World of Warcraft Burning Crusade Classic: How Long Does it Take to Reach Level 70?

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Classic is finally here, which means that it’s time to use every guide, cheat, and skip you can find to reach level 70 as quickly as possible.

Ok, there are still plenty of players who love to take their time on their journey to the level cap, but as WoW Classic showed, more people are interested in reaching the “endgame” as quickly as possible than ever before. Call it a symptom of dedicated gamers “figuring out” older WoW games and optimizing the best path through them, but it seems like more and more Classic players have at least a passing interest in how quickly they can reach max level if they’re not stopping to smell the roses along the way.

While professional WoW players (and dedicated amateurs) are still finding the quickest way to hit level 70 in TBC Classic, here’s what we currently know about hitting the new level cap as soon as possible.

World of Warcraft Burning Crusade Classic: How Long to Reach Level 70 Doing Quests?

Long before optimized leveling strategies were widely available, many original TBC players grinded to level 70 primarily by doing quests.

While a lot has changed since then, it’s still entirely possible to reach level 70 fairly quickly primarily doing quests. If you’re going to go this route, though, then you’ll need to make sure to consult a leveling guide or even use a questing add-on to help you jump from optimal quest to optimal quest. The latter option is a little hit and miss at the moment considering that so many add-ons need to still be updated for TBC Classic, but they’re still an invaluable asset for the speed leveler who wants to focus on questing.

The other factor to consider is your chosen character class. Once again, Mages and Hunters are expert solo speed levelers when it comes to quest leveling, but Warlocks may be the best new speed leveling option due to the power of their TBC abilities and their summonable “pets” that can absorb so much direct damage.

If you have the right class, the right guides, and the right tools, current estimates suggest that you can go from level 60 to 70 in TBC Classic primarily through questing in about 30-40 hours. However, that number assumes that you are following the most leveling strategy and executing it on a professional level. For many questers, that number will be closer to 50-70 hours.

While that may sound like a lot of time (and it kind of is compared to alternative strategies), one thing you need to think about before writing off questing entirely is the reliability of the method. If you’re a largely solo player on a lower population server, you can almost always rely on finding a new quest to do and filling in some of the downtime by killing extra mobs and working on your profession. It’s often the preferred way to level for many TBC players because it’s a method that they can commit to and handle at their own pace without needing to rely on others.

World of Warcraft Burning Crusade Classic: How Long to Reach Level 70 Farming Dungeons?

WoW Classic proved that the modern WoW “speedrunner” prefers to run dungeons over and over to reach the level cap as quickly as possible. That strategy only became more popular when Blizzard confirmed they have removed the “instance cap” in TBC Classic, which means that players can more easily run a dungeon over and over again with relatively little downtime.

Before we dive into the obvious benefits of this strategy, let’s talk about some of the less obvious downsides. First off, any ideal dungeon farming method assumes you have four other people playing with you who are just as dedicated as you are, have as much time as you do, and are ideally experienced with the right class balance and all optimal dungeon run strategies.

Simply put, that’s a lot to ask of the average WoW player. Even skilled players who have mastered their class and every dungeon strategy may struggle to form and maintain a party that can play as efficiently as they can. There’s also a big difference between knowing a dungeon strategy and effectively running it with four other people all of the time.

More importantly, your preferred character class may greatly impact the viability of this method. At the moment, Warlocks and Mages are prized by skilled dungeon groups for their incredible AOE abilities. Paladin tanks are a popular companion for the same reason, and every dungeon group will need a healer (preferably a Shaman). That means that there are just some classes that will not be able to utilize the most effective dungeon strategies and may even have a harder time finding a dungeon group in some instances. There are alternative strategies involving other classes that are popular at the moment, but the fact is that some players on some servers are going to be looking to rely on the absolute fastest strategies.

Having said all of that, it is entirely possible to go from level 60-70 in TBC Classic through dungeon farming in 24-40 hours. Again, that number is highly dependent on a large number of variables, but the fact of the matter is that even less efficient dungeon farming methods may be yield more consistent raw experience than other options. If you’re looking for an efficient dungeon run strategy, though, then I highly recommend consulting this guide.

It should also be noted that running dungeons is a great way to get new gear and earn gold, though questing allows you to level professions easier on the side and can also be quite lucrative if you know what you’re doing.

What Are the Current Speed Leveling Records in World of Warcraft Burning Crusade Classic?

We’re still waiting for the official figures and confirmation, but it does seem like a Warlock named HACEZ was technically the first player to reach level 70 in Burning Crusade Classic. It took them about 13-15 hours to hit that mark. HACEZ is also a member of a WoW guild called <Progress> that had their first party of five players hit the level 70 mark in about the same amount of time.

How did they do that? Well, the snarky answer is that they’re all very good at the game, but the more helpful answer is that each seemed to use a combination of quest stacking and AOE dungeon farming.

Basically, some players have been holding on to quests and waiting to turn them in once TBC Classic launched. With the right number of quests turned in at the ideal time, some players were able to reach level 61.5 or even close to level 62 through backlog quest turn-ins alone.

From there, though, the vast majority of the leveling was accomplished through nearly pitch-perfect AOE level grinding with groups that have run these dungeons on private servers many times in the past. While it’s not reasonable for most people to expect those kinds of results, the success of these early-level 70 players does prove just how good AOE dungeon farming can be when it’s done properly.

How Long Does it Take to Go From Level 1-70 in The Burning Crusade Classic?

Simply put, this is the least tested, least optimized leveling strategy in TBC Classic at the moment. To my knowledge, nobody has set the official record for this strategy as of the time of this writing. I honestly doubt such a thing would even be possible.

That said, current estimates suggest that you’re looking at about 72-96 hours to go from 1-70 in TBC Classic. Some players theorize that the most dedicated levelers will be able to hit that mark in less than three days of playtime, but the average player can certainly expect to spend about 100 hours on this journey if they’re not going out of their way to utilize the most optimal boosting and leveling methods possible.