World of Warcraft Shadowlands 50-60 Leveling Guide

World of Warcraft: Shadowlands Leveling Guide

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Targets for every character:

Speedruning to 60 is meaningless, but the guide is still designed to
optimize the time of levelling main and alts (I recommend you to listen to the story if you have not played the beta).
To choose a covenant on your main char, you need to complete EVERY main campaign (story) quest and the last one is only available at lvl 60.
Doing all the campaign will grant you 9.5 lvls with WM on and you will
need to get 0.5 more lvls from extra quests or in dungeons (~15 additional quests or 2 normal dungeons).
If you plan to play at the release time, try to get ahead of the crowd
at the start as much as possible, speed pots (up to 51 lvl) and gunshoes will help a lot.
While leveling some quests will require to reach certain level (level
gating), using guide below you can only expirience this only twice: 53 level in Bastion (after xp potion nerf) and 58 level in Ardenweald
Leveling in Shadowlands is generally much easier than in Legion and BFA,
and takes 5-6 hours per one character (4 hours speedrun).

Short FAQ for leveling your main to level 60.

It is best to play in a group of 5 people and in Warmode (+10% experience and 3 pvp talents). Remember to use the guild standards. Everyone should have the AutoTurnIn addon. My guide below is calculated for warmode per horde (+10%).
At the moment, a random normal gives ~50k + experience. If you speedrun normals with a group of 5 people, then it is more profitable than doing quests. On the main it is not relevant, but for the alts it is the best leveling option (see below on the alts). If you have not used warmode, then you will have to do normals on the main.
Do not waste time collecting treasures and rares, they give almost no experience. Try not to loot mobs at all, unless required for quests.
Goblin Glider, Gunshoes and Bear Tartare are the best consumables for levelling, which have not yet been hotfixed yet (they can be fixed before the release).
Leveling your main to lvl 60, and starting covenant quests with the time-numbers indicated in the guide requires about 80 gunshoes and 50 gliders.
All story quests are marked with this icon. We do only these quests up to Ardenweald (it's stated in guide if you need to do anything additional)
Bonus objectives appear in a few zones, we complete these 1x in Bastion, 1x in Ardenveld and 2x in Revendreth.
~135 ilvl gear isn't replaced until 60. Azerite/neck/cloak are much stronger than their counterparts in SL and will be used until M0 (183 ilvl). If ilvl is below 135, then you will start changing the gear around ~58.
When leveling alts, you can use any zones in any order, you don’t have to do story quests. If they won’t fix the experience in the dungeons, then just level in normals with a group of 5 people.

What are we doing in Shadowlands? Leveling main character.

Step-by-step Guide

Step 1. Level 50

Starting with the quest in Org/SW, we start questing in the Maw. Use as much gliders and speed pots as you need. It's better to get ahead of everyone as soon as possible. During last quest with Jaina you mustn't get far from her or the quest will reset.

Step 2. level 50.9

When you get to the Oribos immediately start doing campaign quests because they are pretty slow and there are no places to get ahead. During this step it is important to get upgrades for both professions, set hearth at Oribos (it will be really useful) and get flight point

Step 3. level 51

The first location is Bastion. Here we only do story quests and 1 additional bonus objective to try and get ahead of the crowd. Upon receiving the quest to return to Oribos, use your hearthstone.
IMPORTANT: In the Peak of Purity, you need to pick up the "Kyrian Bell" treasure (58.51,71.58) and then use it off CD up to lvl 60 (heals while you run between quests). In Hero's rest (central town) you may (or may not) encounter first level gate for 53 level, if it's the case just do any 1 of the quests located in this town or grind a few mobs, this level gate is very small.

Step 4. level 53.4

The second location is Maldraxxus. Mostly do story quests and try to get ahead of the crowd. In quest chain with Marileth (near house of Plague) you will need to do 3 additional regular quests (see location marked on the map) and pick up a treasure chest with toy - Fial of Ravenous Slime. There will be a slow storyline in the Maw at the end. There is no any kind of level gating in this zone if you did everything well

Step 5. level 56

The third location is Ardenweald. In this zone you will need to do 7 additional regular quests near the Glimmering Cascades location (for exact location check map link). This is required to pass level gating in this zone later with Ysera quest, which requires 58 level to begin. You also doing 1 bonus objective on the way (can not miss it)

Step 6. level 58.3

The fourth location is Revendreth. In this location only do story quests and 2x bonus objectives. Upon arrival at Sinfall with Theotar and taking the quest "take the elevator" you must have 59 lvl and 80% (4 empty bars left). If in any case you don't have required level (59,8 lvl) just do any 1-2 regular quests in Sinfall before going on elevator, otherwise you will have to return

Step 7. level 60

After hitting 60, we start the quest with Prince Renatal in Fall of the Fall (Revendreth) for the final scenario. After the end of the scenario, we fly on Draven and hearthstone to Oribos.

Step 8. level 60

In Oribos, we do a quest to select a covenant and immediately fly to the sanctum of the selected covenant. There we do only storyline quests of the stronghold, including 3 WQs and quests in the Maw. We upgrade the Commander's table and bind our hearthstone to the Covenant Stronghold (this step can be skipped on alts, a skip button appears).

Step 9. level 60

BONUS: if you played on the first day (at night), then before reset (10-00 Moscow time) you can manage to make an expiring emissary of the covenant and recapture the Stygian cap in the Maw (see The Maw). Quests for Torgast (see Torgast), Ve'nari weeklies (see the Maw) and M0 will be unavailable until Thursday

Step 10. level 60

You can proceed to leveling alts.

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