Stratholme and ZF Boosting Tips Needed!

[Razuya]

Hey all, just letting you guys know I boosted my pally and hunter to 42 in SM, now I'm moving on to ZF then Stratholme at 45ish.

Has anyone any tips with boosting tips like LoS spots and which parts to pull to not waste time. I have been boosting on my 70 warrior, he is doing really well.

All tips appreciated. Thanks

[griffin01]

I had previously posted this how-to, so I will stick it here to help out... and as far as ZF... stay in SM until 45... ZF is more pain that its worth.

I understand that you are using a warrior, so basically in your case you do one group at a time with your WW/Cleave/sweeping strikes. I havent done this with a warrior, but I will give you the pally how-to anyhow.

I used a pally for boosting. After SM at 45 I went to strat and entered dead side. I will break down my pulls here.

I numbered each group within the pull.

as a pally make sure you are specced with blessing of sanctuary... my pally is holy pally with really deacent pvp gear (10k health and mana with 800 spell dmg), use your holy fire spell to pull. make sure to watch your cooldowns as this can get you killed if you dont pay attention.

buffs needed:
blessing of sanctuary
divine shield
righteous fury (spec into righteous fury for dmg reduction)
concecration aura
blessing of protection

first pull, 1 to 5, pretty basic and use your divine shield when you have all 5 groups, consecrate, aoe holy wrath (i think thats what its called), and consecrate again... this should make it easy enough to kill all non elites by the time divine shield runs out. than the basic heal and consecrate combo till they die. You use divine shield first so you have it for the next big important pull.

second pull, 1 to 5, make sure you grab the big green fat guy on the way through. on group 5 there should be a corner behind them, this is where you want to be. It helps prevent kick backs from impacting your heals too much. once you are in your corner, you will BoP yourself and once again concecrate, holy wrath, and heal... BoP doesnt give as much time and wont draw in the casters, so you want to make sure you are at full health before it runs out. side note, do not forget to refresh your blessing of sanctuary when you use your BoP.

third pull you want to time it so the green fat guy pats away from you before you pull. the objective is to make sure he does not join the group on this pull. by this time the divine shield cooldown will be ready, so once you make your pull, basically where the 5th group is is where you will begin killing... concecrate, divine shield, holy wrath consecrate, heal. than more consecrate and heal till they are dead.

fourth pull you want to skip the group with the postman... this group is behind first group you are going to pull. skipping for one reason, the postman does snap kick and if you end up pulling all 5 groups here, you will die. anyhow, just to the left of the 4th group is another corner you will want to stick yourself in to ensure you are not being kicked back a massive distance while you are healing. also, use BoP for this one.

fifth pull once again let the green fatty pat away before pulling because he isnt included. this pull your divine shield should once again be ready so pull away, and divine shield... quick kills.

Once you find all the nooks and crannies in this system, you will get it down to a science... the only buggers here are the eye of naxx's that appear and summon gargoyles if you dont kill them in time. They will appear sometimes during a pull, so i find it best sometimes to wait for them to appear and kill them. or you may just get fortunate enough to have them included in your pulls.

So give that a try, and i hope it works out for you as good as it did for me. I took my 3 shammies in there at 45 and got them to 55... in about 4 n a half hours to 5 hours i got them from 51 to 55... so there was some deacent xp (this is before the refer-a-friend)... also with a few setbacks, so if you get it down to avoid those setbacks... good to go.

good luck.

[Coltimar]

There are many nah-sayers about boosting, so I did a test today. I had 7 full hours to play WoW today (<3 mondays). I took the first 3 hours and just boosted my group through stockades. I would drop 1 team member, add my 70 mage, clear, then switch to drop another teammate. I did this for 3 hours and got almost 4 levels.

I sold stuff, repaired, banked the cloth I picked up and D/E'd a few greens.

Then I started doing DM with just my group of 5. I ran the whole place twice in just over two hours and didn't even get a full level. My team is 23-24. I think I am going to follow some advice I read and start with DM graveyard tomorrow.

[Vyndree]

There are many nah-sayers about boosting, so I did a test today. I had 7 full hours to play WoW today (<3 mondays). I took the first 3 hours and just boosted my group through stockades. I would drop 1 team member, add my 70 mage, clear, then switch to drop another teammate. I did this for 3 hours and got almost 4 levels.

I sold stuff, repaired, banked the cloth I picked up and D/E'd a few greens.

Then I started doing DM with just my group of 5. I ran the whole place twice in just over two hours and didn't even get a full level. My team is 23-24. I think I am going to follow some advice I read and start with DM graveyard tomorrow.

Well, for one you're rotating out a member, and two... it sounds like you're either in the wrong level range or you don't have refer-a-friend.

Best boosting levels (IME):
Deadmines - 10-15 (1-1.5 levels per run, 3-4 pulls)
Stockades - 15-20 (1 level per run, 3 pulls)
SM: Cath - 20-35 (1 level per run average, 2-3 pulls -- I play it safe and make my pulls simple -- I don't have figurine of the colossus and I like to watch TV while boosting)
ZF: 35-45 (1-1.5 levels per run, 4 pulls)
Strat: 45-58 (or even 60) (1 level per run, 5 pulls)
Ramparts (for rep, mostly... boosting starts becoming less efficient here): 58-62

You want the mobs to be red to your lowbies. Red = max experience.

Looting is a bottleneck and will slow you down. Don't do it unless you need the items for some reason. You can get gold fast when you're 70.

[griffin01]

hey Vyndree,

if you have a ZF how to, id love to see it since with my pally, i could pull a ton of mobs, but the problem is when they start running away, they never come back so i run out of mana trying to kill them all... or i get hexed and die slowly since hex wont break from dmg.

[Vyndree]

hey Vyndree,

if you have a ZF how to, id love to see it since with my pally, i could pull a ton of mobs, but the problem is when they start running away, they never come back so i run out of mana trying to kill them all... or i get hexed and die slowly since hex wont break from dmg.

I'm waiting on a how-to from others because mine was terribly inefficient. I found that my chance of not dying of boredom every time they healed was directly proportional to the amount of mobs I pull. So I just decided to pull all the way up to the scarabs, then pull the scarabs (whatsisface in the scarab room resets if you're not careful), then do the room with the zombies (clicking on the graves, whee!), then the room with the gauntlet event, then the gauntlet itself, then I pull everything in the instance (Ghaz'rilla's room) on my way out to reset.

Here's a pic I kicked together in MSPaint.



For sanity's sake, I don't suggest people do this with a pally. I did, and I spent AGES killing the little healer mobs. The good news? You can pull a MASSIVE amount of mobs. The bad news? After the melee'ers die, the healers will stick around for like 3x as long -- they just run away, heal to full, come back. Chase the healers down when they run if you actually plan on killing them. Oh, and by the way, the hunters are the ones that will frog you, making you unable to dodge/block/parry until they're done whaling on you. Keep your lowbies out of combat if you expect them to live.

On the last pull, I zone out and reset once the non-healer mobs are dead. It's just not worth my time otherwise.

Oh, and I pull mounted + crusader aura to prevent frogs from happening while I'm pulling.


I don't recommend people do this "my way", it's just the way I did it. :P

[Coltimar]

I don't have RAF accounts. I thought about referring and transferring but it's a lot of cash to deal out :/ I am in the right level range.

[Razuya]

Could I start Strat at 44?

[Vyndree]

Minimum level to zone into Strat is 45.

[Razuya]

Ahh damn, that explains it then.

Oh well, a few more runs of SM can't hurt, I guess...

Would my 70 warrior do alright boosting in Strath? He's good fairly good gear. 3/5 S3 gear. Has Stormherald w/ Executioner too.