Blood Elves and Dwarves gain access to Heritage armor as part of 8.1, as well, without a prolonged quest line, though they’ll need to be exalted through Silvermoon and Ironforge, respectively, in order to receive it. A Warfront called The Battle for Darkshore focuses on the struggle between Night Elves and the Forsaken. During the Warfront, you’ll be able to transform your character with temporary abilities, and when your faction controls either the Darkshore or Arathi Highlands, you’ll gain access to world quests.
Currently, it is believed that the War Mode rewards will change depending on which faction is more heavily prevalent with War Mode activated. The Horde have typically had more participating in War Mode, so the reward has been increased for the Alliance to incentivize more participation in War Mode. These rewards could potentially be increased to both the Horde and Alliance to incentivize both factions to higher amounts of War Mode participation.
And... that was it. New NPCs offered a glimpse of some truly amazing armor and weapons, none of which are currently available to players (and datamining suggests it may be a while, if ever, before they are.) There were no new appearances for players to farm, no items or pets or toys or titles to obtain, no achievements to complete. There was no repeatable, truly farmable content.
When you have completed your third zone, you should be nearly max level, but you still have work to do! Head back to your faction hub and complete the last foothold quest to unlock your fourth mission table champion. After, you will want to do your newly available invasion missions for your faction. This quest chain is one that will be time gated by reputation levels earned with the 7th Legion for the Alliance and iThe Honorbound for the Horde. Complete as many quests as you can and then finish up your leveling with side quests you may have left in previous zones as necessary.
Drustvar is far and away the hardest Alliance zone, which is exactly why you want to do it first. If you have legendary items, they’ll still be usable, and if you don’t, this zone will still be easier early on than it will be later. Drustvar is also extremely fast and will let you jump out ahead of your competition in other zones, which means fewer players around to take your quest objectives.
Incorporating an accelerated leveling pace is *definitely* something we want to incorporate in to the new addon My hope is to allow an option for you to set yourself to one or two higher speeds, where the guide will skip some steps along the way. The steps will have a special tag that lets the addon know to skip them if the person has that setting enabled.
And, of course, there are plenty of in-game addons you can use to make your adventures in Azeroth even more efficient. Try checking out Azeroth Auto Pilot, which points you where to go, handles all your NPC discussions and quest turn-ins, and automatically sells your junk gear (among other features). Deadly Boss Mods is still a must-have, so you don’t die in dungeons quite so quickly. Pawn helps you tell whether the gear you’re getting is actually an upgrade or not. World Quests List gives you a much better way to see what’s happening in your zone (and sort for the rewards you’re prioritizing).
XP Potions: The Elixir of Rapid Mind and Elixir of Ancient Knowledge no longer drop. They can be bought on the AH still but are way to expensive for it to be worth it. The Excess Potion of Accelerated learning is available from your garrison quartermaster but only works for level 91 to 99. As of Patch 8.1 you can also buy the 10% XP Potion Draught of Ten Lands.
