Efficiency mass leveling until WOTLK

[Mendicant]

Before you start reading the block that follows, let me say that I wrote this as much for me, to outline my thoughts, as for others to see it and comment on it/pick it apart. I'll warn you, its long, and probably really boring. Here it goes...

I'm considering starting over. When I was leveling my shamans here, they were my 3rd characters I brought to 70. And it was tough. The toughness of it was softened by the novelty of everything dying so fast, but still I felt a little stressed. When I hit 70 with them I knew there was no way I was going to level another group to 70 in the foreseeable future-- the amount of time and effort involved just wasn't appealing. But now with this RAF offer (yes, this is another RAF-based thread), I feel the urge to go for it, and level as many groups as I can before WOTLK.

Here's my reasoning:
1. 300% xp on an already softened trek 1-60 will make it more enjoyable. I used to get frustrated by how slow it was (I know, I know, many other MMOs are even slower).
2. If I was gearing my 70s instead of leveling new characters, when WOTLK comes out, all that grinding would be made obsolete (thus time wasted).
3. I really would love to have more different groups/characters. There are so many classes I would love to try.

And so, I have begun to undertake a great deal of planning. What groups do I want to get there? How will I do it? How can I best use those bonus levels? and so forth.

Characters I would like to have:
1. the option of having any healer and tank combination with any ranged-DPS team.
2. at least one of every class
3. The option to have a party 4 of any ranged dps, and 5 of any healer/caster hybrid (shamans, priests, druids)

The challenge here is finding group compositions will fit into the above conditions while being effective at leveling. First off, the most logical way to work the RAF system would be: Account 1 refers account 2 refers account 3 refers account 4 refers account 5-- thus each account 1 through 4 would receive equal bonus levels, while account 5 receives none (a regrettable necessity).

Here is what I have come up with: in all cases, the first character mentioned is account 1, and the last is account 5.
(H) means I would gear it with healing gear
(D) means I would gear it with dps gear (ranged)
(T) means I would gear it with tanking gear

1. Time-tested shamans and paladin tank setup. Highly effective in pve.
paladin (T/H)
shaman (D)
shaman (D)
shaman (D)
shaman (D/H)

2. Hunters and shaman healer, thus allowing a 5-shaman team as well. I have wanted to try this for a while... 4 pets seem really nice.
shaman (H/D)
hunter (D)
hunter (D)
hunter (D)
hunter (D)

3. All-druid team. This also seemed like an interesting makeup, as it could work as a stealth-team. I forsee the no ooc rez to be a be annoyance though. Having both top and bottom druid with tanking and healing gear provides a measure of flexibility. Now any of the previous groups can use a druid as a tank or healer.
druid (T/H/D)
druid (D)
druid (D)
druid (D)
druid (H/T/D)

4. Priest w/ Warlocks, heavy shadow team. Another team I've wanted to try. The apparent synergy between shadow-priest (or even holy priest) with warlocks seems really powerful. Additionally, this opens up the priest for the other teams as healer (if so desired). The way it is laid out, it allows the opportunity for paladin-warlocks-priest for instances later on.
warlock (D)
warlock (D)
warlock (D)
warlock (D)
priest (H/D)

5. 4x priests. I am not convinced of the viability of an all-priest team. While their sustained-damage capabilities would likely be impressive, they are too squishy for instances later on. Rather than bother with a full 5-man team, later on I could borrow the priest from the 4-warlock team to have 5 of them, thus allowing me to experiment with the idea. This team would be leveled with bonus levels.
priest (H/D)
priest (D)
priest (D)
priest (D)

6. 4x mages. Partial group. I will be using bonus levels to get this group to 60.
mage (D)
mage (D)
mage (D)
mage (D)

7. Conglomerate melee. I don't cherish the idea of leveling a melee team, and as I said Iwould like to have one of each class if only for solo play, so the odd men out will fit here. This will also be using bonus levels to get to 60. Additionally, this opens up a warrior as a tank for other groups.
warrior (D/T)
rogue (D)
paladin (D/T)
shaman (D-enh) <- any class could go here, it is a free space (DK?)

And that is it. Seems like a lot! 7 teams! But really it isn't with the bonus levels and 3x xp. Now the question is: how best to level them? First I would only be leveling them to 60. This works for several reasons: (oh god not another list 8| )
1) 300% xp stops at 60.
2) By stopping at 60 and playing other characters, it allows rested xp to stack up.
3) When WOTLK it is believed that 60-70 will be made 30% or so easier.

So, let's say I take 4 groups to 60 (equal to taking 1 and 1/3 group to 60 pre-RAF-offer), the bonus levels from them will take 2 more groups there. That leaves one group. But! What if I stretch the levels? 120 bonus levels spread over 3 groups = 40 bonus levels per group. Leveling a group to 20 would take no time at all... a few hours at most! So I would take all of the odd teams (5, 6, 7) and level them the old fashioned way to 20, then use the levels to top them out at 60.

How long would this take total, for all those 60s?
It takes, what, no more than 5 hours to achieve level 20 now, and in the old days it took maybe 6 days to get to 60. 4x 1/3 of 6 days = 9 days. So for under 10 days played I would get no less than 7 groups (a total of 32 characters) to 60, allowing me to have any combination of healer/ranged-dps/tank, or ranged-dps/healer, as well as at least one character of every class.

Additionally, by the time this all gets done, the first few characters I got to 60 would be on full rested xp, ready to blast through the first few levels of outlands. Even better, WOTLK may have come out by then, making outlands even easier!

Now that you have ready that block of text (TL/DR), I would like to hear from you-- flaws in my plans, improvements I could make, better team composition, whatever! I would really appreciate any feedback on this.

[Zub]

(thus time wasted)

This made me smile. Not sure what is *not* time wasted in wow :-)

Sounds like you're reallly making this *game* alot of *work* for you. are you sure it's all worth it? Keep some steam to level up a DK group.

[Mendicant]

(thus time wasted)

This made me smile. Not sure what is *not* time wasted in wow :-)

Sounds like you're reallly making this *game* alot of *work* for you. are you sure it's all worth it? Keep some steam to level up a DK group.

Heh, we all play this game for different reasons. Some of us just enjoy min/maxing to the best of our intelligence... number games server as an outlet for my stupid brain, and wow is nothing if not a number game.

But besides that, I'm not the only person who will feel a little "ripped off" when all the gear we've gathered at 70 is made obsolete before 79... and I'm not all that geared (I only started playing WoW like 6 months ago).

[Sam DeathWalker]

So for under 10 days played I would get no less than 7 groups (a total of 32 characters) to 60

This game is insane easy .... My EQ chanter has 200 days played and is level 77 of 80 ... well has 480 AA also ...

http://eqplayers.station.sony.com/ch...d=631360196499

Well I have 7 battlechests now, and the other 20 shipped today so ...

But! What if I stretch the levels? 120 bonus levels spread over 3 groups = 40 bonus levels per group. Leveling a group to 20 would take no time at all... a few hours at most! So I would take all of the odd teams (5, 6, 7) and level them the old fashioned way to 20, then use the levels to top them out at 60.

Ya thats true if your giver is 60 you would do a lot better to level to 20 (or even 30 ...).

Level up 2 groups to 60 and 4 to 30 then top them ...

[Kyudo]

I've said this before, but I've pretty much had it with levelling. I'm not bothering with RAF, I cant justify the extra cost to myself.

At present (or at least by the end of the month), I'll have a character base that'll allow me to run 4 separate teams from 70-80, when you include the addition of a couple of DK's.

This already scares the hell out of me. It'll take me at least a year to get them all to 80 I reckon, especially if I spend any significant time actually gearing up the ones that end up being the "main" (most likely still the shammies).

Any more than this just makes no practical sense for my purposes, I'll just loose focus.

But hey, that's just me... and I've said this before and gone back on it... so dont quote me.

[Frosty]

I can't justify the cost either. I have so little play time, that it just doesn't seem like a good investment.
Now if it stayed 300% forever, then I might change my mind.

As it is, I barely have time for 1, there is no way I could do more. :P

[Mendicant]

This already scares the hell out of me. It'll take me at least a year to get them all to 80 I reckon, especially if I spend any significant time actually gearing up the ones that end up being the "main" (most likely still the shammies).

Any more than this just makes no practical sense for my purposes, I'll just loose focus.

But hey, that's just me... and I've said this before and gone back on it... so dont quote me.

OOooo I quoted you.

Actually this is a point I've thought of myself... it is very possible I will get tired of leveling, and even if I get all the groups I want to 60, it is highly unlikely I will take them all to 80, or even 70... but at least (if I can just follow through with these groups) I will have goten everyone I ever want to 60 by the time the 90-day boost is over.

[Gigatron]

I'm in the same boat, contemplating making use of the 90 days of RAF and getting a few more groups to 60 and then building up rest xp. Now, over the weekend I managed to get one group to 53 with 1 day, 17 hours played. So I'm thinking next weekend I'll do another group.

[Mendicant]

I'm in the same boat, contemplating making use of the 90 days of RAF and getting a few more groups to 60 and then building up rest xp. Now, over the weekend I managed to get one group to 53 with 1 day, 17 hours played. So I'm thinking next weekend I'll do another group.

Wow that is nice :O
Q: did you get boosted at all, or is that all just questing?

[Dominian]

(thus time wasted)

This made me smile. Not sure what is *not* time wasted in wow :-)

Sounds like you're reallly making this *game* alot of *work* for you. are you sure it's all worth it? Keep some steam to level up a DK group.

Heh, we all play this game for different reasons. Some of us just enjoy min/maxing to the best of our intelligence... number games server as an outlet for my stupid brain, and wow is nothing if not a number game.

But besides that, I'm not the only person who will feel a little "ripped off" when all the gear we've gathered at 70 is made obsolete before 79... and I'm not all that geared (I only started playing WoW like 6 months ago).

10 new levels and new gear means that everyone can start over wich i enjoy since i can basicly reroll to paladin,warlock,warrior,rogue,druid. Even thought all besides my warlock holds nearly full S1 gear! I will most likley start with my paladin and 4 of my shamans. I honestly cant see whats bad with a new start and not to speak of that the late launch of TBC nearly killed every guild on my server... The supply of new raiders with good enough gear killed guild after guild and forced them into guilds with better progress because most people werent willing to go BWL and AQ 40 to gear people more.. Dooing bwl and mc for a year on farm killed the fun for me and it always ended in a wipefest because people didnt pay attention in the instances we had on farm.

I look forward to not beeing eaten by people with full S3/S4 on my blue geared alts even thought it will happen at some point in wotlk i can smack them flat with my 5 shamans.