A bit of a silly question about 1-85 group w/o RAF.

[Whur]

What would be the quicker way to level a group of 1-85 without boosting, RAF, and rest experience? Just starting from level 1, is there an ideal group to just brute force to 85? Doing instances or questing? Would you use the same classes, or different classes?

Thank you for the input in advance, and apologize for the silly question. This will most likely be my third team for trade skills once I have hit 85 with my cookie cutter pally and shaman team.

[Nighthawk38]

Whur,

Until your group hits level 70 , almost ANY combo of 5 toons will do just fine. Questing or instances.

[ghonosyph]

First, get a full set of heirlooms. Second get into a high lvl guild for the fast track exp bonus.
From here you have 3 "quick" options.

1 death knights by far are the quickest because you skip 1 to 55 lol duh

2 pallys - one of the best fun to level *5 imo it goes a lot quicker because its so fun to play them

3 druids - best for gathering and thus professions imo I have a team of druids just for low level gathering herbs skins mining and another five set for tailor and alchemy. Mobility = quicker


With that being said I would wager any team would work but I would start with those 3, plus dks are pretty awesome now :) pallys always were and druids are still a ton of fun

Good luck!

[Whur]

Whur,

Until your group hits level 70 , almost ANY combo of 5 toons will do just fine. Questing or instances.

Ok, thanks Nighthawk.


First, get a full set of heirlooms. Second get into a high lvl guild for the fast track exp bonus.
From here you have 3 "quick" options.

1 death knights by far are the quickest because you skip 1 to 55 lol duh

2 pallys - one of the best fun to level *5 imo it goes a lot quicker because its so fun to play them

3 druids - best for gathering and thus professions imo I have a team of druids just for low level gathering herbs skins mining and another five set for tailor and alchemy. Mobility = quicker


With that being said I would wager any team would work but I would start with those 3, plus dks are pretty awesome now :) pallys always were and druids are still a ton of fun

Good luck!

Thanks for that ghonosyph! Yes thought about the 5 DKs, but I am not a 100% fond of the DKs. I have them already started since a few days back. Not my cup of tea, but the paladins I might give that a go later on. :)

[Littleburst]

Boosting is always the most efficient way to level up. Definitely till lvl 70 atleast if you have a decent booster. Any char can boost to 60 without a problem.

The exp needed to gain a level has been reduced quite significantly. Helps a lot.

[Ualaa]

With RAF, you get +200% experience, or 300% total of what you normally would get for Questing and Killing mobs.

If you have a good booster, both gearing and technique, boosting is the fastest means to level during RAF.

Without RAF, the order will be the same.
Probably:
1) Boosting
2) Questing
3) PvP
4) Exploration

The differences between #1 and #2 will be a lot smaller.
If you could do 100 per hour questing and 120 per hour boosting, with RAF that is 300 vs 360 for a difference of 60.
Without RAF, the difference is 20, which means the best method is still the best, but by a smaller margin.

Given that, I'd do whatever is more fun for you between Questing and Boosting.
Pretty sure PvP will be quite a bit slower than either, but for the battleground specific weekend it might be worth the change of pace anyway.

[ghonosyph]

What would be the quicker way to level a group of 1-85 without boosting, RAF, and rest experience? Just starting from level 1, is there an ideal group to just brute force to 85? Doing instances or questing? Would you use the same classes, or different classes?

Felt like quoting the original post here as i just woke up from a nap and i'm grumpy lol... The other responses in this thread seems to be all "oh you should boost its quicker" without really reading your post above.... lol /facepalm@forumcommunity

Since you say you're so much not into the dk group, can i ask why? Deathknights get an amazing boost of power as far as skills are concerned, the further you level them. They're always getting better as the level up process continues imo :) they're by far one of the best groups to play for sheer ease of play as well.

I'm thinking you're going to probably enjoy druids more than pallys, as your attitude toward a melee team via the remark about dks seems to lead me to believe you're just more into your "cookie cutter" team and the druids have more of a caster group basis while leveling imo(i found boomkin to be very fun to level as). Pallys are fun and all, but if you cant find the fun in the dk group, most likely you wont find it in pallys either lol :) plus you get to peanut butter jelly time dance with them all the time(provided you choose male tauren) !!!! thats a win win any way you look at it lol

If you wanted to get a little bit creative you could do something like this:

1. Decide that a mixed team would be the "better" option.
2. Make one of each armor wearing class: ie a cloth wearer, a leather wearer, a mail wearer and a plate wearer, and then a plate or mail wearer who can use a shield
3. Make each one able to do the appropriate tradeskill for their class:

ie, cloth wearer(mage priest warlock) = tailor/ -- no gathering profession tied to tailor, good option for enchanting as second proff

leather wearer(rogue, druid) = leatherworker/ skinner

mail wearer(hunter, shaman) = Inscription/alchemy makes a good choice here, tho you already have shaman.

plate wearer(warrior, paladin, death knight) = blacksmith/jewelcrafting would be the best for this, probably the warrior or deathknight in this slot

plate shield wearer(really only pally fits this slot, tho you could argue a shaman could fill a shield user role as well) = on this toon i would double up on gathering professions herbalist/mining due to being able to track both at one time makes for a good choice on two toons(tho i could also argue that the best toon for gathering professions would be your druid due to them being able to bird form and gather, reducing their farming time immensely. This would only be valid for "just" herbalist tho, so its moot point, as mining requires dismount)

Upon looking at this list you can see a couple things that stand out. One being that you could make a pretty decent ranged mixed team to cover all of the professions, and you're getting a good mix of loot used vs loot wasted as far as "drops" from quests/instances are concerned. Second thing that stands out is that you're not really going to be "overlapping" classes that you already have if you make a few choices. IE you've got a good group any way you look at it, you've got tank, dps, and heals, with spare heals if you so choose, and plenty of cc availability for instancing.

I look at this list and it almost makes me want to do this myself lol. the group i would choose looks something like:

Mage, Druid, Hunter, Deathknight, Paladin

reasoning: Mage=portals, mobility cannot be discounted its just sooooo good + water/food + raw dps + cc available.
Druid=powerful healer, dps OR tank... druids are versatile enough to play any spec they choose, provided they gear properly... i love my druids, can you tell? lol
Hunter=Raw dps + cc available + pet can act as a tank lol. I'd most likely choose to level a shaman in the hunter spot, as i dont have shamans yet, but you'd prolly choose hunter
Deathknight=Raw dps, or incredible tank... Dk's fill any number of roles and their skillsets just cannot be beat as far as dps and utility are concerned imo, you've got aoe cc potential too
Paladin=powerful healer, dps, OR tank... Pallys can do it all, just like druids, and carry a good bit of buffage as well.

the only thing missing from this setup would be a priest for fortitude buff. Not really THAT important but i wouldn't discount it either, If i were to drop anything, would be the hunter for a priest, but then that ruins the theme of the group(using one of each armor wearer to cover their particular armor).... i find that the mage would be the better option for the clothie just due to the cc and mobility via portals they provide. Most of this team can do their dmg from ranged as well, which is pretty nice. Even the melee toons can shoot lol! Ie Dks can go frost for semi-ranged dps via howling blast/icy touch/chains of ice/death coil/ even dnd could fit in here too, pallys have judgements, holy shock(if holy) and exorcism, hammer of wrath as well for low heath targets.

This group would do fine in leveling in instances as well, tho i would think that you're going to be doing about an equal amount of time questing + instancing, for a decent rate of non-boredom and exp gained per hour.

As others have said, boosting is the quickest option, however you're wanting a full team gambit and you're only getting 4 / 5 leveled if you boost... :)

EDIT: naming theme for this group(Thetailor,Theblacksmith,Theleatherworker,the alchemist,thegatherer) Lol just an idea /shrug

hope this helps lol good luck again!

[Littleburst]

Felt like quoting the original post here as i just woke up from a nap and i'm grumpy lol... The other responses in this thread seems to be all "oh you should boost its quicker" without really reading your post above.... lol /facepalm@forumcommunity


Guilty /wave

And /gasp for your wall of text !

[katsurahama]

I like ghonosyphs group comp idea but since youre starting from lvl 1 i would switch out the dk for a priest. This leaves:

Paladin tank (plate) <can later heal or dps later>
Hunter dps (mail) <pet can off tank. Good easy mode dps>
Druid dps (leather) <can heal, dps as caster or melee, tank>
Mage dps (cloth) <i might choose a demonology WARLOCK instead. ss is better than ports if you instance. pet can off tank>
priest healer (cloth) <best healer. Can dps, heal, or do half and half>

[Negativ1337]

Ok, thanks Nighthawk.



Thanks for that ghonosyph! Yes thought about the 5 DKs, but I am not a 100% fond of the DKs. I have them already started since a few days back. Not my cup of tea, but the paladins I might give that a go later on. :)

Hehe i know what you mean :) I HATED Deathknights on the start, didn't knew how that weird rune system worked. I now have 4x 85 deathknights and i love them. Once you get to 68 you can basically kill everything in a group and AoE them down. They're really fun to play. I did 80-85 really fast (20 hours /played or so?) and it was fun and not annoying or boring to do.

Dungeons were pretty good aswell. Just go Blood and let your main toon have blood presence on. The rest frost presence for less agro and more damage.

If you don't feel like doing deathknights, i always wanted to do retri paladins and they seem awesome aswell. I would mix up dungeons with questing, since the quests for the dungeons are acceptable inside the dungeons, and reward lots of exp.

[Jeremiah]

Sounds like someone bought 3 accounts and thus can't get RAF bonus :P

I'd say Druids would be the most fun and fastest to level. I've always been able to level a druid up to a days played time faster from 1-80, i presume it'd be a similar speed boost from 80-85.

You get your 5 x battle res's for low downtime in case you muck it up (which happens a lot to boxers experienced and amateur alike) and you can have your heals in your team. I find 5 x boomy to be quite fast and fun for PvE, 5 x kitties were quite popular for those playing PvP so I'd assume it'd be fun for PvP levelling.

Main bonus to druids levelling is their stealth ability. Makes skipping quest mobs a breeze and should increase your quest completed/hour experience rate.

I'd also agree with the suggestion of paladins, fun class to play, easy to learn.

Sometime I'm having quite a lot of fun with is warlocks. 5 x affliction locks, it's pretty much DoT everything you can see and keep running...no real downtime either. I would say 5 locks is easiest I've found. Next easiest is 5 x frost magi. 5 x Water eles, 5 x frostbolt, everything dies.

In terms of fun/ease, Magi/Warlock. In terms of speed, Druid/Paladin

[kate]

What would be the quicker way to level a group of 1-85 without boosting, RAF, and rest experience? Just starting from level 1, is there an ideal group to just brute force to 85? Doing instances or questing? Would you use the same classes, or different classes?

Thank you for the input in advance, and apologize for the silly question. This will most likely be my third team for trade skills once I have hit 85 with my cookie cutter pally and shaman team.

For your team, a good one can be:
Paladin - Tank, awesome buff (Blessing of Kings) and auras
Cloth - Either a priest or a mage. Priest gives you a really nice shield + a little extra passive healing & undead CC, while mage gives you ports, food, and more general CC. Or you could take both.
Fill out the rest of the team with 2 or 3 shaman - they do solid DPS, have decent healing even when in DPS spec, totems are lovely, and even better, they can reincarnate so if you wipe you can bounce right back up.

This team would generally be very easy to play and write macros for, and would be quite good at both questing and doing dungeons.

Once you pick your team, without RAF, heirlooms or boosting, it seems like questing is rather fast to go from 1-60 now, so mixing questing with doing each dungeon (get some nice gear there). Be in a guild that has the 10% bonus exp perk and it's even better.

I needed a break from Alliance, so I'm rolling a horde team right now that's Paladin, Priest and 3x Shaman - it's quite lovely.

[Whur]

Thank you everyone for the replies and input, and thanks ghonosyph for noticing my initial question. I have read everything, and it made me think more, I haven't gotten around to deciding yet. I love this community, you are all really helpful even to the newbies like myself! :-) I will give DKs another try a bit later on. I am not sure, it might be that they seem complex, but really I did not give it a real try!

[EDIT]: The reason for the delayed reply was that I am desperately trying to random instance to 80 with my 1x Paladin, and 4x Shaman (my first team). I have never done Cataclysm so far so it is all exciting. I am also solo playing my hunter in the roleplaying guild I am a member of, to experience all the quests and zones too. :-) Full up!