Speed leveling in WoW Forever

The ten rules

1. Never travel without a reason. Pick up every quest in a hub before leaving it, do them in one loop, hand in together. A hub done in two passes costs twenty minutes you do not get back.
2. Log out rested, every time. Rested XP doubles kill XP. Log out in an inn, a city or your Cozy Sleeping Bag, even for a ten-minute break.
3. Always Well Fed. Cooked food is +5% kill XP for 15 minutes. Cooking is trained at level 1 and the first recipes use what you loot anyway.
4. Kill while you walk. Fight what is between you and the objective instead of running around it. Pull the next mob before the current one dies on classes that can.
5. Skip the slow quests. Elite quests you cannot solo, escort quests on long paths, anything that sends you to another continent for one hand-in, and drop quests with a bad rate once they stall.
6. Dungeons once, with their quests. Dungeon quest XP was halved on 1 October and kill XP raised, so a single run with every quest is good value and repeats are not.
7. Hearthstone is a tool, not an emergency button. Bind it to the hub you will return to, and plan each loop so the hearth saves a flight.
8. Buy nothing except riding. Quest rewards and dungeon drops carry you. Bank for the mount at 40, then for Journeyman at 60.
9. Train only what you use. Every rank of a spell you never cast is gold and a trip to town.
10. Talents for kill speed, not for raids. Load the leveling build for your class in the calculator and follow its point order; respec at 60.

Pick the class

If the character is new and speed is the only goal, choose from the S tier. Each row links the leveling build that opens in the talent builder with its level-by-level order.

Race matters less than spec. Tauren Plainsrunning (60% on foot before 40), Night Elf and Skyborne movement, and Troll regeneration save real minutes; the rest is flavour. Details in best leveling class and the per-class race pages.

Route, bracket by bracket

The zone table is in the leveling guide. This is the speed version: where to be, what to do, what to skip.

1–10: the starting zone, no detours

• Do every quest in the starting area and the first town. They are dense and chain into each other.
• Train Cooking and First Aid in the first town. Eat from the first cooked stack onward.
• Skyborne start on Zephras Isle; Undead Paladins in Bandarion Keep. Both are self-contained.
• Skip: nothing. Even the small kill quests here are good XP per minute.

10–20: two zones, one new dungeon

• Alliance: Westfall, then Loch Modan or Darkshore. Horde: the Barrens with Silverpine as a filler.
• Dwarf-side characters hit Hall of Thanes at 13 to 18 under Ironforge; it is on the way and its quests come from the Great Forge.
• Deadmines or Wailing Caverns once each at 17 to 20 with all quests in hand. Ragefire Chasm and Ruins of Lordaeron only if you are already in the city.
• Skip: the Barrens quests that send you to the far south before 18, Darkshore escorts along the coast.

20–30: the Cozy Sleeping Bag pays for itself

• Alliance: Redridge, Duskwood, Wetlands with its new quests. Horde: Stonetalon, Ashenvale, Hillsbrad, Thousand Needles.
• Start the Cozy Sleeping Bag chain as soon as its first step is in reach. Resting in the bag is +1% XP per minute up to 3%, stacking with food.
• Shadowfang Keep or Blackfathom Deeps once at 22 to 26, City of Dalaran or Excavation Site once at 28 to 32 if the route passes them.
• Skip: elite quests in Hillsbrad and Ashenvale unless a group is already forming, the Stockade unless you are in Stormwind anyway.

30–40: Riverglades, then the mount

• Both factions: Stranglethorn's northern hubs, then the Riverglades from 35. It is new, dense and has its own boat from Tanaris and quest hubs built for fast loops.
• Desolace and Arathi fill gaps. Thousand Needles for Horde.
• Scarlet Monastery wings and The Drowned City once each. Razorfen Kraul and Downs only with quests in hand.
• Bank every coin. Apprentice Riding at 40 costs about 100 gold including the mount, and it is the biggest speed gain in the game.
• Skip: Stranglethorn's south before 38, Gnomeregan unless you are a Gnome with the quests, every quest that asks for a drop from one rare mob.

40–50: mounted, long loops

• Riverglades to 45, then Badlands, Swamp of Sorrows, Dustwallow, Tanaris, Feralas, Hinterlands. Mounted loops can be twice as long as foot loops, so pick up everything in a hub.
• Dual spec at 40 for 10 gold if you tank or heal dungeons; the second spec costs you nothing on the kill-speed spec.
• Uldaman, Krol'dok Stronghold, Zul'Farrak and Maraudon once each; Zul'Farrak has the best quest XP of the four.
• Skip: Alcaz Prison unless a group is at the door, long Feralas escorts, anything in Un'Goro before 48.

50–60: fewer quests, better planning

• Un'Goro, Felwood, Winterspring, Eastern and Western Plaguelands, Silithus, Burning Steppes, Mount Hyjal and Shen'dralas. Hubs are thin, so finish each zone's chain before moving.
• This is the one bracket where a grind camp is competitive: a dense camp near a flight path, rested, Well Fed, with a Camp Tent nearby.
• Sunken Temple, Blackrock Depths, Dire Maul, Scholomance, Stratholme and Blackmaw Hold once each with quests. Blackrock Spire and Shaper's Terrace are for 60.
• Skip: attunement chains until 60, epic mount farming until the level is done, world bosses.

The rested XP cycle

Rested XP is the only boost that doubles kill XP, so the fastest leveling pattern is built around it.

• Rested XP accrues while logged out in an inn, a city or a Cozy Sleeping Bag, and only slowly elsewhere. A Camp Tent (Leatherworking 20) raises a camp's rested XP to 5% of a level.
• Plan sessions to end at a hub: hand in, train, log out inside the inn. Starting a session with a rested bar and a hub full of quests is the fastest hour in the game.
• Two characters in rotation, each resting while the other plays, keep both rested most of the time. With the Legacy perk Well Rested the bar fills up to 20% faster and holds more.
• Well Fed and the Sleeping Bag buff stack on top: up to +8% kill XP, all the time, for the cost of cooking and a short rest.

Dungeons: once each, quests first

Every dungeon page lists the quests to pick up before the run, where they come from, and the bosses. Group Finder is listed from the official level band; the door usually opens a few levels earlier. In bracket order:

• 13–20: Hall of Thanes, Ragefire Chasm, Ruins of Lordaeron, Deadmines, Wailing Caverns.
• 20–30: Shadowfang Keep, Blackfathom Deeps, Excavation Site, City of Dalaran.
• 30–40: Scarlet Monastery, The Drowned City, Razorfen Kraul, Razorfen Downs.
• 40–50: Uldaman, Krol'dok Stronghold, Zul'Farrak, Maraudon.
• 50–60: Sunken Temple, Blackrock Depths, Dire Maul, Blackmaw Hold, Scholomance, Stratholme.

A tank-capable class never waits: Paladin, Warrior and Druid can post the group and go. The full list with level bands is on the dungeons page.

Travel

• Take every flight path you pass, even a few hundred yards off the route. A missing flight point costs more later than it saves now.
• New boats: Stormwind to Auberdine, Southshore to Auberdine, Tanaris to the Riverglades. They remove the worst continent crossings of Classic.
• The Legacy perk Frequent Flier makes flights 20% faster and half price. On an alt, take it early.
• At 40, buy riding before anything else. Gift of Galloping from the Riverglades black market adds 10% mounted speed for 15 days if you have 150 gold to spare after the mount.
• Mage portals, Warlock summons and the Astral Recall of a Shaman friend are all faster than any flight.

Alts and Legacy

The second character is the fast one. Legacy Points are account-wide and the Legacy planner lets you lay out all 16. For speed take, in order:

1. Talented: talent points from level 5 instead of 10. The first five levels with a talent each are noticeably faster.
2. Well Rested: rested XP accrues up to 20% faster with a higher cap.
3. Frequent Flier: flights 20% faster, 50% cheaper.
4. Thrill of Adventure: health and mana back after kills, which removes most drinking.

Mail the alt bags, cooked food and a stack of bandages from the main. Do not mail gold for twinking gear; mail it for the mount at 40.

Time targets

Beta testers averaged about 20.5 hours to 20, the same as Classic, and the curve above 30 is the original. The targets below assume rested XP most of the time, Well Fed, one run per dungeon and no wipes. Treat them as a pace to beat, not a promise.

Track your own pace with /played at each ten levels. If a bracket runs long, the cause is almost always travel or the wrong zone for your level, not kill speed.