World of Warcraft Grinding Guide

First off, organized questing is much faster leveling than just grinding millions of mobs. By organized, I mean that you collect a bunch of quests at one time. Note all the quests that are in the same area and then do those at the same time. Hand them in at the same time and your XP bar will love you. Consider a leveling guide if you want to be really efficient.

Grinding in World of Warcraft, either for levels or for gold or loot, is something everyone is forced to do at one time or another, even if only doping the qeusts. And yet it can be an exceptionally boring (if not down right brain-deadening) activity. Let's face it, some of those quests have you killing a lot of stuff looking for that one item. Actually, I'd rate this as something less than an activity... mindlessly pressing the same buttons over and over as I have done for so long, it's really more of a trained bodily reflex action.

Grinding is the one of the two premier methods of leveling in World of Warcraft (the other, of course, is questing.) Everyone does it. Those who say they do not grind obviously do not know what grinding is, or they are still level one. Maybe they don't do a lot of grinding, but even completing certain quests will require seemingly endless monster mashing. (Here's where a leveling guide would be nice...)

As a brief explanation, grinding involves killing monster after monster in the pursuit of experience, and/or money and loot, whether this be for quests, just getting levels, or simply while moving through a dry spot lacking in the proper quest material. Generally it also refers to skipping the quests in favor of endless mob mashing. Some feel it's faster than running hither and yon while doing the quests. (I feel they're wrong.)

Believe it or not, I have actually fallen asleep while grinding. Yes, it is that boring. if you do it correctly, well... correct grinding is a matter of opinion, of course, but I prefer to set up a pattern of absolute certainty, meaning I can close my eyes after thirty-minutes or so and continue to gain a steady rate of experience. Sounds somewhat comforting, no?

Whether you're doing quests, farming for gold, grinding out a few hundred mobs, or whatever there are a few steps that will make it go a little smother and faster.

• Buy the biggest bags you can afford (Frostweave bags have 20 slots) so that you don't have to go back to town very often. It'll take a long time to fill up four 20 slotters.


• Stock up on buffing foods (buy them or level up your cooking skill.) The buffs will let you kill/survive just a bit better.


• Stock up on bandages and keep your 1st aid skill maxed.


• Set yourself up so that you don't have to go to town very often. This means getting an special supplies that your class might need, such as poisons or spell reagents.


• Upgrade your weapon(s) every few levels, the rest of the stuff can generally lag a bit behind. Especially melee classes.


• Consider getting the local "kill X of this beast..." quests for more XP, if you're going to be killing them anyway... Even if you're just farming mobs for the loot, and they're close to your level, get the kill quests.


• Learn to use HotKeys and macros and then memorize them. Your grinding will be much faster and more efficient and somewhat less tedious. You'll want to keep these hot keys and macros for your PvP and raids, as well. This is a great place to practice and memorize them.


• Get the skinning skill if you're killing beasts. The gold you make from the skins will buy your level 30 and 60 mounts. Feel free to skin what others kill (cleaning up the countryside, ya know?) Skinning also increases your crit rating.


• Herbalism gives you a small heal, if you want to gather flowers; and mining gives you stamina, from breaking all those rocks.


• If you have a choice between killing beasts and humanoids go for the latter, the drops are better.


• When you hit Outlands and Northrend start doing the quests.

One of the simplest and easiest things to do is to set up your abilities bar, perhaps even a new custom bar for just this purpose, in a simple 1-2-3-4 line of keys to press for your most valuable abilities. Often times truly efficient grinding is performed by spamming the exact same keys repeatedly. You can do otherwise if you wish, but I do not recommend going against the trend (you'll suffer more.)

It is also better to find an easily navigated space of land, preferably inhabited solely by you and the monsters you happen to be grinding. Any other players can possibly interrupt your rhythm and thus lead to disastrous results. PKers are even worse. Especially when you fall asleep.

Music is our primary ally against the deadly enemy known as boredom; always play some fast and upbeat music, either that or something that happens to match the rhythm of your killing speed. This will get you going at a good steady pace and hopefully keep you efficient as well.

You can make a game of it, setting goals for yourself, or even go so far as to run a movie on your second monitor. You could eve run YouTube Warcraft videos in another window while doing your endless 1-2-3-4 key mashing routine.

One rule about grinding is to always remain efficient. The whole idea of a good grinding spot is one with easily-killed, dumb, monsters that give decent experience. Grinding is not about getting insane amounts of XP, nor struggling through elite monsters. It is all about creating a steady, constant, unstopping killing speed. Never accept any stop and go patterns, they'll kill your efficiency and increase your annoyance.

Finally, make sure you are doing at least yellow mobs. Some classes can manage higher level mobs, but it can be dangerous. Don't push it, just accept a good rate of leveling speed and be happy. Having your grinding (or even questing) interupted by too many runs back from the graveyard is too frustrating to be worth it.

Good luck you future grinding machines, robots, and zombies! My sympathies are with you.

Now that you are an expert with the daily WoW grind you may be ready for some more advanced tips and tricks for accumulating and stockpiling gold. Come on, you know you are lusting after some really cool armor, an epic mount, a flying mount, or perhaps you're ready for an epic flying mount! That takes a real chunk of change.

Some people say WoW is too easy, so let's make it more interesting.

Some classes are more effective at killing group of mobs than others. When done well this increases the XP per hour, the loot per hour, and keeps the brain a little more active. After all, you might fall asleep fighting one green mob after the other, but will you if you're fighting six at one time? Challenge yourself, how many can you take at one time?

Leave all your gear (except weapons) in your bank and grind in your underwear (your character's underwear.)

Use the mobs to practice techniques that you don't normally use. Add something to your rotation, just to do it. See how many different abilities you can use. This will force you to learn your character better and might just help when that other player comes by, wanting your head.

Grab a buddy and have a grinding contest. Heck, grab a buddy and have a leveling contest. Use the recruit a friend system and see how fast you can grind yourself out of an area.

Set goals for yourself and then challenge yourself to beat those goals.