Heirloom Items

[Fordel]

Protection as a leveling spec is totally mind-boggling to a person who did it at release. It was a horrible way to even think about gaming.

Then again, I didn't even quest during the first expansion because my ass was always in dungeons, so what do I know. I guess at that point they fixed it.

I leveled as a Resto Druid during vanilla release, beat that! 



They made Prot Leveling not only possible, but arguably the fastest and best way in WotLK. Shield Specialization and Revenge are just overpowered for the first 30-40 levels and talents like Incite are extremely powerful during those early levels. By the time the luster wears off on those things, you'll get devastate and shield slam so it's all gravy! The only 'oddity' is your best "dps" gear to level up is actually all that random +dodge, +defense plate no one uses at those levels.



The Prot PVP nerfs were both warranted and required. 35-40k HP rogues you couldn't CC or peel 

[Rasix]

I leveled as a Resto Druid during vanilla release, beat that! 

Resto shaman 1-60.      Like druids, we only had one valid talent tree for a LONG time.

[Fordel]

You still had windfury sir!

[Musashi]

Oh delicious vanilla winfury...  How does I miss you and your curbstomping of the noobs in their own graveyard...

[Fordel]

I still remember being taken from 100% to zero in "one" windfury strike. I think it was the first time I felt the need to look at my combat log to figure out what the hell happened.

[K9]

I remember playing BGs on my priest back in Vanilla and how enhance shamans would just flatten me in the blink of an eye.

[Sjofn]

You know Fordel was in trouble when he had to call in my paladin to "dps" for him for a few quests he just couldn't finish because his damage was so pathetic. It was sort of adorable.

[Fordel]

That isn't even a exaggeration, my druid couldn't beat the respawn rate in a lot of places.

[caladein]

You people were/are crazy.  I healed a lot of instances leveling my Druid and Priest up to 60 in ye olden days, but I certainly didn't level as a pure healing spec.

[kildorn]

Man, I remember duoing elite quests with my holy paladin and a holy priest. Nothing on the planet could kill us, but if the mob had a heal we were fucked.

[Fordel]

Well what was a Druid going to spec in those days, Balance? Feral? They were even worse by every measure.

[Ingmar]

My druid went 1-60 feral at release!

My warrior has always been protection from his first talent point, too. It wasn't THAT bad.

[Fordel]

Your Druid didn't level from RELEASE sir.

[caladein]

Well what was a Druid going to spec in those days, Balance? Feral? They were even worse by every measure.

I leveled and did up BWL as HotW/Resto before I started up my Priest.  I agree that Feral was hilariously bad, and Balance was worse, but at least I had Claw!  (... except when it sounded like PW:S for a month or so and drove me insane.)

[Fordel]

I collected a bunch of melee leather gear to try feral out around level 30 or 40, and I came to the hilariously depressing conclusion that I actually did more DPS just auto attacking with moonfire up in caster form. 

[Sjofn]

Remember, Ingmar, you didn't solo that warrior up at release. We were the awesome warrior/paladin duo of power. It would take 20 years to kill shit but  nothin' could kill us. 

[fuser]

Yea.  It may be faster for a prot warrior to level in instances.  But for everyone else, including other flavors of warriors, it's WAY faster to download tom/tour guide and follow the arrow to the next quest.

I've been leveling 60-68 now in instances as prot pally with the shoulder and chest piece. When I'm burnt out of slave pens or AC I only quest. So far the quest's I have done is just the 82ish in hellfire skipping almost all of TBC. 

Getting 1200-1500exp per kill is just silly (+20% heirloom + rested in a dungeon).

[Musashi]

If it works for you, cool.  Questing is faster.  It's why all those guys who write those guides they sell do it.  If they could do it faster in instances, believe me they'd be doing it.

[Draegan]

If you have the heirlooms and playing a tank spec where the LFD is instant, leveling is faster there.  Unless you come across a group that can't faceroll the dungeon.

[kildorn]

Man, I started up a paladin with heirlooms (both armor pieces, a trinket, and a 2h)

Looooooool. My only complaint is that my seal damage is completely trivial compared to just running up and autoattacking things.

I think tomorrow's goal is to get Crusader on that sword.

[Musashi]

Fiery Weapon.  Thank me later.

[Der Helm]

Fiery Weapon.  Thank me later.

Why/How is it better ?

[Musashi]

Procs way more.  Is more beneficial to a paladin, since he doesn't really need the heal - especially if he's ret with that instant flash heal talent thingey.  Not sure if it still does, but it used to proc on seal of command as well as regular swings.  It used to be pretty much required to level a pally in vanilla, since it was so slow otherwise.  Well, it was slow with it too.

[Der Helm]

Doesn't Crusader proc a strength buff ?

[Merusk]

Yep, 100str for 15secs.  However, it only has a 1ppm rate based on what I can find.  Not very useful for quest mob grinding when you're killing a lot of shit in that one minute.

Fiery is 6pm for 40 damage.  It used to be able to proc off judges, seals and reckoning procs but I don't know if that's still the case.

[Ingmar]

Unholy is actually vaguely decent now too as far as those things go.

[Selby]

Crusader is really nice at low levels.  It tends to lose it's luster above the late 40's compared to being 15-20.  I've never experimented with unholy or fiery, but my rogue has a life-steal dagger and it's been pretty fun so far.

[kildorn]

I was terribly tempted to wait on the badlands ae proc of doom, if it still exists. I loved that thing for all the confusion it caused in instances.

But yeah, I was just defaulting to Crusader for the STR proc more than anything.

[bhodi]

Crusader was better for me than any other enchant for paladin. It has a very high proc rate per swing due to the bloodied arcanite reaper having a 3.8 speed. You have about a 6% chance to proc per swing.

Also, paladins are very mana starved until later levels - that free heal means less downtime, especially if you're using concentrate to kill multiple mobs at once.


I've found something that disagrees with me, however, they seem think lifestealing is the best for damage/heal, though again they're assuming long fights which is incorrect since everything dies within 2 autoattack swings:

Fiery does most pure dps: 6 procs a minute with 40 fire dmg each = 4 dps
Lifestealing does 3 dps in shadow and 3 hps healing so you have a (3+3) relative dps against a PVP target which is of course better.

What people tend to forget about Crusader is that you not always get to use the full duration of the buff. And depending on weapon speed you get different white dps boosts (the more instants you can use under the holy strenght buff the better of course). AFAIK the hit that procs Crusader does not gain the STR-bonus.

Weapon speed 2,0: more STR for hits at 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 seconds = 7 * 14,1dps * speed = 197,4 extra dmg

Weapon speed 2,5: more STR for hits at 2,5 5 7,5 10 12,5 15 seconds = 6 * 14,1dps * speed = 211,5 extra dmg

Weapon speed 3,0: more STR for hits at 3 6 9 12 15 seconds = 5 * 14,1dps * speed = 211,5 extra dmg

Weapon speed 3,5: more STR for hits at 3,5 7 10,5 14 seconds = 4 * 14,1dps * speed = 197,4 extra dmg

Weapon speed 3,8: more STR for hits at 3,8 7,6 11,4 seconds = 3 * 14,1dps * speed = 160,7 extra dmg

So that's 2,6-3,5 more white dps (for a warrior) plus an average of 1,6 hps. That's 4,2-5,2 relative dps gain.

Lifestealing is usually better. Unless you can dish out a lot of instants while the buff is up and unless you can always use the full length of the buff. That is often not the case in PVP. Crusader also gives higher crits. And we all love high crits. But there is a reason Lifestealing is a blue formula while Crusader is only green.

[Jayce]

Does this enchant advice extend to other classes?  I'm considering leveling a shaman with twin heirloom Masses of McGowan.

edit: While we're on the subject, does anyone know what the best free leveling guide is these days? In the past it was Jame, but he apparently quit playing or something. A friend told me his Northrend guide just.... stops.

[kildorn]

There's no real need for TBC or northrend guides. Just follow the quest crumbs.

My Paladin has been leveling in instances in the old world. Tank queues are instant. And ret tanking at low levels is hilariously easy. Seal of Command, glyph it, and laugh as you have perma high threat cleave that gives you mana back every 8-10 seconds. I tried lowbie prot for one run, my threat was worse, and my mitigation didn't make a difference. Sigh. It seems like Prot comes into it's own after spiritual guidance and holy shield/captain america skills. Before that, seal of cleave wins.

[Selby]

edit: While we're on the subject, does anyone know what the best free leveling guide is these days? In the past it was Jame, but he apparently quit playing or something. A friend told me his Northrend guide just.... stops.

Jame's guide is still the best.  It goes through Zul'drak from 20 on Horde and from 30 on Alliance.  If you aren't 80 after doing all the zones through Zul'drak, you're doing it wrong ;-)

[Cadaverine]

Unless you're dps, you can just run instances to level.  If you're dps, run instances, and just do all the quests in Howling Fjord/Borean Tundra between instance pops.  You might even have to do some of Grizzly Hills, or Dragon Blight before hitting 80.

I really don't see the need for a guide for either TBC, or WotLK, to be honest.  The quests do a good job of leading you to the next area already, and installing QuestHelper, or a similar mod, will show you where you need to go, so you can do everything all efficient like.

[Nebu]

TBC = Hellfire --> Zangarmarsh --> Nagrand and a few Area 52 quests to ding 68.  I've done that on my last 3 toons.  Goes even faster with Heirloom gear and rested xp.

[caladein]

Does this enchant advice extend to other classes?  I'm considering leveling a shaman with twin heirloom Masses of McGowan.

edit: While we're on the subject, does anyone know what the best free leveling guide is these days? In the past it was Jame, but he apparently quit playing or something. A friend told me his Northrend guide just.... stops.

As Enhancement, I'd probably run Fiery as you can pop yourself a heal every one in a while.

As for guides, early on I just use TourGuide (working version over on GitHub) with TomTom.  Once I get into TBC/Wrath, I really just need LightHeaded in case I have a question about something and QuestRouterLite to give me a TomTom waypoint and show the Quest POIs on my minimap.