In Wrath of the Lich King Classic, the fastest 70-80 leveling method is undoubtedly doing the dungeons in Phase 1, in this guide, we give you useful tips and tricks to run these the 6 main dungeons effectively!

WotLK Dungeon Leveling Guide - Fastest 70-80 Leveling Method in Wrath of the Lich King Classic

As the journey into Northrend has started, many of you will be dungeon cleaving to level your characters, and those choosing this route are typically focused on one thing - SPEED! While Wrath of the Lich King dungeons is facing roll easy and untimely wipe can cause even the most level-headed player to mald over this drastic drop in experience per hour. Since dungeon Cleaves are focused on speed, the difficulty ramps up as you pull larger and larger packs making an avoidable silence or stun lead to a wipe and drops including WotLK gold. In this guide, we'll do a brief overview of all the important mechanics and abilities in these dungeons that will keep your wipes down, and experience per hour. Let's get into it!

There are a couple of different leveling routes out there, so we'll stick to the six main dungeons in this survival Guide:

1 - Tips for Runing Utgarde Keep

• At the beginning of the dungeon is the weapon Smith, these are the Cleave mobs of this dungeon, so stay behind them if you're not the tank. They'll also have a Concussion Blow that stuns for 5 seconds, so keep that in mind as you go for bigger pulls. After the furnace room, you'll enter the stable is full of proto-drakes, These not only will hit you pretty hard, but they have a frontal breath that will kill the group if they aren't faced away from them they also do a knockback, so make sure that if you're doing big pulls here. You have your back to the wall to keep yourself from being knocked back repeatedly and maybe pulling more trash. 

• Leaving the Stables, you will encounter strategists and Rune casters. The strategist will drop mines on the ground, so keep moving around to avoid that damage. The runecasters will also apply runes that either do damage when you attack them or absorb damage, dispelling these will speed up these packs and save you some time.

• The bosses in new guard keep are very straightforward, however, one thing to note is that on this second boss Skarvald and Dalron, to be safe you'll want your arranged and healers to stack up behind Scarvald because he will randomly charge players stun them and deal damage to them. If a threat and heroic, but just be mindful of this - if your chain pulling trash with bosses that your positioning is correct.

2 - Tips for Running The Nexus

• If you head down the left side, Mage Hunter Ascendants are one of the first mobs you will encounter. They have a lot of abilities depending on what glass of Mage they are, but the gist of it is that they do an AOE and a polymorph. Be mindful of these as a poorly timed polymorph on your healer during a big pull can be deadly. 

• In the first room, you're going to see a lot of mobs that are frozen in place, there's a mini boss actually hidden within these. He has a whirlwind that smacks really hard, squishy melee will want to run out of this before the cast finishes. He also fears so if you aren't pulling the whole room back up a bit, so people aren't feared into the next mobs.

• Leaving the Frozen trash mob room, you will find stewards that are paired with some Mage Hunter ascendants. They have a 10 yard AOE silence healers, don't be too close here or it can lead to a wipe.

• After the first boss on the platforms, before the second boss are Azure skill binders, they do a lot of AOE damage as well as heal, interrupt the heels and focus them down first. Along with these are Azure enforcers which are the Cleaves in this dungeon, paired with the Cleave is the Mortal Strike healers, be aware of this so you don't fall behind on healing and then just make sure you face them away from the group 

• After this pack, you'll find crazed Mana surges, they're straightforward AOE mobs, they'll use Arcane Nova which not only does damage but it heals as well. This isn't interruptable, so kill them first.

• Last up for the notable trash in this dungeon are the crystalline protectors, it's nothing special just note that they have a Shard spray which does frontal cone damage, these are usually a part of an almost entire room pool so be aware of your positioning.

3 -  Tips for Running Ahn'kahet

• Leaving the Nexus and heading over to the creepy crawly Old Kingdom on Ahn'kahet. Ahn'kahet spell flingers will greet you near the entrance. They will use Shadow blast, it's a 6 second cast ability that does 50% of the target's Health as damage over the duration, this cannon should be interrupted because that is a lot of damage especially if there's multiple, make sure you kill these first.

• Down the stairs after the first boss, you will have your first encounter with eyes of tall Duram, they will explode when they die dealing damage and knocking you back, watch your positioning so that you don't pull any unwanted Mobs with that knockback. They also apply a debuff that when dispelled, silences the dispeller for 8 seconds which is pretty substantial and brutal in big pulls, this is very deadly, so resist the urge to dispel. When it pops up right in the same area are the large bone Grinders, they're going to use frightening shout which is just a fear and trample that does AOE damage. The damage can be pretty high when stacked with other mobs, make sure you're aware of your surroundings so you don't get feared into more mobs.

• Through the little tunnel after the second boss, you're going to encounter Twilight mobs. Twilight Apostles are the healers, interrupt them whenever they cast a heal and they also cast bloodless which you can dispel to minimize the damage going out and increase uptime. And those same packs are Twilight worshipers, they're going to use flame strike, watch your feet and don't stand in it. 

• Avoidable damage is a No-No when chain pulling, that's it for notable trash mobs, so here's some boss tips. On the second boss and last boss make sure you stack up, this makes it so that when the second boss vanishes and teleports, he's always in the same spot for you to kill and maximize uptime. And on the last boss, stacking up will help during the insanity phase, every group member will have to fight an image of their party members. Whenever someone kills all four of their images, they're released and can help others in their group, sacking up makes it so that you can cleave all these images down speeding up the fight.

4 - Tips for Runing Gundrak

• For those running gun Gundrak, it's a very straightforward dungeon with not a lot of surprises, early on there's packs of trolls. The fire Weavers are your Mage mobs, doing AOE damage and should die first. Medicine men are the healers, of course be ready to interrupt those heels, other than that all of these are straightforward and can be chain pulled effectively.

• Drakkari Golem and living Mojo packs are interesting. The Golems use Shockwave frontal cone ability, don't stand in front of them and then the living Mojo will turn into little puddles that do damage if you stand in them, again don't stand in the bad stuff, it wastes mana and it's going to make you go slower.

• The last mobs of note in here are right before the last boss and can be nasty if you're positioned wrong, the Drakkari Rhinos charge and use deafening Roar which is a 10 yard silence. Since there's four of them, a Healer not paying attention and standing too close can lead to a wipe with these silences chaining. The Raiders on the Rhinos use a cleave, so make sure they're all facing away from the group as well.

• The bosses are honestly straightforward, most of the trash is straightforward so good luck in.

5 -  Tips for Running Utgarde Pinnacle

• To finish off the dungeon cleave, some of you will go to Utgarde Pinnacle. The first packs at the start of the dungeon feature death Seekers the Cleaves of this dungeon, you know the drill don't stand in front of them; and then the Sears are the healers, you should watch for interrupts to speed up the kills.

• The Fanatics are interesting in that they don't have it in a rage, they have an ability called fervor, all it's going to do is increase their damage for a short time, pulling too many of these can be too much to handle, so feel it out with how well geared your healer is.

• After the first boss, you'll start finding Tundra wolves, they're not super serious but they will use fixate, fixating on a Target and they can't be taunted off. If it targets your healer in a big pack, just make sure you kill it or CC it. 

• After, the third boss is Berserkers and dusk shamans. The Berserkers just have terrified which will fear you, be aware of that if you don't want to pull more packs accidentally. And the shamans are of course healers, interrupt those heals or kill them first.

• A couple of Boss tips:

• The first and second bosses have long RP events, pull the trash from outside into the first boss's room to get the RP started to save you some time. 

• You can also go past the room and start the trash after the boss as you wait for it to spawn as well. 

• On the second boss, you can start the RP, kill the first two mini bosses and then continue on and do the third boss. 

• The remaining three mini bosses will run to you, and you can cleave two bosses down at once, saving you a ton of time. 

6 - Tips for Running Halls of Lightning

• Last up we've got Halls of Lightning. The first mobs are the hardened steel reavers and they're the Cleavers of this dungeon, don't stand in front of them.

• Just down the ramp are stormforged tacticians, they have an interesting ability called Arc Weld, this will be put on a player and it does damage whenever you move, so stand still if you're targeted by it.

• The second room here is full of slags, they're not Elite mobs and they don't hit very hard, but what they will do is explode when they're killed. Since everything will be getting AOE down, melee DPS can be safe and run out before they die all at the same time, because you'll probably die.

• Right up the stairs from this room are blistering steam ragers that use steam blast, it's a frontal cone ability, so stack them up and face them away from the group

• Similar to these steam Rangers, after the third boss, you'll find stormforge constructs that use Fork lightning, another frontal cone ability to face away from the group.

• In this same room, there are packs of stormforged, Rune Shapers, and Sentinels. The Rune Shapers will use charged flurries spinning around and throwing axes everywhere, this does a lot of damage, especially when pulling multiple packs, you're ready to stun them or kill them as fast as you can. The Sentinels paired with these Rune Shapers will put a player to sleep for 4 seconds, in large pulls this can be deadly if your healer is targeted, so be ready for it when it goes out.

• Last up nothing too serious since they aren't part of big trash polls, Stormforged Giants use Soul Strike which is just a mortal strike ability, so be ready for some more intensive healing there.