Is it better to Quest or Grind while multiboxing?

[Totemall]

I know it sounds stupid but what would go faster? If questing is easier please let me know how I can get my clone to loot or do I have to click on his screen.

[Oatboat]

Quest but skip collections.

Depending on your setup. if you have only 2 toons you can do collections easily. What are you dualboxing with? Software/Hardware?
Set up interact with target and assist and you've got a looter for slave.

[Starbuck_Jones]

RAF - Grind
Rested xp - Grind
no rested - quest

[Sam DeathWalker]

RAF - Grind
Rested xp - Grind
no rested - quest

If I said the same thing there would be 5 pages of people saying how stupid I am.

Assuming rested or Raf:

Instance boosting is actually the best if you have an existing high level account. But its "not working as intended" so do you want to learn a techniqe that will be nerfed at some point?

Then tag boosting if you have more then say 8 accounts, over 10 accounts then for sure.

Then normal grinding, for sure levels 60-69, although some say quests for 1-59 and 70-80 is best but I have to question that.

Fastest RAF method for 5 boxers ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&postID=199155&highlight=deathwalker+raf+fastest#post199155')

Tag Boosting ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=20126')

[Jafula]

Quest but skip collections.This. I think. :)

I don't understand the merits of grinding. You get so much xp from handing in quests. If you are RAF'ing 3xQuest XP is worth it. Plus with grinding, I'd get bored real fast.

Having said that, AOE grinding fast respawning mobs might be lucrative if you can find suitable mobs at your level.

You could also try following some levelling guides (even if they are not built for multiboxers).

[mikekim]

They only way I have ever found grinding to be feasable is when you have a higher toon to kill quickly and normally you are boosting in instances to offset the xp reduction from the boosting toon.

as for normal world grinding (non instance) I would not even consider doing this past 60 and onto 80 as this would take forever (bearing in mind that 90% of the kills i have made in Northrend starting zones only give between 430-550k per kill), but the main turning point would be that without questing none of the dailies would open up at later levels

[Dominian]

If you happen to know were to go and what level to go there i would say questing is on par with boosting from 1-60, and sure hell WAY less boring.

I got to 60 without doing a singel collection quest, just kill quests. (well i did thoose who drops one item on all chars) I think it was done in 24 hours played but i wasted lots of time on the totem quests and not having mounts before i got to 55. (used ghost wolf)

I quested myself from 60-80 and outlands is actually quite fast now after the xp nerf, i think i did 2 levels per day on my last team there.

70-80 is slow and i spent about 10 hours per level but when you look on the big picture that means 20 hours from 70-80 and you have to be pretty hardcore to reach that with 1 toon. This was WITHOUT epic mounts wich means the 3 last levels could have been done way way faster.

[matexoza]

every post people have putt in to this is dead wrong leveling is a to each his own kind of thing no 1 persons way of leveling will ever work work for u find what u like me myself i use a mix of both grinding and questing if i can solo an instance that gives good xp and i have rested
i instance grind if i dont have rested i quest or if i need money i also quest lol

[Ken]

There are far too many collection quests in Northrend to just skip them all in my opinion.

What I did:
- Do quests but skip only the nasty collection quests. Some quest chains are really worth finishing, even if they have slow collection quests.
- When you have built up enough rested experience, go into instances but avoid the ones that give low XP due to having fewer mobs (e.g. Violet Hold and Azjol-Nerub).

[Sam DeathWalker]

At level 60 I get 5,000 exp per pull X 4 (raf) with about 2,000 exp for non rested non raf leader, at the seige engineers in epl. So 22,000 total exp for under 1 minute, tag boosting. Mobs repop in like 7 or so mintues but by the time you loot and drink it goes fast. I maintain between 60-70Kexp/hour without any problems.

But it does come down to what you really like, if questing is like a job then why do it, if grinding is like a job why do it?

I like killing mobs lol.

[Stealthy]

RAF - Grind
Rested xp - Grind
no rested - questThis isn't quite true...RAF gives 3 x the exp from quests as well as grinding, so if you're saying you should be questing if you have no RAF or rested bonus, then you should also be saying you should be questing when you have RAF.

E.g. lets say you get 50K exp per hour from non-rested, non-RAF grinding and 80K exp per hour from questing, a difference of 30K per hour - making questing better.

Apply rested exp bonus and it becomes 100K exp per hour from grinding, and 80K exp per hour from questing, a difference of 20K per hour - making grinding better.

Apply RAF, and it becomes 150K per hour grinding and 240K per hour from questing - the differnce is now 90K per hour - once again making questing better.


The formula for grinding:

The amount of experience you will get for a solo kill on a mob whose level is equal to your level is:
XP = (Char Level * 5) + 45, where Char Level = Mob Level, for mobs in Azeroth
XP = (Char Level * 5) + 235, where Char Level = Mob Level, for mobs in Outland
XP = (Char Level * 5) + 580, where Char Level = Mob Level, for mobs in Northrend
Mobs that are flagged as elite will give twice the amount of experience as a normal mob for the same level.

The amount of experience you will get for a solo kill on a mob whose level is higher than your level is:
XP = (Base XP) * (1 + 0.05 * (Mob Level - Char Level)
Note - this is capped at 4 levels difference, in other words:
1 level difference = 1.05 x Base XP
2 levels difference = 1.1 x Base XP
3 levels difference = 1.15 x Base XP
4+ levels difference = 1.2 x Base XP

Group Experience - the group bonus is based on modifiers and the fomula below:
XP = Mob XP/numberOfMembers * modifier.
Modifiers:
1 person group = 1.0
2 person group = 1.0
3 person group = 1.166
4 person group = 1.3
5 person group = 1.4

E.g.: the experience per person for a group of 5 level 60 players killing level 60 mobs in Eastern Plaguelands is ((60*5)+45)/5)*1.4 or (345/5)*1.4 or 97 (rounded up) exp per person per kill.
The same group of 5 level 60 players killing level 60 mobs in Hellfire Peninsula would be earning ((60*5)+235)/5)*1.4 or (535/5)*1.4 or 150 (rounded up) exp per person per kill.

Now to put this in context - the average quest in EPL rewards about 9,000 exp - which means you would need to kill 93 mobs to get the eqivalent exp in a group of 5. The average quest in HFP rewards about 10,500 exp - which equates to 70 mobs for same amount of exp in a group of 5.

Bottom line - without rested exp, you need to burn through mobs very quickly to make grinding a better option than questing.

Things to consider:
1. Using a good levelling guide and questing addons can significantly increase the number of quest turnins per hour, and thus boost exp.
2. Becuase of the number of mobs to kill via grinding, taking time to loot will affect the exp per hour gained. So will respawn rates.
3. Boosting with a high level toon in instances can make grinding a better option if you can overcome the exp nerf from having a high level toon in the party - SM Cath seems to be the sweet spot for this.
4. Many quests involve killing mobs, so you effectively double dip - get the exp from killing mobs and get the quest exp at the end. Milage will vary with each quest though...

Hope this helps...

Cheers,
S.

[glo]

Grinding is mind numbingly boring and you will start developing repetitive strain injury relatively quick ;)
Questing will get you gear, rep, gold, flight paths and a tour of the virtual world you play in.

If I were to start on a new server I don't see how anything except questing would work. I wouldn't start looting until level 50ish, you will have plenty of money from quests to get mounts(with raf you will be late getting mounts but that is a problem no matter how you level) and no reason to hit the auction hall ever. I wouldn't bother with any professions at all until the level cap. This will get you a basic set of level 80 characters in no time which will give you a large amount of gold doing dailies so you can quickly power level any professions you want.

If I were to start boxing on a server I have a good boosting class at 80 I would probably instance boost to 60. If you are doing 5 or more new characters the answer is still questing.

[glo]

RAF - Grind
Rested xp - Grind
no rested - quest

If I said the same thing there would be 5 pages of people saying how stupid I am.

Taking leveling advice from you is akin to turning my investment portfolio over to the next homeless guy that asks me for spare change. You have some theories but never having leveled a character you haven't had the ability to actually try any of them out.

[Stealthy]

At level 60 I get 5,000 exp per pull X 4 (raf) with about 2,000 exp for non rested non raf leader, at the seige engineers in epl. So 22,000 total exp for under 1 minute, tag boosting. Mobs repop in like 7 or so mintues but by the time you loot and drink it goes fast. I maintain between 60-70Kexp/hour without any problems.

But it does come down to what you really like, if questing is like a job then why do it, if grinding is like a job why do it?

I like killing mobs lol.

Bear in mind that under RAF, with 3 times the exp on quest turnins, you would be getting 27K (on average) per quest turnin. Since it takes you 1 minute to clear the mobs, and 7 minutes to wait for respawns / looting, you're getting 5K exp for every 8 minutes - in other words it's taking you approx 43 minutes (8 minutes x 5.4) to earn the same amount of exp as you would turning in a quest. I understand that you like killing mobs, but I think you could easily be earning 3 times the exp, maybe more, from questing.

Cheers,
S.

[glo]

At level 60 I get 5,000 exp per pull X 4 (raf) with about 2,000 exp for non rested non raf leader, at the seige engineers in epl. So 22,000 total exp for under 1 minute, tag boosting. Mobs repop in like 7 or so mintues but by the time you loot and drink it goes fast. I maintain between 60-70Kexp/hour without any problems.

But it does come down to what you really like, if questing is like a job then why do it, if grinding is like a job why do it?

I like killing mobs lol.

Bear in mind that under RAF, with 3 times the exp on quest turnins, you would be getting 27K (on average) per quest turnin. Since it takes you 1 minute to clear the mobs, and 7 minutes to wait for respawns / looting, you're getting 5K exp for every 8 minutes - in other words it's taking you approx 43 minutes (8 minutes x 5.4) to earn the same amount of exp as you would turning in a quest. I understand that you like killing mobs, but I think you could easily be earning 3 times the exp, maybe more, from questing.

Cheers,
S.The other thing about his math is the fact only one group is getting xp at a time, questing all of his army would get a nice xp rate. The thing is the guy has no idea how to play so running around in a small area spamming his aoe abilities works for him. You have to see him in game to realize how bad he really is.

[Zub]

RAF - Grind
Rested xp - Grind
no rested - quest

If I said the same thing there would be 5 pages of people saying how stupid I am.

Taking leveling advice from you is akin to turning my investment portfolio over to the next homeless guy that asks me for spare change. You have some theories but never having leveled a character you haven't had the ability to actually try any of them out.
i would have to agree with Mr Deathwk on this one though ... but please lets not Samjack this thread.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Bottom line - without rested exp, you need to burn through mobs very quickly to make grinding a better option than questing.This has been my experience.

Put a different way, let me just say this about collection quests versus grinding in terms of monotony: you're grinding either way. Both are toward a specific goal but one will get you bonus loot and XP at the end. ;) Certain grinds are occasionally worth it (like grinding materials for a crafting profession) but for leveling, I've tried both and aside from having a 70/80 AOE the crap out of TONS of mobs in seconds, grinding just isn't worth the pain or money loss, IMO.

[edit] To give you a frame of reference, my druids were at 60 after RAF leveling with 2.6 days /played. When they hit 80 last week, I was a bit over 9 days played, including me screwing around going AFK in Dalaran while helping my mother get started multiboxing her two hunters, and helping two friends in my guild do elite quests and instance runs. I think, for a fairly casual player, that's a respectable time to 80. I also had 5x epic flight form about 1/3 of the way through the Icecrown quests. Questing adds up faster than you think. ;)

[X-Ifist]

When i was lvling my prot pally and 4x druids i found it was faster to grind in instance than to quest, but at that time i wasent using Jamba:P
Speced all 4 druids resto and did huge pulls while the druids just kept 4x rejuv up, it was boring as hell but was def faster

[Ken]

[snip]

[puppychow]

no reason not to do both, unless you have leveled a lot of chars questing is fun to see the lore and rewards and "flavor", but sometimes you get bored of questing and just want to kill a bunch of bears/pigs but even that gets boring (to me) after 30 minutes so its back to questing...

so many people try to rush to level 80 and then find there isn't much there that they actually enjoy (raiding, arenas, bgs, etc). sometimes leveling itself can just be a lot of fun.

[Tasty]

"Time flies when you're having fun"



edit: It may seem like an irrelevant piece of dribble but I believe it belongs in the discussion :P

[EaTCarbS]

with Jamba and the "interact with target" function, Questing is the fastest IMO

[Zub]

"Time flies when you're having fun"
edit: It may seem like an irrelevant piece of dribble but I believe it belongs in the discussion :P

"Time's fun when you're having flies"
-Kermit

:-)

[Moorea]

RAF - Grind
Rested xp - Grind
no rested - quest
Wrong :-)

RAF: Quest (3x XP of quests == very very fast levelling (and while you quest; obviously kill what you encounter))

[Queshank]

Nothing...period...can match the speed of Instance Boosting with RAF.

It is sure fun to get 20k xp per quest turnin. But it loses it's charm when you realize it takes as long to run to do the quest turnin as it does to get an entire level from one instance run :)

But if you don't have a boosting toon....questing is fastest.

Queshank

[Queshank]

If you happen to know were to go and what level to go there i would say questing is on par with boosting from 1-60, and sure hell WAY less boring.

I got to 60 without doing a singel collection quest, just kill quests. (well i did thoose who drops one item on all chars) I think it was done in 24 hours played but i wasted lots of time on the totem quests and not having mounts before i got to 55. (used ghost wolf)


That's more than 2x as long as it takes to instance boost to 60. If someone is anything like me....spending 24 hours doing something I've already done 18 times is WAY more boring than spending 10 to 11 hours to get characters to 60 so I can start using them :)

Queshank

[EaTCarbS]

We should have a race.

1 person gets to 60 questing.
1 person gets to 60 grinding.
1 person gets to 60 instance boosting.

Would that show which tactic is the most effective? :D

[Sam DeathWalker]

rounded up) exp per person per kill.
The same group of 5 level 60 players killing level 60 mobs in Hellfire Peninsula would be earning ((60*5)+235)/5)*1.4 or (535/5)*1.4 or 150 (rounded up) exp per person per kill.

Now to put this in context - the average quest in EPL rewards about 9,000 exp - which means you would need to kill 93 mobs to get the eqivalent exp in a group of 5. The average quest in HFP rewards about 10,500 exp - which equates to 70 mobs for same amount of exp in a group of 5.


Ok you need to kill 90 mobs for the same as a single quest. Thats 4 pulls, thats 8 minutes of playing (including looting) and 20 minutes of doing nothing waiting for repops afk, or posting on forums, or reading about the game or watching TV ..... Actually its 3 X 7 or 21 mintues for 4 pulls if you log after the last one. So 8 minutes for playing and 13 mintues watching TV vs. one quest.

Also as to gear when you kill 1000's of mobs you get a shot at the super rare items. I got the "orb of deception" sold for 1000G at the AH.

Everyone agrees instance boosting is the best if you have a current level 70 or 80, the argument is do you quest or grind if you don't have an existing high level account, or the mobs are getting to high to pull a zillion of. Also instance boosting will be nerfed at some point in the future so you have to consider the time put in learning a techniqe that won't be viable.

[Zub]

rounded up) exp per person per kill.
The same group of 5 level 60 players killing level 60 mobs in Hellfire Peninsula would be earning ((60*5)+235)/5)*1.4 or (535/5)*1.4 or 150 (rounded up) exp per person per kill.

Now to put this in context - the average quest in EPL rewards about 9,000 exp - which means you would need to kill 93 mobs to get the eqivalent exp in a group of 5. The average quest in HFP rewards about 10,500 exp - which equates to 70 mobs for same amount of exp in a group of 5.


Ok you need to kill 90 mobs for the same as a single quest. Thats 4 pulls, thats 8 minutes of playing (including looting) and 20 minutes of doing nothing waiting for repops afk, or posting on forums, or reading about the game or watching TV ..... Actually its 3 X 7 or 21 mintues for 4 pulls if you log after the last one. So 8 minutes for playing and 13 mintues watching TV vs. one quest.

Also as to gear when you kill 1000's of mobs you get a shot at the super rare items. I got the "orb of deception" sold for 1000G at the AH.

Everyone agrees instance boosting is the best if you have a current level 70 or 80, the argument is do you quest or grind if you don't have an existing high level account, or the mobs are getting to high to pull a zillion of. Also instance boosting will be nerfed at some point in the future so you have to consider the time put in learning a techniqe that won't be viable.

not sure i'm following the logic.
You kill your 90 mobs in 6-8 minutes but only 5 toons get the xp. With quests, you can do them in a similar time with all 26 of your toons (and they all get the xp).
wouldn't it be ~4-5 times quicker then?

In any case, while doing the quest you also kill (some) mobs so you forgot to count this. *and* you get rewards (gear+gold)
with 26 toons, the gold from quests will pile up much quicker than a random chance at a 1000g item for sale.

[Zub]

We should have a race.

1 person gets to 60 questing.
1 person gets to 60 grinding.
1 person gets to 60 instance boosting.

Would that show which tactic is the most effective? :D

if one single person tried the 3, using the same class, with the same motivation and playing time available, then we could maybe come to a conclusion :-)
in the end, the most effective way to level is to pick the way you like the most. Things go much faster when you like doing them.
i.e. i could grind mobs for 4 hours and it would feel like 8, or quests for 4 hours and it would feel like 2.

[Moorea]

We know who is the last one in levelling speed - yet he is the one giving the most advice... (about things he has no clue whatsoever about; like boosting with a level 70 or 80 when his highest is 61 and most his guys are in the 40s...)

[glo]

rounded up) exp per person per kill.
The same group of 5 level 60 players killing level 60 mobs in Hellfire Peninsula would be earning ((60*5)+235)/5)*1.4 or (535/5)*1.4 or 150 (rounded up) exp per person per kill.

Now to put this in context - the average quest in EPL rewards about 9,000 exp - which means you would need to kill 93 mobs to get the eqivalent exp in a group of 5. The average quest in HFP rewards about 10,500 exp - which equates to 70 mobs for same amount of exp in a group of 5.


Ok you need to kill 90 mobs for the same as a single quest. Thats 4 pulls, thats 8 minutes of playing (including looting) and 20 minutes of doing nothing waiting for repops afk, or posting on forums, or reading about the game or watching TV ..... Actually its 3 X 7 or 21 mintues for 4 pulls if you log after the last one. So 8 minutes for playing and 13 mintues watching TV vs. one quest.
So watching TV is the secret to taking years to level? I knew there was some kind of trick.


Also as to gear when you kill 1000's of mobs you get a shot at the super rare items. I got the "orb of deception" sold for 1000G at the AH. Anyone that wants to camp the DM arena can get that orb easy enough. It doesn't require boxing or killing millions of mobs. Just leave a character(in your case 30+ characters) there with an alarm setup to notify you when the mob pops. This would go well with your "watch a lot of television" leveling strat.


Everyone agrees instance boosting is the best if you have a current level 70 or 80, the argument is do you quest or grind if you don't have an existing high level account, or the mobs are getting to high to pull a zillion of. Also instance boosting will be nerfed at some point in the future so you have to consider the time put in learning a techniqe that won't be viable. What makes you think instance boosting will be nerfed? As far as the time put in to learning it goes I don't really understand what you are talking about. You make a group, run into an instance, the booster kills everything. What is there to learn? You would think if you have a high level character you would already know how to kill mobs many levels lower without much of a learning curve.

[Svpernova09]

We know who is the last one in levelling speed - yet he is the one giving the most advice... (about things he has no clue whatsoever about; like boosting with a level 70 or 80 when his highest is 61 and most his guys are in the 40s...)I came in here to moderate this post, as it had been reported, but I'll let it stand, because I've seen Sam spread some pretty BAD info when it comes to WoW. Sometimes it's an honest mistake, sometimes I wonder. But in the interests of letting people form their own opinions about who's advice they take, I'll let this go so long as the thread doesn't turn into Sam bashing.

On topic:

I'm going to put the entire debate to rest. Yes you hear it here first.


If you have fun questing, quest, it'll be faster, if you have fun grinding, grind, it'll be faster. Whatever you LIKE doing, you're going to have more fun doing, so it won't take as long.

If you're not having fun grinding, or questing, why are you even playing the game? I've leveled 8 toons 1-60 the hard way, solo, 6/8 pre TBC XP nerf. I've never considered it a grind, and I've never not enjoyed every minute of it. Why are you so desperate to hit level cap, there's so many things to see along the way. I don't buy the "i've seen it all before cause i've already got X 60s+" Every toon I've ever leveled has taken a different path, seen new things, been apart of new experiences. It's a massive world. Stop and look around sometime, it's pretty cool.