Instance Boosting Question

[rebelred]

My mac wouldn't play the video, so I'll check it out later when I get to my pc.

I got both my chars to 40s last night (so 1-40s in one day). Wow, instance boosting FTW. Questing isn't even close. Of course it's a tradeoff, but I'll take it.

My first run through SM Cath took me 90 freaking minutes. Dead, dead, dead, come on, dead. My favorite was guys dying right before huge pull. However, on second run I tested out distance. I wanted to see how far my guys could be and still get exp. The run took 30 minutes and only 1 death cause I missed someone. From then on I was running that thing in 10-15 minutes tops with my DK. I can do it in my sleep now.

Then I hit ZF. I took them there at 35 as the exp in SM was slowing up. Yes, my guys died multiple times before I figured it out for the most part. 35-40 went fairly fast.

Thanks for the tips. My DK didn't respec, but he's doing awesome. If he was Unholy with UB and stuff it would be easier (might have to for Strat).

I'm looking forward to seeing your SFK runs and stuff. Once my chars hit 55 tonight I'm making 2 horde DKs and going to DB them to 70 so I can start my horde teams (orc hunter here I come).

[Souca]

Awesome. Glad to hear you got into a rhythm with SM. I have a couple 30s I might drag through SM tonight, I'll see if I can't record it as well. I also might make another cloth run in Strat, so I'll tag the 60s along for rep. If I can manage to not mess up as much as I did last night, I'll share the video. I also need to look into some other codecs. I think the mac issue might just be that it's a rare codec I'm using (Xvid). I believe I have a copy of Flash somewhere, so I'll see if I can't make videos using the flash compression as well.

The trickiest thing is getting into a rhythm and knowing where it is safe to part your characters. As they get higher level, you can get a little sloppier, but once you know the safe spots and the pats, it doesn't hurt to leave them in a good place even when they are higher level.

- Souca -

[rebelred]

Yeah, having your guys in starter gear (now red) with no skills trained doesn't help either.

Last night I trained my guys since they were 40. Tonight I did ZF for about 90 min and got them to 45 (Strat time!). One guy died a couple times on accident, but the other has rez, so that saved me a lot of time and frustration.

For tonight's strat festivities, I'm going in through service entrance. There's no curses to worry about and it's good enough. It takes me about 14 min on my DK to run it, but that's without looting or killing too much, so I'm good to run that non-stop without the hourly instance issue. I'm still hoping for the baron's mount.

Going to ZF from 35 was a great move. SM Cath is going down at that point and it's easy to level up in ZF.

Hoping to hit 55 on em so I can try ramparts to 60 tomorrow and get my new DKs tonight.

I'm really looking forward to DBing outlands. Still trying to decide on a good pair. I was thinking either druid/priest or shammy/priest (mage/priest and pally/priest options as well).

[rebelred]

Souca,

After have the worst first strat run in history (toons kept dying and taking forever to get back to service entrance----actually quick an hour into it with only 1 boss down....stupid gargoyles), I decided to respec my DK to your spec. I made a couple tweaks (like not taking corpse explode because I'd forget to use it). I had a TS destroyer sitting in my bank that I've been wanting to try, so it worked out.

First of all, I'm very happy with the move. I can get aggro much faster. I missed not having Unholy Blight. Aside from hitting all the wrong keys for the wrong stuff the 2nd time through, it went ok. I'm now on my 7th run through strat undead via service start and finish it in about 25-30 minutes with full looting.

Best part is I've found all sorts of blues off random mobs and just got a BoE epic gun for my hunter. woot!

No mount, but my guys are 50% or so honored in rep.


I had planned to stay until 60, but I need a change of scenery, so a few more runs and I'm off to ramparts. Best part is I could do this all over again so much faster.

Thanks for the tips and the push toward respecing back to unholy.

[Owltoid]

I'd suggest respecing for your boost sessions. A moonkins starfall & typhoon has to be much quicker and more mana efficient than moonfire on every mob.

For SM Cath, just have your guys stay where they zone in. Stealth to the cathedral doors (don't open yet), throw some HoTs on yourself, and start body pulling everything you see. You can easily keep yourself up with HoTs and switching back to moonkin form. Do not put on thorns as many will die before they're in range of your lowbies. Once you have pretty much everyone in the zone, drag them back to the hallway to break LOS, and AoE them all (usually requires 2 typhoons and a starfall... I pop out the treants to pick up stragglers).

Since you need to wait three minutes for your cooldowns, loot the bodies and heal up. I used this time to disenchant with my lowbies. Note that your lowbies still haven't moved from their starting spot (except to loot) and once done looting will return to the same starting spot.

Next, go to the Cathedral and pull the boss. Sprint back to the hallway and wait for the masses to come. Starfall/typhoon/treants and you've just cleared the instance in two pulls.

You can easily do this w/in 10 minutes and your lowbies are never in danger of dying. If I ever hit the "too many instances" then I spend time doing my enchanting & tradeskills with the mats I just collected.

[Owltoid]

Heh, my last post was a big waste of space since I just read that you're nearing Ramparts. In that case the only advice I have is to get to Outlands the instant you hit 55 (you may need a summon as I tried to zone in with my level 55 and couldn't go through the portal). The exp, gold, and loot are all significantly better.

[Souca]

Owltoid, no worries; more info is always good. I might have to try your druid spec for some other realms where I don't have the DK. As for zoning into Outlands, you need to be 58 to go through the portal, so I always use a warlock summon to Scyer tier for hearth and then the Ramparts entrance.

Corpse Explosion is iffy sometimes. There is a annoying bug with its target in some situations, so it's a love hate relationship for me. The place it really shines is when I do my really big Strat pulls. With the glyph I basically get two explosion for every cast. I have seen crits of 2700 from both pops and it really thins out the groups.

Ramparts at 55 will seem really easy. I was ratehr surprised how much I could pull in there and kill. The XP is insane and the boss drops are actually useful.

- Souca -

[rebelred]

Yeah, I could do SM Cath in my sleep now. That's cake. And Strat is very easy at this point. I do 25 min runs to baron and get disappointed with no mount. I've got loot galore from this place.

I need to do 2 more strat runs to get guys to 55 and 56 and then I'm off to ramparts. I soloed that place with my DK when he just hit 80 (crap spec, no gear, etc) and it was cake. I'm looking forward to going back and trashing the place a few times.

Not sure if I want to DB my duo through outlands first or bring up some other stuff. I'm learning toward the 7 levels in outlands so I can get to NR yet again. Wonder if they can take outlands in their now 0/100 starter gear?

[biobee]

[quote='Souca',index.php?page=Thread&postID=174273# post174273]
Route: Quest to 10, SFK to 20, SM Cath to 40, ZF to 45, Strath to 55, Ramparts to 60.
Time: ~1 hour to 10, 12-17 minutes per SFK, 7 minutes per SM Cath, 20ish minutes per ZF, 1 hour 20 minutes for complete Live and Dead side Strath, 20ish minutes per Ramparts (Some times are iffy since I wasn't focused on them. All include reset to reset times.)[/quote]Zomg.... i just came accross your posting till i realize we have the same instance sequence

[url='http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&postID=175324#post175324']quickest way to level with RaF?[/url]

We have a slight different style on each instance run, maybe can merge or modified the run.

I have not tried running ramparts with lvl 55 RAFs. how much xp does ea mobs get?

[biobee]

SFK Boosting Run[/url] - 151MB, 6:19, Xvid AVI

The video is a sped up video of two back to back runs. I included the run back, since it will be something that you have to do. I messed up a couple times, but the followers never died. I did have to go back and get two that fell off follow in the first run, but they didn't loose too much XP. Female Tauren tend to get stuck on lots of things.

While this is a rough video, I would be interested in any feedback so that any videos I do in the future can be more useful to others. If needed, I can create a thread in the movies sections.

- Souca -

Nice Vid, i will tape mine in some of the instance run, maybe without the RAFs chars as i have none to level atm after 11 chars is raised. Anyway my alts are not tagged with the boast but park near the entrance