Death Knight PvP at level 80, from the beta. Siege Vehicles! ’nuff said.

I haven’t started a DK yet. Yeah, I know, I’m bad. I did play one for awhile in the beta and I’m looking forward to it, but I think I’m going to get my Rogue up to 80, first. I haven’t had much time to play recently and I’m only level 73.

So. DKs and PvP. What do you think of them as they stand, now?

Are they the overall destruction machine of choice? Or strong against casters and Ok against others? Or…? Are they the Gankers or the Gankees?

For the one or two of you (like me) who haven’t started your Death Knight yet and want a leg up, the free leveling guide to the DK starter area is still up.

Planning to play a Death Knight when Wrath goes live? Or are you going to give it a couple of weeks to let the hordes move on?

If you are going to join the Deathknight horde (at any time) then you might want to check out this free DK leveling guide (a PDF) that covers the DK starting area. Both Horde and Alliance will be using the same area, just in case you didn’t know, so this guide applies equally to both sides. (By the way – I didn’t write the guide.)

When I was running my DK through that area some weeks back there were a number of people asking “Where’s the…?” “How do I…” etc.  So I think that a lot of people will find this to be useful. Download it here and save to your disk.

Nyhm is a character best know for making a series of well loved videos on YouTube. Most of these videos have hundreds, or thousands, of 5 star ratings from his fans, so check them out sometime. I’ve posted a few of Nyhm’s videos here, but just search his name on YouTube and you’ll find the others.

I managed to catch Nyhm in-between battles against the evil Gnome hordes and asked him a few questions, but note the edits, below:

edit: As you’ll see in the comments there is some, ahem, question, as to whether this fellow is actually the some one as the one who did the videos. I’ve also removed the links to the guides until I get this sorted out.

edit 2: I updated the discussion in a later post, but I should have linked to that post here. Here’s the post that clarifies everything and, yes, I should have linked to it sooner. And yes, I did step in it. My bad.

The commenters below are correct, there are two Nyhms. One does the videos (and it’s his video below) and the other Nyhm writes the guides. Their only connection is the same name and that they both play Warlocks. So as I mentioned in the other post, from here on out I’ll refer to them as Nyhm of the Videos and Nyhm of the Guides whenever I mention either of them.

The interview is from Nyhm of the Guides:

How long have you been playing WoW?

(Since) November of 2004

What kind of raiding and PvPing do you do?

I don’t do much raiding anymore, but I pvp all the time on alts, friends’ characters, and my arena team.

What keeps you playing after all this time?

PvP just never seems to get boring, and I have a lot of friends that play.

Is Nyhm your main character? Or mostly just the face for your productions? (And I did find him on the WoWarmory.)

Nyhm is my main but I don’t play on him anymore

What got you into making videos?

Nothing really, I just decided one day that I wanted to make WoW Videos.

Who’s on your production team? Or do they prefer to remain in the shadows?

My friends help me out a lot.

What equipment and software do you use to make the videos? (He makes videos related to his guides.)

Fraps and Sony Vegas

What’s the first character you’ll be working on when Wrath of the Lich King is officially released?

Deathknight, of course

Are your guides written from your own efforts and experiences or do you have a team behind them?

They are mostly written by me but I have a lot of help from friends

What made you decide to write leveling and gold guides when there is quite a bit of competition already?

One way to keep the game interesting is doing things out of the game like making videos or guides so it was just another WoW related project that I wanted to complete.

So there you have it, the (really short) Nyhm Interview. If you want to check out his WoW guides you’ll find them here.

And now, Nyhm of the Videos will explain, in great detail, why Mages pwn.

A couple posts back I put up a Nyhm video, Got an Epic, and also mentioned Nyhm’s guides.

edit: The Nyhm who created the videos in the other posts states that he’s not the same Nyhm who created the Nyhm’s WoW guides, so I have removed the guide links.

If you need a 1-80 leveling guide then check out Zygor’s Guide.

I wish I could claim credit for these, but they’re both from the people at Dominate Your Server. Cool site, great tips, and their emailings are full of good stuff.

1) Never quest out of rest.

Questing is faster than grinding, but only if you have your quests somewhat organized. This is why I like leveling guides. Many players don’t really need them, especially after leveling several characters all the way.

Always stop in an inn when done and always make sure you have rest XP available when playing your toon. When you run out of the rest XP then you hand in whatever quests and log out in an inn to recharge.

If you run out of Rest XP and just have to keep playing then go for it, or farm for items or gold or rep or go kill other players. Heck, log into your auction house banker and do some buying and selling.

If you stick to the rest XP and you have your quests organized you should find yourself leveling very quickly.

1b) Roll several toons and run …

Have lots of playing time? Roll several toons and combine playing them with the rest xp. So when toon #1 is out of the rest xp you log her ouit and log in the net toon. So you’ll have two more characters leveling at pretty much the same rate, you’ll be able to stay in the rest xp zone for 100% of your playing time, and you’ll have those characters all hitting 70 arouind the same time.

2) Never play alone.

If you always pair with someone to do your leveling you’ll find that the levels go by significantly faster.

You’ll get less XP per kill, sure, but you’ll kill things alot faster. You’ll also have less downtime, even if the extent of your healing capability is your first aid skill.

You’ll be able to take on tougher mobs, those silver elites will be much easier, the gold elites will become something to sneeze at, team quests will be a lot easier, and your chances of getting ganked on the PvP server are a little less. Conversely, your chances of successfully ganking others is that much better.

My wife and I play together alot. She’s pretty new, but is coming along quickly. One pair is my Hunter and her Rogue, the other is my Pally and her Hunter.

It works out very well. We truly suck at the PvP part on these toons, but we’ll get there.

Now get back to work.

Leveling and gold gathering are two topics of interest to pretty much all WoW players. Well, here’s a fellow who’ll show you how to do both.

Some extracted tips:

1. Always stay in the center of your screen
2. Call out your abilities as you use them
3. Say “For the Horde” alot, even if Alliance
4. This guy’s going to beat WoW in a few days. Can you do that?

Warning – Major silliness follows:

We’ve put up a couple more Druid guides and a Review of the killer Zygor Leveling Guide. Here ae the links. You can also see them to the right.

• Druid Bear Form Quest, for the Horde
• Druid Bear Form Quest, for the Alliance
• Zygor Leveling Guide review

I’ll post a longer one, presently. (edit 6/12: The longer guide review is here.)

Zygor’s Leveling Guide is one of the newest of the leveling guides and I think it kicks the iDemise guide in the butt. Both of these are in-game guides, but while the iDemise guide is attached to your main map (and it ain’t at all bad) the Zygor guide is present on your main screen at all times.

It’s an addon, so installation is simple. You dump it into your addons folder and it’ll load automatically. If your character is new just start from step 1, otherwise scroll through the guide till you find the right place for your level and go from there.

I ran an Undead Warrior up to 12 and a Blood Elf Paladin up to 16 using the guide and had no issues and never had to consult the quest log.

Here’s a screenshot of the minimalized guide

• Note the waypoint arrow at the top of the screen. It also lists the current quest, special things to look out for, and the distance to go to reach the objective.
• Note the bright dot on the mini-map, marking the goal. There’s also one on the big map.
• The quest box appears on the main screen at all times, but you can get rid of it by clicking the X at the top right corner. Bring it back by hitting the ZY button on your mini-map (in the 8:00 position in this screenshot)
• Level and quest objectives are also tracked.

Here’s another screenshot showing the full guide.

• Note the dot on the mini-map and the waypoint at the top of the screen.
• Also note the expanded guide showing the quest list. Quests that have been finished are greyed out, while the current quest is highlighted.
• Sometimes the guide will not update the current quest. If that happens just click the next one and it’ll pick with up from there.
• The guide also keeps track of your level and your exect stop in the guide. If you log out (you do log out sometimes, don’t you?) the guide will remember your position and start up from that point when you come back. Try that with a PDF or the iDemise guide.

Class quests are not included. You’ll have to grab those on your own, they’re not part of the guide. But then again, Joana’s Guide only had the Hunter quests and the iDemise guide has none, either.

Where to go next is also detailed. New to a zone and not sure where to go to get to the next one? Zygor’s will show you the way.

Notes: I didn’t have to look at the quest logs at all. No trips to Thottbot or any of the other WoW sites and I hardly looked at the big map, except to keep an eye on my location.

How much time do you think you’ll save on your blast to 70 by not having to consult your quest logs, thottbot, the main map, or having to set your own waypoints?

The perfect guide? Well, for that it would have to include the class quests. It would also have to remind you to grab flypoints, repair your gear, go to the bathroom, get something to eat …

So check it out here

This is interesting because I’m not the fastest leveler in the world. I got my Rogue to 70 in just over 15 days time (using Joana’s Guide,) which is Ok, but it’s not breaking any records.

So here are a few things which slow me down, besides lack of experience, and what do do instead. This assumes that you’re leveling solo:

• Skip the looting. On my way to 70 I looted everything and skinned everything skinable. You get the loots, but it does slow one down. If you don’t need the loot or skins then skip the looting. Just kill and move to the next. Youi’ll save a lot of time over those 70 levels.
• Skip the gathering and gold grinding. For the same reasons. On your blast to 70 you might want to be as ruthlessly efficient as possible. Besides, if you follow the gold blueprint you won’t really need to gather.
• Skip the PvP. If you’re on a PvP server just put up with the ganking you’ll get and move on.
• Keep yourself in decent gear. By decent I’m talking about gear for leveling, not raids or PvP. Green gear will do you fine. Upgrade it every 10 levels or so.
• Let your mule do the buying. You should have an Auction House Mule. This is a low level character that will live at the AH 100% of the time. This character will do all of your buying and selling. Your mule buys the gear, then mails it to your main character. You’ll save plenty of time doing it this way. Your main should never visit the AH.
• Never visit the Vendors, except to resupply, repair, and sell your grey stuff. Everything halfway decent gets shipped to your mule.
• Get a Guide: I used Joana’s Guide for my Rogue, but I think Zygor’s Guide will get you there faster, not because the path is necessarily better, but because the guide in 100% in-game and visible on screen at all times and waypoints are set automatically. You’ll never have to switch to your main map or a pdf again. It also remembers where you were when you log out.
• Log out in an Inn. Get that rest XP. Most of us have to log out sometime, might as well do it at the inn.
• Never go AFK: If you want a fast /played time you don’t want to have your character sitting around doing nothing. Besides, if you’re on a PvP server you’re likely to come back to the computer to find your character is dead. Log out if you’re going to be afk for more than a few seconds.
• Hunters are faster, but Rogues do it from behind. A hunter will have far fewer repairs (never engaing in melee) and somewhat less need to keep his gear up to date, given a decent pet. This is why Joana and Brian used hunters for their speed leveling. If you find other classes to be more fun then by all means use them. Zygor’s guide is not class specific.
• Spec yourself for leveling: assign your talents to allow faster leveling. Some talents are great for raids and/or PvP, other are better for faster PvE. You can always respec later, it’s easy and cheap the first couple of times.
• Group your quests: Pick up a bunch of quests at a time. You’ll find that you can do two or three or four in one small area. Do all those at the same time. This is one reason that guides are so nice. All the quests are grouped, useless ones are dumped, and you do a lot less traveling.
• Questing is better than Grinding: You’ll level twice as fast by questing. ’nuff said.

The idea here is to be ruthlessly efficient. Dump anything that slows down your “get quest and finish quest” time. If you can do a quest without reading the quest description then don’t read it.

A full review of Zygor’s Guide is coming soon. It looks to me like it’ll be the fastest leveling thing out there, partly because it’s an efficient path, but mostly because it’s all right there on your main screen. Check it out here.

Joana’s 1-70 Horde Leveling Guide is a step-by-step guide that will take your Horde character, of any race or class, to level 70 very quickly. The entire leveling path is laid out in an easy to follow manner and is exactly the same path that Joana uses to set speed leveling records.

In a way you could call it a HUnter Leveling Guide since Joana always uses Hunters for those speed records and since the guide contains all the Hunter pet quests. I ran through the guide as a Rogue, from 1 to 70, and had few problems. Most classes should be able to get through the entire guide with little problem.

Some things to point out: There are some Elite quests. Go here, kill this elite mob. Well, as a Rogue (and pretty new to the game) I quickly learned that the Elites were better left to groups or for a time when I was a few levels higher. However, Joana solos them and so does my kid (with a Hunter,) so it can be done.

Some of the quests are group quests, especially once you hit Ouitlands. Like groups? No problem. Hate groups? Guess you’ll have to skip them or gain a few levels, get some uber gear, and try again.

I think you’ll find that Joana’s Guide will move you along that leveling path pretty quickly. My time to 70 was just over 15 days (using the /played command to check,) but this was my first character past level 5. On either side. My next one will be a lot faster. I’l post it when it happens (it’ll be awhile.)

You can check out Joana’s Guide directly, here, or you can check out a more in depth review:

• Joana’s 1-70 Horde Leveling Guide Review