This question is more suited to tanks who get instant queues but lately I've been wondering how can one get more XP: by questing in a level-appropriate zone or by running random dungeons?
Let's say you are a tank (like my worgen druid) and would like to level as quickly and efficiently as possible. Would you choose to chain-run dungeons and skip questing or quest instead, with the occasional dungeon.
Because my main (and favorite) spec on the druid is tanking, I had the notion that I would chain-run dungeons and thus gain levels quickly. Well, it turns out that's not really the case. During the short time between The Shattering and Cataclysm there was lots XP to be had from dungeons, especially from the in-dungeon quests. That, alas, was nerfed. Dungeon quests that would give, say, 6000XP now give 3000XP or less.
From my experience I find that just by running dungeons over and over again doesn't seem to award lots of XP. The dungeon XP improves considerably when there are quests to complete but this is a one-time proposition and afterwards it doesn't seem as lucrative to run the same dungeon again.
On the other hand, simply completing a bunch of "yellow" quests (i.e. of your level) on your own in a questing area can be very efficient. As an example, the other night my worgen druid (level 51) quested for about 30 minutes in Burning Steppes and gained a whole level. If I'd played for another 15 minutes he would have gained yet another one.
Chain-running dungeons, especially as a tank, can prove very boring and repetitive. I love tanking on the druid but leveling via the dungeon finder doesn't seem especially quick.
For this reason I've chosen a combination between running dungeons and questing. This way I can have the best of both worlds. But this reasoning applies mostly to tanks. As dps I have to quest while queuing for dungeons anyway.
What about you? Do you prefer questing over running dungeons?
Patch 1.0.5 commentary
12 years ago
12 comments:
The quests in dungeons used to give proper experience. Unfortunately, Blizzard decided that LFD should no longer be used for leveling. AKA they nerfed the dungeon quests XP to only give 1/5th XP.
I do not know myself now. First they dont want priests to be healers any more, and now they don't want dungeon leveling.
I think it depends. You can get the same quest reward XP from doing a yellow or a green quest, but the yellow quests often mean tackling mobs that give higher XP. (Green quests can be finished more quickly, however, so there's less downtime involved.)
As for the dungeon questing/instance running, I noticed the nerfed stuff almost immediately after Cata dropped. It annoys me to no end that Blizz is forcing you into one optimal method of leveling, particularly since the XP from mobs is higher than questing in level appropriate instances. (All those elites do pay off a bit, there.)
One other thing to point out is that the XP coming from BGs got nerfed too.
The thing is, right now you can more quickly fill up your bags while questing than instance running, so you can keep instance running longer. Yet the cost from the AH on the largest bags is prohibitively high if you're running on a new alt on a new server (unless you're a pro at the AH, that is.)
There seems to be this weird "we want you to go this way" vibe coming from Blizz, yet at the same time that method becomes tedious once you level enough alts through Cata.
Yeah it annoys me too that they've decided that dungeon leveling isn't the way to go. Blizzard has this thing about forcing people to "see content". Of course, they're not actually forcing anyone but by severely nerfing dungeon quest XP, that's what they are indicating: we prefer you to engage in solo quests rather than dungeons.
These days I don't usually tank more than one instance a day, even with the instant queue. The XP gained in there is pitiful.
Depends on lvl at 15 without quests one run could lvl u
I wish I could find the reference, but my memory of the problem was that players who liked to both quest and do dungeons were overleveling the zones they were in way too quickly. They would get out of a dungeon and find that the quests they had in the log before were all now green or gray, and were too high level for the next zone to even see any more quests (without turning on low-level quest tracking).
My guess is that with the holidays, Blizzard is just nerfing problems until proper attention can be given later.
@unholygold that's true, of course. But after level 30 or so it becomes much harder to gain levels. After all, it's extremely quick to get from 1 to 10.
@Don Ferren you're right. Same thing happened to me before they "fixed" this. My shaman would enter a dungeon after questing in a certain area and after running a couple of dungeons had to move in to a higher level area.
Happy New Year everyone!
WIth my mage I did a combination of questing/instances. I leveled her after The Shattering was released and so I was able to reap the benefits of all the new quets (Horde side.) Blizzard has done an amazing job with the revamped quests. With my newest priest I've mainly done dungeons. Although this makes my 8th healer, it's been a while since I've played with my priests so I wanted to get used to that again.
Yesterday I made a Protection Paladin (have not tanked in almost a year) so I'm thinking initially most of my game time (with her) will be running instances, just so I can get used to it again. Initially I was apprehensive about entering dungeons with her, but I had an amazing group. I told them I had not tanked in a long time.
This morning I ran Ragefire and Wailing Caverns with her. Although it still felt odd tanking, stepping into that role came back quickly, and the beauty of it was my group actually let me set the pace. ;) We ran a few instances together, and i got compliments on my tanking. Yes, I know that a Paladin can be easier than some other tanks but as someone who's been away from tankng for a while (mainly because I got tired of the foolishness) it still felt great to hear. I was able to keep threat on myself, and pick up the occasional stray mob. Eventually I'll roll another Protection warrior, always enjoyed that type of tanking too.
My apologies for the wall of text... ;)
HNY to you too Pounce!
I decided not to tank on my level 80 paladin anymore. It's a lot easier to tank at low levels, truth be told. Though I'm almost 60 with my bear, I haven't had any problems tanking so far and I get compliments from people all the time. But I'm conscious that level 85 heroics are a whole different ballgame.
Tanking at low levels can be a bit tricky but it can be mitigated to a large extent by tab-switching targets and taunting.
Don't apologize for walls of text! Keep commenting, I thrive on your comments :)
I think it depends on how you play. If you're a healer or tank and can't dps much it will take you longer to complete quests. If you run dungeons with a good group then you can speed through them. If you run dungeons with crappy dps who doesn't know how to play their toon or is just being lazy then that dungeon can take an hour instead of 20-30 minutes.
Yeah I remember when I decided to start levelling my hunter from 40 a while after the the WOLTK end game was announced I decided to see what PVP levelling was like and I found that it was AWESOME a win would get you a 1/3 of the way in terms of an XP bar. This was questing on old content at least now Blizz have provided a revamp and put all the damn dungeon quests inside the dungeon instead of miles away from the instance.
Blizzard needs to realise that revisiting content is never going to be fun when you have 3 level 80s and really don't want to do the grind again. Damn you Blizzard I loved killing allies for precious xp bars =o(.
Well, at least there are multiple zones where you can choose to level - at least at lower levels. No such luck with Outland or Northrend.
It used to work really well, not so much anymore. But even so - tanking those dungeons is still pretty vital to keep your gear up to your level.
One giant exception is the priest. Priests level really well in dungeons, and spend more time learning more about how to maximize that aspect of their class which pays of later. Good healers are tough to find - but it gets frustrating with PUGs filled with bad players.
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