Thou Shall Use The Funnel
The Funnel System for power leveling is the system the best speed levelers in the world use to break records day in day out.
I invented the analogy of a Funnel to describe and imprint on World of Warcraft players how important it is to follow good leveling routes.
But before I outline how the Funnel works, I first want to talk about its ugly kid brother using another analogy I invented, the Star.
The star, unfortunately, is the most commonly employed questing pattern. I came up with the term star because if you watched the leveling path of the character from above, they’d trace out the outline of a star, with the quest givers at the center, and the quest locations at the points of a star.
A player will go out, complete a quest, then turn it in – going back and forth repeatedly without realizing how much time they’re wasting.
The diagram below shows you what I mean:
The STAR Leveling Pattern
The player starts at step 1 by accepting a bunch of quests (at a town for example), then goes out to complete a quest or two, then comes back to turn them in. The character might go out again and again, addicted to the continual gratification of quest completion, and unaware they could be saving themselves hours if only they would at least stay out in the field long enough to complete them all first!
Now that you have an idea of the common “star” leveling pattern, here’s how the funnel works, courtesy of Anguine the angry undead warlock.
Use the Power of the Funnel!
Unlike the Star method, the Funnel is the most efficient way of completing quests. I call this analogy the Funnel because funnels are efficient, and the final destination of their contents is one point.
When we think of a Funnel leveling method, I tell people to envision a group of quests, all lined up along the edge of the funnel, ready to be tipped off the edge into the center… its just a matter of working out the most efficient way to go from quest to quest… and funnily enough the most efficient way is generally circular, the shape of the rim of a funnel.
Funnel Leveling System
How does an average every day player tackle the funnel?
Anguine shows us how.
Step 1: Anguine, the angry undead warlock has just landed in Freewind post, Thousand Needles. She sees a veritable hoard of quest givers, and takes every quest she can. So far, so good.
She then takes it another step, and stocks up on food, repairs her armor, and gets ready for an extended trip in the field.
She looks over her quests quickly and mentally notes a few quests here & there that just happen to sound nearby, thinking of how she can best complete each in turn.
Step 2, 3, 4, 5, 6: Anguine steps out and starts completing quests, tipping them off the edge of the funnel as efficiently as possible, and leaving them to be turned in later at the skinny end of the funnel – aka Freewind Post.
Step 7. All quests complete, Anguine leaps down the neck of the funnel herself and heads back to Freewind Post and to turn in all of her quests at once.
The better you can navigate the outer rim of that funnel, the quicker you’ll tip them down the spout, and the quicker you’ll level.
This commandment is number 1 for a very good reason – it is the method of choice for each and every one of the world’s fastest power levelers.
The best speed leveler I’ve run into so far is Joana from Joana’s World. After spending many long hours and tedious sessions examining questing paths for the most efficient route possible, Joana is the consummate “funnel” leveler.
For each day Joana spends examining quest locations & routes, he’s saved his fans many hours of leveling time.
Find out more about Joana here.
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