Using Dungeons For Leveling

Using Dungeons For Leveling

When World of Warcraft was released about 5 years ago, people didn't run many Dungeons. It was something that guilds did, but not something that general players got into.  It was extremely difficult to find other players who were willing to party with you then travel half way across the world just to enter the Dungeon.  Having a Warlock in your group was pretty much essential for teleporting people to the dungeon, otherwise your group would never get started.





There are so many awesome lower level dungeons but most players never get to see them because it is even harder to find lower level players to group with since everybody in the server was already level 80.  But all that has changed now with the new Dungeon Finder system in Patch 3.3

If you hop into World of Warcraft right now and hit your button for the old Looking for Group window, you'll get the new 'Dungeon Finder' instead. It looks kind of close to how the old one was laid out. You've got your role selection at the top of tank, healer or DPS. You've also got the option to be the leader of the party.





The system will automatically find a group for you and then teleport everyone inside the dungeon to begin playing immediately, how cool is that!





If you ever follow the quest story line in World of Warcraft, you will know that eventually the story will lead you inside ….you guessed it Dungeons. It was frustrating back then to have these awesome quests sitting in your log book that you’re dying to complete, but can’t. Waiting until you’re a high enough level to solo it yourself pretty much takes the fun out and the rewards are no longer useful.





I saw the potential when Blizzard released their new dungeon finder and I knew this tool was going to help with my leveling A LOT.  Now it is actually a common thing to do. So many players get to level 15 and then they do literally nothing but random dungeons until level 80…





While this is a legitimate strategy to leveling, I do find it somewhat boring only doing dungeons. It still feels like grinding to me, just killing monsters over and over again with no purpose. The original design by Blizzard of dungeons is that it would be the last place that you visit to complete your quest line, and that is exactly what I did.





I always collect all the quests required for the dungeon before entering a dungeon, there are always about 3-5 quests available per dungeon and some of them require you to complete a chain of solo quests first before you can get them.





Dungeons quests are considered more difficult and reward you with double experience points and rare (blue) quality items, it is amazing because completing 5 quests in a dungeon is like completing 10 quests solo.





The combination of the fast grinding experience in Dungeons plus the Dungeon quests gives you the fastest leveling ever. I often get about 1 full level just by turning in my quests. I would get about 1.5-2 levels completing the dungeon then get another 1-1.5 levels just by turning in quests and I will get rare (blue) quality items comparable and sometimes better than Heirloom items.





There are some resources out there such as wowhead and wowwiki to help you find and complete these dungeons, these were helpful until I stumbled upon Dugi’s Dungeon Leveling guide.





It is a step-by-step guide for Dungeons at every level, for example I’m level 15 and I want to complete the Ragefire Chasm dungeon with quests.  I simply select the Ragefire Chasm guide and follow the step-by-step guide, which contains all the pre-requisite quests for Ragefire Chasm




















The guide also instructs me when I should zone, queue and begin the dungeon, and once I have completed the dungeon. The guide automatically gives me full instructions as to where I should turn in the quests and how to get there.





Once I complete one dungeon I can move on to the next dungeon guide which is Wailing Caverns, and all this time I have leveled at a very fast rate. Having the guide viewable inside the game is a god send and it makes it is so simple and easy, I wish Blizzard had made something like this built in. I guess it would probably make the game too easy J.





Dugi’s Dungeon Leveling Guide skips all the non-essential solo quests and get’s you to complete the pre-requisite dungeon quests. I noticed that Dugi sometimes adds in solo quests that aren’t necessary for a dungeon but that’s because I was going to be questing in that certain area anyway so it was definitely a good idea to complete the extra solo quests at the same time so I’m glad he added those in.





This was my level progress for my new Orc Shaman from using this guide, with the help of Dungeon Quests I steadily gain 2-3 levels per dungeon and I didn’t have to run each dungeon more than once which would have been boring.





Level 16 Ragefire Chasm


Level 18 Wailing Caverns


Level 20 Shadowfang Keep


Level 23 Blackfathom Deeps


Level 25 Razonfen Craul


Level 27 Gnomeregan


Level 29.5 Scarlet Monastery Graveyard


Level 31 Scarlet Monastery Library


Level 33 Razonfens Down


Level 35 Scarlet Monastery Armory


Level 37 Scarlet Monetary Cathedral  (I actually ran this twice because I didn’t get the items that I wanted the first time)


Level 40 Uldaman


Level 43.5 Zul’Farrak


Level 46 Mauradon


Level 48.5 Sunken Temple


Level 53 Blackrock Depths Prison


Level 55 Sholomance


Level 57 Stratholme





At level 58 I could have just went straight to Outland but I didn’t want to abandon my group so I leveled to almost level 59 before I went to Outlands.





Well that is my progress so far, and I have been loving every minute of leveling. World of Warcraft felt like a brand new game. Some of the storylines in these Dungeons are truly epic, it’s hard to pick a favorite but Uldaman really stood out to me as my first Epic dungeon experience.





I hope blizzard would revamp these dungeons for Cataclysm because it would be a shame to lose them forever. I highly recommend you complete these Dungeons before Cataclysm comes, so you can truly experience the rich storyline in World of Warcraft.





I have also seen many players reaching level 80 and yet still don’t have a clue on how to play their class. Leveling in Dungeons is the best way to learn your class because as you level up, the dungeon gets harder and harder and you will gradually learn on how to play your class role so that once you reach level 80 you won’t get laughed at or kicked out of guilds and raids because you didn’t know how to play your class in dungeons.





If you’re interested with leveling faster than ever before then I highly recommend Dugi’s WoW Leveling Guides.




Dugi’s Ultimate World of Warcraft