GUARANTEED Lvl 20 (Horde Side)

[Snot]

Hi Everyone. So of course your welcome to comment on the post or mention better ways to do things, however I know this way works 100% of the time, every time!
The reason I can say this with confidence is that I have taken 6 characters along the same route every time, doing it the same way every time and they all hit level 20 with ease, sure.... most died at various intervals after that but none the less this guarantee is for Level 20 :)

This guide does not factor in rested XP bonuses.

I shall not mention quests by quest name but you will know the ones I mean. I shall create steps to make things easier although some steps may seem more like a section of steps. This is not the easiest way to 20 but it is...yes, you got it.

I never play alliance, ever. When I first rolled alliance it was 2004 until the RP-PvP EU server launch and I decided to go Horde, I have never looked back since and got so used to killing/ being killed by Alliance I never went back, so sorry guys, but then Horde is the Master Race! ;)

1. Make a toon
2. Accept and Turn in the quest at lvl 1 from 'A Mysterious Stranger' located somewhere in your starting zone.
3. Introduce yourself to the motely but ever so awesome 'Still Alive' crew.
4. Grind to Level 6. Your 4 bags should drop and find what drops the most profitable loot and stick to it, selling everytime you are full.
BUY NOTHING.
Always kill mobs 1-2 levels beneath you, your sustain without the need for rest will be better. Able then to go from mob to mob while taking advantage of the 5sec rule.
At level 6 run to Brill/Razor Hill and buy the white armor and weapon from the Armorsmith and Weaponsmith there. Run back to starter area.

5. Pickup first round of quests from your starter area and finish them. Pickup second round of starter quests and finish. Pickup third round and finish LEAVING only the last quest. Undead = Mother of the Hollow. Durotar is the starter cave. Mulgore is the Head of the Thistleback Leader in that area. You should be close to level 8. Grind until you are.
Check at this point you have your 4 bags, full set of bought white armor and white weapon. If all is set go and do the last quest and turn it in.

Level 8 Undead proceed to step 6.
Tauren run to TB and grab Flight Point (FP) then take zeppelin on Spirit Rise into Durotar, grab FP in Ogrimmar then proceed to Brill on the zeppellin from Durotar to Undercity. Orcs and Trolls do the same but can make Razor Hill your home on the way up to Ogrimmar. Travel to Deathknell and do the Undead Starter Quests

6. Exit Deathknell and pick up 'A Rogues Deal' and the pumpkin quest at the bottom of the road. Do the Pumpkin quest minding your aggro as you go. Go to Brill and pick up the first round of quests. Do NOT pickup the quests involving the Rothides, Scarlet Crusade, Agamonde Family.

7. Go along the road and find the guardian with the ? above his head and accept 'Doom Weed' do this and turn it in (you should find all 3 around the bridge area) Turn in and accept the second quest for Darkhound Blood.
Turn that it but do not accept the 3rd where your reward is the 'dust'. Once all quests are done you should be level 10 or close to it. Grind until you are. A good place is the zombies in the field by the bridge.

8. Once level 10 run to Undercity grab FP and if your using 1h/2h non blunt weapons then head to the shops across the river from the Rogues Quarter and buy the Level 10 weapon/ weapons.
If your a magic user you can check the shops opposite the Magic Quarter and for 2h Blunt Weapons you can try the Warriors Quarter or Thunder Bluff. Also while your in Undercity pickup any profession's you want to do if you have'nt already.

9. Once Level 10 with Lvl 10 weapon either Hearthstone back to Razor Hill or Undead catch the Zeppelin to Ogrimmar and pick up the FP in Ogrimmar before heading to Razor Hill.

10. Razor Hill you do every quest. DO NOT take any quests that involve 'Burning blade, Burning Hand or Burning Cultists' Ok so...Start with the Green ones and work your way through them.
A couple of the toughest are the 'Higher Stakes' from the cook and the 'Corrupted Beings' one.
Make sure you are LEVEL 12 before attempting these. Simply due to where they are and mobs being your own level within 'easy to aggro areas or duel pulls'
NB: You will find a corrupted Scorpion to the right of the Bridge along the riverline (as if you were looking back towards Razor Hill) You will also find Corrupted crocolisks halfway along both the right side and left side of the river with the bridge being in the centre.
Once finished you should be LEVEL 12-13 (At least 12) with a nice new hat which everyone under 20 in our guild seems to love wearing :) If not 12 grind until you are.

11. At level 12 all races leave Razor Hill and run across the Bridge turning in the quest to report there and make their way to Crossroads. Pick up the FP there and Hearthstone back to Razor Hill. Buy 5 mutton Chops from the cook and give to the Griffon, ride towards Ogrimmar and back to the Ogrimmar to TB Zepellin. Catch it back to TB. You can also get your skills from your trainer in Ogrimmar before leaving if you have the money. Once in TB do whatever you need to do and set the Inn as your Home point. Now run down the road to Bloodhoof Village.

12. Pick up all quests in Bloodhoof Village. Turn them all in and take any others clearing out the quest hub of it's quests and part-quests. Once all done. You should be level 13-14.
Run Right > along the road to find the tauren with a quest and take it. It has you killing Venture Co. and Fitzsprocket. Also along the tree line in a set of trees on the left side of the plains you will see a centaur, accept and complete her quests.
You should be high enough level where by if you do get aggro or pull 2 mobs instead of one. You will survive. Especially is you have a healing potion or two.

13. Find some good Music because this is where you'll relax and grind for a while. If you do LW, Tailoring, Skinning then it's all here for you.
Run out of Mulgore towards Barrens and grab the FP at Camp Taurajo, sell and get those bags clean!! If need be fly to Ogrimmar and Bank. Fly back to Taurajo and run back into Mulgore.
Grinding: On your right you have level 10 Prairie Stalkers for skinning, claws, canines etc and on the Left side you have 2 sets of Harpie nests for cloth, green drops, talons. Grind to 15.
If your rich enough a portable bank or vendor would help if thats available from the donation shop. If not then run back to Bloodhoof when you need to sell the run is only about 2 mins each way.

14. With a bit of money and Level 15 achieved you can HS back to to TB and train your skills or fly to Ogrimmar and do what you need to.
Once all done fly to Crossroads and make the Inn your home. Now with empty bags once more, new skills and being fully prepared head out towards ratchet and pick up the FP.
Option A) Run out of Ratchet and to your left and right you will find Savanna Prowlers and Raptors you can grind these.
Option B) Outside Crossroads, BIG CIRCLES ... BIG CIRCLES... Wax on! Wax off...BIG..a.circles! Music, Grind.
Option C) Bristlebacks outside of Crossroads a couple of minutes away (Level 11-13/14). But if you do these you must have rules, dont go into an encampment, always watch the mobs pathing especially Brisleback Hunter's, take it slow to begin with until you find your own safe spot. And watch out for the Rare that walks around. Always have a plan B!

Your Goal is Level 17-18 Selling everything along the way. At the end of which you should be sitting on about 4-5 gold. Perhaps a bit more if you did prowlers.

15. Accept all quests at the crossroads. Your going to do all of them focusing on the easier ones and working your way towards the few yellow ones that will be left at level 19-20. The following are quests NOT to do pre Level 20.

Harpy Leuitenants, Consumed by Hatred, Altered Beings, Verog the Dervish, No quest from the Captured Bristleback in Camp Taurajo or 'Stolen Silver'.'Echyakee' is fine to do, 'Silithid Eggs' is NOT ok.
And finaly no quests involving 'Deviate' anything or the Wailing Caverns. And so is the one with the 3 Raptor nests by level 17-18.
At this point remember you still have not picked up anything from Camp Taurajo or Ratchet.

Do everything else and by the time you finish you will be Level 20 or close to it. If still a way to go then fly to Camp Taurajo and grind on the Storm Lizards, Giraffes and Zebra's directly left and right of the camp. DO NOT grind on the same mobs across the road.
The Elite Alliance group path between there and down to bridge where you find Mandreks Wife's Corpse. They continue up along the crevace that you see on your map that the bridge covers to the end, they turn around and come back the way they came.

A few of the rules I set for myself.
1. Always zoom out as far as I can when playing in large open spaces
2. Always grind on mobs 3-4 levels lower than myself.
3. If I get 2 extra adds or reach 50% health with 2 adds still on me I'm out!
4. Always start grinding fully buffed with my own buffs + food buffs.
5. Always have a HP and Swiftness Potion on hand.
6. When I level I dont care about cookie cutter specs I just get the tier 1 and 2 talents that add to surviveabilty.
7. Stamina > Everything. Personaly I would weight it at around 1:5 on anything else.
8. Read the quest before doing it.
9. No caves.
10. No Murlocs.
11. No Underwater quests.
12. No grinding in areas with mobs that can CC you or at worst CC + Aggro + CC you
13. Pefer Beast to Humanoid
14. Always rotate the angle of attack so if they run away they run where YOU want them to.
15. Rested XP is a bonus.
16. Only do Yellow or Orange quests if your well prepared and you know the quest.
17. Know the area before you adventure into it. That includes pre-scouting new zones with a high level alt.
18. Never take the boat anywhere unless my HS is off CD.
19. Although I have been playing 18 years NEVER get over confident.
20. Always have a Plan B.
21. Always grind to and from quest objectives.
22. Always Upgrade into new Armor and Weapons every 10 levels
23. A white is better than a green or blue of the stats base attack or armor value is better unless it has stamina. (This rule will be class dependant however)
24. If Healthfade goes off... RUN!
25. Never do dungeons. Ive witnessed first and and seen highly skilled players on comms wipe to 1 bad/ unnexpected result of a pull. And it only takes 1... 1 single mistake.

The addons I use that IMO help ME towards the challenge.
Autoattack
Autobuff
Autosell
Autorepair
Xloot (My own settings)
Lexies HC Announce
Some of Lexies Macros (Thanks Lexie <3 for all you do - Shagu too <3)
Some of my own Macros ( Me <3)
HealthFade (SO SO Important imo, at least for me since my focus is always on the mob and surrounding area)
Sentry (For seeing who's around without seeing)
ShaguTweaks
PfQuest
AGuF (Clear frames with clear Flag - Esp Ouf and Raid textures)
VCB (Buffs/Debuff)
Dotimer (Debuffs with nice Icon, timer and movable anywhere, resizeable)
ECB (Better Cast and Mirror Cast Bar)
One Bag and/ or ModUI (If I want full UI suit inc Nice tooltips that sync well with:)
Enhtooltip
Stubby
Supermacro
Zorlen
CTPlayernotes (For adding who in Still Alive is what profession so I can PM them if I need something)
MyRoleplay

Well that's it guys. All I will say is that I have played HC on Turtle Wow since it's launch last year. Dying my first death as 'Snotburst' at lvl 14 ...in a cave!! Before we had ''Rules, so to speak'' Where this is all began on Turtle Wow for me. I even wrote the post at the time which since we have had some really useful advice.

Since then I have played and do play a few different classes and have characters at varying levels and YES have absolutely gone all the way on at least one of them if not more should I choose to go that little extra. I am female but play as both male and female characters depending on the race. Only Tauren/ Troll do I religiously stick to my earthbound sex for some reason. I guess I like their animations better.
The rest I will keep a secret ;) I enjoy the aninimity of it all. Aside from that I hope you enjoy the guide and can use it to guarantee yourself level 20. I may add to it in the future. I may not.

Note: Anyone is free to use, repost, re-edit for readability purposes (as long as the guide section stays complete and the steps are not changed within the guide itself) comment, like, dislike etc with no credit needed.

The only thing left to say is ''Good Luck out there!!'' oh, and ''Where's your hat o.O ?'' :)

[Jolikmc]

What even is this guide…

So, what I'm getting from this guide is:
- Play it safe, don't overextend
- Pick on low-level mobs / do low level quests
- Carbo-load Stamina for a million HP

Is that about right?

[Snot]

Hi.
I guess it is really aimed at the new player and not the more experienced players.
So many times I see the deaths of people somewhere between lvl 10 and lvl 20.

So I guess the main point of the guide is to help those who dont know so well the order of where to go and when and what quests to avoid.
As well as some rules that I live by that they can take or leave and a few addons that I find helpful.
Overall I thought it a reasonable introduction into a route that can be taken from 1-20 pretty safely, and yes at times I grind to the next level before moving to the next area but it's not all grinding, as well as some useful imo, advice.

Many may find it obsolete since their experience far outweighs the scope of this guide and I can appreciate that :)

[Beefus]

Thanks. Took 8 hours to go from level 1-10 as a warrior with slow&steady on so this thread gave me hope that I'll at least survive till 20.

[Styopa1]

4. Grind to Level 6. Your 4 bags should drop

WTF are you talking about?
My first HC toon I played to 8 (and died, my own fault) and in that whole time what dropped for me other than gray junk sellables:
- a 6 slot bag
- a cloth belt.
No kidding, that's all the non-grey junk loot I got in 8 levels of killing literally everything in my way (Tauren all the way to Bloodhoof including a run to TB).

THAT'S IT.
WTF are you talking about "your 4 bags should drop"?