Where Should You Level In WotLK: Part 2
My last post on this subject, Howling Fjord vs Borean Tundra: Where Should You Start, has easily become my most popular post yet. Especially so with the expansion less than 48 hours away.
I figured since we are close to launch, I would take a look beyond Howling Fjord and Borean Tundra to the progression of the zones.
First of all, if you enjoy running a lot of instances or you are more casual and will always be leveling with rested experience, you can probably take two characters to level 80 without seeing the same zone twice. You could take the Howling Fjord path which would take you from Howling Fjord (68-72) to Grizzly Hills (73-75) to Zul'drak (74-77) to Storm Peaks (77-80). The Borean Tundra path would be from Borean Tundra (68-72) to The Dragonblight (71-74) to Sholazar Basin (75-78) to Icecrown Glacier (77-80).
The Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord Leveling Paths
A person that is going to speed level will not be able to do these paths. For me, my plan is to do Howling Fjord to Borean Tundra to Grizzly Hills to the Dragonblight to Zul'Drak to Sholazar to Storm Peaks to Icecrown doing instances whenever I can along the way. This is the path I took on beta and I hit 80 halfway through Zul'drak (though we had full rested always on beta). One thing from this route you may swap is Dragonblight and Grizzly Hills if you are leveling faster than everyone else. This is because I expect Dragonblight to infinitely more populated than Grizzly Hills and so if you're moving faster than the masses, it'd be best to get it out of the way before they get there.
My Leveling Path
The two most populated zones for this expansion for leveling are going to be Borean Tundra due to the fact that both Stormwind and Orgrimmar lead there (compared to Undercity and Menethil Harbor for Howling Fjord) and the Dragonblight since it is a large zone with a huge amount of lore and events. Because of all this, you may consider trying to power through these zones if trying to beat the masses to 80. Grizzly Hills, Zul'drak and Sholazar will probably be pretty sparse in comparison.
If you have any questions, just leave a comment and I'll do my best to answer them.