Instance leveling to 80

I had an idea of leveling in instances for at least the first few levels of wrath.

I'm on EU-Kazzak and it is packed with people, so I guessed that leveling would be a real pain.

I have 5 people that are willing to do this with me so getting a group will not be a time consumer.

Does anyone have any thoughts about this? will the XP gains in instances be comparable to XP gains attempting to do quests with the masses?

My goal is to level to 80 asap and get raiding. the guild I'm in want to try and get in the top5 guilds on Kazzak so quick leveling is going to be essential.

I was thinking it may be worth doing instances during the day and quests at night (yes I plan to only sleep for a couple of hours during the day!)

also regarding defence cap and leveling

i know at level 80 defence cap is 540 and at 70 its 490. this divides nicely into 5 points per level. is this correct? So if im level 72 i need 500 defence to avoide crits from level ?? bosses.

1 last thing. I have read that wearing tabard in instances will get you rep with the corresponding faction. Do these tabards have to be gained by a quest line or can you just buy them from the quatermaster.

Apologies if any of this has been covered, i did have a good look around the forums but couldnt find any specific info on what i have written.
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Leveling through instances, especially within the first few levels while everyone is playing sure is the best thing to do.
Remember all those World-Server-Downs on TBC - most of the time Instance-Servers were fine...

The Tabard thing:
Most tabards are attainable at Friendly Reputation with the corresponding faction so you'll get them pretty early on.

For the defense thing you're partially correct
at 72 you need 500 Def to be uncrittable against lvl 75 mobs (BOSSES count as playerlvl +3) but ?? could also be +10 levels above you (82 in that case) and those would hurt you kinda bad xD
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Its a good idea, especially if you can get the required tabards early. When you have finished leveling through the instances to 80, you then go back for the cash from the quests.

Having not played the beta or ptr, I am not sure how viable this is though with this expansion.

Barathorn
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Yeh sorry, i thought that might come up about the defence thing. I was trying to base it on bosses in the instances i will be doing while leveling.

but i have just had a thought that they will probably only be my level +2 if i enter them at the right level.
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ahhh so you can only do this in lvl 80 dungeons =/
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Pretty sure all the previous information aluded that the faction gains from tabards would be in addition to the regular faction normally gained.
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From personal experience in the beta, instance leveling is not a good idea in WotLK.

First of all, you don't get nearly as much XP in instances as you do from questing. Even with rested XP, XP in instances was really small. You would be much better off taking that 5-man group and tagging every mob in the area while questing. If the area is crowded, simply move to the next zone. These zones are all really big and there are plenty of quest hubs.

Second, you'll be missing out on some really awesome quests. Blizzard really outdid themselves here.

You'll do whatever you think is best, but I recommend not rushing it. A few world-server-downs is well worth the quest experience you'll be getting. Plus, it'll probably still be faster


Edit: Also, defense isn't much of an issue. I was using tier 5-ish gear + whatever WotLK upgrades I could get my hands on, and boss crits were not a problem until Utgarde Pinnacle and Culling of Stratholme (ie. level 80 instances). Even then, we still cleared those instances with little issue (one wipe in Stratholme, none in Pinnacle).

personally i plan on doing the instances i need gear from in heroic mode on normal mode a few times to get the feel for the pulls and bosses, along with a quick jump start on rep for the tanky tanky rep items.

i agree that questing will always be the way to go unless it's so crowded/laggy that not much can be done. if that's the case just do an instance and check back at your respective quest area.
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