Efficiency mass leveling until WOTLK

[Mendicant]

Before you start reading the block that follows, let me say that I wrote this as much for me, to outline my thoughts, as for others to see it and comment on it/pick it apart. I'll warn you, its long, and probably really boring. Here it goes...

I'm considering starting over. When I was leveling my shamans here, they were my 3rd characters I brought to 70. And it was tough. The toughness of it was softened by the novelty of everything dying so fast, but still I felt a little stressed. When I hit 70 with them I knew there was no way I was going to level another group to 70 in the foreseeable future-- the amount of time and effort involved just wasn't appealing. But now with this RAF offer (yes, this is another RAF-based thread), I feel the urge to go for it, and level as many groups as I can before WOTLK.

Here's my reasoning:
1. 300% xp on an already softened trek 1-60 will make it more enjoyable. I used to get frustrated by how slow it was (I know, I know, many other MMOs are even slower).
2. If I was gearing my 70s instead of leveling new characters, when WOTLK comes out, all that grinding would be made obsolete (thus time wasted).
3. I really would love to have more different groups/characters. There are so many classes I would love to try.

And so, I have begun to undertake a great deal of planning. What groups do I want to get there? How will I do it? How can I best use those bonus levels? and so forth.

Characters I would like to have:
1. the option of having any healer and tank combination with any ranged-DPS team.
2. at least one of every class
3. The option to have a party 4 of any ranged dps, and 5 of any healer/caster hybrid (shamans, priests, druids)

The challenge here is finding group compositions will fit into the above conditions while being effective at leveling. First off, the most logical way to work the RAF system would be: Account 1 refers account 2 refers account 3 refers account 4 refers account 5-- thus each account 1 through 4 would receive equal bonus levels, while account 5 receives none (a regrettable necessity).

Here is what I have come up with: in all cases, the first character mentioned is account 1, and the last is account 5.
(H) means I would gear it with healing gear
(D) means I would gear it with dps gear (ranged)
(T) means I would gear it with tanking gear

1. Time-tested shamans and paladin tank setup. Highly effective in pve.
paladin (T/H)
shaman (D)
shaman (D)
shaman (D)
shaman (D/H)

2. Hunters and shaman healer, thus allowing a 5-shaman team as well. I have wanted to try this for a while... 4 pets seem really nice.
shaman (H/D)
hunter (D)
hunter (D)
hunter (D)
hunter (D)

3. All-druid team. This also seemed like an interesting makeup, as it could work as a stealth-team. I forsee the no ooc rez to be a be annoyance though. Having both top and bottom druid with tanking and healing gear provides a measure of flexibility. Now any of the previous groups can use a druid as a tank or healer.
druid (T/H/D)
druid (D)
druid (D)
druid (D)
druid (H/T/D)

4. Priest w/ Warlocks, heavy shadow team. Another team I've wanted to try. The apparent synergy between shadow-priest (or even holy priest) with warlocks seems really powerful. Additionally, this opens up the priest for the other teams as healer (if so desired). The way it is laid out, it allows the opportunity for paladin-warlocks-priest for instances later on.
warlock (D)
warlock (D)
warlock (D)
warlock (D)
priest (H/D)

5. 4x priests. I am not convinced of the viability of an all-priest team. While their sustained-damage capabilities would likely be impressive, they are too squishy for instances later on. Rather than bother with a full 5-man team, later on I could borrow the priest from the 4-warlock team to have 5 of them, thus allowing me to experiment with the idea. This team would be leveled with bonus levels.
priest (H/D)
priest (D)
priest (D)
priest (D)

6. 4x mages. Partial group. I will be using bonus levels to get this group to 60.
mage (D)
mage (D)
mage (D)
mage (D)

7. Conglomerate melee. I don't cherish the idea of leveling a melee team, and as I said Iwould like to have one of each class if only for solo play, so the odd men out will fit here. This will also be using bonus levels to get to 60. Additionally, this opens up a warrior as a tank for other groups.
warrior (D/T)
rogue (D)
paladin (D/T)
shaman (D-enh) <- any class could go here, it is a free space (DK?)

And that is it. Seems like a lot! 7 teams! But really it isn't with the bonus levels and 3x xp. Now the question is: how best to level them? First I would only be leveling them to 60. This works for several reasons: (oh god not another list 8| )
1) 300% xp stops at 60.
2) By stopping at 60 and playing other characters, it allows rested xp to stack up.
3) When WOTLK it is believed that 60-70 will be made 30% or so easier.

So, let's say I take 4 groups to 60 (equal to taking 1 and 1/3 group to 60 pre-RAF-offer), the bonus levels from them will take 2 more groups there. That leaves one group. But! What if I stretch the levels? 120 bonus levels spread over 3 groups = 40 bonus levels per group. Leveling a group to 20 would take no time at all... a few hours at most! So I would take all of the odd teams (5, 6, 7) and level them the old fashioned way to 20, then use the levels to top them out at 60.

How long would this take total, for all those 60s?
It takes, what, no more than 5 hours to achieve level 20 now, and in the old days it took maybe 6 days to get to 60. 4x 1/3 of 6 days = 9 days. So for under 10 days played I would get no less than 7 groups (a total of 32 characters) to 60, allowing me to have any combination of healer/ranged-dps/tank, or ranged-dps/healer, as well as at least one character of every class.

Additionally, by the time this all gets done, the first few characters I got to 60 would be on full rested xp, ready to blast through the first few levels of outlands. Even better, WOTLK may have come out by then, making outlands even easier!

Now that you have ready that block of text (TL/DR), I would like to hear from you-- flaws in my plans, improvements I could make, better team composition, whatever! I would really appreciate any feedback on this.

[Zub]

(thus time wasted)
This made me smile. Not sure what is *not* time wasted in wow :-)

Sounds like you're reallly making this *game* alot of *work* for you. are you sure it's all worth it? Keep some steam to level up a DK group.

[Mendicant]

(thus time wasted)
This made me smile. Not sure what is *not* time wasted in wow :-)

Sounds like you're reallly making this *game* alot of *work* for you. are you sure it's all worth it? Keep some steam to level up a DK group.

Heh, we all play this game for different reasons. Some of us just enjoy min/maxing to the best of our intelligence... number games server as an outlet for my stupid brain, and wow is nothing if not a number game.

But besides that, I'm not the only person who will feel a little "ripped off" when all the gear we've gathered at 70 is made obsolete before 79... and I'm not all that geared (I only started playing WoW like 6 months ago).

[Sam DeathWalker]

So for under 10 days played I would get no less than 7 groups (a total of 32 characters) to 60

This game is insane easy .... My EQ chanter has 200 days played and is level 77 of 80 ... well has 480 AA also ...

http://eqplayers.station.sony.com/character_profile.vm?characterId=631360196499

Well I have 7 battlechests now, and the other 20 shipped today so ...



But! What if I stretch the levels? 120 bonus levels spread over 3 groups = 40 bonus levels per group. Leveling a group to 20 would take no time at all... a few hours at most! So I would take all of the odd teams (5, 6, 7) and level them the old fashioned way to 20, then use the levels to top them out at 60.

Ya thats true if your giver is 60 you would do a lot better to level to 20 (or even 30 ...).

Level up 2 groups to 60 and 4 to 30 then top them ...

[Kyudo]

I've said this before, but I've pretty much had it with levelling. I'm not bothering with RAF, I cant justify the extra cost to myself.

At present (or at least by the end of the month), I'll have a character base that'll allow me to run 4 separate teams from 70-80, when you include the addition of a couple of DK's.

This already scares the hell out of me. It'll take me at least a year to get them all to 80 I reckon, especially if I spend any significant time actually gearing up the ones that end up being the "main" (most likely still the shammies).

Any more than this just makes no practical sense for my purposes, I'll just loose focus.

But hey, that's just me... and I've said this before and gone back on it... so dont quote me.

[Frosty]

I can't justify the cost either. I have so little play time, that it just doesn't seem like a good investment.
Now if it stayed 300% forever, then I might change my mind.

As it is, I barely have time for 1, there is no way I could do more. :P

[Mendicant]

This already scares the hell out of me. It'll take me at least a year to get them all to 80 I reckon, especially if I spend any significant time actually gearing up the ones that end up being the "main" (most likely still the shammies).

Any more than this just makes no practical sense for my purposes, I'll just loose focus.

But hey, that's just me... and I've said this before and gone back on it... so dont quote me.

OOooo I quoted you.

Actually this is a point I've thought of myself... it is very possible I will get tired of leveling, and even if I get all the groups I want to 60, it is highly unlikely I will take them all to 80, or even 70... but at least (if I can just follow through with these groups) I will have goten everyone I ever want to 60 by the time the 90-day boost is over.

[Gigatron]

I'm in the same boat, contemplating making use of the 90 days of RAF and getting a few more groups to 60 and then building up rest xp. Now, over the weekend I managed to get one group to 53 with 1 day, 17 hours played. So I'm thinking next weekend I'll do another group. :D

[Mendicant]

I'm in the same boat, contemplating making use of the 90 days of RAF and getting a few more groups to 60 and then building up rest xp. Now, over the weekend I managed to get one group to 53 with 1 day, 17 hours played. So I'm thinking next weekend I'll do another group. :D

Wow that is nice :O
Q: did you get boosted at all, or is that all just questing?

[Dominian]

(thus time wasted)
This made me smile. Not sure what is *not* time wasted in wow :-)

Sounds like you're reallly making this *game* alot of *work* for you. are you sure it's all worth it? Keep some steam to level up a DK group.

Heh, we all play this game for different reasons. Some of us just enjoy min/maxing to the best of our intelligence... number games server as an outlet for my stupid brain, and wow is nothing if not a number game.

But besides that, I'm not the only person who will feel a little "ripped off" when all the gear we've gathered at 70 is made obsolete before 79... and I'm not all that geared (I only started playing WoW like 6 months ago).

10 new levels and new gear means that everyone can start over wich i enjoy since i can basicly reroll to paladin,warlock,warrior,rogue,druid. Even thought all besides my warlock holds nearly full S1 gear! I will most likley start with my paladin and 4 of my shamans. I honestly cant see whats bad with a new start and not to speak of that the late launch of TBC nearly killed every guild on my server... The supply of new raiders with good enough gear killed guild after guild and forced them into guilds with better progress because most people werent willing to go BWL and AQ 40 to gear people more.. Dooing bwl and mc for a year on farm killed the fun for me and it always ended in a wipefest because people didnt pay attention in the instances we had on farm.

I look forward to not beeing eaten by people with full S3/S4 on my blue geared alts even thought it will happen at some point in wotlk i can smack them flat with my 5 shamans. :)

[Mendicant]

(thus time wasted)
This made me smile. Not sure what is *not* time wasted in wow :-)

Sounds like you're reallly making this *game* alot of *work* for you. are you sure it's all worth it? Keep some steam to level up a DK group.

Heh, we all play this game for different reasons. Some of us just enjoy min/maxing to the best of our intelligence... number games server as an outlet for my stupid brain, and wow is nothing if not a number game.

But besides that, I'm not the only person who will feel a little "ripped off" when all the gear we've gathered at 70 is made obsolete before 79... and I'm not all that geared (I only started playing WoW like 6 months ago).

10 new levels and new gear means that everyone can start over wich i enjoy since i can basicly reroll to paladin,warlock,warrior,rogue,druid. Even thought all besides my warlock holds nearly full S1 gear! I will most likley start with my paladin and 4 of my shamans. I honestly cant see whats bad with a new start and not to speak of that the late launch of TBC nearly killed every guild on my server... The supply of new raiders with good enough gear killed guild after guild and forced them into guilds with better progress because most people werent willing to go BWL and AQ 40 to gear people more.. Dooing bwl and mc for a year on farm killed the fun for me and it always ended in a wipefest because people didnt pay attention in the instances we had on farm.

I look forward to not beeing eaten by people with full S3/S4 on my blue geared alts even thought it will happen at some point in wotlk i can smack them flat with my 5 shamans. :)

This is exactly what I mean... I'm trying to turn a frustrating situation (the impending gear-equalization that is WOTLK and the 300% "hey, lets let everyone have some free 60s" RAF shenanigans) and make the best out of it. At this point I don't see any alternative... either I could continue gearing my current 70s and have all that "work" wasted or I could use it to achieve some things I've always wanted to try.

By using the new RAF and leveling characters til WOTLK I avoid increasing the "well-damn-all-that-gear-I-got-is-useless-now" effect and actually turn it around to work in my favor. Whereas before all these new characters would be months (or years) behind everyone else in gear, now everyone is equal.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

This is exactly what I mean... I'm trying to turn a frustrating situation (the impending gear-equalization that is WOTLK and the 300% "hey, lets let everyone have some free 60s" RAF shenanigans) and make the best out of it. At this point I don't see any alternative... either I could continue gearing my current 70s and have all that "work" wasted or I could use it to achieve some things I've always wanted to try.

By using the new RAF and leveling characters til WOTLK I avoid increasing the "well-damn-all-that-gear-I-got-is-useless-now" effect and actually turn it around to work in my favor. Whereas before all these new characters would be months (or years) behind everyone else in gear, now everyone is equal.
This is pretty much what I'm doing, too. Getting my groups up to 70 (have mages and locks + pally/priest at 70, shammy group at 65 so far) and leveling the other groups I've wanted to play for a while but hadn't due to slow leveling. By the time mid-November hits, I plan to have locks, mages, hunters, druids, shammies and a mix of some other stuff all at 70 so I can pretty much go do whatever I wanna do any time I wanna AND have 5 or more groups that I can run through the quick&easy daily quests for mad cash if there's something a vendor or AH has for sale that I'd really like to have. I tend to develop acute alt-itis right about time my groups hit 70, so it'll be interesting to see what I end up doing once I've leveled just about everything there is to level up to 70. :P

[Jaws5]

I understand , boy do I understand.

The problem I have is having grps on pve and pvp servers. I like playing on both but wish I had same toons on one server.

This softens the pvp server lvling grind.

What makes shy is that bliz may offer at a cost or promotion new chars at lvl 55.

They are doing this for the DK now in Nov.

PVE players will be able to make a lvl 55 DK on a pvp server (oh the joy)


So in about April -June they will offer it to other chars for a fee or promotion to RAF or smothing

They have done it for mounts , PVP gear , PVE gear, raids , it will soften and change.

But its a game and we don't have to play right!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:)

[Kyudo]

I predict that at some point, probably about 6 months after Wrath's release, they'll make the 3xXP thing universal anyway, otherwise you wont see many bothering with the whole slog from 1-80. I think the RAF system is just a sign of things to come.

[Sam DeathWalker]

I am sure every new class will be "heroic" and start at level 55 from now on ....

In fact they just might make "heroic" classes out of their current classes.

[skarlot]

well i bought 5x battlechests, totally forgot about the trial month thing, enabled them so I could make my own guild, then read about RAF the next day. How is my timing.. ;(

[Mendicant]

well i bought 5x battlechests, totally forgot about the trial month thing, enabled them so I could make my own guild, then read about RAF the next day. How is my timing.. ;(

Oh man I feel for you :(

[Mendicant]

This is exactly what I mean... I'm trying to turn a frustrating situation (the impending gear-equalization that is WOTLK and the 300% "hey, lets let everyone have some free 60s" RAF shenanigans) and make the best out of it. At this point I don't see any alternative... either I could continue gearing my current 70s and have all that "work" wasted or I could use it to achieve some things I've always wanted to try.

By using the new RAF and leveling characters til WOTLK I avoid increasing the "well-damn-all-that-gear-I-got-is-useless-now" effect and actually turn it around to work in my favor. Whereas before all these new characters would be months (or years) behind everyone else in gear, now everyone is equal.
This is pretty much what I'm doing, too. Getting my groups up to 70 (have mages and locks + pally/priest at 70, shammy group at 65 so far) and leveling the other groups I've wanted to play for a while but hadn't due to slow leveling. By the time mid-November hits, I plan to have locks, mages, hunters, druids, shammies and a mix of some other stuff all at 70 so I can pretty much go do whatever I wanna do any time I wanna AND have 5 or more groups that I can run through the quick&easy daily quests for mad cash if there's something a vendor or AH has for sale that I'd really like to have. I tend to develop acute alt-itis right about time my groups hit 70, so it'll be interesting to see what I end up doing once I've leveled just about everything there is to level up to 70. :P

Awesome :)

Which group are you most excited to level? Personally I really want to try the 5x druid team now. I wonder how difficult it will be to stealth through portions of instances... and also how cool will 5x moonfire spams be? haha.

[KoopaKing]

You do know you need to begrouped with the account you recruiting and the new account can only grant lvls to the verteran account? I am interested to see how you will link the accounts to make granting the lvls possible.

[Taunto]

well i bought 5x battlechests, totally forgot about the trial month thing, enabled them so I could make my own guild, then read about RAF the next day. How is my timing.. ;(


Eh, my timing seems pretty bad too.

I've already leveled five shamans, warlocks, mages, hunters, and druids to 70, and the priests and rogues are almost there (67 and 61).

I know I'm not the only one to feel like my time commitment was made trivial by this RAF promotion.

[shaeman]

I know I'm not the only one to feel like my time commitment was made trivial by this RAF promotion.

So did you gain no joy from having all these teams. Did you have no fun with them whatsoever? Was there no reward in levelling these teams other than the fact that you were able to put up with a hell of a lot of boring grinding/boosting? Whereas others will now be able to get there with a bit less boring grinding.

I'm just trying to say that just because they've made it easier it doesn't trivialise what you achieved. You'll always know that you did it the hard way. It doesn't take away the hours of fun you had playing these teams at max level (You did have fun didn't you?)

[aNiMaL]

I've been having this doubt for a while aswell, what to do when the shammies hit 70.
Gear 'm or level the druid team.

Now that I got them to 70 first thing I'll get is my epic flyers,
then grind rep to get 5 dragons,
in the meantime try some heroics and such and by the end of the year i'll probably still haven't touched my druid team.

As long as you're having fun, the time isn't "wasted"

And what's a better way to waste time,
Sit on the couch watching as the world turns or whatever crap the tv is showing; or
actually have fun.

[Taunto]

I know I'm not the only one to feel like my time commitment was made trivial by this RAF promotion.

So did you gain no joy from having all these teams. Did you have no fun with them whatsoever? Was there no reward in levelling these teams other than the fact that you were able to put up with a hell of a lot of boring grinding/boosting? Whereas others will now be able to get there with a bit less boring grinding.

I'm just trying to say that just because they've made it easier it doesn't trivialise what you achieved. You'll always know that you did it the hard way. It doesn't take away the hours of fun you had playing these teams at max level (You did have fun didn't you?)


I'd agree if that were the case, but I haven't had hours of fun playing most of these teams at max level; I leveled the majority of them in preparation for WotLK, planning to play them at level 80 instead of so late into TBC.

If I'd had the benefit of this program, I could have achieved the same thing in a tiny fraction of the time, and I would love to have that time back.

Early adopters in technology are often affected in similar ways when buying the latest and greatest gadgets, but they do it with their eyes open knowing that the prices will eventually drop, and the extra money they spent can be compared to the value they got for having the gadget early. However, when the price drops too much or too soon, the early adopters feel burned and punished by the company; a great recent example is the outrage that occurred when the iPhone had a huge price drop (1/3) just two months after the product was released.

In this case, the end products are characters rather than iPhones, and our cost is time rather than money. The cost just dropped a shocking amount (2/3) and with no hint that something of this magnitude was coming. The normal reductions in xp/level, as is coming in WotLK for everyone, is to be expected, and this was not. I ended up paying three times as much for something and am feeling a bit burned for having so recently paid so high a price, which is a fairly universal reaction to the circumstance.

[Mendicant]

You do know you need to begrouped with the account you recruiting and the new account can only grant lvls to the verteran account? I am interested to see how you will link the accounts to make granting the lvls possible.

I mentioned this in the OP:
account 1 raf'd by a friend
account 2 raf'd by account 1
account 3 raf'd by account 2
account 4 raf'd by account 3
account 5 raf'd by account 4

accounts 1-4 will receive bonus levels
they will all be grouped together, and since they each have a raf relationship with each other they should all receive the benefit.

[hpinf]

I like your style man, I was thinking about doing about the same thing. My main account has rogue/lock/mage/priest at 60+ with a few other sprinkled in. Then i get 4 more accounts and do all shams, all priests, all hunters, ... maybe fill out a group with all mages if I have time. Then use auto-levels to fill in classes. It leaves you with 1 (main) account which has 1 of each class and 4 support accounts that have anything you'd need to fill out the group. It's a brilliant strategy! :p

[Lyonheart]

well i bought 5x battlechests, totally forgot about the trial month thing, enabled them so I could make my own guild, then read about RAF the next day. How is my timing.. ;(


Eh, my timing seems pretty bad too.

I've already leveled five shamans, warlocks, mages, hunters, and druids to 70, and the priests and rogues are almost there (67 and 61).

I know I'm not the only one to feel like my time commitment was made trivial by this RAF promotion.

I did the same thing for the future other half of my 10 man team. But i just said "F it!" and closed those 5 acnts and got new ones to RAF with. But i had done nothing more than set up a few teams with macros/names and no levels yet. So i wasted about 200 bucks on the boxes.. but I don't care.. this 3xexp is sweet! And money "aint nut'n but a tang" 8)

[Taunto]

I did the same thing for the future other half of my 10 man team. But i just said "F it!" and closed those 5 acnts and got new ones to RAF with. But i had done nothing more than set up a few teams with macros/names and no levels yet. So i wasted about 200 bucks on the boxes.. but I don't care.. this 3xexp is sweet! And money "aint nut'n but a tang" 8)


Yeah, I would have done the same thing as you in that situation. Heck, even if I had leveled 30 of my 35 boxing chars and only had one team to level I'd have gotten new accounts, it's just that they're all leveled and there's no point. When looking at the benefit in terms of dollars per hour saved, the cost is pretty much a joke.

Just curious -- what is the other half of your 10-man team?

[Mendicant]

When looking at the benefit in terms of dollars per hour saved, the cost is pretty much a joke.

Agreed. About $150 saves you about 4.5 days of play time per group you level to 60... because with bonus levels it's more like 500% xp.

[rnm632]

Very interesting read. I am also part of the unfortunate group of players that bought multiple accounts (3) just before the RAF was released. I am tempted to scrap them and start over and level as many groups that I can but like others here its a money issue.

[Perrigrin]

Very interesting read. I am also part of the unfortunate group of players that bought multiple accounts (3) just before the RAF was released. I am tempted to scrap them and start over and level as many groups that I can but like others here its a money issue.

Me to :( But o well -- Will see how much time there is until Lich King is out when 'the grins' hit 70, and maybe RAF another team or 2 by then.