World of Warcraft: Midnight introduced something new to its community. It increased the maximum level to 90 and provided an entirely redesigned version of Quel’Thalas as the main area. The growth saw the addition of 17 chapters of new story content, a revamped Delves system, and major changes to the contribution of professions to leveling. Players who have already conquered the main campaign will unlock the expansion in a different way on a second character. It will be faster, more focused, and the way to the end is more apparent.
For players with an existing main character, the quickest way to get a second role, farm gold, or enjoy the expansion with a different class fantasy is to create an alt character. The 80 to 90 leveling can be as short as four to five hours with the proper preparation. For players who want to skip the grind entirely and land straight in endgame content, WoW carry can come in handy. For everyone else, here is how to build the perfect alt efficiently.
Before You Start: Prep on Your Main
Some actions on your main character greatly decrease the time spent on each alt in the future. To pass over this step is to forego free experience and time-saving. Before you make your alt, complete the following steps:
- Finish the Midnight campaign on your main — this unlocks a full campaign skip for all future alts
- Enable War Mode — this adds 15-25% bonus experience across all characters
- Join a guild with an experience buff — this adds another 5% on top
- Stock 5,000+ gold — this covers crafted gear and auction house purchases at level 90
The campaign skip itself saves five to six hours per alt. When you finish the main story and have the achievement of Midnight, it becomes available. When an alt has already initiated the campaign, the skip does not exist anymore. It should be used before starting any quests.
Choosing the Right Class and Role
The right class is based on the purpose of the alt. Gold farming alts and endgame alts are not the same. Healers and tanks experience shorter queue times and less variation in group invites in endgame content, Mythic+, raiding, and PvP. Damage dealers are more readily made with solo damage. However, they have more competition for spots. The best multi-role choices in Midnight are Paladin, Druid, and Priest, as they combine several roles in a single character.
In the case of gold farming, the output of the AOE damage and self-sustaining are more important than the utility of the group. Druid remains the strongest class for gathering runs in Midnight. Travel Form allows herb and ore collection without dismounting. This removes the stop-start cycle that slows every other class down on a dense gathering route. Warlock can survive lengthy farm time with no food. Hunter can deal with rare mob farming in open-world zones.
How to Level 80–90 in 4–5 Hours
The quickest route level skips the campaign and goes directly to Delves as the main source of experience. The entire path can be divided into three phases:
- Stage 1 — 80 to 81 (20-30 minutes): Start in Dornogal. Farm mobs in the vicinity, bee packs, and elite clusters are of primary importance. This level is nothing more than an accumulation of prior experience before joining Delves.
- Stage 2 — 81 to 87 (2-3 hours): Run all referent Tier 1 Delves without submitting quests on the spot. Get quests, accumulate completions, and submit all at the same time. The spikes of experience generated by batch turn-ins are higher than those generated by individual hand-ins. They are compatible with War Mode bonuses.
- Stage 3 — 88 to 90 (30-40 minutes): Stage 88 Turn on War Mode, use guild banner (where possible), and turn in all earned Delve quests at once. This combination generally drives two full levels during a session. Achieving a skill of 50-55 in a crafting profession adds one more level on top of the first-craft experience bonus.
Total duration, including War Mode, guild buff, and campaign skip, is around 4 to 5 hours.
Gearing Your Alt for Endgame
Mythic+ entry level is 175+. Several sources offer equipment within that range as soon as they reach level 90:
- Purchasable gear (Auction House) — 165-180 ilvl
- Tier 1 Delves — 165-170 ilvl
- World quests — 170-175 ilvl
- Mythic+ (+1 and above) — 175-180 ilvl
The fastest way to 175+ is through crafted gear from the auction house. It takes gold, not time, hence the reason for hoarding 5,000 or more gold before it reaches parity. Running Tier 1 Delves uses up the rest of the slots and offers sufficient item level to unlock low-level Mythic+ keys in the first session at 90.
Renown also accelerates gearing. The first 10 ranks provide a 200% reputation bonus. And ranks 10-20 provide 100%. Completing large reputation quests during this window maximizes the efficiency of every daily session. Prioritizing quests that reward 2,500-5,000 reputation during the early ranks produces the fastest path through the bonus window.
Alt for Gold Farming
A gold-farming alt takes a different route compared to an endgame alt. The item level does not matter as much as the priority is to accumulate profession output and zone efficiency. The surest collections in Midnight:
- Herbalism in Harandar and Voidstorm — 500-1,000 gold per hour
- Mining in Harandar and Voidstorm — 800-1,500 gold per hour
- Skinning from elite mobs — 300-600 gold per hour
Combining Herbalism and Mining in one character combines both of these types of materials without losing a crafting profession slot. The most efficient zone to run combined gathering runs is Harandar, as mobs here also drop cloth at 1.5-2 million experience per hour. Thus, the alt is kept at the level. However, it is also producing the sellable materials.
Enabling War Mode adds 15% to gold drops from quests and mob loot. Combined with a full gathering route in Harandar or Voidstorm, a well-optimized gold alt generates 3,000-10,000 gold per hour, depending on server market conditions.
Let’s Wrap It Up
Building an alt in World of Warcraft: Midnight is faster than in any previous expansion when approached correctly. Completing the campaign on your main, enabling War Mode, and routing through Delves rather than questing reduces the 80-90 leveling window to four or five hours. Gearing to 175+ item level takes one focused session after hitting the cap.
For a gold farming alt, two gathering professions and a Harandar route produce consistent returns from the first hour. The decisions made before creating the character (campaign completion, War Mode, guild buff, gold reserve) have more impact on total time invested than anything done during the leveling process itself.
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