5-box leveling, balancing efficiency and "safety" ?

So I'm new to boxing, but I've decided that I want to 5-box a mixed group when Classic is released to give myself maximum gold farming options upon hitting 60 without having to separately level "farm" toons such as a mage or hunter. (I plan on maining a warrior)

I didn't want to add this post to the Classic mega-thread because my questions are not specific to Classic but would rather apply to any leveling scenario.
From reading many many leveling guides, it appears to be generally accepted that the fastest way to level is some combination of questing+grinding.

My big overarching concern is receiving false botting reports from ignorant players, and subsequently receiving false bans from ignorant GMs. I see that this is a thing that happens, and even if they might be overturned, I do not want to lose days of early-server leveling time having to fool with such nonsense. Even in the limited amount of low-level 5-boxing I've done in retail wow, I've been on the receiving end of whispers like "well that's not obvious at all lol" and so forth.

As a result, I feel like I want to avoid people as much as possible while boxing from 1-60 in Classic. That would seem to take questing off the table unless I'm able to do so in extreme off-peak hours. That leaves grinding as my primary leveling method.

My actual questions:
#1 - How much slower might it be to grind from 1-60 compared to questing+grind?

#2 - Are there any good instance grinds? I'm very interested in such spots as they would allow me to level in complete isolation with zero player interaction. For example, would grinding the non-elites in BRD be efficient at 52+? Any other instance grinds that would be comparable to open world grinds? Even partial instance grinds, resetting as necessary?

#3 - Am I just worrying way too much about getting reported and/or banned?

Thanks in advance!

Reports mean nothing if you're not doing anything bad.

I've read numerous reports from boxers who got banned while doing nothing bad, and had to spend days getting the bans overturned.

The definition of bad is the issue. What we think is fine is not always fine and vice versa. Confirmation bias etc.

Ok so,
If I'm 5-boxing Classic from 1-60, I will undoubtedly be reported multiple times because:
A - Most non-boxers can't tell the difference between boxing and botting, and
B - Most players are already under the impression that boxing is against the ToS

But if I am using nothing but ISboxer and the ISboxer addon.....can I assume that GM's will be able to see this and not ban me erroneously??

You are worrying way too much about being temp-suspended. ;)

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Originally Posted by UFTA

Ok so,
If I'm 5-boxing Classic from 1-60, I will undoubtedly be reported multiple times because:
A - Most non-boxers can't tell the difference between boxing and botting, and
B - Most players are already under the impression that boxing is against the ToS

But if I am using nothing but ISboxer and the ISboxer addon.....can I assume that GM's will be able to see this and not ban me erroneously??

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Well maybe I could put you at ease. I have been playing WoW since shortly after christmas 2006, I started 5 boxing and 10 boxing sometime during the following year.

The number of times I have been banned: 0

Thats with 10 to 11 years of 4 hours a day multiboxing. I took a 3 month break from WoW when I boxed Rift, but then back to WoW.

Quote:

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But if I am using nothing but ISboxer and the ISboxer addon.....can I assume that GM's will be able to see this and not ban me erroneously??

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No. If that worked then all the botters would just install isboxer. If a GM investigates you they'll look at your actions.

Just follow the rules, statistically you'll be just fine. And 10 years from now when you've never been banned either you can look back on this post and see how silly it was to worry.

Ok that's helpful/reassuring.
Do you get a lot of the nasty/ignorant whispers from other players?

If you used to cheat on other games, have trainers etc, (before you plan to play wow), may i suggest that you reformat your harddrive and reinstall the OS before you start boxing ;) (warden, the "anti cheat software" gets installed when you install wow, it could detect your "old sins" hehe), if you happen to have some running accidently etc). Also try be vary of the content on any other harddrives connected to this pc. If it has a bunch of old "trainers" etc, remove those aswell.

Also, stay away from using "vpn", seems they dont like those and you can get flagged for a ban (though these seems to be easily "overriden" and you can get your accounts back). But probably safest to not have one when you play wow.

Be super critical of everything you install after this, like "software for keyboards" etc, as they can contain automation features, worst case scenario.

You can get some nasty whispers, but dont reply, just ignore them. They usually dont believe anything you will say anyway (and 99% will report you), so its a waste of time and effort. Though if they complain that you are tagging all the mobs in the area, and they cant complete their quest, let them get what they need, so they can be on their way (if not, gamemasters dont like it when/if you distrupt other players gameplay, could be a bannable offence if it goes too far for a longer periode of time).

Moral is: if you have to cheat in other games, do it on a different computer. And make sure it has never ever had any battlenet / wow installed on it before.

Good luck out there.

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Originally Posted by UFTA

I've read numerous reports from boxers who got banned while doing nothing bad, and had to spend days getting the bans overturned.

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Where have you read these reports? On this site, there are, maybe, five players who've recently reported action taken against their account. Five out of, what must be, something like a thousand multiboxers total—the vast majority of whom have never had a single issue in years of playing multiple characters.

It comes down to... If you act like a bot and others think you look like a bot, then you're going to get reported for botting (or zone disruption if you run enough game clients).

EDIT: I forgot to add this, but Blizzard recently added this entry to their knowledge base:
https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/11704

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Originally Posted by WOWBOX40

If you used to cheat on other games, have trainers etc, (before you plan to play wow), may i suggest that you reformat your harddrive and reinstall the OS before you start boxing ;) (warden, the "anti cheat software" gets installed when you install wow, it could detect your "old sins" hehe), if you happen to have some running accidently etc).

Be super critical of everything you install after this, like "software for keyboards" etc, as they can contain automation features, worst case scenario.

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Absolutely nothing I've quoted above is true, so please stop spreading this misinformation. You've been warned about this already, and this is your final warning.

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Originally Posted by WOWBOX40

You can get some nasty whispers, but dont reply, just ignore them.

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I think the better thing to do would be to reply and not be a dick, because if you ignore them then you could easily be viewed as a bot.