RaF 1-90

[Damons]

Hi!

I plan to start a new 5 box team after the holiday sale. I only have 1 account now with a green geared 90 druid and 90 dk.

Would like to go the LFD route, but don't have enough to buy 5 sets of guild heirlooms. Worth it to get full heirlooms for 5? How many hours would that take?

If I boost the 1st group, would I have enough JP for full heirloom sets for 5 then?

LFD 85-90 better than questing?

For the mathematically challenged peeps like me, can a kind soul post am updated A > B > C type of guide for the new RaF 1 to 85 to have the max # of 85's across all accounts?

By the way, I would do 7-8 boxing for flex raids, but it doesn't appear to be much success there, yet. Might pick up a few extra copies, just in case!

Thanks!

[MiRai]

I plan to start a new 5 box team after the holiday sale. I only have 1 account now with a green geared 90 druid and 90 dk.

Would like to go the LFD route, but only have enough to buy 5 sets of guild heirlooms. Worth it to get full heirlooms for 5? How many hours would that take?
I would say that if you want to use dungeons as your path for leveling throughout RaF, then you will want as many heirlooms as you can get. Speaking from experience, you probably won't need them for the first 70 levels as long as you've got a decent setup, but once you hit Wrath content you will find yourself extremely under-geared and possibly struggling without them (even more so come Cataclysm content).

As for how long it takes to grind out the JP to acquire the ones you want? Well, that depends on how fast you can queue for dungeons at max level since every boss will give you 100 JP. Since they nerfed the Honor > JP conversion (and because random BG victories are so... random), you'll likely not want to use random BGs as a source (although you can purchase PvP heirlooms and probably get away with them for RaF leveling just fine).

I just did a non-stop grind for a full team worth of heirlooms (http://i.imgur.com/vP8kmNA.png) (all upgraded to level 85) and it probably took me 3-4 days to grind out over 70,000 JP as a tank queuing for heroics.


If I boost the 1st group, would I have enough JP for full heirloom sets for 5 then?
You don't start getting JP until level 70 (I think?) and even then you're getting close to zero per boss kill. Cataclysm content yields a little more JP per boss/instance, but I doubt it's enough to sufficiently supply you with heirlooms.


LFD 85-90 better than questing?
It really depends on the person. If you have a kickass group that has tight rotations and is able to kill things efficiently, then it's likely better than questing; but then it comes down to... Are you going to be completely bored with the same few instances over and over again for 5 levels or, will you want to break the repetitive grind with some questing?


For the mathematically challenged peeps like me, can a kind soul post am updated A > B > C type of guide for the new RaF 1 to 85 to have the max # of 85's across all accounts?
RaF was just increased to 85 a few weeks ago and I don't know of a guide like that that exists.

[Tonuss]

For the mathematically challenged peeps like me, can a kind soul post am updated A > B > C type of guide for the new RaF 1 to 85 to have the max # of 85's across all accounts?
I don't know if this is what you mean, but if you have a level 90 that can boost, then you can do something like this: wow1 (in the new bnet account) invites wow2 and wow3 and the rest however you want, as long as wow1 is linked to at least two accounts. Have your level 90 boost wow2, wow3, wow4 and wow5 to level XX, then have wow2 and wow3 grant levels to wow1. Since they get one level to grant for every two they earn, wow1 will be the same level as the rest of the team. It should be the fastest way to level a team of five characters to 85. Once you are done with one team, rinse and repeat. Then make your way to Dawn's Blossom in the Jade Forest, gear up your teams with class and spec-appropriate ilvl 372 green gear from the merchant, and you're ready to grind to 90 in whatever manner you want.

[MiRai]

Oh snap, Tonuss just reminded me...

There's a level 80 Cataclysm green gear vendor at the Nordrassil camp in Hyjal now. That might help you balance yourself out if you're missing heirlooms.

[moosejaw]

Don't forget about the argent tournament for picking up heirlooms also. You can get 17-20 champion seals per day. Throw that into your currency rotation for gathering heirlooms. I believe they have the 1-80 items and you upgrade them with JP to raise them to 85.

[Damons]

@Mirai & Tonuss , Thx for the detailed help!

@Moosejaw Never considered the Argent Tourney, thx!

[Sam DeathWalker]

booster invites a, a invite b, b invites c, c invites d. Then you pay for a transfer from C to the booster.

[Sservis]

There's also the Darkmoon Faire for heirlooms if you're patient (or have a lot of alts/multibox).

Level 80 shoulders/robes cost 2,175 jp, 60 champion seals (can't upgrade with this currency), or 110 darkmoon prize tickets. So one champion seal is worth about 36 jp, and one darkmoon prize ticket is worth about 20 jp. Other slots/upgrades have similar ratios.

Mirai has commented that as a tank, 3-4 days gave 70,000 jp. I'm not sure how many hours it was each day, but this is the fastest way to do this outside the game as there's no limit on how many times you can do this in a day or month.

When I farmed the Argent Tournament for mounts/pets, I only did the quests (14/day), and it took 20 ish minutes or the equivalent of around 1,500 jp/hr. By comparison, this would have been more efficient for Mirai if his 3-4 days was at least 47 hours or so. Likely not faster than a tank queue. Also, there's a daily limit, and you'll need a different currency to upgrade them.

The Darkmoon Faire allows you to trade gold at the AH for 55 prize tickets at level 15 and 80 prize tickets at level 85. Also, the profession quests give up to an additional 20 prize tickets. There's also a quest to kill 250 mobs for 10 more tokens, which is a nice bonus to regular play (adds 0.8 jp/mob).. The turnin and profession can be completed in minimal time once a month. Translated, these are worth 1100 jp at level 15, 1600 jp at level 85 and an additional 400 jp if you do all the profession quests. Doing a round of the darkmoon dailies would net an additional 5 prize tickets (100 jp), but in my opinion takes longer than farming the jp in heroics (or the argent tournament). This method does take a while outside the game as the quests are only monthly, but it's the most time efficient inside the game by a wide margin (turning in the item quests is easilly less than 5 minutes, or 15,000 jp/hr, the profession quests take another 5, or 5,000 jp/hr when doing those).

[MiRai]

Mirai has commented that as a tank, 3-4 days gave 70,000 jp. I'm not sure how many hours it was each day, but this is the fastest way to do this outside the game as there's no limit on how many times you can do this in a day or month.
Honestly, I didn't keep track of the time, but I'd say a solid 6-8 hours per day broken up throughout the day as I did other things (like feed myself and workout). It all depended on the groups I was getting and I think I farmed a third of the JP I needed just in one single day because I had a Healer that was queuing with me, knew how I pulled entire instances, and could keep me alive. It was then up to the DPS to not be dumb, adapt quickly, and be doing more than a measly 10K DPS.

With a good group you should be able to do most heroics in 5-10 minutes granted you're not stuck listening to NPC RP (e.g. Siege of Niuzao Temple).

[Damons]

Thx Sam & Sservis for the extra help:)

By the way, if I did get bored and want to mix it up by boosting, will the druid or dk boost faster? Thanks.

Wish I could start now...c'mon Gamestop!

[MiRai]

By the way, if I did get bored and want to mix it up by boosting, will the druid or dk boost faster? Thanks.
I'd say the answer comes down to the following (in order of importance):

1) Which class are you better at playing?
2) Which class is more geared and does more AoE DPS?

[daviddoran]

If I had to guess, I'd pick Druid, cause with Feral Charge, you can jump from mob to mob and get around faster, but like MiRai said, gear and familiarity with the character will help too.

[Damons]

Ok thx guys. Working on justice points for heirlooms for a few days, will try each one in a lowbie instance & see how it goes.

[Dranny817]

Just some info about granted levels they will work on connected realms too, but still not cross realm just had a chat with a GM about it.

[Damons]

Forgot to ask this. Is A >B > C & A > D> E better than A > B > C > D > E? Would like the most 85's without transfers.

[Dranny817]

Forgot to ask this. Is A >B > C & A > D> E better than A > B > C > D > E? Would like the most 85's without transfers.

If you are running 5 man teams and want to get the most 85's without transferring, RAF all from your main account then every 5 man team you level you have 3 85's on your main account.

[Damons]

How about A > B > C > D > E > F, then toss the F account after boosting 8 teams? My suck ass math skills tell me A to E would have 11 85's each if I do it that way, versus E being left with 8 85's if I don't get a 6th account. For an extra $5, it is tempting.

[suicidesspyder]

Well if you want jp you can always do the karasang wilds honor grind. Just find a group using oqueque farming k wilds honor. If you can get into a big enough group with people from different relms you can make 10k plus honor an hour. Ive done this and in a couple hours went from 0 honor to full tyrannical. Now you can do it and just trade hp into jp. So in about 2-3 hours u could have around 15-30k jp that should be enough to buy at least 2 toons full hierlooms.

[Damons]

Didn't know that, thanks Spyder. Funny sig!

[Tonuss]

Forgot to ask this. Is A >B > C & A > D> E better than A > B > C > D > E? Would like the most 85's without transfers.
It depends on how you are planning to do it. The setup I chose in my previous reply (A>B, A>C, then whatever you want) was based on boosting all of the teams (B, C, D, E) with a level 90 then using B & C to grant A to 85. That way you can wind up with as many full five-man teams (at level 85) as you can boost before RAF runs out, but you also waste half of your grant-able levels. If you are running dungeons it's a bit trickier because you will always have at least one account that doesn't get level grants no matter how you set it up.

[daviddoran]

Oh snap, Tonuss just reminded me...

There's a level 80 Cataclysm green gear vendor at the Nordrassil camp in Hyjal now. That might help you balance yourself out if you're missing heirlooms.

I'm lvlin a new team on a new server and that gear is invaluable. I'm not realm xferring to this server, so I am starting off with nothing, no gold no bags, and just by doing the dungeon quests, and vendoring just about everything but cloth, I had JUST enough to purchase a full set of 80 gear from the vendor once I hit 80. It made a huge difference in my DPS and survivability, as most of my older gear was crap, in northrend some of the stuff I was wearing was vanilla stuff, even as old as Zul'Farrak...

So it is fully possible to do it quickly, with no gold help and with no heirlooms. That said, it's MUCH faster with a full set of heirlooms, not only because of the exp incraease, but the gear is perfectly optimized (provided you have the right heirloom sets) and you do so much more DPS especially at lower levels.

I think I'll wait until cross realm BoA mailing is possible in the next patch before doing another team. I still have some looms to upgrade to 85 anyway.

[Damons]

Just finished farming 5 sets of upgraded chest and shoulder heirlooms. Should be done with the weapons tomorrow. I wonder if the heirloom 85 upgrades were even worth it, but it's too late now. Will buy the guild +xp heirlooms, then that's it I guess. +50% xp with the guild bonus. Do if I need to get the non +xp heirlooms too?

Melee team will be the first to group, equipped each with a +int staff and cloth armor lol. Hope it won't make a big difference in level speed.

[Damons]

Looks like cross realm heirlooms are coming tomorrow!

[Invisahealz]

Has anyone done this from 80-85 boosting yet? Does the deepholm grind spot still work or are y'all runnin your boost teams through Cata instances??

[Kicksome]

80-85 with RAF is a breeze. You boost 4 alts with a 90 in Stonecore. It's almost a level a run. 6 runs from 80-85. Takes a little over an hour.

Make sure to buy the level 80 starter Cata gear in Hyjal just so you can survive if you get hit. Otherwise leave your guys WAY back and don't attack anything. You don't even need to be in the closed room with the boss fights to get exp.