boosting sucks now :(

[Alptraum]

Bliz has pretty much nerfed all the old dungeons, SM is a joke now, and BRD isnt that great anymore either...so where is everyone powerleveling their new alts, or whats the plan since last patch.

I've just about given up finishing off 10x5 since these last changes..its just to freaken slow to lvl up even using raf.

[Mokoi]

quest? they JUST finished redoing the whole old world.. go have some fun and d the quests with RAF, it will be fast enough =)

[Svpernova09]

Did 11->20 on a pair of alts using an 80 Druid in SFK. Seemed pretty smooth.

[Boylston]

As a veteran of SM, I am somewhat happy that they've taken it away as an XP location. If I never spent another hour in there powerleveling, it would be A-OK...

Go quest... 1-80 with heirlooms and/or RAF is very, very, very fast now.

[blast3r]

I am finding it a bit more difficult myself. I started RAF a few weeks ago and am going to level about 6 teams to 10 box with. Questing outside of instances is just a PITA for the most part. Can't seem to get on that roll where XP is flying around.

However, Dungeon quests are not scattered all over the place now. I got back on my level 10 Paladins Saturday and got them to 34 from just running instances and doing the quests inside them. I also split up my team of hunters with my 80 shamans and ran Dire Maul with all the quests. The XP isn't that bad and you can actually get gear!

[Alptraum]

Did 11->20 on a pair of alts using an 80 Druid in SFK. Seemed pretty smooth.

thats sfk...after u leave there..i've seen there is serious suckage as far as instance boosting only, even RFC got nerfed a bit.. can boost there but its semi painful...they just reduced the amount of guys in all the instances by a ton....they really like punishing us 'grinder' type players...im not a big quester..i hate quests, and gathering ones suck the big one most.

[Svpernova09]

thats sfk...after u leave there..i've seen there is serious suckage as far as instance boosting only, even RFC got nerfed a bit.. can boost there but its semi painful...they just reduced the amount of guys in all the instances by a ton....they really like punishing us 'grinder' type players...im not a big quester..i hate quests, and gathering ones suck the big one most.

I understand. I'm worried that Swipe having a 6 second CD is going to give me trouble in higher level dungeons. I've never minded questing, but I've always liked instance boosting until I can get decent mounts.

But as I've always said, if you hate questing, why are you playing a game that is 90% quest based?

[Mercurio]

Wow, that's sad to hear :(

I PLed over 65 toons up to 60 "just in case" about 18 months ago. It was so easy back in the day. Wish I could gift you a few ;)

[crowdx]

I actually think "the nerf" was more aimed at the regular players and trying to get them into dungeons (or at least make it more of an option) sooner. With the dropping of mobs in the dungeons it makes the runs faster in LFD and brings them more in line with WotLK dungeons speed wise.
I think multiboxing boosting was just a casualty of the change.
I personally am considering starting a full new team on a new server and leveling them with just heirlooms, by all accounts leveling is now VERY fast even without RAF.

[Holmeser]

I havent found it that bad, i still get at least a level a run in any dungeon, up too level 30 (atm in 4.0.3a), and the quests are a nice easy boost in exp.

[Mercbeast]

SM is fine. It is a little bit slower but it is still fast. At 40 go to ZF.

[Lyonheart]

I leveled a team of Cow Palies from 15-51 in instances., around 20 hours. It was a blast though, time flys.The quests at the start make running them a lot more fun.. If you have BoAs its even faster. I only ran a few instances more than once. There were a few levels in the 30s i ended up going to the new STV and got a few levels there, but other than that I did all in instances.

[Catamer]

It took them 5 years to nerf it and at this point you really have to ask why. what's the point of nerfing it NOW ?
I guess they hope your going to RAF instead ... but I guess that's really a multiboxers point of view the average Joe is the one really screwed here. A solo player trying to level an alternate is really toast.

[Lyonheart]

It took them 5 years to nerf it and at this point you really have to ask why. what's the point of nerfing it NOW ?
I guess they hope your going to RAF instead ... but I guess that's really a multiboxers point of view the average Joe is the one really screwed here. A solo player trying to level an alternate is really toast.


Boxers are just use to having it too easy. BUT boxers can make a full team and do instances and get levels faster than boosting ( non RaF ) I was getting 1-2 levels per run and sometimes almost 3 if there were enough quests. I took my time as well.

Solo players are not as crazy about leveling fast as we are. and a solo player quests/ques for randoms to level, they don't have a second account to boost with like we do, so for them, they got buffed. Questing is far easier/faster now for solo players after this last patch.

[Chirpyboy]

DO quests and the dungeon quests....I boosted 2 hunters 1-60 in a day played...The fact they redid all the questing makes it so easy to rush threww it all...half the quests are kill quests so that goes quick and the ones where u have to pick crap up...skip it on the vet and when u need to just grant a lvl

[Kalyse]

I just did another team. Heres what I observed.


1 - 4 - I did the same thing as I always do. Summon everyone to Goldshire and kill mobs until level 3/4.

4- 7 - Kill boars on the pumpkin patch and do the Princess Quest alongwith the Boar Meat and the two "run here" and "run there" quests.

7 - 10 - Do the Controlling the "Hogger" situation quest and grind about 100 Gnolls while using CTM and IWT to loot them for the 8 armbands. Handing in Hogger and this quest is an entire level in itself.

10 - 15 - Do two and a half runs of Dead Mines. The new Dead Mines is A LOT better than the old Dead Mines. I don't wipe any more, and with quest givers at the instance entrance its great. The first run you pick up one quest, then the second run you pick up the remainder.

15 - 22 - Stockades. Simple. Good XP. Do the instance in a maximum of three pulls. Run straight down to Randolph Murdoch and kill everything. Then turn to Incinerator kill. Then turn to Hogger kill.

23 - 45 - Scarlet Monastery. I used to get 320k XP/hour, and I can still get this, I just have to work harder and faster. In my opinion, the nerf is insignificant. It gets slow at the end, but you should expect that anyway. It might be worth switching to ZF I don't know. But last time I did ZF it was just a constant Wipe Fest. I wouldn't go there without a booster who could ressurect. If you can ressurect then ZF will surely be quicker.

45 - 55 - Well, this is what I did on my last boost. I think I would change it though. I decided to go Mount farming in Stratholme. The XP is shit and it was a waste of time. It was hard to get 200k an hour, and with all of the Eyes of Naxxarammas appearing, I would be better off just going straight to Scholo. I figured this out when I was level 55, and won't return back to Stratholme ever to do boosting.
So at level 55, I decided to go to Hellfire Ramparts for that lustrous 1million XP an hour EASY XP. Guess what happened when I ran through the portal. "You do not meet the level requirements". Balls. They have increased the level requirement to 57. So as it turns out, you now have to level up two more levels.

55 - 57(explaination) - After the annoying discovery that I had to get two more levels and losing all hope and patience at Stratholme, I decided to goto Scholomance. Since I know from experience, I can easily get 450k on a Mage there, and I figured if I took a Paladin I could do a full clear. Well to further add shock, I wasn't getting ANY XP? I would like if someone can confirm this, because in the past I have stayed in Scholo until 60 farming PBD when I could make 1k an hour farming this place. After about 10 minutes I gave up as I hadn't gained a single XP point.

At this point I was TOTALLY lost. I didn't have a clue what to do. Couldn't goto Ramps. Wouldn't go to Stratholme. Scholomance was nerfed. So I opened up dungeon finder to see what was available and saw that BRD was orange. So I took all my guys to BRD.

55 - 57 - Black Rock Depths. The annoying thing about this place is that I didn't have a clue how to get there. After the shattering the path seems to have all cahnged and I wasn't sure how to get in since there is a big earthquake that has blocked the path. So I had to take a FP on another char to Thorium Point and then use RAF summon, then summon my booster at the Stones.

Once inside, it was actually pretty easy. There were two/three quests which yielded good experience for the hand ins and XP was around 400k an hour, which wasn't too shabby. The good thing was, was that if I died, the GY was IMMEDIATELY outside the instance. If I had to do a corpse run from Thorium point everytime I died, I wouldn't enjoy it. So what I did was clear everything up to Incinerus near the great Forge, and then jump into the lava to kill myself. Run into instance, Run out, reset, continue. I only got to like 65% durability before I got my 2 levels. Would I go back again? Yeah probably. Since I don't know where else I could go and it didn't take me very long.

57-60 - Hellfire Ramparts - This place is the haven. The XP is 1million an hour consistent. On a mage I do it in three and a half pulls.


Overall, how has my experience been affected by the patch? Not much really. It's not different, and I don't think SM has been affected at all. (It has obviously, but it won't stop me going back and I won't whine about it).

[zenga]

As far as i know you couldn't got through the portal at lvl 55 before. You had to summon them (only works obviously if you have TBC on your accounts), at least at the start of 2010 it was like that iirc.

[Tonuss]

It took them 5 years to nerf it and at this point you really have to ask why. what's the point of nerfing it NOW ?
Someone else already mentioned it- they lowered dungeon exp because it was screwing up the new leveling experience from 1-60. Players were getting a full level's worth of exp from a normal dungeon run, which meant that they would out-level the quest zones before they could do most of the quests. After they spent god knows how long revamping the old world and making new quests, they did not want to force players to skip it. So they scaled back old-world dungeon exp. They didn't care about it before because the content was already old and people didn't care if they were skipping some of it.

I don't think that they're that concerned with powerleveling, but if a change happens to make it worse, they probably don't mind. They do take steps to curb PLing sometimes. I saw the patch notes (for 4.0.3a I think) where they specifically nerfed that area that Sam Deathwalker was using to boost his toons (slower spawn rate and the smaller skeletons do not give exp anymore). It pretty obvious that this was done to slow down power-levelers.

[Tonuss]

55 - 57(explaination) - After the annoying discovery that I had to get two more levels and losing all hope and patience at Stratholme, I decided to goto Scholomance. Since I know from experience, I can easily get 450k on a Mage there, and I figured if I took a Paladin I could do a full clear. Well to further add shock, I wasn't getting ANY XP? I would like if someone can confirm this, because in the past I have stayed in Scholo until 60 farming PBD when I could make 1k an hour farming this place. After about 10 minutes I gave up as I hadn't gained a single XP point.
Scholomance is a level 40 dungeon, as of patch 4.0.1.