Best and easiest starting zones for WoW Classic Hardcore

WoW Classic Hardcore presents an entirely new challenge for World of Warcraft players—one where your character permanently dies if your HP ever falls to zero. Every breath your character takes is precious, and one wrong step could completely end your run. 

Experienced WoW Classic players—especially those who played the community-run version of Hardcore—might already have their starting zone and leveling route figured out in their heads, but players dipping their toes into the new game mode for the first time might have some figuring out to do. 

That’s why starting your journey in a safe spot and making sure you keep to zones with minimal threats is going to be advantageous for leveling. Although it’s obviously much easier to lose a character in the later stages of their questing adventure, dying in a starting zone is something that happens. 

Here are the easiest starting zones in WoW Classic that will help you get your Hardcore leveling process off on the right foot. 

Tirisfal Glades

Compared to the grind-heavy nature of Durotar and the grueling vastness of Mulgore, Tirisfal Glades is the easiest starting zone for Horde players to quest through. The mobs there won’t have you fighting for your life, and the quests are straightforward enough to keep you on the right track. Within a few hours of playtime, you should mindlessly reach level 10 and start moving into other Horde-controlled zones. 

Dun Morogh

Dun Morogh, home of the dwarves and gnomes, is the easiest of the three Alliance starting zones. There’s more than enough experience to go around, and there aren’t too many dangerous caves that will tank your Hardcore runs if you encounter a large number of mobs with no way out. As long as you’re able to safely navigate Dun Morogh’s high-density subzones—like its troll camps and wendigo hideouts—it will be kind to you. After completing its quests and getting to about level 10 or 11, you can move over to Loch Modan, which is arguably the best zone in the game when it comes to an experience-difficulty ratio. 

Related: ‘We go where the people are’: WoW Classic Hardcore devs promise to put community first

Elwynn Forest

We debated putting Elwynn Forest on this list, as the zone has enough dangerous qualities to take many lives during the early phases of players’ Hardcore runs. Areas like the Fargodeep Mine and Forest’s Edge are home to difficult enemies stacked on top of each other, but if you manage to play through them gingerly (or skip them altogether), Elwynn has enough free experience to keep you chugging through the leveling process.