WoW Killer said:
There's a couple of bottlenecks in particular. I can't remember the names of the areas, but after the first hold you get to you end up repeating this one escort quest a number of times. The next lowest event is where the champion troll sometimes spawns (there's a bandit quest as well), and that's usually a fair bit higher level by the time you can get there. I've always ended up farming random Drakes in the river for 1-2 levels as there's nothing else to do. A bit later on there's the one town where you have to clear up the graffiti, and south of that is an event chain with centaurs taking various places; each time I've gone through that bit I've had to repeat that chain a few times before going further. Like I said, last time I went through the lot and ended up as level 12 in the swamp (I'd done most of the story quests too). Next after that would be Kessex Hills which is 15+. Just my experience, but in the Asura start zone there always seemed to be something level appropriate.
Well, I should probably be clear that a mix of activities appears to be required in order to level without ever having to repeat a dynamic event or sidebar into another starting area.
1. You need to do the entire dynamic event chain, and not just one phase of it. This was my first error during BWE 1 and 2. It often feels "over" when in fact it's just on one of say, 4 stages.
2. You need to craft and gather. Crafting alone is worth 25% of your entire experience from 1-80, assuming you take 2 crafting skills. That's a big shortfall if you don't craft.
3. You need to be tagging all the points and vistas. Doing the home city helps as well. I did 3 homes cities on one character and nothing else, and got to level 8.
4. You need to do your personal story as it comes up.
Those four things should take anyone through without having to kill drakes for 2 levels, or do the same escort quest 10 times in a row, or anything like that. Throw in WvWvW and XP spikes dramatically, but that's a horse of a different color. After BWE1 and BWE2 I felt that XP was too slow and that I needed to repeat things in order to progress through an area. After BWE3 I almost feel like it's a little on the fast side. I do anticipate that your sentiments are going to get shared at release though, and that "There is no content/this is grindy/not enough XP" will be one of the three top forum gripes in the first few weeks post release.
