---
title: 'How To Level From 1-80 In Only 2 Hours As Horde!'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=CFRpqgDAe9s'
video_id: 'CFRpqgDAe9s'
date: 2026-06-14
duration_sec: 940
---

# How To Level From 1-80 In Only 2 Hours As Horde!

> Source: [How To Level From 1-80 In Only 2 Hours As Horde!](https://youtube.com/watch?v=CFRpqgDAe9s)

## Summary

This guide breaks down a speedrun-optimized route for leveling a Horde character from 1 to 80 in World of Warcraft, focusing on the 10-70 segment using Chromie Time. The route prioritizes efficient questing zones and provides tips for maximizing experience gains without relying on expensive consumables.

### Key Points

- **Reaching Level 10** [00:50] — For new characters, choose Exiles Reach for a linear, guided experience from 1-10. Allied races start at 10 and can skip this. Demon hunters and death knights have their own starting zones that take them past 10.
- **Dalaran Hearthstone Acquisition** [02:23] — At level 10, speak with Chromie in Orgrimmar to start the Legion questline. Complete the Broken Shore intro (or skip if done before) to get the Dalaran Hearthstone, which is essential for fast travel.
- **Chromie Time Mechanics** [03:51] — Chromie Time is a binary state (on/off). The chosen expansion only affects breadcrumb quests and dungeon queues; all zones scale with your level regardless of selection.
- **Darkmoon Fair XP Buff** [04:20] — If active (first full week of each month), visit the Darkmoon Fair via the portal to Old Dalaran and ride the carousel for a 10% XP buff. Purchase a ticket from Katie the panda.
- **Silverpine Forest Route** [06:22] — Travel via Silvermoon City and the Orb of Translocation to Tirisfal Glades. Follow the questline linearly, including the detour to Gilneas. Kill Koro the Colossus for a hidden quest. Avoid the final two quests due to unskippable roleplay.
- **War Mode Activation** [08:07] — At level 20, return to Orgrimmar to enable War Mode for a 10% XP buff. Since Silverpine and Hillsbrad are Horde-only zones, you won't encounter Alliance players, making it a free buff.
- **Hillsbrad Foothills Route** [09:57] — Start with 'Welcome to the Machine'. Complete all quests except 'Stagwiches' (low drop rate) and the 'Haunting in Hillsbrad' chain. For elite quests like 'Yetimus the Yeti Lord', ask for help in general chat.
- **Warlords of Draenor Transition** [11:08] — After Hillsbrad, use Dalaran Hearthstone to return to Orgrimmar, switch to Warlords of Draenor timeline, and talk to the Thralar Mage (not Vanguard Battle Mage) to teleport to the Blasted Lands. Complete the intro scenario and garrison setup.
- **Gorgrond Route** [12:08] — After garrison quests slow down, fly to Gorgrond and follow the questline to establish Beastwatch. Choose the Savage Fight Club over the Lumberyard. Use Champion's Honor ability to collect quest items from various mobs.
- **Talidor and Spires of Arak** [13:52] — After Gorgrond, complete bonus objectives in Talidor (Morgrund Logworks, Zangarra, Daruna's Desolation, Zorkor's Fall). Then move to Spires of Arak, build the Hearthfire Tavern for a 20% XP buff, and complete quests until level 70.

### Conclusion

This optimized route leverages Chromie Time, efficient questing zones, and strategic use of buffs to achieve fast leveling. For levels 70-80, refer to the separate War Within speedrun guide.

## Transcript

Hey folks, I recently managed to get a
new 1 to70 speedrun world record in only
2 hours and 41 minutes by using Chromy
time. This speedrun represents the
absolute best time that you can achieve
by using my route. And with this video
guide, I aim to break down my route into
simple, easy to follow steps that you
can use it to quickly level characters
for yourself. Also, while I obviously
use many fancy experience buffs and
consumable items for the purposes of my
speedruns, these are not taken into
account for the purposes of this
leveling guide. These items obviously
save a small amount of time, but in
practice, the route itself is what makes
this leveling method so fast. If you're
interested in learning more about the
items that I prepare for my speedruns,
I've made a separate video purely on
that topic, which is linked in the
description below. But with all of that
out of the way, let's jump into the
guide. Before you can enter Chromy Time
and begin following the bulk of this
route, you'll first need to reach level
10. How you'll do this will vary heavily
depending on the race that you selected.
If you're playing an allied race, you'll
already begin the game at level 10, so
you can skip ahead to the next section
of my guide. However, any brand new
players watching this video won't be
able to create an allied race as their
first character, so you'll need to pick
one of the standard races and begin at
level one. While every race will be
presented with multiple options as their
starting zone, I would always recommend
choosing Exiles Reach. This zone may not
be exceptionally fast, but it was tailor
made by Blizzard to get your characters
exactly from levels 1 to 10.
Additionally, the zone is extremely
linear and tries to teach you basic
mechanics of the game as you progress
the quest line, meaning it's very
helpful for new players. It's worth
noting that I selected the standard
undead starting zone for my world record
run, but this is because I did some very
strange routing shenanigans that I'm not
going to recommend as part of this
guide. The advantage of these older
zones is that they don't lock you into a
fixed path, which is really nice for my
speedruns, as I can use fancy movement
items to break out of the zones early
and access some powerful experience
buffs sooner than I would normally be
able to. However, even when all of this
is done perfectly, I'm only saving a few
minutes compared to doing the standard
path through Exiles Reach. While that
time save matters in a speedrun, it's
not relevant for the average player,
especially considering it'll be
drastically slower if you try to do the
zones in the intended manner. Lastly, if
you're playing a demon hunter or a death
knight, your only option will be to
level through your class's starting
zones, and this will put you past level
10 by the time you finish. Don't worry,
though, because my guide has been
structured in such a way that you can
jump straight into the level 10 section
and not lose any time. Once you've
managed to reach level 10, you'll first
want to do a few quests to acquire a
dollar Hearthstone. This only takes a
few minutes, and it'll save a ton of
time over the course of the 10 to 70
leveling process. Although the dollar on
Hearthstone was added to the toy box
during Dragon Flight, you're unable to
actually use it on new characters until
you've completed the original unlock
quests. To kick things off, you'll first
need to speak with Chromy and begin the
Legion quest line. If you're unsure
where to find her, head to the Orgamar
embassy and look for a gnome sitting on
a big hourglass. After receiving the
quest, the Legion Returns, you should
run outside of the Orgamar gates and
talk to Holgar Stormax. This NPC should
have a dialogue option that starts with,
"I've heard this tale before." and
you'll want to select it in order to
skip the Broken Shore introduction. If
the dialogue option isn't appearing, it
means you've never done the Broken Shore
scenario on your account. For your first
character, you'll still want to complete
the scenario as it only takes about 15
minutes and allows you to skip the
entire thing on all future leveling
runs. Once you've reached Doeron, you
can turn in the nearby quest to receive
your Dollaron Hearthstone. If you
already have the toy unlocked on your
account, you can just delete the quest
reward itself and add the toy to your
bars. From here, turn right into the
horde section of the city and take the
portal back to Ormar. It's worth noting
that the process I just described is
technically not needed if you're playing
a mage, monk, vulpera, or some
combination of the two. Each of these
classes and/or race have an ability
which completely removes the need for a
dollar Hearthstone. However, you should
still speak with Chromy and select a
timeline as this ensures all zones will
scale with your level. I also want to
make it absolutely clear that after
returning from Delaron, you do not need
to visit Chromy and change your active
expansion. Despite the misleading design
of the menu, Chromy time is actually a
binary state. It's either fully enabled
or fully disabled for your character.
The only difference between the various
expansions is which breadcrumb quests
you get offered, like the
affforementioned one for traveling to
Doaron. Also, your active expansion will
determine which random dungeons you're
allowed to queue for. But beyond that,
all of them function exactly the same
for the purposes of questing. Lastly, if
the Dark Moon Fair happens to be active
while you're leveling, this is the ideal
time to swing by and grab your 10%
experience buff. The fair is active
during the first full week of every
month. And you can also see when it's up
by looking at your in-game calendar.
There are many ways to reach the Darkman
fair, but the fastest path involves
taking the portal to Old Door and
receiving a teleport from the Darkman
mage standing in the nearby courtyard.
From here, you can run down the hill
into the fair proper, purchase a
carousel ticket from a panda named
Katie, and ride the carousel to receive
your 10% XP buff. There's a few more
niche advantages that the Darkman Fair
provides for leveling, but they're a bit
more complicated, so you should watch my
speedrun items video if you want to
learn more. Now, you should be ready to
start the 10 to 70 route. But before we
dive into specifics about the zones and
quests, I want to briefly go over a few
bits of general advice that apply to the
route as a whole. First, I strongly urge
you to only follow the listed zones in
the route without taking extensive
detours. If I don't mention a zone in my
guide, it's not because I forgot about
it. It's because it's slower than the
rest of my route. Also, if you feel that
you're not getting enough experience
from completing quests, please double
check that you've actually enabled
Chromy time, as otherwise, your XP gains
will eventually be reduced by 90%. You
would be surprised at how often people
make this exact same mistake. The final
general tip that I want to discuss
pertains to rare mobs. You'll find many
of these while following my leveling
route, and it's especially important
within any Cataclysm revamped zones,
such as Silver Pine Forest or Hillsbread
Foothills. Each one of these rares gives
roughly a quest's worth of experience,
so it can be extremely helpful to hunt
for them while you're leveling. However,
this is not the case for any rares you
encounter in Warlords of Dranor Zones,
as those give a standard amount of
experience and aren't worth killing. In
order to help you find all of the
important rares while leveling, I've
created a companion video on my second
channel, which goes over the location of
every single rare, and you can find it
linked in the description below. That
being said, the zones mentioned in my
guide will still be faster than any
alternatives, even if you don't manage
to find a single rare mob. It's a nice
little bonus if you happen to encounter
one, but you should never sit and wait
at a spawn location instead of
continuing along the quest path. The
first zone you'll be visiting is
Silverpine Forest. And to get there
quickly from Orgamar, you'll first want
to take the portal to Silver Moon City,
which is found just left to the stairs
leading inside of the Orgamar portal
room. Once inside Silver Moon, you'll
need to walk to a small room behind the
blood elf faction leaders. And up on a
pedestal, you'll find an object called
the Orb of Transocation. Clicking on
this orb will teleport you to a zone
called Tusfall Glades. If you open your
map, you'll be able to see Silverpine
Forest just to the west. Fly towards the
quest marked on your map named the
Wararchief Cometh, which begins the
Silverpine quest line. From here, as
long as you pick up and complete every
quest that you encounter, you'll be
taken on a fairly linear path throughout
the zone. Silverpine is deceptively
efficient, as it has lots of unskippable
cutscenes early on, which make the quest
line seem very slow. That said, the last
two/3s of Silverpine have incredible
quest density and minimal travel time.
So, this more than makes up for the slow
start. Midway through the questing
experience, you'll get sent down to
Gilaeas. Don't panic, as this is simply
an extension of the Silver Pine quest
line. Within the first area, you'll see
a giant Edin named Koro the Colossus,
and you should kill him in order to
receive a hidden quest. From here,
continue along the quest line in Gilaeus
until you're returned to Silverpine.
Towards the end of the zone, you'll
reach the quest sewing discord, which
task you with killing a camp full of
elite dwarves. It can be fairly
difficult to solo these mobs as their
auto attacks hit extremely hard. If you
find yourself struggling with this
quest, I'd recommend dragging the mobs
over to Lord Godfrey and waiting for him
and the other NPCs to whittle the dwarfs
down. Immediately after completing this
quest, you should kill one of the nearby
crocodiles as it begins a hidden quest
called From the Belly of the Beast. Once
you've completed this, it's time to
abandon the Silver Pine quest line and
move along to Hillbread Foothills. The
final two quests in Silverpine are full
of unskippable roleplay, so they're not
worth completing. At some point during
this process, you should have reached
level 20, and you'll now have the option
to enable war mode. This can only be
enabled at Ormar. So you should set your
Hearthstone to a nearby location, most
likely the supplicer, and then use your
dollar on Hearthstone. From here, you
can take the nearby portal to reach
Ormar, enable war mode, and use your
regular Hearthstone to return to
Silverpine. As previously mentioned,
mages or monks can use portals or Zen
pilgrimage, respectively, as a
replacement for the Delaron Hearthstone.
Also, in case you're unfamiliar with
what exactly war mode does, this is a
buff that grants you roughly 10%
additional experience while also
permanently flagging your character for
PvP. This may sound really scary, but
you have to remember that both Silver
Pine and Hillsbread are horde only
zones. So, you won't actually encounter
a single alliance player while leveling
there. This means that war mode is
effectively a free 10% XP buff for the
first two zones in my route. When you
get to Warlords of Dranor later on,
there is a chance that you'll encounter
other Alliance players, but the vast
majority of people are simply there to
level and won't try to fight you. In the
worst case scenario, you can always go
to a nearby town and disable war mode
later on if you run into someone who
really wants to kill you. Now, before we
discuss the next zone, Hillsbread
Foothills, I want to take a moment to
touch upon dungeon leveling. Over the
last few years, I've done a few test
runs that completed Burning Crusade
dungeons from levels 10 to 20, and I
found that it can potentially be faster
under specific situations. Since war
mode only applies to outdoor content and
it isn't available until level 20, it's
possible to get marginally faster times
in TBC dungeons if you queue as a tank
and get extremely lucky with the random
dungeons that you're offered. In
practice, I wouldn't actually recommend
running dungeons for Horde players, as
on average, it'll be much slower than
the questing route. However, if you did
really want to try dungeon leveling and
want more detail on the subject, I
discussed it in a bit more detail in the
written version of this guide, which is
linked in the description. As previously
mentioned, you'll want to leave
Silverpine Forest upon reaching the
quest on Her Majesty's Secret Service.
If you open your map, you can find
Hillsrad Foothills to the east, and
you'll start the quest line there by
picking up Welcome to the Machine. Like
before, Hillsbrad is a fairly linear
zone, so as long as you pick up and
complete every quest you encounter,
you'll eventually finish the entire
thing. There are only two quests in
particular that you'll want to avoid.
You'll receive stag witches towards the
end of the zone. And although it seems
fairly simple, the drop rate of its
quest item is extremely low, so it's
usually not worth completing. There's
also a small chain in the east that
starts with a haunting in Hillsrad, but
the density here is pretty low, so I'd
recommend skipping it. However, you'll
still want to complete the other two
quests nearby called Extinction and the
Durnhold Challenge. It's worth noting
that some quests in Hillsrad, such as
Yetimus the Yeti Lord or the Durnhole
Challenge, require you to fight elites
tuned around a group of three or more
players. For most classes, these are
extremely hard to solo, but it is
definitely possible. I'd recommend
trying it once if you're confident, but
if you can't solo them, just ask for
help in general chat. There's usually a
few people willing to group for it.
Also, when fighting Yetus, I would
recommend dragging him inside of the
nearby Yeti cave as this allows you to
negate his knockback mechanic. The fight
will still be very difficult due to the
damage of his auto attacks, but at least
you won't risk dying of fall damage.
Once you finished everything in Hills
Red Foothills, you should use your
dollar Hearthstone and return to
Orgamar. Once there, head over to Chromy
and select the Warlords of Dranor
timeline. You'll be directed to speak
with an NPC called Vanguard Battle Mage,
but you should instead talk to the
Thrawar Mage, who can be found standing
nearby in the bottom floor of the
Orgamar portal room. Talking to the
Thrralar mage NPC, will cause you to be
teleported directly next to Khadgar in
the Blasted Lands, allowing you to
immediately start the next quest. The
Vanguard Battle Mage, despite being the
intended NPC, will teleport you much
further away from Khadgar. After
speaking with Khadgar, you should fully
complete the Warlords of Dranor intro
scenario. Many people like to skip this
area, but it's still one of the fastest
quest lines in the entire game, so if
you skip it, you're doing yourself a
huge disservice. Upon reaching the end,
you'll be teleported to Frostfire Ridge
and should do the entire quest line to
set up your garrison. You'll also want
to finish the next few quests where you
kill ogres, gather supplies, construct a
barracks, and rescue all in Umberhide.
After these four quests, the zone slows
to a crawl, so you should instead fly to
Gorgrand and begin the quest line there.
Gorgrand can be reached by flying
directly east from your garrison. And
you'll start the quest line by speaking
with Durotan at the zone's entrance.
From here, follow the quest line until
you establish the town of Beastwatch. At
this point, you'll be prompted to choose
between the Savage Fight Club or the
Lowlands Lumberyard. The Fight Club is
significantly better than the
Lumberyard, as it gives you access to a
ton of extremely efficient quests. Go
north and complete the quest, a harsh
reminder in Affliction Ridge. While
doing this, round up a wide variety of
mobs and pop your champion's honor
ability. This spell has a hidden effect
that drops quest starting items when you
kill certain enemies with it active.
Under Dranor exploration, there's an
achievement called prove your strength,
and this can help you keep track of
which items you've collected. You'll
want to only use it when you've rounded
up a few mobs of at least two types in
order to maximize your chances at
getting quest items. Around this point,
you'll receive multiple quest lines, but
you should complete everything in
Stonewall Arena before continuing
onwards. The quests involving Rexar go
on for a while and will lead you further
north into the zone. You'll want to use
your champions honorability on the
bassilisks and steam furies that you'll
encounter during the quest on the men.
Later on, you can use it once again
while killing Ogrron during the quest
Fair Warning. After you finish the quest
Chains of Iron, you should complete the
nearby bonus objective, Valley of
Destruction. Upon returning to
Beastwatch, you'll receive a quest named
Strike While the Iron is Hot, but this
is extremely inefficient and should be
ignored. Now that you're finished with
the primary quest line, you can complete
the Miscreet Meer and Razor Bloom bonus
objectives, which are just south of
Beastwatch. While you're here, make sure
you use Champions Honor on the nearby
Wasps and Ravagers. If you have any
leftover time on the buff after getting
the Wasp and Ravager items, you can try
to kill any nearby orcs and botnai to
get their associated quest items in case
you're still missing either one. Next,
head east and complete the entire
Crimson Fen quest line. Upon finishing
it, return to Beastwatch and hand in all
of your remaining quests. You'll now
want to leave Gorgrand and travel south
to Talidor, but you should take a brief
detour to complete the Ruins of the
First Bastion and Tail Thrasher Basin
bonus objectives. Upon finishing
everything in Gorgrand, fly south to
Talidor and construct the arsenal in
Vulgun's Pride. Do not complete any of
the quests here as the main purpose of
unlocking the arsenal is to gain access
to some really efficient bonus
objectives. Complete the bonus
objectives Morground Log works, Zangara,
and Daruna's Desolation in that order.
After picking up any nearby treasures,
travel further south and complete the
Zorer's Fall bonus objective. From here,
head into Spires of Iraq and progress
through the quest line until you reach
level 70. Spires of Iraq is a peculiar
zone as it has a fairly high quest
density early on but falls off
significantly towards the end. When you
reach axefall, you can construct the
hearthfire tavern which gives you 20%
increased experience within spires of
Iraq as well as a localized Hearthstone
ability on a separate cool down. While
this buff is nice to have, it's nowhere
near as impactful as many people seem to
think it is. By the time you get the 20%
XP buff, you've already completed most
of the efficient quests in the zone, so
it doesn't end up helping you much.
After building the tavern, you'll want
to pick up the wanted quests from a
poster on the wall, as these give great
experience and can be usually completed
alongside other quests. Now that you
finished leveling in Chromy time, you'll
need to enter War Within zones to level
from 70 to 80. I've already fully
optimized War Within 70 to 80 leveling
with a speedrun of 1 hour and 5 minutes.
If you'd like to learn more about how to
follow that route, you can click in the
video shown on screen or find a link to
it in the description. Additionally, if
you're interested in leveling an
alliance character from 1 to 70, I've
made a separate video on that subject.
If you found this video helpful, I'd
greatly appreciate it if you could
subscribe and toss it a like as that'll
help other people find it as