Boosting Nerfed, Dungeon Experience Rewarded Buffed

[MiRai]

I posted this in another thread, but it'll be buried there.

Blizzard just released a statement about dungeon experience:


Hi all,

From WoW’s earliest days, we’ve always had to take steps to limit experience gains for characters when grouped with someone of a drastically higher level. We recently became aware of a bug introduced in 7.3.5: a side-effect of the vastly expanded creature scaling was causing the logic to break when awarding XP in some situations. Earlier today, we applied a hotfix to creature experience that corrects this issue.

At the same time, we have significantly increased the experience awarded through queuing for random Normal dungeons from Classic through Draenor content. Running dungeons at the appropriate should feel rewarding, whether as a complement to or even an complete alternative to questing.

As always, we appreciate your feedback and will continue to keep a close eye on the pacing of the leveling experience in 7.3.5 and beyond.

Looking forward to hearing if doing 5-man dungeons normally is once again tolerable, since it'll still be a few days before I can finally get back to all of this.

[Fat Tire]

Looks like queuing for random Normal dungeons from Classic through Draenor provides 4x exp reward than before hotfix.


I am so glad I dont have to do this 1-100 leveling crap anymore.

[DualZilla]

Not an exhaustive test by any means...

But boosting seems to yield 10% vs groups of same level

Boosted w/ 110 and 4 lvl 24-26 (with full heirlooms and 300% RAF)....was 63 EXP on Trash in Ragefire (24 or so was RAF 300% bonus)
Bosses were 342
Final completion was 40,000ish (with 27,000ish being the RAF 300%) so 12-13,000 w/o RAF


Same group subbed out 110 and lowest I had was a 37 which allowed queue still

Trash was 642 exp...didn't try a boss yet as I'm not sure if healer can handle

[omegared]

Looking forward to hearing if doing 5-man dungeons normally is once again tolerable, since it'll still be a few days before I can finally get back to all of this.

Just did Scarlet Halls with my druids at 32% in at level 36 and gained just over 1 level with the 2 quests that are there. Am now at 35% level 37.
I started with one bar of rested xp and using only heirloom gear and i didnt kill every mob (there arent that many inside anyway).

[Peri Helion]

boosting seems to yield 10% vs groups of same level

Same

Three nights ago boosted 4 level 15 toons with a 103 in stockade and elite non-bosses were 90xp, trash 10xp, didn’t make note of the bosses but dungeon completion bonus was around 8k iirc; total clear netted 17k xp (77% of a level). Same group last night yielded 9xp and 1xp per Elite and non elite trash, and dungeon completion was 4K. Total xp was 8k (1/3 of a level).

If I have time tonight will test a 5 man on level group and see if 4x stacks with RAF.

All of this instability around what they will change next is getting old real quick. I fully embrace change, and product evolution, but when your player base can’t even project a 90 day predictable horizon for what they want to do next because it changes that fast people get frustrated and leave.

[Darth0]

Looking forward to hearing if doing 5-man dungeons normally is once again tolerable, since it'll still be a few days before I can finally get back to all of this.

Thank you for posting the Blizzard response MiRai. A very interesting change.

My conundrum at this point, is that I have levelled 4 RAF accounts with characters at various levels so actually making a "normal" dungeon team is next to impossible at this point. I will just have to suck up the dungeon experience nerfs and continue with boosting. Good thing I still have about two months of grandfathered RAF. <sigh> Oh well. :p

[DualZilla]

Curious to hear what people get exp wise...I installed an addon called expstats to try to gauge what I get trying various stuff

I've been trying to do different zone quests each time around that I got bored of dungeon boosting...

Quests in hillsbrad like having to make each toon gather 40 clicks of spider eggs on decaying bears for 200 eggs total gets old real quick...

Ghostlands was probably the best one so far at sub lvl 60

Just gave Azshara a try with the addon and it was horrible slow at 200-300,000/hour boosted with 300% and all Heirlooms and 60-70,000 on only Heirloomed...gave up at some mage challenge questline

Just trying to gut out a few more classes to 90 before the grandfathered RAF expires...

Hoping to try normal and carried runs to compare later...

Slagmaw unfortunately owns me so have to do others non carried

I've done quite a few legion mythic+ at 110 and those seem easier than some of these revamped older dungeons

[ebony]

So I take it just been buffed 4 using lfg? So playing with walking in gives you not as much as before

[Svpernova09]

I'm 100% in favor of boosting being nerfed and 5 man exp better. Maybe that's the "get off my lawn" attitude because I've leveled many 5 man teams via dungeons VS boosting

[Pocahuntess]

I'm 100% in favor of boosting being nerfed and 5 man exp better. Maybe that's the "get off my lawn" attitude because I've leveled many 5 man teams via dungeons VS boosting

Except, it didn't take you 45mins to do a run and '5 man exp better' is relative to the awful amount it was before the buff. In my testing, it's just about the same as questing or 1 and 1/2 level per hour. Without RAF.

[Fat Tire]

If my goal is end game with my team I will take the route of least resistance. If my goal is enjoying dungeons then it doesn't matter how long leveling takes because once I hit max level I will just start a new team.

[DualZilla]

I ran a ton o dungeons and quests over the weekend trying out different zones and methods for leveling

From best to worst

Without grandfathered RAF... Boosting would not have been viable... Only the experience for completion made it tolerable

On my non RAF team members once the rested burned out they got left in the dust

Best case I was getting 250,000ish from lvl 60-80 in TBC per dungeon pushing 1-1.2 mil an hour

Without RAF was maybe 200,000-300,000/ hour with rested exp in there as I rotated teams in and out

I was getting almost no exp from trash and 300ish exp from bosses...was in the 6-9 thousands for bosses pre nerf

I did almost all the dungeons in both normal and heroic and also a Raid including all the quests in TBC dungeons

I slogged through 20 of one just to get over the lvl 80 hump

If I wasn't used to the old exp gain rate and in a hurry to level before the RAF runs out...

Gathering actually started to look good at 1k +per harvest on non RAF but was tedious with several characters and until flying was just good as a supplemental exp boost

Questing is beyond slow with a team as invariably there are the quests where gathering 20 of something per toon blocks the quest line and takes forever with 5 toons

Best case was approximately 200-400,000 per hour with the RAF 300% on quest turn-ins generating that generous rate in lvl 40-60 zones

I briefly tried boosting with my 110 to speed things up trying to churn out higher completions of quests....but here too but the exp reduction was so not worth it... even when others tagged mobs to get credit in the zone...exp suffered mightily

Running dungeons at level through LFD was slow...The instant queues 5 boxing made it almost equal to questing when choosing specific dungeons

I ran about a dozen stockade dungeons in a row and by the end I was getting really good at not dying!

Trying to do random ones for the extra experience reward is ok as long as a long dungeon like Dire Maul doesn't pop

Again without RAF on my fill in characters...they got very little experience even at level standard non boosted leveling in dungeons

Standard completions are like finishing 3-4 quests at 45,000ish without RAF

I would say it took me 15-20min for stockade and 45min to an hour if I have to try to crowd control or get long dungeons Wailing caverns and Dire Mauls

80-90 was better as I ran a ton of stormstout for the completions boosted at about 10min per run...that is the quickest one to slog through

Now onto my next leveling team and first random was wailing caverns....grrr

As I am getting better boxing my teams it seems one and done per dungeon if doing all the quests through LFD is the fastest for me on dungeons I know well...

Pre and post 7.3.5 leveling is a whole different animal...

I liked leveling new characters but now...not so much...

Really wondering if I will be able to finish up the non RAF toons all stuck at 40ish....after the RAF toons leave them behind when they get to TBC and Wrath at 60

I was hoping to level the new allied races properly to get the heritage armor without any boosting with the freebie 110 boosts from the expansion...

but now I dunno...

[Svpernova09]

Except, it didn't take you 45mins to do a run and '5 man exp better' is relative to the awful amount it was before the buff. In my testing, it's just about the same as questing or 1 and 1/2 level per hour. Without RAF.

To clarify my point, I'm OK with running 5 man at level dungeons being better XP than boosting with a high level character. I realize that may not be a popular opinion, but that's what I meant.

[Xixillia]

So an aside comment on leveling instances. They are super painful now. LVL60 prot pallies getting 1shot by mechanics in full heirloom gear. :/ Is garbage, and not fun :(

[MiRai]

So an aside comment on leveling instances. They are super painful now. LVL60 prot pallies getting 1shot by mechanics in full heirloom gear. :/ Is garbage, and not fun :(
Which dungeon encounter(s) are you referring to? After 7.3.5, I had the chance to level a mixed team to level 61 before I had to call it quits, temporarily, due to a hardware failure, and I didn't really have any issues with a PAL/SHM/WAR/WAR/PRI team other than a select few encounters that took a few tries, but were eventually overcome.

[Ritley]

All these changes are making me think using my fully enchanted heirloom sets and making more to have enough for full teams is going to be worthwhile again. Pots and buffs as well.

[luxlunae]

To clarify my point, I'm OK with running 5 man at level dungeons being better XP than boosting with a high level character. I realize that may not be a popular opinion, but that's what I meant.

That sounds reasonable to me as well. In general you guys are describing a world that sounds acceptable (1.5 levels per dungeon?), maybe need to try my dungeon teams again.

My problem with "If my goal is end game with my team I will take the route of least resistance. If my goal is enjoying dungeons then it doesn't matter how long leveling takes because once I hit max level I will just start a new team." as an argument is that I LOVE leveling through dungeons, but if you get stuck in an expac where you are getting the same dungeon over and over and it is a shitty one, I don't want to run dungeons I hate more than once on a team.

[sothis]

i think i found some somewhat acceptable workarounds for most level ranges:

-15?-60 afk grind the dragon and orc spot in wetlands with ww monk+ox statue (im not certain when you can start there, i think the area is 15 or 20+, i did it 2 times yet but both with allied races that started at 20). While i did the spot i still had grandfathered RAF bonus active and i went from 20-60 in like 5 hours i would say.

-60-80 i afked the elite mobs in icecrown in the building next to the west of the raid. its slower than wetland but i couldnt stand bc/tfc questing. I think Hellfire Ramparts is a good alternative to boost via instance as you can leave the dungeon upon completion pretty quickly.

-80-90 i boosted lost city of tol'vir which i think is the best instance for the level range. i would guess one run took me 4-5 minutes just killing the bosses leaving the team at the entrance.

-90-98 i afked clefthoofs in nagrand with one team, it works like a charm and you are getting actually quite a bit of fur this way. I somewhat felt bad after i camped the spot and contested it against the oppsing faction with a high level team for 3 days now. With the rest of my characters that still need to hit 98 i moved on to boost in slag mines. You can run slagmines in under 6 minutes and the exp gain is somewhat acceptable. i am getting 600-800k/h i would guess.

Does anybody have expirience with afk grinding mobs via ww monk with ox statue? i dont want to get into any trouble as its kinda abusive in my eyes (but so is the new leveling system if you just want to get it done lol)

[Sservis]

To clarify my point, I'm OK with running 5 man at level dungeons being better XP than boosting with a high level character. I realize that may not be a popular opinion, but that's what I meant.

At level groups should definitely reward more experience than boosted groups per completion. I even agree that it should be slightly more in a xp per hour sense. Specifically, at level random dungeon groups should not be worse than boosting. At level specific dungeon groups should also be "not worse" than boosting.

I also think leveling secondary characters should be significantly faster than leveling first characters. On par with all alts have 300% RAF ish XP, but not level grants (make heirlooms grant a much bigger bonus).

[DualZilla]

In further testing I hit a duh moment...basically max exp per hour is limited to 10x instance completion +/- bonus objectives

10x being the number of instances per hour before lockout per hour...while boosting....which still seems the fastest way to level even w/o RAF

For example Stratholm main entrance live side has several bonus kills that give lump sum exp...about 30,000 without RAF (scales up a couple hundred a level 37-60) per completion with The 4-5 bonus kills

Not a huge difference doing say Ragefire or (stockades... I would guess as an alliance) 0-60 but stratholm is do-able

So
37-57 300,000 per hour in Stratholm at 10x/hour
57-80 700,000 per hour in Hellfire Ramparts at 10x/hour (takes about 5min per run due to ending above entrance)
80-90 800,000 per hour in Stormstout Brewery at 10x/hour

Was sub 100,000/hour no matter where I quested including Ghostlands which has a ton of quests

Diremaul at level doing random was best on first run due to quests and bonus objectives but still just over 150,000

plus boosting has added of looting bosses for transmogs...even at 30+ runs i don't get all the transmogs from a dungeon

addon called xpstat is a better exp addon cause can reset easily on a broker addon

addon called "saved instances" lets you know when you know when you enter the 9th and how long til next one is available...like say another will be available in 4 minutes

[luxlunae]

Interesting research Dualzilla!

[Sservis]

In further testing I hit a duh moment...basically max exp per hour is limited to 10x instance completion +/- bonus objectives

10x being the number of instances per hour before lockout per hour...while boosting....which still seems the fastest way to level even w/o RAF

There are ways around the 10x limit, although not for the same instance.

Ways around

Level on different realms

merged realms count as different, whole party including booster has to be different ex. Staghelm/Azuremyst for instance, can tag team the groups and get 20 instances/hour on that merged realm
Put spare alts on different realms for farming ex Illidan-Horde/Sargeras-Alliance, 20 instances/hr


Enter new instances (travel). First entrance always works, even if you're over the limit. You can do 10x Hellfire and still do 1x Blood Furnace and 1x Shattered Halls. Note your instance count will be at 12 and it has to expire down to under 10 before you can do repeats.


More details here https://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/54260-Instance-limit-details

[Ritley]

So in case anyone else gets the "bright idea" of trying to twink out a level 60 to see if it's capable of being a worthy boost character I'll share my experience with trying to create a level 60 warrior.

The purpose was to create a boosting character that:


Is within the appropriate level range so the rest of the team still gets full mob kill experience
Is within the appropriate level range to be able to use the LFD queue to:

Cut down on travel time
Remove instance cap limit or the need for workarounds
Get the bonuses from utilizing the LFD system


Is able to find a nice marriage between speed run boosting for bonus objectives and full dungeon questing/experience from running through with a normal team


The character I decided to go with was a Fury warrior for the following reasons:


Extra stats from second 2 hander
Great mobility + movement speed talents even at such a low level
Spammable AoE
High damage output via cooldowns and cooldowns are on short timers
Self heals via Bloodthirst and good kiting ability with Heroic Leap + Piercing Howl
Has a Tank spec for queueing purposes (would still need a healer in the group to be able to queue)
I already had a level 54 warrior and didn't want to do the DK starting area (Ok so this was the biggest reason)


Gearing strategy was to use Heirlooms in all slots where sockets were not available and get socketed items at the highest ilvl possible for that level and fill with +10 str gems (which scale down to +8 at level 60). I was able to farm up all the socketed plate from Ramparts/Blood Furnace/Slave Pens relatively quickly (1 reset for each got me all the gear I needed which may have been lucky) and enchanted what I was able to as follows:


2x Crusader (each weapon)
Greater Tiger Fang (shoulders)
Greater Stats (chest)
Haste on Rings
Mark of the Hidden Satyr (neck)
Minor Speed (boots)
Haste + Speed (WoD cloak enchant)


There is reportedly a hidden ilvl boost when doing instanced PvE legacy content as well so I didn't want to lower my ilvl too much (socketed blues from TBC dungeons are ilvl 66, heirlooms are ilvl 85 at level 60) and figured the raw stats from socketed items would outweigh the small drop in overall ilvl. Information can be found here: https://xpoff.com/threads/level-70-pve-bis-gear-compendium.72217/ and the formula appears to use ilvl of dungeon drops at your current level (115 at 70, 66 at 60).

After going through all this the boost it gave to my character was so small it was barely noticeable. He can slog through certain dungeons one pack at a time with small heal breaks in between but not nearly good enough to make all this effort noticeable unless you only 4 box and won't lose out on having a 5th leveling character in your team. So then I tried to switching him to prot and it was even worse. I also unequipped the socketed items and put on all the heirlooms in the slots I had replaced them with which increased my average ilvl by 3 but that was still worse than when I had the socketed gear equipped.

I figured I'd just share this as an FYI for any other boxers who were toying with this idea or to start a discussion as to which classes might be much better suited for this. There is also the possibility that there are massively overbudgeted items via questing at certain level ranges that can skew your ilvl so high that you could effectively become a booster because of the hidden ilvl mechanic. Who knows, maybe there are some quests out there you can do at level 20 that give ilvl 60 gear and turn that 20 into a wrecking ball. You don't necessarily have to be at max level for that level range's content to be able to boost because of how scaling works.

There are also major possibilities in other level ranges for being able to do this because of legendary items like Shadowmourne and much better raid gear compared to the next tier's early leveling gear (TBC early leveling gear eclipses vanilla raiding gear in every aspect due to sockets).