Seek Advice for RAF Boost

[mph]

hi there, after reading up several forums/guides on RAF boosting, some practical questions remain and I hope you experts can help me out. Some of the questions might seem silly to you, so apologies in advance, i am not very knowledgeable about wow outside of raiding...

i have 1 wow subscription at the moment with several chars on one single realm who does not multibox and does not intend to do so. my plan is to move 1 char (a lvl90 booster) to another realm and then boost some alts there as i am server transferring to join a new raiding guild.

1) Boost 2 or 4?
- I have a fairly old desktop PC with an i5 quad core 2.8ghz, 8gb RAM and a GeForce GTX460. With that system, I doubt I can boost 4 toons simultaneously but do you think this machine is good enough to even boost 2 RAF accounts? If not, is there a minimum hardware requirement that can be specified such that 2/4 RAF boosting works nicely on a single machine? I guess the graphics card is the main limiting factor?

2) What RAF linking?
- If i boost only 2 RAF accounts i guess the only option i have is linking A (vet) > B > C? Assume I boost 1 set of toons only, I would end up with 1 lvl80 on C, 1 lvl80 + 1 lvl40 on B and 1 lvl60 on A after cascading?
- If i boost 4 RAF accounts i would link 2 chains A>B>C and A>D>E i guess for maximum toons on A?

3) How to grant levels?
- This might be a stupid question but do I have to grant levels on the receiving account as i boost chars on the RAF accounts or can i just boost the RAF accounts to lvl80 and then do all the granting of levels in one go between all the accounts (I am just worried i boost chars on B and C and then am not able to boost a lvl2 char on A right up)?

4) How to sequence account setup?
- As far as I understand (and taking as example the scenario in which i use 2 RAF accounts), i log on my current account A and send a referall to new RAF account B. i then log into account B, buy a battlechest for it so i can level up to lvl80 and send a referall to new RAF account C for which i then also buy a battlechest
- Once I bought the battlechests for the 2 RAF accounts, is it sufficient if i buy 1 month game time (i am fairly confident i can boost the chars in less time) as i intend to discard the RAF accounts afterwards?
- Is there anything worth noting when setting up the accounts that a beginner might oversee and regrets at the end of the boosting process?

5) Same email/battlenet account or not?
- I must confess I am a bit confused here. Could you please revisit the options i have here and what the advantages/disadvantages are for having separate/same accounts data?

6) How to install wow on PC?
- Some of you talk about just using 1 wow folder for multiple accounts and i can't really follow that since I am not very proficient with using a PC. how do I go about installing the various versions of wow or using only one wow when playing multiple chars?
- Suppose I have 2 RAF accounts, is it really detrimental to the machine's performance if i had 3 separate wow folders for the 3 accounts (apart from the fact that it eats up a lot of hd space)?

7) How to merge accounts after RAF boost?
- I intend to discard the RAF accounts once i am done boosting, and i understand that i can move chars from one account to the other. Is that only possible if the accounts are on the same BNet account or is there anything I need to pay attention to at the start of all this so I can move all my chars onto the same original account A?

many many thanks for your help on the above!!

[nicbennett1]

Okay. Disclaimer-I'm fairly new at all this myself, so I'll give you what I know and then if anyone disagrees or tells me I'm wrong you should probably believe them. ;)

1. up to you. 3 accounts would certainly be easier, but I've run 5 accounts at once on lower spec hardware than that. if you care a lot about graphics settings or higher fps, just run three. chances are with 5 you'll have trouble with the populated areas like stormwind or in LFR or something, where a LOT is happening at once.

2. With only 3 accounts and wanting to boost, you'll have to do a>b>c. If you did a>b and a>c you wouldn't be able to boost with a high level toon on a. I did for 5 a>b>d and a>c>e, for the reason you said about level grants.

3. just put your toons near each other and right click on the portrait of the toon you would like to level up. there is also a script floating around here to do it automatically, cause it takes a lot of button presses to grant someone to 80

4. yes, you have that exactly right, except that the battle chest comes with a month of gametime, so you don't have to enter payment info at all if you don't want to. Otherwise, sounds like you're spot on here.

5. Use the same bnet account for everything. this means you share heirlooms and mounts. do it if you can. If you have a high level guild and some fre gold you can at least buy the guild heirlooms, even if you don't have the JP for chest/shoulders/weapons.

6. If you're absolutely 100% certain that you're only going to multibox for a month just to level, then I assume you don't want to pay for ISBoxer. It's amazing, and makes setup so easy, but there are free alternatives out there. to be honest, I don't know much about the setup of any of the other software. with ISBoxer you can just run everything off of 1 game installation on your computer and it will virtualize the character specific files for you. You can always just copy and paste your wow installation folders into 4 more directories, but this slows down your setup by requiring quite a bit more read/write time on the hard drive. Especially if you don't have a very fast HD to start with.

7. Doesn't really matter where the characters are, though it would be a lot easier if they were on the same account. You know, of course, that you'll have to pay the $25/toon transferred.

[Asterix]

1)
boost 4 - I got nearly the same PC spec, with a little more ram (16 GB) and it works.
try to make one directory for each wow session so you can configure your toons display config and tune down the graphical details

I created another wow account in my existing battle.net account and extended it via battle chest to a full account
then I recruited myself and created another account etc etc. until I had my main account and 4 additional accounts.
all under the same battle.net account so all my chars have the same access to my pets and mounts.

wow1 | wow2->wow3->wow4->wow5

I don't use the granted levels because I play full groups and leveling is so amazing fast that it isn't necessary.
The main problem with granting levels is that your last wow account (wow5 in my case) won't have the access
to a granted char because he can't receive (only give away) levels and that you have to play it up manually or
transfer a char to it to get a full group again.

on european servers we got some issues with buying the keys online via battle.net. It can take up to one week
before your account is fully updated to the battle.chest. In this time you can level, but not join a group or trade
or use the auction house which is really annoying. Therefore i'd suggest to buy the keys in a local store.
Additionally you might get a restriction on your account for using a credit card that often while buying the
battlechest online in the battle.net. I had to call them to unlock my credit card so I can purchase it again.
For them buying 4 battlechest packs within a short amount of time it looks like a stolen credit card.


always link them in the same battle.net account so you have access to all your pets and mounts.
additionally all mails are instant with no delay and you can transfer account-gear and other things
that are bound to a battle.net account.

for installing multiple instances of wow just copy the wow folder.
I'd suggest to symlink your data and interface folder so you don't need to have the whole
data storage several times on your pc and you can easily update the addons. just google
for symlink or use the forums search. Symlink is a directory link to another directory.
If your wow instance looks for the data folder then all requests are forwarded to the
data folder of your main wow installation.

you can move chars from b.net account to another b.net account or within the same b.net
account between multiple instances of wow. just make sure that your registration details
are the same in all accounts.

[mph]

thank you very very much for your replies guys, appreciated!!

i have a couple of more questions please

1) i am not very computer savvy, can you explain to me in a bit more detail what you mean by "make one directory for each wow session"?
2) when you say get the key from a local store you mean not via the online store but buying the battlechests in the store?
3) also you are saying you upgraded another account to a full account first before recruiting yourself as RAF. Does that work? I thought you had to send someone an email who has to accept first, then buy the battlechest/upgrade
4) you symlink the data/interface folders instead of having multiple copies of wow installation on your disk (which makes sense). does ISBOXER do that automatically, ie can i change user interfaces for all my group with ISBOXER and just have 1 installed version of wow, instead of creating symlinks which frankly I have no idea how to do (doesnt mean i cant get into it but as i am not very PC savvy I would like to go down the easiest route)

[nicbennett1]

1) He means literally make one "World of Warcraft" program folder per account.

2) It is true that Visa fraud prevention called me when I bought 4 online battlechests. It might be easier to get the boxed key from a local store, yes. Assuming they match the online price. With my account, at least, all I had to do was verify a few account details and tell them that the charges were legit and it was fune

3) What Asterix did was not RAF link using his main account, but using a second one. See his diagram up there, b>c>d>e, but A is separate. most people would prefer that A not be separate because you don't get as many level grants that way. Also, since you said your goal is to transfer your toons to one account after leveling, you definitely want those granted levels. I would even recommend going a>b>e and a>c>d. That way, you still get all the RAF bonuses, but you get twice as many levels to grant to account A(because both B and C are linked to it).

4. Yes, ISBoxer will do that automatically. I have one world of warcraft folder on my hard drive, and ISBoxer handles getting everything launched and keeping all my character configs separate from each other. Personally, I don't have enough good things to say about ISBoxer. It's great. There are also a ton of videos and tutorials related to setting it up. For just boosting, it requires next to no set up. You would just go through the quick setup wizard and enter your toon names. That's basically it, though there are many, many other features that you wouldn't be using if you use it strictly for boosting.

[mph]

thank you very much for the reply, this clarifies things even more

please allow me some further questions, sorry to be a pain. i have read the guides but some are just a bit too "quick" and confusing for the absolute newbie..

1) same B.Net account but different wow accounts?
- to use heirlooms on the RAF toons, the RAF accounts need to be on the same B.Net account. but wow account is not the same thing as B.Net account right? how do i set up the 4 RAF accounts for ease of use? am i creating a second wow account with a different email address on which i have all the 4 RAF accounts and link that second wow account to the B.Net account? Or am i using 4 different wow accounts with 4 different emails for the RAFs?
- i use an authenticator which i think is linked to a B.Net account correct? so when logging into all the chars i would just have to wait for the codes to change / or write down codes before, then log into them sequentially?

2) ISBoxer
- I havent yet read an awful lot about it but i will definitely need it to make the boosting streamlined. do i need a keybroadcasting tool on top of it or is that included in ISBoxer?
- Any other software I will need to make this work?

3) Boosting
- Some guides say that 1-10 is best leveled with the RAFs just killing stuff until they hit lvl10, then move to dungeons. some other guides say 1-10 should be done with the booster in the party. is there a best way to do this considering that my booster will be lvl90?

4) Heirlooms
- Does the heirloom +XP actually stack with the 300% from RAF?

thanks so much again!
best
mph

[nicbennett1]

1. Yes. Same battle net account, different wow accounts. when you get the RaF invite it asks you if you already have a battle.net account. just enter yours there on all of your new accounts and they will be joined. And the authenticator is per b.net account, so it protects all of your accounts
2. ISBoxer does key broadcasting by default when you set up a new team, as well as automatically setting up quite a few other things that you need to do to get up and running.
3. Personally, I just quest/kill with my slaves alone until 10, at which point you can enter Deadmines, RFC, and WC. whichever is closest, since you won't really spend all that much time there. Either way, I don't imagine it takes long.
4. Yes, it does. Just make sure you have equal +xp bonuses across all of your boosted toons. If they end up more than 4 levels apart the RaF bonus would stop working. Also, rested doesn't work while RaF is active, though it will still accumulate.


Don't feel bad about asking questions, I still do a good bit of that myself.

[mph]

thanks a lot nic, appreciated

i have now transferred the booster to his new realm together with 4 full heirloom sets to boost 4 RAFs and will buy the accounts in the next 24 hours.

just to confirm, I will use 4 different emails for the 4 RAFs or the same email for all 4 RAFs?

[luxlunae]

In order to move the heirlooms between you have to be under the same BNET, so same email that you currently have your account under.

[MiRai]

just to confirm, I will use 4 different emails for the 4 RAFs or the same email for all 4 RAFs?
It doesn't matter, because when you click on the link in the e-mail you're taken to the Blizzard site and asked to either create a new BNet or log into an existing one. If you want to create your new accounts on the same BNet then you would just log into your existing BNet account.

[Sservis]

4) Heirlooms - Does the heirloom +XP actually stack with the 300% from RAF? It stacks with multiplication. XP = (100% + modifiers) * (speed factor) Heirlooms, guild standard, xp potion, (and I think holidays) all count as modifiers. Rested and RAF are speed factors. It's possible to have (100% + 70%, 55% without guild standard) * (300%) = 510% with standard, 465% without (quests or don't have)

[Asterix]

510% ? Wow... and I thought the 300% RAF were very fast leveling.

Welcome to Azeroth, player.
You have explored Elwynn forest.
Congratulations, you have reached level 10.

;)