"Twinking" or leveling, which would be faster

[Xuluman]

So I was wondering what would be best (as in most bearable). Just leveling with crap gear and having a horrible time (because, you have to admit, vanilla is damn unforgiving). I have found a good guide (jame's). Or doing instances over and over again until you get some good gear and then level up until you can do the next instance. I thought of the following order: Dead Mines -> Gnomeregan -> Scarlet Monastery -> Uldaman -> Maraudon -> Zul'farrak -> Blackrock depths -> end game/pre-raiding blues (basically what you would do anyways, at least for alliance). What do you think? I only started playing during Wrath and wanted to know what vanilla is all about.

[Miv]

Grinding/Questing is probably better as this version of vanilla that the server is simulating doesn't have group xp bonuses yet. I would do the dungeons once, with the quest, as a substitute for grinding to compliment questing, hope for loot but not worry too much about it, then continue on.

[Ganjo]

You seem to be confusing twinking with instance grinding. Twinking is the process of leveling a character for use in BG's (10-19, 20-29, etc.). Instance grinding is not that good in vanilla unless you only grind with rested xp. In this version you do not get a group bonus and all XP is split in the party.

[toolshed]

If you want to level the fastest, questing on a pve server is by far the quickest. However, your gear will suck comparatively to someone who was instance grinding. Also, you will be ganked/pvped a lot, so that can be frustrating.

If you want the best gear, instance grinding is the best. However, you will level a lot slower than someone who was just solo questing and PUGing can be very annoying.

If you have a great group of friends to play with and dont have to PUG often, then I would instance grind because 1) your gear will be great, 2) you dont have to worry about pvp, and 3) you will gel as a group and be able to tackle the hardest dungeons once you hit 60. Solo questing to 60 can be rewarding and fast on a pve server, but remember that Nost is a pvp server: be prepared to move around outside of your questing guide due to people camping your corpse (you will probably have to grind)

[Miv]

You seem to be confusing twinking with instance grinding. Twinking is the process of leveling a character for use in BG's (10-19, 20-29, etc.). Instance grinding is not that good in vanilla unless you only grind with rested xp. In this version you do not get a group bonus and all XP is split in the party.

Even if you go with rested XP. That rested XP would be better spent solo grinding. (Unless you are going to the dungeon once for the quest xp to compliment your actual questing and skip some grinding)

[norm964bgb]

I would start running dungeons more than once at ~lvl40.
Everything else is just too fast to grow out of.
Do every dungeon once, get your questrewards but dont bother with getting stuff.
At level 40 its different. When being warrior you can get out of SM:
Herod shoulders, scarlet leggings, divine gauntlets, mograines shield, berserker helm.
So much stuff that will serve you for quite some levels.

[Mopar]

Keeping your gear up to date will make your levelling experience much easier, especially for melee classes (your weapon is your best friend.) You can do this with instance, or buying items from the AH.