Leveling a new character from 1 to 85 in World of Warcraft (WoW) Cataclysm is not an appealing thing to do for most fellow Warcrafters. First of all, it is very time consuming, repetitive, and frustrating. On top of that, if you are on a pvp server, you can be ganked by the opposing faction, and even camped time and time again. So, why do people level many characters to level 85? Why do so many people try to level a new character, or say things like “I would love a new level 85 if only...”? Well, the end game content for World of Warcraft is very well made, complex, challenging, and overall exciting. This includes battlegrounds, arenas, raids, dungeons, and more. The end game content is experienced differently for different characters--each character comes with its own storyline and drama. Also, the play experience is very different, from healing to damaging, to tanking, to name a few.
I have been playing WoW for several years and continues to today with Cataclysm. I am one of the players that love new level 85s but always dread it because it is quite painful. One of the most important lessons learned for me in leveling a new character quickly is to have a rotation for doing damage. For each damage class, when doing any damaging moves, there are combinations that you can do that adds to the damage. For example, for shadow priests, when dpsing one target, cast vampiric touch, cast shadow word pain, cast devouring plague, cast mind flay. When shadow orbs procs you cast mind blast. This rotation will give you the highest amount of dps possible on one target.
Although rotations are more commonly used for maximizing dps in endgame contents, it can definitely boost your leveling speed. A solid and effective rotation can ultimately reduce the time spent power leveling through a zone in a couple of hours as opposed to the entire night. I think this is one aspect of the game that many players do not take advantage of during the leveling process.
There is a specific dps spec for each WoW character class, matched with the appropriate glyphs, gears, gems, and enchants. Paired with this, there is also a rotation that can yield the highest amount of damage. By incorporating a rotation that can give the highest dps at each level will significantly reduce the amount of time it takes to reach level 85. Every bit of edge helps with leveling, and they sure add up in the end.
After leveling several characters from 1 to 85, I found that resource efficiency is just as important as having a high dps rotation. It is definitely helpful to have first aide leveled, to help healing along the leveling process to reduce the time spent on eating food to regenerate health. Also, some classes have mechanics that can prevent the player from having to drink, eat, or bandage while leveling. For example, using the right glyph for a mage can heal and regenerate mana when casting evocate--without the right glyph, casting evocate only gives mana and not health. By taking advantage of this type of mechanics will drastically reduce the amount of time spent on leveling over time. Taking advantage of the character mechanics together with a winning rotation will give players an edge in leveling, to ultimately power level to 85 as soon as possible!