Wowhead's Leveling Guides for Shadowlands - Best Talents, Best Routes, Leveling Tips and Tricks

Live Posted 2020/10/14 at 4:38 PM by Neryssa

Shadowlands Leveling FAQLevel Squish and Chromie Time

Why Change Leveling?

At BlizzCon 2019, WoW developers identified three key areas needing improvement, based on observations of leveling up through and including Battle for Azeroth:

Time: leveling takes too long
Satisfaction: too many levels = not every level is rewarding
Consistency: too many storylines and not enough time to explore them all before leveling out of an area or expansion

Fifteen years and eight expansions can overwhelm and confuse new players. The traditional "newbie" zones don't adequately prepare brand-new players to the wide variety of concepts even a beginning player needs to know to progress through World of Warcraft. The challenge is how to balance the requirements for new players with the needs of experienced players who want to level up alts for the endgame.

This process started with the introduction of scaling words introduced with the Battle for Azeroth expansion, allowing leveling players greater choice in where to level instead of being stuck in narrow-band zones that would go grey before they could even begin to explore the area's storyline. Shadowlands will take that scaling one giant step farther.

Shadowlands Leveling TipsDesMephisto

Swiftness Potion - Moving faster is the biggest and most common advantage to leveling faster, especially before you have access to an epic mount or in areas where you can't use it. You'll hold onto a couple different versions due to level requirements, starting with this most basic of the bunch.
Draenic Swiftness Potion - From level 35 onward, Draenic Swiftness Potions will replace the standard version. While they're quickly replaced by the faster Skystep, they still remain quite useful for the 200% swim speed buff, when you need a short burst through water.
Skystep Potion - Starting at level 40, these are the go-to go-fast potions, although the hovering portion is purely cosmetic and doesn't actually give you slowfall or water walking. These stop working at level 49.
Gunshoes - 25 seconds of +200% movement speed, water walking, and only requires level 20! These would seem to be better than any of the other potions, but keep in mind that they can only be used in outdoor areas, and can't be used in combat, so save them for trying to get across long distances quickly.
Goblin Glider Kit - Should always be kept on hand unless you're an Engineer or Demon Hunter (although gliders are actually slightly faster). They're also very easy to acquire by flipping Warlord's of Draenor Garrison supplies at the trading post building, making them effectively free so long as you have supplies to spend. The usefulness really can't be overstated, as you can save a great deal of time by simply jumping off mountains rather than mounting up and walking back down, and can even cross huge distances from the right height.

Shadowlands Class Leveling Guides

Death Knight 8-60 Leveling Guide

Hunter 1-60 Leveling Guide

Paladin 1-60 Leveling Guide

Shaman 1-60 Leveling Guide

Demon Hunter 8-60 Leveling Guide

Mage 1-60 Leveling Guide

Priest 1-60 Leveling Guide

Warlock 1-60 Leveling Guide

Druid 1-60 Leveling Guide

Monk 1-60 Leveling Guide

Rogue 1-60 Leveling Guide

Warrior 1-60 Leveling Guide

The first ability all level 1 Mages receive is Frostbolt, a nice pulling spell since it not only does damage, but also slows the target by 50% for 8 seconds.

At level 2, you learn Fire Blast, an instant-cast blast of fire to the face! Best used after Frostbolt, since your target will be super annoyed after this.
At level 3, you learn Frost Nova, an AoE spell that does frost damage and freezes them in place. Used with great effect when combined with the next available spell, Blink, for putting in distance after they're all stuck to the ground.
At level 4, you learn Blink, which teleports you forward 20 yds or until reaching an obstacle, and frees you from all stuns and bonds. Make sure there is space in front of you that doesn't go into new enemies, into an obstacle, or off a cliff. Can sometimes trip on stairs or small rises in geography. Part 2 of the popular "frost nova and blink" mage kiting method.
At level 5, you learn Conjure Refreshment, which lets you conjure mana food for you and your allies. If casting when you're not in a group, you'll just get a stack for yourself. In a group, it conjures a table, so group members can help themselves!
At level 6, you learn Arcane Explosion, causing an explosion that deals reduced damage to all enemies in 10 yards. Not incredibly powerful, but very good for getting rid of large numbers of little swarming mobs
At level 7, you learn Counterspell, which interrupt's an enemy's spell casting and prevents them from casting another spell from that school of magic for 6 sec.
At level 8, you learn Arcane Intellect, an intellect buff that increases Intellect by 5% for 1 hour. Works for yourself and your entire party or raid.
At level 9, you learn, Slow Fall, which slows falling speed for 30 seconds. Can keep you or your friends from splatting on the ground.
At level 10, you learn Polymorph, which changes enemy beasts, humanoids, and critters into a sheep, which wanders around for 1 minute. Damage breaks this effect. Players who go through Exile's Reach will learn this a bit sooner through a special class quest. Popularly referred to as "sheeping", even though you can learn to Polymorph into many other forms, including cat, turtle, rabbit, etc,

At level 10, you will have to choose a specialization. You can choose a specialization by pressing N, then selecting one specialization and click on Activate. You will then start learning spells that define the specialization you chose.

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Comment by KiskaVelenUSWell written. Thanks! :)Comment by frenchbassguyWe have a few returning guildies that will find this extremely useful. Thanks!Comment by RaunchyBeanBagWell written. Thanks! :)Comment by LostartesIn the shadowlands leveling tips and tricks, the ElvUI addon link takes you to "fandom" and nothing about the addon.

Edit: Looks like it was fixed after I had posted this.Comment by Honduras888Just checked Frost DK, and saw mention of using Sacrificial Pact during prepatch, an ability you learn past level 50. Concluded guides are trash.

Found this one in the leveling 8-50 bit :'): "Use Frost Strike when you're close to Runic Power cap, or you have a Killing Machine proc."Comment by RoxuroJust checked Frost DK, and saw mention of using Sacrificial Pact during prepatch, an ability you learn past level 50. Concluded guides are trash.

Found this one in the leveling 8-50 bit :'): "Use Frost Strike when you're close to Runic Power cap, or you have a Killing Machine proc."Comment by ChaosDecidesI hope people are still just trying things out for themselves and not following an instruction manual.Comment by NineoclockI find it difficult to understand why you would need a guide to leveling 10 levels in brand new content, it's always baffled me. Just do the content! Do you not WANT to quest? It's and RPG yet some people avoid questing like the plague. Leveling through Zandalar when BfA launched and doing all the weird and funny side-quests was probably some of the best time I've had in that expansion (given the rest of it was kinda crap, but still). There's no end-game content at launch specifically because they want you to play the world. It's weird to me that people are looking for the fastest way to skip content, the moment content is released.Comment by OldburyI find it difficult to understand why you would need a guide to leveling 10 levels in brand new content, it's always baffled me. Just do the content! Do you not WANT to quest? It's and RPG yet some people avoid questing like the plague. Leveling through Zandalar when BfA launched and doing all the weird and funny side-quests was probably some of the best time I've had in that expansion (given the rest of it was kinda crap, but still). There's no end-game content at launch specifically because they want you to play the world. It's weird to me that people are looking for the fastest way to skip content, the moment content is released.Comment by Lorelai1548I find it difficult to understand why you would need a guide to leveling 10 levels in brand new content, it's always baffled me. Just do the content! Do you not WANT to quest? It's and RPG yet some people avoid questing like the plague. Leveling through Zandalar when BfA launched and doing all the weird and funny side-quests was probably some of the best time I've had in that expansion (given the rest of it was kinda crap, but still). There's no end-game content at launch specifically because they want you to play the world. It's weird to me that people are looking for the fastest way to skip content, the moment content is released.Comment by obbigOne of the reasons WoW is still around is because the thing they've been fairly consistent at (although not perfect) is allowing people to play the game in their own way for the most part, excepting of course their forays into forcing players into content they don't like - when pve players have to pvp and vice versa. I love the exploration, questing and story aspects of the game more than anything else but fully understand those that don't and want to speed their way through it as fast as possible to get to what they love doing. Each to their own as long as it doesn't negatively affect others as far as I'm concerned.Comment by LostartesI find it difficult to understand why you would need a guide to leveling 10 levels in brand new content, it's always baffled me. Just do the content! Do you not WANT to quest? It's and RPG yet some people avoid questing like the plague. Leveling through Zandalar when BfA launched and doing all the weird and funny side-quests was probably some of the best time I've had in that expansion (given the rest of it was kinda crap, but still). There's no end-game content at launch specifically because they want you to play the world. It's weird to me that people are looking for the fastest way to skip content, the moment content is released.Comment by warglaives91The speed potions advice is pretty useless. You can get a mount fairly early and pots now have a 5 minute cd. Not really worth wasting gold over. Leveling is already really short after squish, enjoy it.Comment by DesMephistoThe speed potions advice is pretty useless. You can get a mount fairly early and pots now have a 5 minute cd. Not really worth wasting gold over. Leveling is already really short after squish, enjoy it.Comment by IceCrackerI find it difficult to understand why you would need a guide to leveling 10 levels in brand new content, it's always baffled me. Just do the content! Do you not WANT to quest? It's and RPG yet some people avoid questing like the plague. Leveling through Zandalar when BfA launched and doing all the weird and funny side-quests was probably some of the best time I've had in that expansion (given the rest of it was kinda crap, but still). There's no end-game content at launch specifically because they want you to play the world. It's weird to me that people are looking for the fastest way to skip content, the moment content is released.