Can't boost with a protPally?

I'm about to get in as a new 5boxer (prob on stonemaul alliance) and have spent the past 3 weeks digging through this site. I wish I could boost my team through, but I'm starting from scratch.

I want to take maximum advantage of RAF and get a few teams to 60, but I also don't want to waste time trying to gear my pally or get him to 80 if I don't have to.

My first team will be 1xprotPally, 1xpriest, 3xmage. How should I invest my time when I get my Pally to 60 so I can use him to boost other teams up to 60? It seems all boosting pally's on this site are very well geared. What kind of gear do you need minimum to boost effectively? Would it be better to get him to 80?

My gear was just OK when i started boosting. I also did some arena and BGs to pick up the S2 gear. They main thing you have to worry about before your gear gets good is the size of the pulls. This you will found out through trial and error. Which for me was fun, how much can I pull and get away with it?, is a mini game all by itself. You will die, you will get over it.

One thing you need to consider is how are you linking your accounts. If the pally is on a linked account he will hit 60 with your first group, but then screw up the XP on the next set because of this link. If he is not linked then he will lag behind, 3x behind, the rest of that group. You could level him then transfer him to an unlinked account to get around this. Then don't put any more toons on his main account. Actually you could refer from that account and get him a Zevhra mount if he isn't getting on already. Then transfer him back when you are done RAFing. This is basically what I did. I use the other character slots on the account for my mules.

Join me on alliance Bonechewer and I'll send you a mess of Netherweave bags to get ya started :-). Seriously - I'm looking for other boxers who want to do the 10 mans in WoTLK.

With RAF, you level so fast that IMO boosting is unecessary - I believe it's been substantially nerfed anyways. You certainly won't get the RAF bonus with your pally in the lowbie group.

Also, if your are planning on leveling multiple 5-man teams, you may find it easier to get started with something like a 5-man shammy team - this is comparatively much easier to manage than a multiclass team if you're new to boxing. Shammies get ghost wolf for the cost of training and that helps with the biggest issue leveling multiple teams from scratch - money.

I did a 5-shammy team first, then a pally + 4 mages (ah, AoE heaven), then a mixed-bag (druid/hunter/priest/lock), and for my last RAF teams I'm gonna do 5 druids (and if I have time, death knights from 55-60).

One unrelated suggestion - think carefully how you want to link your accounts, with five the main options are:

A -> B -> C -> D ->E

versus
A -> B
|
V
C

C-> D
|
V
E


With the first setup, you can grant levels to 4 of your accounts, but that kind of leaves one in the cold. This is the way I did it but might choose option 2 if doing this again. With option 2, you can only grant levels to two of your accounts but you double the amount of levels you can grant to those - you can use this for singleton classes you don't want/need multiples of.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 'Caspian',index.php?page=Thread&postID=148198#post 148198

One thing you need to consider is how are you linking your accounts. If the pally is on a linked account he will hit 60 with your first group, but then screw up the XP on the next set because of this link. If he is not linked then he will lag behind, 3x behind, the rest of that group. You could level him then transfer him to an unlinked account to get around this. Then don't put any more toons on his main account. Actually you could refer from that account and get him a Zevhra mount if he isn't getting on already. Then transfer him back when you are done RAFing. This is basically what I did. I use the other character slots on the account for my mules.

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I'm pretty sure no longer get the RAF bonus when boosting from outside the RAF linked accounts. In other words, you only get the 3x bonus if everyone in the group is getting experience.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...sid=1&pageNo=1

Plus, boosting as you describe would 1. require an extra account, and 2. limit the number of toons you can level at a time to 4 from 5. This may not be an issue, but it's something to keep in mind.

Boosting is still supposed to be pretty efficient, but without the RAF bonus I suspect it is not more efficient than questing, which allows you to bring a full team along.

Disclaimer- I don't personally have experience with boosting and have not independently verified that the RAF boosting technique has been nerfed; I'm just citing blue posts.

Thanks for the great advice all ...

Lets say I did want to gear a pally as soon as the RAF -> 60 was done - so he had half-decent gear for boosting ... how long would it take with my team and where would you start?

Caspian mentioned getting the S2 gear as a start, but I have no idea how long that takes (quit 3-4 months before BC ... lots has changed). Thanks all ...

[quote='emesis',index.php?page=Thread&postID=148201 #post148201]
[quote='Caspian',index.php?page=Thread&postID=14819 8#post148198]
One thing you need to consider is how are you linking your accounts. If the pally is on a linked account he will hit 60 with your first group, but then screw up the XP on the next set because of this link. If he is not linked then he will lag behind, 3x behind, the rest of that group. You could level him then transfer him to an unlinked account to get around this. Then don't put any more toons on his main account. Actually you could refer from that account and get him a Zevhra mount if he isn't getting on already. Then transfer him back when you are done RAFing. This is basically what I did. I use the other character slots on the account for my mules.[/quote]


I'm pretty sure no longer get the RAF bonus when boosting from outside the RAF linked accounts. In other words, you only get the 3x bonus if everyone in the group is getting experience.

[url]http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=8765584132&sid=1&pageNo=1[/url]

Plus, boosting as you describe would 1. require an extra account, and 2. limit the number of toons you can level at a time to 4 from 5. This may not be an issue, but it's something to keep in mind.

Boosting is still supposed to be pretty efficient, but without the RAF bonus I suspect it is not more efficient than questing, which allows you to bring a full team along.

Disclaimer- I don't personally have experience with boosting and have not independently verified that the RAF boosting technique has been nerfed; I'm just citing blue posts.[/quote]That post is from August, my RAF expired Nov 4th or 5th, it still worked then. It might have been nerfed since my RAF ended but I honestly doubt it.

Yes it does require 1 extra account, and you either have 4 man teams or 4 + your pally. But That is not uncommon. [url='index.php?page=User&userID=3']Ellay[/url]'s PvP team is 4 plus an outside healer, as are others. And many PvE teams are based on a Prot pally.

It really depends on the level. I personally think questing from 45-60 is faster the boosting with or without RAF.

Quote:

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Lets say I did want to gear a pally as soon as the RAF -> 60 was
done - so he had half-decent gear for boosting ... how long would it
take with my team and where would you start?



Caspian mentioned getting the S2 gear as a start, but I have no idea
how long that takes (quit 3-4 months before BC ... lots has changed).
Thanks all ...

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At this point I would just get to 70+ asap and not screw with S2 (or any PvP) gear. Some of the blue quest and instance gear in WotLK is close to or better then S2, even in the 70-72 dungeons. Even if you have to pull your pally out of the group.

I play Horde I would level a team to 10 and do
10-20 SFK
20-40 SM Cath
here I would usually start questing - Dustwallow -> south STV -> Hinterlands -> Ungoro -> WPL ding 60
When I did boost I did
40-45 ZF (made my daughter tank on her druid)
45-60 Strat back on the pally,

I did all the instance quests that did not involve a chain, execpt the ones that were a chain in strat

My RAF ran out on Saturday - but I was still boosting on Friday without any problems. The Paladin (I did holy with some defenese gear) but prot with spellpower gear (consecration is the way to go) would be fine.

The holy paladin is was 70 and unlinked to the 4 other accounts. I always got the xp bonus.

I don't know how much that will help you though if you don't already have the high level character.

I really can't figure out what that post is talking about. Boosting still works and you still get the x3 exp if the booting account is not linked with the others. I haven't done it since the patch, but last week it worked fine. That post is from August.