WoW Classic has just released The Burning Crusade expansion. Players are flooding the Outland continent and crossing the portal into the Hellfire Peninsula. Mass pandemonium and confusion are expected to unfold on the surface of HFP for the next 48 hours. People will be competing with each other for every piece of loot, mob, and node, and this can severely bottleneck your progression. Here are ways to avoid that bottleneck.
Dungeon Grinding
By far, the best and most efficient way to progress in TBC is to grind Dungeons. By grinding dungeons, you effectively eliminate the EXP grind and reputation grind. It's also highly recommended to grind dungeons before doing overland quests. This maximizes rewards by converting EXP rewards into currency rewards. You also avoid having to compete with the hordes of players on the surface. Getting into dungeons early also means you can maximize the reputation rewards when doing overland quests while avoiding having to do dungeons later when they are significantly more difficult.
Shattrath Unlock
Shattrath is located in the middle of the map. This city will essentially be the main hub base for players participating in this expansion. It's essential to unlock Flight Paths along the way, as players can use them to go to Honor Hold, Telaar, and Telredor. Players can set their Hearthstone to Shattrath for easier navigation.
Layer Hopping
Layer Hopping is a tactic used by many WoW players to either speed up their progression or avoid players. For the case of TBC launch day, it's both. Players will be swarming across the map like a horde of locusts, consuming every mob and node they come across. This tactic takes advantage of the way servers are set up, which allows you to progress whether it's questing or resource gathering. Instead of switching to a new server entirely, you just switch to a different instance, which all run in parallel to each other. This makes it almost seamless and can also reduce lag.
How to layer hop
Hopping between different layers is very easy in WoW Classic. All the player needs is a friend or a guildmate to invite them, or even a random player on a different layer. The player will essentially be teleported into their layer, hopefully with fewer players, exhausted mobs, and resources.
Layer Hopping Addons
Add-ons can help speed up the process if efficiency is your goal. These add-ons are essentially divided into display and automation categories. Below are what many in the community consider to be the gold standard for Layer Hopping.
- Nova World Buffs: Displays your current layer
- LayerHopper: Automates the hopping process by automatically sending a message to a friend or guild member in a different layer. It also automatically accepts the invite once you are invited.
Manually Layer Hopping
Manual layer hopping is still easy, but it requires a bit more time and patience than using the must-have add-ons.
- Sending a message to General Chat: Type “/join Layer” in General Chat to hopefully get an invite.
- Discord/Community Groups: Another way to do it manually is to join TBC communities, where you can usually find people helping others hop layers.
