After hitting 30, my Blood Elf Hunter Syllvain continued to make some progress. By the next weekend, he had jumped ten levels to 40.

With Jame’s Leveling Guide, I’m makin’ some damn good time. I hit level 40 in just over 2 Days played time.

Keeping Pace

Syllvain hit level 30 in about 1 Day and 3 Hours. He hit level 40 in just over 2 Days.

At that rate, the ten level grind from 30-40 took a little under 24 hours of played time. That’s roughly 2 hours per level - not an extremely fast pace but pretty respectable.

As with the grind to 30, I stuck pretty strictly to the guide. I avoided all instances - no Scarlet Monastery, no Uldaman, none o’ that stuff. I don’t want to bug my guildies to come run me through stuff, and it’s a waste of time to try and scrap a group together with other level appropriate players.

At this rate, it’s pretty apparent that the changes in 2.3 made leveling much quicker in the old world. Let’s see if I can hold this pace - I’m aiming for 70 in about 6 Days played time.

Where the Guide Took Me

James’ Leveling Guide is, on the whole, a great tool. I followed it and had plenty of quests to do in each zone. At this level range, there is some annoying running around - but it’s worth it in the long run.

In this ten level bracket, I passed through plenty of different zones. We started in Hillsbrad for a short quest circuit. The Shimmering Flats has a great quest circuit for the low thirties. At that point I was 33 or 34, and I rolled through the early Stranglethorn Vale quests.

After the first of several Stranglethorn circuits, we headed to Arathi Highlands. This was a convenient time to boost my first aid with the triage quest. Next up was a short trip through Hillsbrad. Although it wasn’t in the guide, I took the time to do the Crown of Will quest chain.

I was level 35 or 36, and it was tough - the last mobs were in the low 40s. As a BM Hunter it was definitely doable, though, and worth the nice neckpiece reward - Ethereal Talisman.

After that, we bounced back to Arathi for another quest circuit. This involved Stromgarde - another place that I was happy to see the elites had been downgraded to regular mobs. I usually skipped most of those quests because they weren’t worth the time… but now they definitely are.

After a long quest circuit in Desolace and a second circuit in Stranglethorn, I was just about Level 40. Next stop: Dustwallow Marsh, and the grind to level 50.

I did encounter a few places in James’ guide that I would change or modify slightly. In the future, I think I’ll write up a series of articles with some extra pointers for levelers.