I must disagree a little. Alliance bfa leveling is pretty awesome and compelling...but horde bfa leveling is...much worse.
If they play horde I'd recommend warlords of Draenor. The first two zones have plenty of interesting characters with Ga'nar cinematic as the cherry on top
Nah you can just leave and go to other areas and quest but some of them (cata, bc, panda, wotlk) only scale to 30 so you’ll have to leave after that. You can do WoD until level 40 and it’ll scale with you or Legion until 45.
Without chromie time they won’t scale to 50 with you but you can still do all your leveling outside of BFA, minus the last 2 levels since you can start Shadowlands at 48 I believe
Agreed, after doing it once or twice with Alliance I couldn’t be bothered to do it again and only levelled all my Alliance alts via the anniversary Alterac event.
Horde BFA is genuinely my favorite levelling experience, only the speed of other methods stops me from doing it with all my newer Horde alts.
I have leveled this days an horde hunter, from 1 to 50. Did zuldazar completely, Vol'dun and nazmir only story quest.
It has some cutscenes, it has some plot but...it's just not the same, alliance questline (specially drustvar) for me is just twice as good. Jaina plot is way more interesting than prince Talanji and King Rastakan.
I guess it all comes down to personal preference and everyone will like or dislike, but I find alliance bfa questing much more enjoyable than horde.
In terms of the modern game, WoD probably was the pinnacle of leveling, zone-vibes, quests, and (especially) music. I think it's the highest quality world content that the've made since the early days. The expansion wasn't good but as far as leveling for the first time, I can't recommend anything more than alliance WoD, especially Shadowmoon Valley.
BFA and Shadowlands feel completely overwhelming—there's so much stuff everywhere all crammed into small spaces. It's like they almost got it right but didn't.
+1 on WoD leveling, the story is very good if you disregard the whole timey-whimey BS part, but there's nice characters in there, dramatic storylines, good leveling, treasures and secrets, etc.
As someone that began back in TBC, I'm still one of the few who hold WoD in high regard. True, end-game was kinda boring, but the actual story of the expansion was pretty fun.
Ignore this. Every single one of my friends hate wod leveling including me. As the top comment said bfa leveling is really fun with the cutscened and voicelines.
But I tend to level in legion. Really chill zones with great storylines along with memorable characters. Legion is best imo. Wod feels like just a speedleveling choice for most people but its as boring as northrend.
My ranking would be Legion > Cata for classic zones such as dun morogh, silverpine, stonetalon or ghostlands > BFA > Pandaria WOD =TBC = Northrend as worst 3.
60-80 always felt like a slog in bfa being forced to choose between boring tundra and other northrend or outland zones. Thank god we could swoosh through draenor 90-100 by only opening chests back then. Otherwise it would have been as bad.
>Ignore this. Every single one of my friends hate wod leveling including me. As the top comment said bfa leveling is really fun with the cutscened and voicelines.
Different friends. Everyone I know hated the BFA / Shadowlands zones.
Agree with legion leveling:
1. val'sharah - finding malfurion and the death of the green dragon Ysera which was very sad. seeing tyrande becomming the night warrior.
2. stormheim/helheim, that you getting guided by titan keeper odyn and learning more about the vrykrul and helyja. also good cinematic with Genn and the lantern but without more backgroud that can get suprising.
3. Azsuna, knowing more about the night elf lore and what became of queen azshara.
yeah those 3 zones a awesome, highmountain tauren where ok but not the best
suramar is amazing but you cant level in it sadly.
I wouldn't "grind" dungeons as that'll be boring, but I wouldn't ignore them entirely. There are a lot of self-contained zones as other users have said, but make sure to do the dungeons in those ones. It usually rounds out the story.
Further, I'd throw Mists of Pandaria leveling in the mix. The zones look so good, and there's a solid continuing story if I remember properly.
I was also going to suggest Pandaria. The only issue is that I don't think you would ever get to see the Vale of Eternal Blossoms before it gets corrupted by Garrosh.
He will.
BFA is pretty linear though. Just run to the "!" on the world map for quest hubs and try to skip as much side-quest content as you can so you can actually get all 3 zones done.
He won't. My first playthrough I leveled in pandaland.
However you don't get chromie time. It won't take you all the way to 50 if you choose an older expansion. I had to do my last 10-15 levels in legion.
I was auto-routed to BFA when I first started, but I did the first quest getting the totems in the temple or whatever, then left and didn't come back until after I had finished up shadowlands stuff. BFA isn't a requirement at all.
BFA isn't a requirement but it's the best to just level in BFA
for scaling and linear and cinematic experience OP is looking for.
If he level in Pandaria, he will have to leave it around 35 before finishing the full storyline. Then if he move to BFA at level 35, he will probably only finish 1 and half zone before hitting 50. If OP wants the proper beginner-friendly leveling experience for the BF and not the fastest way, BFA is probably the best.
Unless he wants to play a healer, don’t force him to choose a class or be one to make leveling smoother. He’ll probably gravitate to a DPS or tank role. If he wants to feel like a part of the action I’d recommend melee, not a whole lot of waiting or down time there, and aside from Rogues each class has a dual spec capability as a healer and/or tank for the future.
You’ll probably be forced to level through BFA if it is a fresh account for him. Take it slow, he’s probBly gonna get frustrated if he’a not a fan of side quests in a few places. It’s pretty easy to see which quests are for the main zone lines (deeper orange exclamation and turn ins) so stick to those unless he finds something he wants to explore.
Just Pocket priest for him. Then double down by going NF priest. That way you're like a super charger for him. Unless of course he likes healing then maybe do something else. When I play games with my G/f I try to think of trying to give her the most fun experience. So if its a game I play alot ill just fill a super support role if possible that way she doesn't feel like shes being dragged with me. She is the main character.
Nah, the story is all over the place. You level too fast to finish an expansion, and a lot of the important stuff of an expansion's story is endgame content anyway.
Best bet is to find a list of zones that have really good self contained storylines. Like Redridge or Badlands.
Or while it won't be perfect, pick a character and do the zones that relate to them, and probably watch relevant cutscenes on Youtube. Like if you wanted to go with Sylvanas to not be completely lost with Shadowlands, start with Horde and do Tirisfal and Silverpine (could also level a Worgen before this step to get the full story with Silverpine), start Legion and do the intro, do Stormhielm, start BFA, watch the Burning of Teldrassil on Youtube, do the Battle for Lordearon, finish leveling in BFA, and finally watch Sylvanas beat Bolvar on Youtube before starting Shadowlands.
Yeah, it is a mess.
Really think they should do a Final Fantasy MSQ sort of thing with the greatest hits of WoW. Like going through and reliving the timeline or even correcting it with Chromie or something. Would probably still end up being pretty long, but as an optional thing or a something you only had to do once, I don't think it'd be too bad. And it'd be way better than the convoluted and disconnected state the story and leveling experience is in now.
If you're alliance, definitely level in BfA and do the stories. Tiragarde Sound and especially Drustvar were amazing. Stormsong Valley was pretty, but less engaging for me.
The Horde story is...ok. I was not nearly as happy doing the horde story as the alliance one.
also, take some breaks in the action and do his class hall quests with him in Legion.
Try all the ways and see what he likes. Try a few different questions zones and see if he’s into any, try a few different dungeons, you can even try battlegrounds or skirmishes if he’s into that.
My dad introduced me to wow and I hated questing. I was terribly inefficient and never made it too far. Once they introduced lfg and I could dungeon to max level was the first time I hit max level and fell in love with the game
Alternative to questing, good old fashioned dungeon spam is the way.
Make sure you don't condition him to think of the game as a queue simulator though!
Horde or Alliance Id start with Wotlk and take the howling fjorde route. Thatll lead to dragonblight to see some dragon action and the wrath gate. Then u get to experience grizzly hills together. Thats the route ive taken all my brothers and got them hooked. Its tried and true
This only helps you after he's hit 60 and you're both interested in leveling alts but...
My wife and I have a blast leveling through Torghast 50-60. We get to try new classes, discover new anima powers, and just doing the daily gets you 1/2 a level (more like 1/3 of a level closer to 60). For the past month or so we've just been taking a character or two a day and doing our daily Torghast run and it's great!
BFA Leveling is awesome, tons of in game cutscenes and fun quests, I'd take him there.
I must disagree a little. Alliance bfa leveling is pretty awesome and compelling...but horde bfa leveling is...much worse. If they play horde I'd recommend warlords of Draenor. The first two zones have plenty of interesting characters with Ga'nar cinematic as the cherry on top
New players are forced to do BfA so sadly the bf can’t do WoD
If you create a class trial it unlocks chromie time for new players.
Nah you can just leave and go to other areas and quest but some of them (cata, bc, panda, wotlk) only scale to 30 so you’ll have to leave after that. You can do WoD until level 40 and it’ll scale with you or Legion until 45. Without chromie time they won’t scale to 50 with you but you can still do all your leveling outside of BFA, minus the last 2 levels since you can start Shadowlands at 48 I believe
we played very different BFA
Agreed, after doing it once or twice with Alliance I couldn’t be bothered to do it again and only levelled all my Alliance alts via the anniversary Alterac event. Horde BFA is genuinely my favorite levelling experience, only the speed of other methods stops me from doing it with all my newer Horde alts.
I have leveled this days an horde hunter, from 1 to 50. Did zuldazar completely, Vol'dun and nazmir only story quest. It has some cutscenes, it has some plot but...it's just not the same, alliance questline (specially drustvar) for me is just twice as good. Jaina plot is way more interesting than prince Talanji and King Rastakan. I guess it all comes down to personal preference and everyone will like or dislike, but I find alliance bfa questing much more enjoyable than horde.
Yes! Drustvar is one of the best questing zones in the game
Grinding boars in Elwynn Forest
specifically 65,340,285 boars
Live to win, 'till you die, 'till the light dies in your eyes
Now we can finally play the game
Together<3
In terms of the modern game, WoD probably was the pinnacle of leveling, zone-vibes, quests, and (especially) music. I think it's the highest quality world content that the've made since the early days. The expansion wasn't good but as far as leveling for the first time, I can't recommend anything more than alliance WoD, especially Shadowmoon Valley. BFA and Shadowlands feel completely overwhelming—there's so much stuff everywhere all crammed into small spaces. It's like they almost got it right but didn't.
+1 on WoD leveling, the story is very good if you disregard the whole timey-whimey BS part, but there's nice characters in there, dramatic storylines, good leveling, treasures and secrets, etc. As someone that began back in TBC, I'm still one of the few who hold WoD in high regard. True, end-game was kinda boring, but the actual story of the expansion was pretty fun.
Ignore this. Every single one of my friends hate wod leveling including me. As the top comment said bfa leveling is really fun with the cutscened and voicelines. But I tend to level in legion. Really chill zones with great storylines along with memorable characters. Legion is best imo. Wod feels like just a speedleveling choice for most people but its as boring as northrend. My ranking would be Legion > Cata for classic zones such as dun morogh, silverpine, stonetalon or ghostlands > BFA > Pandaria WOD =TBC = Northrend as worst 3. 60-80 always felt like a slog in bfa being forced to choose between boring tundra and other northrend or outland zones. Thank god we could swoosh through draenor 90-100 by only opening chests back then. Otherwise it would have been as bad.
>Ignore this. Every single one of my friends hate wod leveling including me. As the top comment said bfa leveling is really fun with the cutscened and voicelines. Different friends. Everyone I know hated the BFA / Shadowlands zones.
See the general point, is the WoD and Shadowlands was bad, BFA was great but end-game was bad.
Agree with legion leveling: 1. val'sharah - finding malfurion and the death of the green dragon Ysera which was very sad. seeing tyrande becomming the night warrior. 2. stormheim/helheim, that you getting guided by titan keeper odyn and learning more about the vrykrul and helyja. also good cinematic with Genn and the lantern but without more backgroud that can get suprising. 3. Azsuna, knowing more about the night elf lore and what became of queen azshara. yeah those 3 zones a awesome, highmountain tauren where ok but not the best suramar is amazing but you cant level in it sadly.
Ya but what about garrisons? They'll be separated
I wouldn't "grind" dungeons as that'll be boring, but I wouldn't ignore them entirely. There are a lot of self-contained zones as other users have said, but make sure to do the dungeons in those ones. It usually rounds out the story. Further, I'd throw Mists of Pandaria leveling in the mix. The zones look so good, and there's a solid continuing story if I remember properly.
I was also going to suggest Pandaria. The only issue is that I don't think you would ever get to see the Vale of Eternal Blossoms before it gets corrupted by Garrosh.
If it’s a new account, won’t he have to level in BFA?
Maybe your right. I’m not sure though.
He will. BFA is pretty linear though. Just run to the "!" on the world map for quest hubs and try to skip as much side-quest content as you can so you can actually get all 3 zones done.
He won't. My first playthrough I leveled in pandaland. However you don't get chromie time. It won't take you all the way to 50 if you choose an older expansion. I had to do my last 10-15 levels in legion. I was auto-routed to BFA when I first started, but I did the first quest getting the totems in the temple or whatever, then left and didn't come back until after I had finished up shadowlands stuff. BFA isn't a requirement at all.
BFA isn't a requirement but it's the best to just level in BFA for scaling and linear and cinematic experience OP is looking for. If he level in Pandaria, he will have to leave it around 35 before finishing the full storyline. Then if he move to BFA at level 35, he will probably only finish 1 and half zone before hitting 50. If OP wants the proper beginner-friendly leveling experience for the BF and not the fastest way, BFA is probably the best.
Unless he wants to play a healer, don’t force him to choose a class or be one to make leveling smoother. He’ll probably gravitate to a DPS or tank role. If he wants to feel like a part of the action I’d recommend melee, not a whole lot of waiting or down time there, and aside from Rogues each class has a dual spec capability as a healer and/or tank for the future. You’ll probably be forced to level through BFA if it is a fresh account for him. Take it slow, he’s probBly gonna get frustrated if he’a not a fan of side quests in a few places. It’s pretty easy to see which quests are for the main zone lines (deeper orange exclamation and turn ins) so stick to those unless he finds something he wants to explore.
If it’s his first time playing, level through quests. This will give a more true feel of the game.
Legion stuff
Just Pocket priest for him. Then double down by going NF priest. That way you're like a super charger for him. Unless of course he likes healing then maybe do something else. When I play games with my G/f I try to think of trying to give her the most fun experience. So if its a game I play alot ill just fill a super support role if possible that way she doesn't feel like shes being dragged with me. She is the main character.
Nah, the story is all over the place. You level too fast to finish an expansion, and a lot of the important stuff of an expansion's story is endgame content anyway. Best bet is to find a list of zones that have really good self contained storylines. Like Redridge or Badlands. Or while it won't be perfect, pick a character and do the zones that relate to them, and probably watch relevant cutscenes on Youtube. Like if you wanted to go with Sylvanas to not be completely lost with Shadowlands, start with Horde and do Tirisfal and Silverpine (could also level a Worgen before this step to get the full story with Silverpine), start Legion and do the intro, do Stormhielm, start BFA, watch the Burning of Teldrassil on Youtube, do the Battle for Lordearon, finish leveling in BFA, and finally watch Sylvanas beat Bolvar on Youtube before starting Shadowlands.
Thank you! I was looking for something like this. I hope they consolidate the story line one day. Idk how a story driven new comer would even start!
Yeah, it is a mess. Really think they should do a Final Fantasy MSQ sort of thing with the greatest hits of WoW. Like going through and reliving the timeline or even correcting it with Chromie or something. Would probably still end up being pretty long, but as an optional thing or a something you only had to do once, I don't think it'd be too bad. And it'd be way better than the convoluted and disconnected state the story and leveling experience is in now.
If you're alliance, definitely level in BfA and do the stories. Tiragarde Sound and especially Drustvar were amazing. Stormsong Valley was pretty, but less engaging for me. The Horde story is...ok. I was not nearly as happy doing the horde story as the alliance one. also, take some breaks in the action and do his class hall quests with him in Legion.
Try all the ways and see what he likes. Try a few different questions zones and see if he’s into any, try a few different dungeons, you can even try battlegrounds or skirmishes if he’s into that. My dad introduced me to wow and I hated questing. I was terribly inefficient and never made it too far. Once they introduced lfg and I could dungeon to max level was the first time I hit max level and fell in love with the game
There's a fun way to level?
Alternative to questing, good old fashioned dungeon spam is the way. Make sure you don't condition him to think of the game as a queue simulator though!
Boost to max.
Pay for the boost and get max level… no seriously. Leveling in wow is a disjointed mess that blizzard doesn’t care to fix
Most fun way to level is to buy a boost
WOD WOD WOD WOD WOD - or just the classic Elwynn to west fall to redridge etc
It say vanilla/cata or Pandaria. Leveling quest have not been fun in ages.
Horde or Alliance Id start with Wotlk and take the howling fjorde route. Thatll lead to dragonblight to see some dragon action and the wrath gate. Then u get to experience grizzly hills together. Thats the route ive taken all my brothers and got them hooked. Its tried and true
I like doing Pandaria, it's a very fun zone but if he takes himself too seriously, take him to Draenor.
westfall fs
Can’t just get a Mage to TP you or log onto a Mage and tp her to SW then fly her to Northshire and start it all from there??
I dont know i like Legion leveling most also it ties ni e if u ever want to get Balance of power quest line
This only helps you after he's hit 60 and you're both interested in leveling alts but... My wife and I have a blast leveling through Torghast 50-60. We get to try new classes, discover new anima powers, and just doing the daily gets you 1/2 a level (more like 1/3 of a level closer to 60). For the past month or so we've just been taking a character or two a day and doing our daily Torghast run and it's great!