Dungeon and Zone Level and Item Level Requirements

Great work. One thing which might be useful is if you added links to the dungeon zone pages as the titles for quick access to loot/bosses/comments/etc.

Instead of typing a name, just use where the number is found in the URL of the page, and it will automatically make the link.

e.g.

NUMBER	DUNGEON TITLE	ORANGE DIFFICULTY	YELLOW DIFFICULTY	GREEN DIFFICULTY	RANDOM QUEUE	QUEST LEVEL	ENTER BY FOOT	ITEM LEVEL REQUIREMENT
1	Blackrock Caverns	N/A	80-83	84-85	80-82	80	77	226

Comment by motsjo

This guide is fantastic! My friend and I are leveling a paladin/priest combo by two-manning instances, and this makes it a lot easier :)

Comment by Qoko

As I replied to your posts on Violet Hold specifically, I noticed Blizzard tuned down the quest requirements in Wrath of the Lich King. The ones confirmed are:

Old Kingdom: chain at 71.
Drak'Tharon: 73 (including Cleansing).
Violet Hold: Containment at 73 (typically, Discretion is Key seems unaffected).
Halls of Stone: 75.

Fwiw, I think Wowhead now has the updated requirements for Wrath dungeon quests. Similar changes might be made to Classic or TBC but I haven't noticed anything. The changes in Wrath seem to benefit a slightly more phased dungeon crawl from 68-70 to 80 including Theater of Anguish at 75+.

Comment by ToxicRipper

Very useful, especially to newer players or players that have not expierienced previous content. 5/5

Comment by Psalamos

This is an absolutely fantastic guide for people like me who are multiboxing and powerlevelling alts. I have this page open as I'm playing most days. I wonder tho, how much trouble would it be to add continents to it. At a glance, one could see Eastern Kingdoms instances by level and also Kalimdor, Outland etc etc. Just a suggestion to help make an already awesome guide better :)

Comment by maledictum1703

One can enter TBC heroics at level 60 by foot. i boosted couple of my chars that way.

Comment by Merkilan

The on foot level to enter TBC heroics is wrong. You can enter them on heroic at the same level you can enter them on normal. For example, blood furnace is level 58, shattered halls lv 65, etc.

Same with Karazhan raid, you can enter at level 67 I know for sure, I haven't tested it any lower.

Comment by Yogilaw

Ok, so apologies first if this post upsets anyone's sensibilities. It is not meant to offend.

I (like I hope most gamers do) understand that everyone has to start somewhere when it comes to tackling a new challenge & WoW is no different in that respect. But, may I ask (plead) that those who fancy a crack at dungeon play please cut their teeth on 'Normal' setting scenarios/dungeons before diving headlong into 'Heroic' encounters.

I have nothing against 'Newbies' (hell, I was rubbish when I first started trying to play in a group) & I would never resort to insults or sledging over chat to someone who displays a lack of skill/awareness.
However, it is hugely frustrating for group leaders if one or more members hasn't got a clue what is going on, or how to take direction. Bottom line is; know your role within the group & what the objectives are.
Best way to get used to this is to cut your teeth on some basic stuff. So, you may have spent months gearing up to max lvl on TI, & just gold farming via daily/weekly quests. Now you can't get better gear unless you raid for it so 'Heroic' looks like the way to go. Wrong. You will just end up being dropped/kicked from the group & having no idea of what you are doing. Raids/dungeons/scenarios are a learning curve so walk before you try to run. Spending more time in the graveyard than in the instance ain't gonna teach you much you don't already know, & this is what will happen if you try to take on more than you are ready for.
Remember, just 'cos you are kitted out in full 535 gear doesn't mean you will stand any more chance of succeeding at Heroic level. Knowing what actions to take at what time is crucial for winning those prizes.

So, plea over. There's loads of good & challenging play to be had at normal level, & once you feel comfortable jump into the tougher stuff where the learning continues.

Enjoy.

Comment by gwjhassink

Very useful guide while leveling a new alt. Two suggestions I had:

is it possible to include the average ilvl of the drops in a dungeon? I'd like to use this guide as well to know where to best gear up while leveling. For example, my alt is level 75 and needs to start getting gear to enter the level-80 and heroic WotLK dungeons (not to mention the early Cata dungeons..). Where to go/what dungeons to run for that level loot?
Just a minor thing, but maybe change the tab names for the raids to reflect the new difficulty names? (LFR, normal, heroic, mythic)

Comment by lankybrit

This is a great guide. I hope you're still updating it. It could do with updating for WoD Raids.

Comment by 1447403

Question for you if you're still heading this post:

For a lot of the WoD gear on wowhead and even on the armory, there are several ilvls listed for each dungeon drop item. They show a lvl requirement next to them with a corresponding ilvl. If you know, could you clarify on the intentions of this? Does it mean that you can acquire the ilvl once you meet the lvl requirement?

For instance: Rivet-Sealed Bracers&bonus=518 shows that there are 5 different upgrade levels, ranging from lvl 90 to lvl 97. With each jump in level requirement, there is a jump in ilvl ranging from 530-615.

To the point of my post: I am a lvl 99 twink, and the above bracers are Best in Slot for me for the ilvl 615 piece. It says that the level requirement is only 97, but no pre-100 instance drops ilvl 615 gear (to my knowledge). So does that mean that it's *possible* for this item to drop for a lvl 97+, or is it just a silly lvl requirement that doesn't match the lvl required to enter the dungeon that drops it (ie lvl 100 dungeons dropping lvl 97+ gear).

Same question applies to Salt-Scorched Shoulderguard&bonus=0#created-by-item but this is from a garrison mission drop (if you don't have as much knowledge about those then I completely understand). Here, for the tormented shoulders required to create the item, it says that there is a lvl 90 requirement to create a ilvl 610 item. From all my experiences with garrison missions, I have never gotten a piece of gear with ilvl610. Anything over 600 has a lvl 100 requirement to open ( I have 2 bank bags full of gear to open at 100). So the question then, can you truly get a 610 drop and open it pre-100, or is this just a typo in wowhead/armory?

Thank you so much for even reading this, and if you can provide any knowledge on it that would be amazing!

Comment by Aerynsun8449

Blizzard must have changed some of the level requirements. I just tried entering Hellfire Ramparts on foot at level 57, it wouldn't let me. Said I had to be level 58 to enter the instance. I tried entering it on May 1, 2015.

Comment by 1457847

used this list to powerlevel a warrior dual boxing with a 90 rogue (for BoS)
edited: testing on a rogue, optimizing routes

not using any XP boost other than heirloom pieces with xp increase

first steps for warrior was:
1-4 grinding any mob 4-10 grinding murlocs behind goldshire inn
10-15 grinding + starting quests on westfall

queue specific dungeons as tank until 58
basically most dungeons with quests should give you atleast one full and 1/2 XP bar until 40ish or so

started dualboxing from here

57-60 hellfire ramparts (seat alt near entrance and kill everymob)
60-63 blood furnace (alt on follow)
first instance lockout, if not 63 yet, run dungeon finder

63-65 mana tombs (on follow)
on 65 fly to nagrand, do blood ring quests for 40% XP

65-67 sethekk halls (on follow)
at 67 i did shadow labs and auchenai crypts once for quests
then back to sethekk halls until 70

average: 2:30 hours

things started to slow down pretty bad here

70-72 nexus
1 full run for quests then seat alt near entrance, IMO isnt worth adding 9 minutes per run for 10%
its exactly 20% XP per run, 2 minutes each, so even without quests you would be able to reach 72 in 10 runs and take a break waiting for lockout expire

72-73 violet hold
4 runs, quest become avaliable at 73 but i skip it, 7 minutes per run, hate this place

73-76 gundrak (seat alt at first boss altar)
76-80 HoL (seat alt at first boss room)

average: 3-5 hours

80-83 vortex pinnacle (on follow, slow mode)
i chose this dungeon because its close to tol'vir, and i already had over 60 hours farm for mount, i wanted it pretty bad
it gives around 45% per run

83-85 lost city of tol'vir (seat alt on first boss, full clear)

average: 1:30 hours (plus 10 or 15 minutes traveling to uldum on slow mount speed)

on MoP i didnt even finished the first quest on my warrior
spammed dungeon finder until 87, went to dread wastes, grinded elite scorpions while in queue for dungeons
its a shame that elite mobs in pandaria dungeons give less than 200 xp each

Comment by Gat0Negr0

Minimum Item Level Requirement in Skyreach is ~~580~~ 560.

Comment by sivla

You cannot get to Quel Danas on foot at level 65, that would be impossible, due to the fact there is no way to that island, unless you either take a flight path there, which becomes available only at level 70. Or you take the portal which is also level 70. Which means you cannot enter the dungeon at 65 either since the fact remains you need to be 70 to be able to get there otherwise its locked off from levels below that.

Comment by Arcanaiel

Fix pls. Azjol-Nerub quest level 72 70

Comment by ariandra

I use this guide everytime I'm leveling a new char. It's a great overview. While listing for randoms yields some bonus xp, I generally find it more rewarding doing the lower level ones one time each for the quest xp.
Thanks a lot for putting this together!

Comment by Malchome

It would be useful to add a column with the recommended iLevel for Mythic Dungeons, i.e. the iLevel they are tuned for. They don't have the requirement but knowing the min target would be good to document.

Comment by Barba

Would be nice if you add a column if the experience after complete all boss betewen level x-y (for exemple, The Blood Furnace give 43100 from 58-66).
The column could be "Max xp after complete", and put the value and range level, like this:

ENTER MAX XP WHEN
NAME BY FOOT LOOT LOCATION COMPLETE
Blood Furnace 58 88 Hellfire Peninsula, Outland 43100xp, 58-66

It's just an opinion to improve, but this guide already is awesome !

Comment by sivla

If your multi boxing or dual boxing, that is you have a high level character taking another of your low level characters through dungeons to level, here is some really good advice.

1. Your going to be running on foot to the dungeon, so the best thing is to make sure your higher level character as the sand stone drake or a 2 person flying mount, prebably at 310% flying speed, this is not necessary but it cuts down on time spent in the air when it can be spent in the dungeon.

2. Since it is 10 dungeon runs per 60 minutes, it make absolutely no sense whatso ever to charge through them at maximum speed, because your only going to lock yourself out until the hour timer as reset on your first entry. This means there is no reason why you should not take at least the minimum of 6.5 mins per run, you will never reach the 10 dungeon run lock our per hour.

3 Try to stick to the highest level dungeon your lower level can do, this ensure that its getting the maximum xp per kill. Is it worth doing the quests? If it keeps you in the dungeon until the minimum time, anything in the dungeon is a good idea...you can sit before the last boss for 5 minutes if you wanted to, especially good if you went mad, and decided to do the whole dungeon in 2 minutes...your not helping your lower level doing this.

4 ** Note ** At level 75 you can enter every level 80 dungeon in Northrend. However at level 77 you can do both Blackrock and Tides. These two latter dungeons are actually worthless for xp. why? because your getting half of the amount of xp you get per kill, compared to Lich King dungeons. Blizzard has not bothered to bring Cata dungeons up to scale with the previous expansions...which means, your going to get an awful lot less xp either dual / multi boxing or using LFD tool. Best advice even your bored to tears stick with the Lich King dungeons until level 80.

5. If your lower level character is completely decked out in heirlooms until it hits 100, then you might want to consider doing the quests in mount hyjal. Not only are the quests here much quicker then Vash, you will burn through them very quickly, and wearing heirlooms..that means you can easily go through 5 levels in just 2 or 3 hours maximum if your not distracted. Of course you could throw in those Cata dungeons but its really really not worth the hassle for half the xp that you have normally got...even in Pandaria the xp is more..its like cata is the expansion time completely forgot about.

6. Don't use one of your level 100 characters to dual box or multi box, the xp loss is significant. When I say significant I am talking about you loosing 50% of your xp even with a level 90 character..in fact no matter what your doing, in a LFD or being boosted by your level 90..your going to loose half your xp. I cannot stress this enough!

Never leave your low level character at the start of a dungeon. You will eventually stop getting xp. This is because your higher level character has moved passed a certain threshold and so your lower level character will get nothing..if you left at the entrance of the dungeon. You will not get the dungeon complete which gives you at least 77/80k for completing it. You also will get no xp for your main killing the mobs after a certain distance. In other words there is no point going intoa dungeon with your main multi / dual boxing if your not going run it properly...that is your in the presence of the last boss. otherwise whats the point? you get no complete bonus and you loose out on over 35/50% of the xp.

Comment by billymm

Awesome guide. TYVM for putting together. A big 5 from me ;)

Ill be using it to help me organise my transmog runs

Comment by 1521792

Thank you so much for taking the time to put this together. It will make my life so much easier for sure. I have a lot of difficulty finding places in the game even with the great maps so I do a lot of research of what is available at each level and where to start looking for dungeons that will help level my alts and will also possibly earn me a new mount or battle pet while I'm at it.

Thank you again for putting together this wonderfully helpful post. :D

Comment by fata13xception

Well-formatted guide!

However, I'm not sure if Legion has changed this as I had switched Hellfire Ramparts to Heroic tonight (for RAF purposes) and it said I needed to be level 70 to enter... previously (as of a few days ago), I could enter at 66 (and the min was supposedly 58)... no more.

I tried searching the web but could not find any sources indicating that a change was made.

Someone tell me I'm not going crazy.

Comment by 1666433

This guide is very useful. But currently I dont see any gear requirements for WotLK heroics, Blackrock Caverns and Throne of Tides normal in LFD. Halls of Reflection locked for those who dont finished questline attunement and thats all. I recently made Trial of the Champion heroic using LFD. My 80 lvl toon been in Burning Crusade items only. I`ll continue to check this thing.

Comment by 30049

I have (as of 08-31-16) cancelled my World of Warcraft subscription and have no intention of updating this guide any longer. I might start playing again some time in the future, so I'll see where my interests lie by then. But as of right now, this guide will no longer be updated with current content.

Thanks to everone who has used this guide. I hope it will be helpful for players for years to come (unless Blizzard changes too much). Thanks to everyone who rated this guide and to all those who commented and pointed out the mistakes and/or suggestions.

Be safe,
Worthit

Comment by AlexSargon

As a completionist, I'm trying to run my main through every piece of content I possibly can, for achievements and whatnot. Now the Achievement list is faction neutral and Zygor Guides shows me a couple of Dungeons on Alliance-side that are in Horde territory. A filter on the list would be nice that shows which dungeons can be accessed by a specific faction, even if they're technically in the opposing faction's territory.

Comment by mvolny

This is an awesome guide! Thanks for taking the time. Hoping it will be updated to include Legion.

Comment by 1727963

Hey, great guide!

I'm in a really small guild, we only have 8 active members with only 6 of those (myself included) at level 110. we want to do the guild glory of the cataclysm raider achievement for the dark phoenix mount. Our other two players in the guild are level 50ish and 65. Will they be able to enter the cataclysm raids to help with the achieve as there isn't a minimum walk in-level listed on your guide for raids?

Comment by dreadnougt

How Many?

Exp Total DUNGEON
Cata Heroic 14
Cata Normal 7
MoP Heroic 9
MoP Normal 6
TBC Heroic 16
TBC Normal 16
Vanilla 26
WoD Heroic 8
WoD Normal 8
WotLK Heroic 16
WotLK Normal 16
Grand Total 142

Area Total DUNGEON
Draenor 14
Eastern Kingdoms 31
Kalimdor 27
Northrend 30
Outland 26
Pandaria 12
The Maelstrom 2
Grand Total 142

Comment by cryptid420

This page is seriously out of date, many dungeons have changed walk in levels. Such as Mana tombs now requires level 70 for heroic not level 61

Comment by mvolny

Nice job! thanks for doing this. I'll be referring to it alot.

Comment by Sulis

Im looking for the gap between WOD Heroic and the Legion dungeons. Cuz at some point u can not do WOD dungeons anymore, but also not yet able to enter Legion dungeons (so before ilvl 680), does anyone knows at what ilvl the acces to WOD dungeons ends?

Comment by xurs

The row for heroic Mechanar (TBC dungeon) is malformed.

Comment by lethalmikey

Blackrock Depths: Upper City does not have any quests whatsoever!

Comment by thorr69

Ok, I've been doing a LOT of testing on this since patch 7.3.5 went live. PTR did not have the final dungeon xp system in place before final patch time, so this has all been done on the live servers. The xp you receive for completing a dungeon is now on a level-based scale. The below info shows how the scale is based and applied in each expansion band.

Dungeon XP Scale for Classic Dungeons (1-60):

Dungeon Quest xp follows the same scale as outdoor quests. The base amount for these quests is identical to the amount of a standard classic Daily quest (such as pet trainer battles or cooking/fishing dailies) and is hereafter referred to as the Base
Completion xp is based on the same Daily scale as the quest xp and is equal to Base XP times 2.
Bonus bosses are worth 40% of the completion experience value (or 80% of the base)
Important - The level requirement for the dungeon queue is essentially the minimum level for the dungeon. You can walk in early on foot as the charts say but you will suffer a large combat experience penalty. Dungeon completion experience is not affected by the penalty, but kill experience is very much at a loss. The penalty appears to be based on your character level. The penalty begins at lvl 10 (the earliest you can walk into any dungeon) and steadily declines by 1-2% each level. For instance, at lvl 10, the penalty is a whopping 80% At lvl 15, the penalty is about 75%. At lvl 24, the penalty is about 60%. Basically, running a dungeon before it would show up on your LFD list simply isn't worth it.
As of a recent hotfix, the Experience you get for doing a random dungeon in the LFD tool has been increased and is now Base times 4

Here is a chart showing the XP values for each level.

Player Level	Quest XP	Completion XP	Bonus Obj XP
1	80	160	64
2	170	340	136
3	250	500	200
4	360	720	288
5	450	900	360
6	625	1250	500
7	825	1650	660
8	1050	2100	840
9	1300	2600	1040
10	1550	3100	1240
11	1850	3700	1480
12	2150	4300	1720
13	2450	4900	1960
14	2800	5600	2240
15	3150	6300	2520
16	3400	6800	2720
17	3550	7100	2840
18	3700	7400	2960
19	3800	7600	3040
20	3950	7900	3160
21	4100	8200	3280
22	4250	8500	3400
23	4350	8700	3480
24	4500	9000	3600
25	4650	9300	3720
26	4800	9600	3840
27	4900	9800	3920
28	5050	10100	4040
29	5200	10400	4160
30	5300	10600	4240
31	5450	10900	4360
32	5600	11200	4480
33	5750	11500	4600
34	5850	11700	4680
35	6000	12000	4800
36	6150	12300	4920
37	6300	12600	5040
38	6400	12800	5120
39	6550	13100	5240
40	6700	13400	5360
41	6850	13700	5480
42	6950	13900	5560
43	7100	14200	5680
44	7250	14500	5800
45	7350	14700	5880
46	7500	15000	6000
47	7650	15300	6120
48	7800	15600	6240
49	7900	15800	6320
50	8050	16100	6440
51	8200	16400	6560
52	8350	16700	6680
53	8450	16900	6760
54	8600	17200	6880
55	8750	17500	7000
56	8850	17700	7080
57	9000	18000	7200
58	9150	18300	7320
59	9300	18600	7440
60	9450	18900	7560

Larger dungeons that are normally split into parts for LFD have larger completion experience. Blackrock Depths, Dire Maul, and Maraudon all have a completion experience value of 9 times the base amount. For example, BRD at lvl 51, the base xp value for quests is 8200. The completion xp for BRD is 73700 (8.987 x 8200). The quests in the larger dungeons are less than typical base. For BRD and Dire Maul, the dungeon quests yield about 50% of the base for each. In Maraudon, they appear to be about 1/3 normal base.

*These numbers have some internal rounding happening before they get multiplied so calculated xp values may vary slightly from actual ingame values, but not by a whole lot.

For the Classic era, the best way to use dungeons for leveling up is to do the dungeons with the most bonus bosses repeatedly. Gnomeregan has 4 bonus bosses, for example (though you'll probably only do two of them on a run). Uldaman has 5 I believe. Stratholme (Main Gate) is the most lucrative of all of the classic dungeons with 7 bonus bosses. (Every run I do in stratholme is giving me 1.3 levels per run using heirlooms and having no Rested xp at all.)

Dungeon XP Scale for Outland/Northrend Dungeons (58-80):

Dungeon quest xp still matches the base for daily quests.
Dungeon completion xp is 4.5 times the dungeon quest base.
Scale runs from 58-80. (57 is the earliest you can do an outland dungeon, but it has the same completion xp as lvl 58 and you suffer the 45% combat experience penalty if you do it.)
As of a recent hotfix, the Experience you get for doing a random dungeon in the LFD tool has been increased and is now Base times 4

Player Level	Quest XP	Dungeon XP
58	9150	41175
59	9300	41850
60	9450	42525
61	9600	43200
62	9700	43650
63	9850	44325
64	10000	45000
65	10150	45675
66	10250	46125
67	10400	46800
68	10550	47475
69	10700	48150
70	10800	48600
71	10950	49275
72	11100	49950
73	11250	50625
74	11350	51075
75	11500	51750
76	11650	52425
77	11750	52875
78	11900	53550
79	12050	54225
80	12200	54900

Dungeon XP Scale for Cataclysm/Pandaria Dungeons (80-90):

Dungeon quest xp still matches the base for daily quests.
Dungeon completion xp is 4.5 times the dungeon quest base.
Scale runs from 80-90.
As of a recent hotfix, the Experience you get for doing a random dungeon in the LFD tool has been increased and is now Base times 4

Player Level	Quest XP	Completion XP
80	12200	54900
81	12300	55350
82	12450	56025
83	12600	56700
84	12750	57375
85	12850	57825
86	13000	58500
87	13150	59175
88	13300	59850
89	13400	60300
90	13700	61650

Dungeon XP Scale for Warlords of Draenor Dungeons (90-100):

Dungeon completion xp is 6 times the dungeon quest base.
Scale runs from 90-100.
There are no real dungeon quests, but info is included in the table to show the xp base
As of a recent hotfix, the Experience you get for doing a random dungeon in the LFD tool has been increased and is now Base times 4

Player Level	Quest XP	Completion XP
90	13700	82200
91	13850	83100
92	13950	83700
93	14100	84600
94	14250	85500
95	14400	86400
96	14500	87000
97	14800	88800
98	14900	89400
99	15000	90000

I'll edit/add to this as I find more.

EDIT: Changed Quest xp numbers and % to not include 50% heirloom bonus.
EDIT 2: Added outland comments
EDIT 3: Added confirmed information on the large multipart dungeons in Classic.
EDIT 4: Added Cata/Panda info, which is identical to Outland/Northrend
EDIT 5: Added WoD info.
EDIT 6: Corrected Xp Penalty info
EDIT 7: Added complete xp charts and reformatted a little. Added notes for increased LFD bonus experience.

Comment by Kiria16939

Hey WoWhead, where's Black Morass on the list of BC dungeons?

Comment by dimestorecandy

Thanks for the great guide !
Would you consider having a battlegrounds list too?

Comment by kasssaris

With BFA Season 2 the heroic dungeons had their item level requirements increased. Meaning heroics now require ilvl 325. Not sure if Mythics were affected.

Comment by teknozwizard

I am unsure of whether this has been mentioned before, I didn't see it anywhere above. However, as of patch 8.3, the minimum item level of your equipped gear needs to be 365 to begin doing Heroic Dungeons in BFA through the Dungeon Finder.

Comment by Coffinboffin

Thank you for the comprehensive info, appreciate it. I went from 34-50 in Silverpine in an hour and a half today thanks to the +100% xp buff and was wondering if I could just finish up there. Glad to see that I can. Thanks again :)

Comment by msdirect

Any chance of a Shadowlands update? This is super useful but with the level squish, no longer valid. :(

Comment by Paladin777

This seems out of date considering max level is 60 with the Shadowlands expac.

Also, I can't find anything in WoWhead or any other place in internetland that describes exactly what is needed to unlock heroic dungeons.

Comment by meercats

Great guide, do we know when an updated version of this is coming out after lvl squish?

Comment by Knaledge

I'm playing with a level 18 Paladin. We're in Mana Tombs. This is their first account, we're not in Chromie Time. Should this guide be updated?

Comment by tooltip

Still no update, so I guess the author doesn't play anymore.

Comment by Krysteen

Any chance you could update this to reflect current retail instance requirements?

Comment by wwvvwwvwvw

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/0c5i3ycss42aaghn4s6u2/ww.jpg?rlkey=pzdr1hdhvow4w1dg3rnu1vqjm&st=p4smuxsv&dl=0

Dungeon and Zone Level and Item Level Requirements

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