I am a lvl 30 druid on a pvp server.

So far I have been able to avoid the majority of ganking, but as the levels creep higher I believe those days are ending.

Any good ideas for where to grind?

Horde or Ally?

I am alliance, but I'd certainly love to hear either side's favorites.

Hmm, when I don't feel like questing, I like grinding in Swamp of Sorrows or Dustwallow Marsh starting at 38 as a Horde. Not a lot of pvp going on over there, so grind away.

Shimmering Flats is nice for that level. Relatively small area to cover. Lots of passive turtles. You can level up skinning pretty fast there too if you are a skinner. Also, not bad for mining either. Just run around the outer edges of the flats while you're grinding. Iron, tin, and sometimes silver/gold.

Quests are easy, but time consuming. But, if you're grinding anyways, then might as well. NPCs are 30-35. No prob for a druid :bubbrubb2

As for being ganked....there's a lot of space in SF. If you run into trouble, go into travel form and run away. There's plenty of places to go.

I am also going to vote for Shimmering Flats for that lvl. Every character I've had I've taken there to go from 27-35. You could go higher, but there are better places then. Though, with my last char, I didnt stay there the whole time. I wanted to try something new so I went to Arathi. It was pretty cool, though you'll find a lot of 60's farming the elemantals there, so kinda dangerous.

I went to Shimmering Flats last night and totally agree with you gents.

I would say, however obvious this may be, it's definitely a horde playground. :eek:

I also tried Purgation Isle, which is a little island just sw of Southshore. There are undead priests and paladins there - and not a player to be seen.

They're a bit clustered, though, for solo grinding. The graveyard is an eon away, too.

So I eventually went to Refuge Point and ground a bit on the raptors. They're quite easy and plentiful. You will get ganked from time to time being that close to Hammerfall though!

As another note, the naga just se of Southshore seem to be a great grinding spot for hunters, but not so much for druids.

They're are casters there, all are runners and pretty clustered. I spent a bit of time there but was constantly having to deal with adds.

At level 30 you are a bit too low for this but it'll work if you get a partner, maybe two. It's also in a bad area on a PvP server.

I'd recommend either now, or very shortly, going to Scarlet Monestary. There are four instances there. You'll want the graveyard. There's a very short dungeon crawl before you get back to the surface. Once on the surface though the pulls are spread out and numerous. Even if things did run you have enough space to avoid adds.

I recommend this place because it shares it's loot tables with the other instances. It seems, this is theorycraft here, that rather than using seperate loots tables for each they just used one and balanced it for the toughness of all four.

The graveyard is quite a step below the library, the next hardest. As a consequence you can farm an easy area for loot that's meant for tougher areas. Your xp gain will be decent, despite fighting a mix of elites and non-elites.

I farmed this area from the beginning of level 37 to level 40 and found it quite easy. At 40 I had enough loot to buy my mount and upgrade a good bit of my armor.

The only pita of it for you would be that it's tough to reach. You either have to get pretty close to UC or you have to run across a portion of EPL. On a PvP server I can only imagine it's tougher than it was for me.

At level 30 I was spending a lot of time in Shimmering Flats and Desolace. Once I got to level 34 I started running Scarlet Monastery a lot, mostly because it's easier for druids to get parties at an earlier level (had to wait until 37/38 for my warrior in most cases). I also spent some time in Stranglethorn Vale, but if you have concerns about being on a PvP server, I may try to keep away from STV.

As an Alliance, an ideal place to grind might also be Arathi Highlands. It was okay for me as a Horde, but usually was crawling with Alliance. You should make it out alright.

Thanks guys!

As an update, I decided to farm the Worgen just nw of Darkshire from lvl 31 to lvl 32. The mobs are plentiful and all range from lvl 26 to 29ish.

There are more Worgen near Rotting Orchard that are higher level. My intention is to grind there up to level 34 and then try SM per the advice above.

It seems like grinding as a druid is best done with mobs ranging from 5 to 2 levels below your own. At level 31 I managed about 19k xp per hour. That sounds about right for a decent grinding spot.

I found several incredible spots in Tanaris today.

The wastewander area is decent. It's SE of Gadget. The lower level area is more S by SE. The mobs range from level 41-46. This area isn't optimal as there are warlocks with pets. You do get experience for both the warlock kill and the pet kill.

The Dunemaul compound has ogres in the 45-48 range. Most are slow swing melee. Not quite as common are the dual-wielding variety. Occassionally there's a warlock without a pet. Everything is single pull. At levels 46-47 I'm getting 500-600+ xp per rested kill.

Just southwest of the compound is Thistleshrub Valley. Here the mobs range from levels 48-50. Everything is melee but the 'rootshaper' ones have a totem-inflicted root. Again, everything is single pull.

I found several incredible spots in Tanaris today.

The wastewander area is decent. It's SE of Gadget. The lower level area is more S by SE. The mobs range from level 41-46. This area isn't optimal as there are warlocks with pets. You do get experience for both the warlock kill and the pet kill.

The Dunemaul compound has ogres in the 45-48 range. Most are slow swing melee. Not quite as common are the dual-wielding variety. Occassionally there's a warlock without a pet. Everything is single pull. At levels 46-47 I'm getting 500-600+ xp per rested kill.

Just southwest of the compound is Thistleshrub Valley. Here the mobs range from levels 48-50. Everything is melee but the 'rootshaper' ones have a totem-inflicted root. Again, everything is single pull.

I agree.. I have a wonderful time killing all the above mentioned. Very decent grinding spots.. Plus the +5 water pouches you can turn in.. The Mageweave you can sell in AH or vendor it fighting the Ogres.. Also when you get to low 40's you can kill the turtles as well. A slim chance of getting Golden/Black/Iridecent pearls.. Its not a bad fighting ground there. Although, killin the turtles would probably most benefit a skinner.

Tanaris is one of my new favorites. I'm taking a mage through there now. There's solid grinding from 40-50, AoE spots, and an instance to boot!

Oh yeah, don't forget to rez into the Caverns of Time. If you've been drinking save ot for another day. It'll make you woozy.

Don't grind. Unless they nerfed quest XP since I stopped playing, you can lvl to 60 questing as fast or faster than most people grinding.

At 30 as alliance I was often grinding off whelps in the wetlands. The mobs here die extremely fast, next to no horde in the area unless there are gankers floating in from arathi that are bored. The exp here is relatively fast depending on how quickly you are moving around and if anyone else is there, and there is a chance of the whelpling pet to drop which could sell for decent cash towards your mount at 40. There are also some decent spots to grind in darkshire out in raven hill cemetary. Once you get up to 33-34 you could head into Dustwallow Marsh and grind off the whelps there also, which can also have random blue drops or another whelp pet which sells for much more than the whelp from wetlands.

I am on a pve server so your mileage may vary, once I hit 34 I was in STV for the long haul. STV on a pvp server, as I recall, was a non-stop gankfest.

I tend not to grind unless I find just a perfect spot.

I got a new discorvery.

There's a quest called Super Snapper FX that's an assignment to take a picture of a certain turtle in the hinterlands. This turtle is a 49 gold elite found on the east coast of the hinterlands. You have to find the trail down to the coast as there's a big dropoff.

Once you're there, if you stay at the southern end of the coast, there's more 46-49 non-elite snapjaw turtles than you've ever seen. They're yellow, meaning they won't aggro until you hit them. You've got an endless supply of mobs, all single pull. That big elite tends not to path up to the southern end making it fairly safe.

I was on my mage (I seem to be alot these days) and went with a priest. With imp blizzard we were taking down ten to fifteen at a time in relative safety.

All depends on how you like to play....

I completely agree with the questing...i can quest all the way to 60 and not stop to grind one bit and its pretty fast.

Some people perfer to grind.

Don't grind. Unless they nerfed quest XP since I stopped playing, you can lvl to 60 questing as fast or faster than most people grinding.

I always prefer doing quests, but it seems that now at level 30 my quest log has a bunch of quests that are proving hard to do.

Anyone have suggestions on quests to try?

Depending on your class there's a spot at about 25-35 where it's easier and faster to just grind it out rested. Quests at that range require you to run all over the place.

Notahiro, you can do some groundwork in Arathi, Desolcace, and STV. If you're going to go to STV basically skip the other two. STV will fill your quest log and then some. It's not my favorite place, to be PC. If you take a character through there you'll see why. It's a "Glad I did it but don't want to do it again." thing for me.

30 is a tough spot. There's no 25-35 zone where you can go pick up some easy and tough stuff. Anywhere you go it's too easy or too hard.

On my NE priestess, I did all the quests in Wetlands from 22-26, then followed them into SouthShore where I leveled 26 to 31, then from 31 to 35 in Desolace, then 35 to 39 in SM / Arathi, then 40 + doing Arathi Elite quests and Badlands quests.

I found lvling 25 - 35 to be cake. And I was a priest :O I do remember it being a pain the first time around though, as I didn't know where to go / what to do. If you find a group of 3 or so, you can do all the quests in Desolace in about 4 hours, and youll get great xp. May want to skip the centaur ones, but they are good for grinding if you want to just stay in one spot for a while.

Whatever you do, if you value your sanity, stay away from STV. Well, do as you wish, but they call it "GankVale" for a reason. But I'd strongly recommend following what I did above.