The FASTEST Ways To Level In 'The War Within'

World of Warcraft's 10th expansion has finally arrived. Many players are going to be itching to make it to the expansion's max level as quickly as possible to start preparing for the all new mythic plus, raiding, and pvp seasons. We've got you covered with what you need to know to level efficiently.

To some players, leveling in World of Warcraft is nothing more than a chore to get to the end game content they actually want to do. To others, leveling is a core part of the WoW experience and a ton of fun. Regardless of which category you may be in, you're going to have to level your War Within characters to access all the content the new expansion has to offer.

Leveling in modern WoW is far from slow, even in the most inefficient way possible, but that doesn't mean there aren't little (and some big) things you can do to make it go just a bit faster.

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Dungeon Spamming

Dungeon spamming is a tried and true method of leveling that goes all the way back to vanilla in 2004. This is an effective means of leveling in The War Within as well. In a modern WoW expansion, there are 8 dungeons with 4 being available while leveling and 4 being available only to max level players. This means that you'll be running the same 4 dungeons over and over again from 70 to 80.

If that sounds incredibly repetitive to you, that's because it is. Dungeon spamming is only a good idea for those who actually enjoy running dungeon after dungeon. It's also mostly recommended for healers and tanks who will be able to find groups substantially faster than DPS players. For DPS players interested in running dungeons, it's best to queue with a healer and/or tank friend or just queue and do quests while waiting for the queue to pop.

For mythic plus players, dungeon spamming can also be useful to allow you to practice some of the dungeons you're about to be playing hundreds of times in mythic plus. Some boss mechanics are mythic only so this practice isn't one-to-one perfect, but it's still solid practice.

Questing

Questing is the intended way of leveling. This is where players go from main story quest to main story quest and follow along with the narrative and game flow that Blizzard intented when designing the expansion. It will take you from zone to zone and introduce each new faction/renown in an organic and well-paced manner.

Questing is rarely the absolute fastest way to go about getting from the previous max level to the newest max level, but it can be the most enjoyable and most fun method for the majority of more casual players.

The War Within has brought with it one of the most visually and thematically stunning zones in the game's history with Hallowfall, pictured above, which has been part of an effort to make Warcraft feel more like Warcraft. The other War Within zones are nothing special, but they're decent enough zones with decent enough stories. Overall, The War Within is not a bad expansion to level up in through questing. It's recommended to use this method at least once to fully experience the narrative and understand why each zone is the way it is and what the context of all the dungeons is.

MSQ vs Side Quests

Main story quests are generally going to be slower than focusing on side quests. For fans of questing, doing main story quests on your first character can be nice to experience the new expansion and zones, then going through on alts to level up with side quests is a good idea. This allows you to focus on enjoying the process of your leveling your main, taking in all the new content, then going quicker on your alts while also still engaging with the WORLD of Warcraft.

War Mode

War Mode is a feature introduced with the death of PvP dedicated servers in Battle for Azeroth. It can be enabled in all sanctuaries (major capital cities) and disabled at any rested area. When active, it marks you for world pvp and grants you a buff that provides a 10% increase to XP and resource gains.

It is always recommended to start leveling with War Mode on because many players turn it on just for the 10% XP buff and not to actually participate in world pvp. If you turn it on and then start constantly getting ganked, then turn it off and get back to leveling without it. It's only worth the 10% XP buff if you're not constantly dying or being slown down by pvp combat.

Crafting

With the profession revamp of Dragonflight, Blizzard introduced the 'First Craft' system into World of Warcraft. What this means is that crafting professions can be a viable means of leveling characters by making use of the massive amount of bonus XP gained from crafting each recipe for the first time.

This system has been carried over to The War Within as well. For regular players, it may be worth it to look into what professions you planned on having on a given character and making use of the first craft bonuses while leveling normally. For players who care about speed and only speed, and have lots of gold, you can look into going through each crafting profession one after the other to get the first craft bonus of all of them for massive XP gains with minimal effort and time spent.

Disclaimer: When The War Within first launched, it was possible to get full benefits from the Dragonflight first crafts still and absolutely fly from 70 to 80. Blizzard has since fixed this and it no longer works. You can still get bonuses from The War Within first crafts, but can no longer cheese easy XP with Dragonflight first crafts.

For a much more in depth guide on leveling fast in The War Within, check out AesVersatile's post on the CompetitiveWoW subreddit here.