Alliance Ashenvale Leveling Guide

I'm away on an overseas holiday for nearly 3 weeks, so no more game time or blog posts until I get back. Just in time I've completed the follow-up to my Darkshore leveling guide with an Ashenvale leveling guide for Alliance characters from level 20-25 and has been submitted to WoW-Pro for inclusion alongside their other guides.

Ashenvale was more of a challenge to write a guide for since I wasn't as thorough with my questing here with Jahger as I was in Darkshore. So I had to rely on Wowhead and an army of alts to figure out the optimal route. I was finding shortcuts across the map as late as two days ago, so no guarantees that there aren't some other shortcuts there, but leveling in the zone feels pretty damn fast now.

Army of Alts: Shaman, Mage, Rogue, Druid

One of the biggest difficulties in the zone was the Dor'Danil Barrow Den. There's no in-game map for this underground area, only the portions you can see on your in-game mini-map. So the eventual map included in the guide was stitched together from a sequence of 30 screenshots taken during my 3rd run-through. I've included that section of the guide below and I hope you'll see how useful that interior map is for navigating the twisting tunnels that make up the Dor'Danil Barrow Den.

11. Head into the Barrow Den at 75,75. For the next two steps, make sure to kill any Severed Keepers and Severed Druids that you see and loot them for their Untainted Spirits - you'll need 7 of them shortly.

Follow the tunnel down and over the bridge straight in front of you, you'll find Taneel Darkwood. Kill him.

12. Leave the cavern by the western tunnel. Follow the tunnel until you reach the Forest Heart at 75,74.

You should have killed 7 druids by now for 7 Untainted Spirits (if not, find and kill some more druids). Use the 7 Untainted Spirits to create a Power of Nature. Right-click the Forest Heart then loot The Forest Heart.

13. Continue over the bridge and then follow the tunnel as it curves around to the left. At the end of the tunnel you'll find Mavoris Cloudsbreak on a balcony. Kill him.

14. Jump off the balcony to the tunnel below. Follow the tunnel to the left (north-east). At 77,74, take the tunnel branch to the left under the bridge.

At 77,73, just before the tunnel ends, you'll find Uthil Mooncall. Kill him.

15. Return under the bridge, and this time take the other branch up. Don't take the bridge to your left, just turn right up the tunnel at 78,74.

You'll pass under a bridge before hitting a fork at 76,74. Turn left, and then right up the tunnel at 77,75. Follow this tunnel out of the den.

Turn in Insane Druids to Gaivan Shadewalker.

Darkshore Leveling Guide

I've really enjoyed the newly revamped early level (sub-60) zones for World of Warcraft that have been introduced with the Cataclysm expansion. Having previously written a leveling guide for a Northrend zone long after most people would have leveled past it, I've decided to write some leveling guides for the low-level zones that I enjoyed with my hunter, Jahger.

The leveling guides I'm writing and have read should probably be called questing guides or zone guides, as they are just a step-by-step guide to completing all the quests in a specific zone in the most efficient manner. Discovering all the quests (from sources such as Wowhead), their inter-dependencies and then optimizing the route to accomplish them all is a fun challenge. But after that is a lot of hard work - testing the route, writing it all down in a clear step-by-step way, creating the maps, retesting... overall I've run the Darkshore zone 5 times and can now reconstruct the optimal route from memory :P

The end result, my first completed guide for Cataclysm, is the Darkshore Leveling Guide for Alliance characters from level 10-20 and is part of the excellent collection of free leveling guides available on WoW-Pro.

Although the guide caters for the possibility that you're a first time player, I personally would recommend only using it when you're trying to level your umpteenth alt character to max level as quickly as possible. Newcomers would do well to just take their time and enjoy the upgraded, streamlined, leveling experience provided in this post-Cataclysm World of Warcraft.

Just for interest's sake, I've reproduced a very short sample from the guide. Personally, this is the most significant section for me as it details a quest that I never found on my first time through with Jahger.

To Cliffspring Hollow (9) and Maw of the Void (10)

10. Leave the cave, and jump down to the left of the waterfall. Follow the top of the cliffside and you'll see the top of a massive waterfall ahead of you. Jump into the water and swim over the edge of the waterfall. Go into the big whirlpool, Maw of the Void, at 52,31. You will be sucked down into Bashal'Aran's Collapse.

Follow the only path out up to Telarius Voidstrider. Kill him and loot him for Writings of the Dark Herald. Use it to get the quest Writings of the Void.

11. Use your hearthstone to return to Lor'danel. (If your hearthstone is on cooldown, return to Bielara Ivyshroud at the foot of the path and talk to her to return to the surface, then walk back to Lor'danel.)

Turn in:

• The Boon of the Seas
• Writings of the Void
• A Cure in the Dark
• The Corruption's Source
• Bearer of Good Fortune
• A Troubling Prescription

Get the following quests:

• The Final Flame of Bashal'Aran
• A Love Eternal
• A Lost Companion