About boosting
I guess this is the correct term for it; leveling your lowbies by using a main toon to power through quests and dungeons.
My newbs, pally, mage, and lock started life off together with the pally taking the role as leader. I did the lowbie quests, learned first hand how excrutiating collection quests are, giggled everytime my team spread out in their formation and began obliderating mobs. So life was good. I think i have a bit of a problem when it comes to planning and executing where I spend too much time in the planning stage and never try to do anythign unless i think it's perfect. So I just mindlessly grinded and told myself I'd learn how to play each class and plan out the button/interface arrangement in one fell swoop.
I made it all the way to the 30s before I realized I didn't know mcuh about my mage/lock because I just used one DD button with them and used /castsequence and added abilities as they learned them. So I started solo questing with each for a bit, but even then I looked at my interface, and when I started putting abilities on buttons, i started thinking, "no, that's where taunt goes with the warrior, and taunt mixed with searing pain isn't a good idea" So even while soloing I was clicking, and putting off the master plan until later. Clicking sucks, and i ended up just doing the same thing i was doing while multiboxing, i just used a handful of abilities that got me through the grinding. So at around 35 I gave up on soloing each toon and decided it was time for SM, one of my favorite instances.
At the time I used a PC that could load 4 copies of wow rather painfully. I jammed the warrior (70) in the trio and thought, "now to arrange buttons" but when i went to SM my warrior just obliterated everything so fast that i didn't even need the alts to do anything but stay outta trouble. Leveling was fast and the loot was good.
Mid 30's to 40 - Scarlet monestary.
I basically pulled everything I could and hoped the retribution aura would help keep mobs away from my newbs since the war takes awhile to build threat on a dozen enemies. I just did the wings until i got the loot i wanted from each, and then I consentrated on the Cathedral after i had all the loot because it was the best exp.
Once I hit 40 it was time for Zul'F in the desert. I ran this instance until around 45 doing the associated quests. Except the carrot on a stick quest, i didn't go outta my way to get the mallet. It was at this time that i had to spec my paladin out of retro and into holy. I didn't want to do that, because i kept telling myself I'd solo with each class a bit and learn it, but my warrior was starting to get hurt by the large pulls i got in the habit of doing in SM and the pally was running outta mana. Boy was I happy after I did that though.
At around 44-45 I was getting really tired of ZF and I moved to Maraudon. This instance is like 43 to 49 now. The princess used to be like 50 or 51, so I could have gotten away with going there earlier. I'm glad I stuck to ZF though, Marau is big, with lots of non-elites taht give crap for exp, and once you clear it you have to die to get out and reset the instance. I think i toughed it out until around 47 or 48 when i went to sunken temple.
Sunken temple is where i started subing out my pallys plate for all the caster gear i could find. Cloth, leather, chain, it's all fair game. I actually had to drink a bit and i started to feel my newbs were contributing more. Still not enough to slow down and make a good button setup. At around 49 it was off to blackrock depths, another one of my favs.
I didn't bother going to get the BRD quests in burning steppes. I couldn't quite remember where they all were and I'm playnig a non-enlish language version of wow so it's just too much work for me to look up quests and locate the right NPCs. I did get the skullforge key (brd key) quest after running back to my body from a wipe. it's great exp and i recommend it since it's on the way to a corpse retrival. Never had to use soulstone much before BRD, but now i had to. Wiping was too prevalent, and it was mainly due to not learnign how to play my newbs before and neglecting to set up a healing arrangement. Did I stop to do any of this now? No, outlands is just around the corner and I'm so tired of non-bc content that i kept pushing on even with the frustrations.
At 56 I paid the first mage I saw to port my newbs to outland. I went to all the profession trainers to raise the caps and then congregated at Thrallamar (the horde place in hellfire). My shaman was 62 and just dying to join teh team, but i still hadn't bought my new quad core yet so he was gonna have to wait. I was a bit nervous about trying ramps at 56, even with my 70 war leading the way. My war is still in pre-tbc warlords PVP gear and t2ish stuff. I took her to 70 while playing my other 2 warriors in US servers. (I left the US servers after attempting to quit wow shortly after discovering this site, I knew if i tried to multi-box i'd jsut get re-obsessed and spend a fortune. I fought it off for a month, but then decided to return to Chinese language servers to start my multiboxing group. that's why i'm rusty with Horde and why my 70 war is still in crappy gear)
So I took the trio into ramps with my war. My poor poor poor mage. I think she died on every pull with those big orcs that do the knockback and drop agro. Kept gettign one shotted. So here I am, in ramps with 3 toons under level and no real solid button arrangement to control everyone. To try and make another already long story short. I've successfully cleared ramps with the 56 toons, but not after some haphazard solutions. Currently, I can do ramps with my eyes closed (the newbs are 60 now, by doing nothing but ramps and have 5999/6000 rep and haven't touched a quest), but I still have no clue how to use my new characters to their fullest potential. I actually started doing /castrandom with the mage and lock just to get a wider range of spells flying around.
In summary, new boxers don't be afraid to just wing-it a bit and start using skills and abilities as you get them. I was obsessed with having a master plan, but I was also so obsessed wtih leveling I didn't do it and now I have toons that have a huge array of skills and I'm just not familiar with them. Boosting is a great way to level, but i really wish I would have just made 4 toons, threw in a healer and leveled the 4 together without the constant babysitting. I suppose it's easy to say that now, since I got my toons to 60 in a couple weeks, but I'm just not familiar with the characters at my disposal now.
I litterally leveled from the mid 30's to 60 through nothing but instances. I did like 5 or 6 quests.
I never did do my master plan. And I still have no clue how to play each class solo on its own. (except the war and shaman. but even the shaman I had to destroy his interface for multiboxing) Right now I'm hung up on the warrior. I use too many buttons for the warrior and I don't have space for the other toons. I can't find an xkeys pro in my city, but i picked up a g15. I want to switch the warrior for a pally and then with the pally at the helm, make a whole new interface designed with multiboxing my toons in mind.
One of the hardest things that I had to do was change my mindset to not think, "warrior abilities, pally abilities, warlock abilities" but to think of all 5 characters together as one toon. All the extra characters' abilties are just an extention of my main. Once I started thinking like that I was more comfortable with the way everything was working together. And i'll have to keep thinking like that and just redesign everything from the ground up.
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