World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Classic is finally here, which means thousands of players are swarming through the Dark Portal to kill demons in the Outlands. If you're one of those players, you're likely going to be surrounded by hundreds of others as you explore the first zone of Hellfire Peninsula. Seeing all those other players buzzing around looks cool, but it presents a major problem: Questing in Burning Crusade Classic is kind of a nightmare right now.
Here's the problem:
- Everyone is trying to complete the initial handful of quests available in Hellfire Peninsula
- These quests often require you to kill monsters or interact with objectives that spawn in the world
- Burning Crusade Classic doesn't let players share the credit for killing a monster. Whoever damages it first gets the experience and loot.
- You'll be constantly competing against others to attack monsters first, and they sometimes spawn quite slowly.
- You'll end up spending more time waiting for new spawns than you will actually killing things and having fun.
Instead of wasting all that time trying to complete just a few quests (which are pretty boring anyway), you should grind dungeons instead. All you need is four other players—easy to find right now—and you can kill monsters and gain experience points extremely quickly. And you'll probably have a lot more fun, too.
How to get into dungeons in Burning Crusade Classic
Dungeons in Burning Crusade Classic are great because they're instanced and designed for groups of five to complete. You won't be competing against anyone else for kills, and you also will earn a ton of experience points and some incredibly powerful loot that you can't get anywhere else. What's more, you can run a dungeon as many times as your group wants, so it's a very efficient way of leveling up.
They're also just more fun than questing. Dungeons require communication in order to complete quickly. Bosses each have their own unique strategy to defeat, and I enjoy that challenge a lot more than brainless questing.
If you're a fresh level 60 (or a level 58 character that was made using a level boost), your first option is Hellfire Ramparts. It's a relatively easy dungeon and extremely popular with players right now as a place to grind a few levels. The "Looking for Group" channel of your server's chat is probably full of players recruiting for Hellfire Ramparts, and finding a group shouldn't take much effort.
Wowhead has an excellent guide on Hellfire Ramparts, which includes where to find it (it's a short run from the Horde quest hub of Thrallmar), and strategies to beat each of its bosses. Read it.
If you find a group that's down to repeat a few runs of Hellfire Ramparts, you should be able to gain a level or two in a few hours. Once you're level 62, you can head to Zangarmarsh—the next zone—and begin questing there. Since Burning Crusade Classic just came out, you'll be ahead of the pack of players and should have an easier time questing. Or you can just stick to grinding dungeons. At level 61, you'll be in a good place to start grinding The Blood Furnace, another dungeon located in Hellfire Peninsula.
If you really wanted to, you could grind dungeons all the way to level 70. Our guide on all the Burning Crusade Classic dungeon levels and locations will help you plot out your plan of attack.
Tips if you're new to WoW Classic
If you're brand new to WoW Classic, running dungeons can be intimidating. Combat is much tougher than modern WoW, and you'll be severely punished for making a mistake and dying. Instead of resurrecting at the beginning of the dungeon, you'll be transported outside of it to a nearby graveyard and have to run several minutes to get back to your body. It sucks. Don't worry, though, I have some tips to help you.
The first step is finding a party to run the dungeon with. You'll want to use the Looking For Group chat channel, which will be full of players trying to recruit specific roles for their party. There's some lingo you should know, so here's a quick overview:
- LFG means looking for group. This is typically used when one player is trying to find a group to play with.
- LFM means Looking for more. This is used when a group is trying to fill a spot in their party. Sometimes they might say something like LF2M, meaning the party needs two more players.
- Recruiters will specify what roles they want: Tank, heals, or DPS. Our class guide will help you understand which role each class is meant for. If you're new, you should probably stick to being a DPS (damage) role, which any class can do.
- DPS are the most common class types, so there's more competition, but there's less responsibility. Tanks are the de facto party leaders, for example, and need to know how to pull monsters, direct the party, and take down bosses.
Once you've found a group, you can head to the Hellfire Ramparts entrance and start completing the dungeon together. Follow the party leader's directions and consider letting your teammates know that you're new. There's a risk you might get booted from the party if they're wanting to avoid educating a newbie, but most players will be welcoming and helpful.
Here are some more things to consider as you try to beat dungeons:
- Dungeons are extremely dangerous and monsters have to be killed carefully.
- Always let the tank attack first unless directed otherwise. In WoW Classic, tanks have to work hard to establish aggro on monsters and keep their attention, and it's very easy for DPS to deal too much damage and draw the ire of a monster, which can quickly lead to people dying.
- Always focus on the target the tank is attacking to ensure you don't draw aggro from them. Be careful spamming area-of-effect abilities or spamming spells. It can be very easy for DPS to out-aggro the tank and become the primary target for monster abilities.
- This guide to threat in WoW will be helpful for understanding these mechanics.
- Know your class and make sure you have the right abilities on your hotbar.
- Be courteous and communicative. If you don't know what to do, ask the party leader.
- If rare loot drops, only roll 'need' on it if it's an upgrade for you. Otherwise roll 'greed' or let other players have it.
