of agro range, but following closely enough to be in exp range.  And then the other person runs the high level character killing everything in your path.  It’s really good stuff.

Teleporting

Now this is a lil known trick, even though most people are aware of the mechanic.  So I’ve got a way for you to teleport to the beginning of an instance easy mode style!!  Once you’ve completed an instance, have all toons in the party who are not the leader log out.  They then log back in, but are no longer members of the party.  Since the instance is saved to the party leader, they are then teleported to the entrance of that instance in a fresh one that is reset.

These toons must then zone out.  Once zoned out, the party leader invites them back to the group and they zone back into the instance.  Once this is done, and they are in the same one as the leader again, you pass leadership to one of the toons at the entrance.  Once this is done, the previous leader who is still deep in the instance logs out and logs back in.

Again, this kicks him from the party and he is now in a fresh instance at the entrance.  At this point everyone zones out and reforms the party.  The current leader resets the instance, and you all zone back in and start over.  Depending on the instance you are running, this trick can save you as much as 5-20 minutes per run, greatly increasing your leveling speed.

Easy Transport

There are two easily attainable mounts in game that allow you to transport multiple toons at once.  They just cost a crap ton of gold.  If you really want to “Be tha Man!!” at pl’ing this is a necessary step.  Go get an Engineering Bike or a Super Mammoth, and now moving on from one instance to the next becomes a breeze pre-level 30.  If not, at least transportation will only be an issue for about 30 levels until they can purchase 60% movement speed mounts.

As a side note, if you are a DK and you’re doing this, go spec Unholy.  You can skip On a Pale Horse if you want to and just get Unholy Aura.  Because they are vehicles, UA will apply to them.  Admitedly it’s only a +15% movement speed instead of 20%, but this will allow non-PvP specs to not have respec for raids, etc…  And also UA will let them run faster and you, making travel time and instance running go faster!!

Easiest Killing Methods

Honestly, any spec will do until you get to about the 40+ range.  And even then, I still think any spec will do.  This is going to be easy mode for you as a DK.  The main trick?  Tank gear.  That’s right.  TANK GEAR!!!  Don’t wear dps gear, and don’t stay in Blood Presence.  Go into Frost Presence and stay there.  You don’t need the extra damage.  In fact taking less damage will allow you to collect more mobs at once and have less down time.

Depending on the level range you are at, you will find certain methods work well at different points.  For example, running around in Deadmines constantly using Unholy Blight while keeping your ghoul on agressive will annihilate everything pretty easily.  But as you get higher up, the mobs will begin to become more difficult to kill in just a second or two.

Try dual wielding for one.  Whether you are a DW spec or not.  Faster attacks spreading damage out more evenly will be more effective than slow high damage attacks from a 2H.  Also when they become harder to kill you want to group them all up before attacking.  Hence the need for tank gear and Frost Presence.

Run through the mobs while your pet is on passive.  This will agro them.  When you have 10+ on you, use Horn of Winter.  The act of buffing causes threat generation, so if your lowbies get too close by accident, so long as they do nothing the HoW agro will keep them on you.  Run around till you get a solid pack of 20-50 mobs, and use corners to get ranged attacking mobs to get in melee range.

Drop a DnD and then see if you can Pestilence out a IT/PS to some mobs, and watch the incoming exp fly.  PURE WIN!!

No Higher Level Toon?!

Quest, quest, quest, quest, and more questing!!  All quests have an added exp bonus of roughly 30% to the base number, and the required exp to level to 60 has been reduced by approximately 20% overall.  Questing is now the most efficient leveling tool in game outside of being power leveled through instances.  Whether you have a RAF or not, you need to be questing when outside of an instance.

Going on a run with people you don’t know?

Whether you paid someone x amount of gold for so many runs through an instance, or you decided to group with some random newbs to do a real instance run, never ever ever stop questing/leveling up until everyone says they are ready.  It is the worst thing ever to head to an instance ready to go, and then sit there for an hour waiting on other people to get there.

Finito!!

So that’s about it.  I hope this helped.    If you have more questions, leave comments and I’ll try to help as much as possible.

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters.

Tags: Power Leveling