Leveling an alt from 80 to 90 in Midnight used to mean either grinding the same handful of zones over and over or spamming dungeon queues for hours. Patch 12.0.7 changed that dramatically — several quest types now hand out far more experience than before, and a well-optimized route can now take an alt from 80 to 90 in well under two hours. Here's what actually works, based on real, tested runs rather than guesswork.
What changed in Patch 12.0.7
Blizzard significantly buffed the experience reward on several quest types specifically to speed up alt leveling:
- Prey quests now give roughly 400% more experience than before.
- Saltheril's Soiree quests were buffed by around 650%.
- Delver's Call quests, Midnight dungeon quests, and weekly Renown quests all received substantial increases too — in some cases up to 8x their old value.
The practical result: content that used to feel like a detour (delves, world quest chains, event-driven quest hubs) is now often faster than running dungeons back to back.
Turbulent Timeways: the 30% XP buff you should time your leveling around
If you can, level during a Turbulent Timeways week. Completing a Timewalking dungeon grants Distilled Knowledge of Timeways, a stacking XP buff — each dungeon adds a 2-hour stack, and four stacks upgrade it into Mastery of the Timeways, a flat 30% bonus to all experience gained from kills and quests. It lasts 3 hours, survives death, and refreshes every time you complete another Timewalking dungeon. Since Turbulent Timeways rotates through different expansions' dungeons on a multi-week schedule, it's worth checking whether it's currently active before committing to a big leveling session — the difference is large enough to notice.
Dungeon spamming is no longer the fastest option
This is worth calling out because it goes against old habits: queuing for dungeon after dungeon is now one of the slower ways to level 80-90, not the fastest. The buffed quest content above simply outpaces it. A small amount of normal dungeon running still has a place in an efficient route (some objectives are dungeon-gated, and Timewalking dungeons are worth doing for the XP buff above), but treating the dungeon queue as your primary leveling loop will cost you time compared to following a real route.
The fastest route, step by step
Based on extensive real-world testing by leveling addon developer Harldan (creator of the free Follow The Arrow addon), the fastest 80-90 path currently looks roughly like this:
- Legends of the Haranir — an early, efficient quest chain worth prioritizing right away.
- Delves — buffed enough in 12.0.7 that they're now a core part of an efficient route, not a side activity.
- Abundance and Saltheril's Soiree (in Eversong Woods) — with Saltheril's Soiree's ~650% XP buff, this stretch is one of the strongest bursts of experience in the whole route, typically getting a character to around level 84.
- Prey quests — now give roughly 4x their old experience, making them well worth seeking out.
- Void Assaults and Invasion Points — solid supplementary XP alongside the above.
- A modest amount of normal dungeons — enough to round out the route and pick up Timewalking stacks if that event is active, not spammed as the main strategy.
- Crafting experience — turning in profession work also contributes meaningfully near the tail end of the route, and is easy to overlook.
- Final quest turn-ins to close out the last level or two to 90.
One important caveat: this route assumes you already have an alt eligible for alt-specific leveling. If this is your first character, you'll need to complete the full main campaign before any of these alt-focused shortcuts apply — there's a separate, similarly-optimized campaign route for that first playthrough.
How fast is "fast"?
For reference, real recorded results using this route: a best time of 1 hour 16 minutes (set mid-way through a continuous 10-90 speedrun), a clean pure 80-90 run of 1 hour 30 minutes 9 seconds, and — notably — 1 hour 38 minutes even without the Turbulent Timeways buff active, showing the route holds up well on its own. These are dedicated speedrun times from someone who has practiced this exact route repeatedly, tracking multiple buffs and turn-in timings down to the minute — if you're leveling casually while following a guide or addon for the first time, expect something closer to 2-4 hours rather than sub-90-minutes, which is still a large improvement over how 80-90 leveling used to feel before 12.0.7.
A few habits that help regardless of the exact route
These are less about memorizing specific quest names (routes get adjusted every patch) and more about general leveling discipline that pays off no matter what content you're doing:
- Don't turn in a big quest chain the moment it's available — there's often a "sweet spot" level to turn it in for the best XP-to-level-requirement ratio. Experienced speedrunners commonly time large turn-ins for around level 85 rather than banking them as soon as they're ready, since quest XP scales with your level while the flat rewards don't.
- Stage your final push near a quest hub with backup content, not an empty field. If you're a little short of 90 when you run out of planned route, being near an area with several extra quests available (rather than nothing nearby) saves a lot of travel time compared to realizing you're undershooting and having to fly somewhere new.
- Keep an eye on your buff bar. Between a Timewalking XP buff, holiday buffs, and any XP potions or Darkmoon trinkets, it's easy to let one quietly expire mid-session without noticing — costing you real experience for the rest of that stretch.
- Understand why a route does something, not just what it does, especially if you're using an addon-guided route. If you know a step exists because of specific scaling or a timed event, you can adapt when something's on cooldown or unavailable instead of getting stuck.
Making it easier: Follow The Arrow
Memorizing an optimal quest order across multiple zones is a lot to track manually. Follow The Arrow is a free addon (also available through WowUp) that automatically detects your current quest progress and points you toward the next step of the fastest known route, with a customizable on-screen arrow and objective tracker. It's built and actively maintained by the same person behind the testing above, and covers both the alt-leveling route described here and the full campaign route for first characters.
Route testing, timestamps, and benchmark times referenced in this guide come from Harldan's "The Fastest 80-90 Alt Route in Midnight", with additional real-run pacing insight from his "Level 10-90 Speedrun In 3 Hours 16 Minutes" — both worth a watch if you want to see this kind of route played out in real time.