It looks as though Blizzard has been tinkering with the XP rates for max level characters, as I reached 110 in Azeroth by running old content on my death knight. This past weekend I took a break from raiding as usual to go back and clear all of the dungeons on my DK which I had missed out on when he was stuck in Northrend. I had originally made him to level these dungeons when doing the quests, but once out of Northrend, I got stuck in the 80-85 grind and never started over on another alt to finish up these runs. With the release of Mists of Pandaria recently, leveling has come back into style with players for this expansion, and my death knight was no exception.
I started off with Utgarde Keep and once I killed King Ymiron, I turned around and ran it again to try out the changes Blizzard recently made to the dungeon. It didn’t take long at all for me to get hooked on doing it all over again, so I swapped over to doing all of the other dungeons I had missed out on as well. I knew that the leveling process for this expansion was greatly sped up, but I really didn’t expect to be max level before Sunday night at 11pm rolled around. However after running two areas in Storm Peaks over and over again, that’s exactly what happened. This past weekend has been a very busy weekend for me, and if it wasn’t for the baby sitting I did on Saturday night at my in-laws, I’m sure that I would have hit 110 much earlier.
What to do once you hit 110
Once reaching 110, it’s all about exploring the new world, leveling as fast as you can, and amassing as much gold as you can. Everything from Northrend to Pandaria is brand new, so take your time going through one zone at a time to try out the changes that have been made. There really aren’t any specific quests that need to be done anymore other than getting your rest bonus by visiting the inns in either Stormwind or Orgimmar. Once you have rested, you can repeat what you did before with dungeons and grinding.
Grinding through old content to get your purple gear will probably be a bit tedious once everyone hits 110 after patch 5.0.4 goes live, so I would start working on multiple characters and grouping up with other people who also have a bunch of alts. Doing old world content together is much faster than doing it by yourself, so be sure to talk to the other players in the zone as you’ll probably end up grouping together either way. You can usually tell who has been playing longer as they will know where everything is and all of the shortcuts that can be taken, so if you don’t want to run it 5 times for an achievement or badge, ask them how long it takes to do it.
Pandaria Overview
Mists of Pandaria has completely revamped the old world as we once knew it. There are now daily quests in each zone, and you’ll even come across a new race here and there. Each starting zone is almost twice as long as what we had to do for Northrend and Cataclysm, so take your time exploring the new land. There are even cinematics in the very beginning that you can’t skip, so be sure to watch them!
The World Map is also much different than what we had before. It’s now an interactive map where you actually have to discover places on your own, and completing map objectives will give you experience and eventually open up new areas to quest in. The map is also very buggy right now, so be sure to save often as you can get stuck in mountains or behind your faction’s base. Thank goodness for friends and the group finder though!
Conclusion
I have been very fortunate to have had a long history with World of Warcraft since Vanilla, and I’ve enjoyed all of the expansions as they came out. This is by far my favorite expansion as it has made the entire world feel new again, and there’s still more for me to explore! If you haven’t tried Mists of Pandaria yet or are still on the fence about buying it, I say give it a shot and level one of your characters to 90.