For those that have read my past articles talking about patch 7.3.5, you will know how hyped I was for the new level scaling and the Heritage armor for the new Allied Races. Blizzard has finally given us level scaling for all zones, from Classic WoW to Mists of Pandaria. Blizzard even made dungeons scale with your level! My plan was to finally get Loremaster, level through all the zones learning all their stories, and of course get that sweet new Heritage Armor. Sadly, it didn’t work out how I had hoped at first. I have been playing since Vanilla, I also have every class besides one at max level and even that one class is at level 101, so I’ve been through the leveling process many times before. I was hoping that with the new scaling that it would bring new life to leveling for me, but sadly it did not.
Questing was slower without being able to one shot the mobs like you previously could and dungeons didn’t give you the same experience like they did before. With dungeons not giving a lot of experience and taking longer because of the scaling, questing was your best choice. That was until someone found out you could carry characters through dungeons for faster experience with a max level toon like in the old days. Honestly though, what’s the fun in just sitting at the beginning of a dungeon while someone else clears it for you?
Not long after players started finding this out was it nerfed. Dungeons got their experience buffed back up, making it once again the fastest way to level. But I’ve been through those dungeons, I’ve seen them all and because of the scaling, there’s a chance of getting those horrible dungeons over and over *cough* Gnomeregan *cough*. I kept thinking that there had to be something I could do to make questing more immersive, to get the details of those stories, and to be able to blow through those pesky mobs just a bit quicker. So I went out, did some research, and now I want to share with you all what I have found to make questing through this magical place that is Azeroth more enjoyable.
Addons
Immersion – This addon is absolutely amazing. If you’re tired of going through zones picking up quests, completing them, and turning them in only to find yourself questioning what is even happening in the zone, then you need to pick up Immersion! Immersion will take that dated quest text and will give you an immersive dialogue that is easily viewable, allowing you to actually see and read the quest to finally understand and get the whole story. I personally wouldn’t be leveling via questing if it wasn’t for this addon.
NPCScan – NPCScan will give you alerts when any rare mob is nearby. This isn’t a major game breaking addon, but rare mobs give a bit more experience and drop some different loot, and this addon will notify you when one is close by.
HandyNotes – HandyNotes is mainly for when you get to Warlords of Draenor content. This addon will show you where all the hidden treasures and rares are at, allowing you to focus on just treasure finding and bonus objectives to power through WoD. There is also a HandyNotes for Legion that will also show you more hidden treasures. Again, this addon isn’t a game breaker, just a nice one to have.
Enchants
Enchants aren’t a necessity to make questing more enjoyable but if you’re like me and want to kill mobs a bit quicker, there are a few enchants that you can pick up for your Heirlooms. The two main enchants that you want to pick up are Mark of the Hidden Satyr for your neck and Elemental Force for your weapon.
Mark of the Hidden Satyr – Permanently enchants a necklace to sometimes summon a satyr that will fire a nightmare bolt at your enemy, dealing damage.
Elemental Force – Permanently enchants a melee weapon to sometimes inflict additional Elemental damage when dealing damage with spells and melee attacks.
These two enchants together are more than enough to speed up your kills but if you want to go overboard, there are a few other enchants that you could pick up.
Cloak – For your cloak, you want to pick up any of the Warlords of Draenor enchants. For example; Gift of Critical Strike, Gift of Haste, or Gift of Versatility. Not only will these enchants give you a nice main stat buff, but you will get a 2% movement speed buff as well.
Chest – For your chest, you want the Glorious Stats enchantment. This enchant will increase all stats by 9. There are other enchants for the chest piece but generally, this is the best one for this slot.
Shoulder – This slot has three different enchants. For Strength, you want Secret Tiger Fang Inscription, for Agility users, Secret Tiger Claw Inscription, and for Intellect users, you want Secret Crane Wing Inscription.
Legs – For this slot, you will want to pick up a specific enchant depending on your class. For Agility users, you want the Shadowleather Leg Armor, for Strength users, you want the Angerhide Leg Armor, and for Intellect users that want Crit, you want the Greater Cerulean Spellthread. There is one other Intellect leg enchant if you want Versatility instead of Crit and that’s the Greater Pearlescent Spellthread.
Rings – The last slot you can enchant is your rings. For this slot you want to look back at the WoD enchants once again and pick any of the Gift of… enchants that you prefer. Gift of Critical Strike, Gift of Haste, or Gift of Versatility.
Quick note, to be able to use the Shoulder and Leg enchants you must be level 85. The easy workaround is to just enchant everything on your main, or a toon that is at least level 85 or higher and then send the enchanted Heirlooms over to the character you’re going to level. Another note to add is that if you’re a Hunter, you will want to enchant your bow or gun with Flintlocke’s Woodchucker. If you’re tanking with a shield, you'll want Enchant Shield – Vitality, this will give you Versatility and Stamina. Lastly, if you’re healing with a shield, go for Enchant Shield – Greater Intellect, this will just give you Intellect.
Last Few Notes
I wanted to put a few last notes in to help with your leveling in 7.3.5. If you’re not worried about going for Loremaster but you still want to level through quests, try to stick with lower level zones. This means any zones that start with level 10 and goes up to 60. This is because these are zones designed around players not having a mount, meaning that quests will be closer together allowing for quicker questing. For those of you that don’t like the 70-80 grind, another way for you to get through those levels is to actually solo Karazhan trash (the raid, not the dungeon). Obviously, some classes will solo better than others, but all classes can easily start clearing around level 74. Focus on just the trash and do not kill a single boss. After you clear the trash, run out, reset, and repeat.
The last thing I wanted to mention was for the few of you that want a completely different experience, a video I recently found by YouTuber BellularGaming shows a whole different way you could experience WoW leveling. In his video, he shows himself playing WoW as if it were an Action RPG Console game. It has most definitely grabbed my interest and I’m going to try it out myself. If it sounds interesting to you, you can find the link to his video HERE.
Thank you for reading this week's WoW Wednesday, let us know what you think about the new level scaling and if you’ve leveled a new Allied race in the comments down below!
