I now have two characters at 110.

Oy.

Let me backtrack a second. In Warlords of Draenor, I had over twenty characters at max level. The leveling experience in WoD had the potential to be very, very fast. There was really no drawback in racing to 100 except for gear not keeping up, but if you upgraded your heirlooms to cap out at 100 they’d keep up with you until you could pick up a few pieces. So gear was kinda a penalty.

That, and flying.

The implementation of flying was what made many people backtrack over old content until they had repped up enough, or completed enough quests, or explored enough of the new content. People were upset, but they did it. And Blizzard let them know that they’d probably have to do it all over again in Legion.

You’d figure I’d learn.

My Pandaren Warrior was insanely easy to level. First, because he was a Pandaren he had double the normal rested XP as other races. I’m not sure how that worked exactly, but what I do know is that from 100 to 110, I was never OUT of rested XP. That was pretty sweet.

Second, I leveled him as a Protection warrior. At 102 he picked up his Arms artifact weapon, and I dumped all my artifact points into it. Still, even with what would be considered an underpowered artifact, from 100 to 11o I died a grand total of TWICE.  Both were due to being drunk with indestructibility. I died more than twice during my first World Quest as an Arms warrior. Much, much more.

Third, I leveled using the Legion Companion app. I had followers running the XP missions when I was at work. Each successful mission netted me an entire bubble of XP. That’s actually how I dinged 110. I completed a mission on the app, logged in a little later in the day, and I was 110. How about that?

I’d already been through most of the content on my DK, and my Warrior was going to be my profession mule. He was all about the Mining and Blacksmithing, both of which don’t really kick in as far as making serious gold until 110. I’m greedy like that, so the push was on to cap him.

Dinging 110 was somewhat satisfying until I started finishing class hall quests and found myself rewarded with followers who were 103.  Clearly, I had some work to do, like:

1. Gear. Much like during the WoD crunch, much of my Warrior’s gear fell behind. He had some quest rewards that brought his iLevel up, but when I had to enter a dungeon as part of the Blacksmithing questline I didn’t have the iLevel to get in. I had to go to the AH and buy a bunch of 780 gear just to finish a quest.
2. Rep. World Quests related to professions were going to be beneficial at end game. Unfortunately, because I blitzed through only a couple of zones I found myself lacking the Friendly reputation with a few factions. I had to go back, start over at 110, and go through quests until I hit Friendly with the faction in question. Then off to another zone, rinse and repeat.

Leveling in Legion is more about being efficient than it is about being fast. Truth is, you’re going to have to visit every zone if you’re interested in World Quests. You’re going to have to finish every zone, or at least to the point where you receive the dungeon quest for the zone, if you want to fly.

As the Pandarens say, “Slow down.”

(Editor’s Note – I realize the irony of a post warning against leveling quickly, right after a post discussing the quickest way to level. Relax and follow what you will.)