The Horde Leveling Guide

Back to School! (Img from Jinx t-shirts)

I never thought I’d be writing this article!

“How to deal with WoW at level 80″?

It sounds plain stupid… but a recent experience with a friend who just dinged 80 made me recall when I first hit 80, and the confusion it can bring for new players.

Just think, how many times have you heard, “the game STARTS at level 80!”, or “I can’t wait to get through the grind to 80″?

Then new players hit 80 and are left without a guide on what to do next, and no explicit guidance on what happens next.

There’s no ! symbol above Mark of Triumph vendors explaining what they are, and what the difference is between them, stone keepers shards, and marks of conquest, for example…

Which is exactly why I wanted to write this article…

Lots of people expect that when they hit level 80, everything will “fall into place”, they’ll become all powerful, and birds will start to sing their names…

In reality, many players are confused and shocked to find that once they reach level 80 they have to deal with some unexpected issues, such as:

1. You’re now a total Newb again.

Its sorta like being in the high school senior then being the freshman in college the next year. You go from the top of the pack at level 79, and then it feels like you’re on the bottom of the heap again when you hit 80… because you quite literally are!

This is especially true for PvP players, or players accustomed to being able to get into any dungeon they want. You now have “invisible barriers” that delay you… and nobody tells you about them.

2. Gearscore. Blizzard hates it, I hate it, you’ll learn to hate it…

Gear score is a mod which calculates how good a persons gear is so that raid and dungeon leaders can work out if they want you or not.

Its sorta like high school all over again. If you aint in the coolest hottest monster bashing gear, then you’re not allowed.

This causes players to ask, if I haven’t got the gear to do this dungeon, how do I get better gear? Much like job applicants who need experience to get a job, new level 80′s need gear to do dungeons, but can’t do the dungeons until their gear is good enough!

This isn’t 100% accurate however, and I’ll talk more about this in just a moment.

2. New 80′s don’t know what to do now.

You’ve just spent 2 or 3 months (or more) leveling a guy to 80… all you know what to do revolves around leveling… and now there’s no more levels to get.

Unless you’re lucky enough to have friends and family to tell you about reputation grinding, achievements, Wintergrasp, dungeon progressions, and so on, more of the “what do I do now” syndrome kicks in.

3. A whole new “hidden” set of levels need to be gained.

New levels? What levels, you ask…? I’m talking again about gear.

If you like PvP, or if you like dungeons, you’ll come to realize that you need to “level up” your gear to take part in the best parts of the game. You’re basically starting at level 1 gear and experienced players who are doing the end game content are in level 60, 70, and 80 gear.

This is more true for players who want to do PvP at 80. You no longer have battlegrounds limited to level 50-60, and instead you’re facing off against players in gear that might have taken them YEARS to put together.

Its like fighting a level 60 when you’re only 30.

So how do new level 80′s tackle these challenges?

What to do at level 80?

Lets look at a few options.

Guilds: First, find a good guild if you haven’t already. Start becoming familiar with guild names of players you see a lot walking around Dalaran, and ensure that you take note.

Maybe you’ll get a group with a guild member who you like. Ask them about their guild, and when you find a good one, join up first and ask questions later!

You can always leave & get a new guild if you find you’re not learning or doing dungeons… remember, if your guild isn’t doing as many dungeons or as much pvp as you want, chances are HIGH there’s another guild out there doing as much, or more than you want to do.

Shop around!

Which brings me to my next point – join guilds that serve your goals.

Do you want to get to end game raids? Join a good raiding guild who intentionally take lower geared members into higher level dungeons explicitly to get them better gear!

Want to join arena teams? Join a PvP guild!

Daily Quests

The next thing you want to do is familiarize yourself with what are called “dailies”.

Go to Violet Hold in Dalaran, and pick up a daily heroic, and a daily dungeon quest from the two quest givers, and do both each and every day if you can.

This will do two things:
1. Get you gold, reputation, and gear upgrades
2. Get you marks of triumph and marks of conquest/stonekeepers shards.

Each of these marks can be turned into faction vendors inside your faction’s building in Dalaran.

Get familiar with those rewards, and be sure to set goals for what items you want to buy as you accumulate marks.

This will give you purpose and drive to get out there and complete those daily dungeons as often as possible.

As a quick example, my Shaman recently changed from elemental to enhancement. So I had to work up my PvP gear all over again. I shopped around, found the items I wanted to buy with my marks of triumph, and started saving hard. These two steps – doing dailies and getting better gear will be your first most important steps once you reach level 80.

While you accomplish those steps you’ll meet new players, new guilds, and learn a ton of different things about how to function as a new level 80 player.

Want More Gold & Gear, and Fast?

Another thing you can try at level 80 is all the dailies you find across Northrend. You can easily make hundreds of gold a day if you know how – which is where I recommend Dave Farrel’s Dailies Guide. Its top stuff & highly recommended reading if you’d like a hand.

Related posts:

1. Now Live: Dugi’s Daily Quest and Events Guide
2. Paladin Leveling Guide: 3 Ways to Reach the Next Level Faster
3. Protection Warrior Leveling Spec: Mid Level Talents

Tags arena, Gear, gearscore, level 80, raiding