I recently returned for Cataclysm. Joined a new server, rolled a new toon to see the revised old content and join an old RL friend.


So, last time I leveled a character I remember running around gathering all kinds of quests for a particular dungeon before I ran it, so I could complete all the quests in one run. Sometimes this required completing multiple prerequisites and lots of running around. All this on top of looking up all of the available quests on WoWHead or another similar site.


I read somewhere that most of the dungeon related quests can be acquired at the entrance to the respective dungeons now. Is this true, and is it ALL of the quests, or are there still some I will have to run around to gather or perform prerequisites for? I remember most dungeon quest chains having really good rewards, both items and experience/coin, and I hate to miss out on all that as I'm leveling up.

 

-----signature-----

I don't know if there are ANY outside of the dungeons that pertain still; however if you run SM (for example) you'll notice the in dungeon quests are the exact same as the ones you'd have gotten outside leading into the dungeon. AS you proceede through the dungeon you'll find more that pop up after killing certain bosses as well.

 

-----signature-----

Many,many times, someone in the group will have them to share.

The problem I ran into is that by questing, and leveling through the RDF, I leveled so fast that entire areas got skipped.(and these particular "dungeon related quests" along with them)

 

-----signature-----

Yes, there are quests that you acquire from NPCs outside of the dungeons that involve something inside the dungeons. It isn't 100%.

 

-----signature-----

There are a few quests that require you to have done them before going in the dungeon, but the vast majority of the ones you do will be from NPC's in the dungeon entrances. I have to say that so far I like this new RDF thing. It beats asking in trade for a group for it, and often if one player drops, you can find another within 30 seconds and have them port in.

Here's what I recommend you do. Look at the hero board in the main city, and go where they recommend you go. Start leveling and questing, and at the same time, queue for a dungeon. If you can tank or heal, and queue up as one, you can often get a group within 30 seconds or less. When I was leveling my druid, anytime I queued up for tanking, I often got a group almost the moment I hit "enter queue". Whereas when I queued as "DPS" only, often it took about 30 minutes before I could get one. In fact, I got so many groups as a tank that I went from 35-39 almost in one night doing dungeons exclusively. But sometimes I didn't do RDF because I wanted to also finish the quests in the various zones, such as STV, which has a nice quest line now, including a pirate attack on Booty Bay towards the end of the quests.

Just some caution using RDF. It can be very hit or miss. If you have a good tank and healer, then you should be fine, but if the tank isn't very good or the healer afk's a lot, then expect to die a few times. Every single group where I was main tanking, or took over as the tank, with the sole exception of Dire Maul North, we never wiped (DM North is called Gordok Commons now, and we sucked because no one I grouped with knew that you could skip fighting the captain if you saved the ogre suit, which none of the tanks ever did. I found all this stuff out later when I had my brother take me through with his 79 pally and told him not to fight the captain so I could test that stuff out). I did have trouble holding aggro on multiple mobs though cause druid tank aoe sucks, but managed to keep an eye out for mobs that weren't beating on me for the most part, and could usually pull mobs off other players.

Groups where I joined as DPS, the tanks ranged from really good to "Dude, why are you tanking?". I had one group where the paladin was terrible at holding aggro even from one mob, and when I saw she didn't have Righteous Fury up, I asked her about 7 times if she could put that buff on. She then flat out said no without saying why, prompting others in the group to ask why not, and me to casually mention that although I wanted to boomkin, I was also feral and could tank if needed. They immediately voted to kick her out, and I ended up tanking, and the rest of the dungeon went fine lol.

Also, watch out for afk looters/ninjas. Those are people who don't move away from the beginning area, but then also roll on loot that drops. I only encountered one so far, and we kicked him after he did that (thankfully the drop was just a trash green item). It's still polite to ask if you can need on an item, unless you're the only one that can truly use it (such as a leather healing item if you're a resto/balance druid and your healer is a priest).

most 15-60 instances now have npc's inside that will give you the quests.
60-70 was unchanged.
70-80 was unchanged.
80-85 Mixed bag of chain quests and npc's with quests inside the dungeon.

The key with 15 to 60 instances is to queue up when the instance is YELLOW in your RDF, only then will the quests be available. This did not hold true after 60.

 

-----signature-----

Thank you all for the responses so far.

 

-----signature-----

I believe if that you've outlevelled a certain instance, if you enable the low level quest tracking on your radar you'll be able to see the quests for instances even if they are grey.

 

-----signature-----

Well, if you physically run to the dungeon, then yes. But if they're grey to you, then you won't get queued for that dungeon for random groups anymore, so you won't be able to do those quests anyway unless a high lvl guildie goes to the dungeon with you and helps you run through it.

Or if you find a group the old fashioned way, right? Though with RDF, that probably doesn't happen much these days... I remember standing at the entrance to dungeons with lots of other people and forming groups that way.


I haven't done the RDF yet, I heard so many horror stories and then I was having fun questing anyway. I need to pull the chord and give one a try though, maybe tonight.

 

-----signature-----