Guide to grinding xp in WoW

Grinding is repeatedly killing the same monster over and over, for experience points (xp), money, or reputation. In World of Warcraft I wouldn't generally recommend grinding for xp, as quests are usually the better alternative. But if you already know all the quests available to your character, because you already played several character of the same faction, grinding might be a quicker way to level.

The advantage of grinding over questing is that you don't lose time traveling from and to the quest givers, or searching your quest target. The disadvantage is that you don't get the quest rewards, nor the reputation that quests give. But if you are already equipped with the very best gear, financed by your higher level characters, chances are that you don't need the quest rewards. And the reputation with the major cities that quests give isn't strictly necessary either.

I'm currently grinding xp with my level 34 shaman, because he is the third Horde character passing this level range, and I just can't stand questing in the Stranglethorn hole any more.

The idea of grinding xp is to get the maximum xp per hour. If that sounds bloody obvious to you, you'll be surprised of how many people don't grasp the "per hour" part of it. Many people try to grind monsters of their level, or even a level or two above them, because these monsters give the most xp *per kill*. But if you do that, not only do the fights take longer, you are also likely to end the combat with less health and/or mana than you started with, necessitating some downtime between fights. So the most important grinding advice is trying to find mobs a bit lower than your level, which still give good xp, but which you can kill a lot faster and with less downtime.

For grinding, you might also need to change your tactics, especially if you are a spellcaster. For example my priest could kill a monster with spells, but at the end of combat he would be low in mana, and thus need to sit down and regenerate it, which takes valuable time. So instead of using spells all the time, he starts the combat with spells (Mindflay, Shadow Word:Pain), then shields himself and finishes the monster off with his wand. That takes a bit longer for the kill, but during the wand phase he regenerates mana, and ends combat with full mana, directly ready for the next pull again. My shaman only uses melee combat and lightning shield to deal damage. If he finds a spot to which he can pull several monsters one after another, he also plants stoneskin and healing totems, which again reduce downtime, by making him have more health at the end of combat. If you have a warrior, experiment with the different stances, sometimes using defensive stance is a good option, because again you end the combat with more health, and have less downtime before the next combat.

I'll not give out a list of monsters to grind, because the perfect target for you will depend on your level, your class, and how crowded the most popular grinding spots are. There is no use in trying to grind against strong competition: if your downtime is caused by there not being enough monsters to kill, move somewhere else. There are some easy principles that make a monster good for grinding: The mob should not be "social", that is you need to be able to pull them one by one. You should choose a mob which does not run away when low in health, because chasing after mobs costs time, and risks aggroing other mobs. Humanoid monsters are often preferable, because they drop cash, and less item loot. If you want to grind beasts, do it not too far away from the next vendor, because you'll lose time when your bags are full and you need to sell your loot.

If you can, grind mobs which give reputation points, for example the furbolgs which give Timbermaw faction. Unfortunately there aren't all that many faction giving mobs, and they are ususally heavily camped. A good place to look for mobs to grind is the various caves, for example with yeti or ogres, because the mobs there are often quite close to each other, so you don't have to walk far between two combats. If you happen to be a miner, these caves often also have mineral ores in them, for an added bonus. If you happen to know a quest that requires killing exactly the mobs you wanted to grind anyway, take the quest as bonus reward.

There are a couple of addons, like Telo's Infobar, which are able to tell you how many xp per hour you gained in your current gaming session. These are valuable tools in getting grinding right. Finding the optimum between killing speed and xp per kill isn't always easy, you'll better experiment a bit. You might need to quickly logout and log back on to reset the counter if you want to test xp per hour of a particular batch of monsters.

As I recommend grinding only if you already have some high-level characters, one of the best tricks to speed up leveling is *not* to play with the character you want to level. Just go dungeoneering with your mates using your high-level characters for some days, and then come back and grind your alt using the rest xp bonus he accumulated, thus doubling your xp per hour. If you grind your low level character all the time, not only will you get less xp per hour, you will also quickly become terribly bored.
- posted by Tobold @ 10:11 AM Permanent Link