Should I RAF to boost my team

[Dramoth]

From what I have been reading on here so far is that people have their main account from when they started playing the game (call it account A) and then they decide to get into dual or multi-boxing and use the recruit a friend feature to create a new account thats linked to A (account B).

They now have A => B where they boost a couple of toons on B to gift levels to a toon on A. And if they want to 4 or 5 box (and can afford the hardware and software to run the game reliably) they use account B to recruit C and C to recruit D and D to recruit E

And it all cascades back down to a toon on A

So and so on... in theory...

However, I was messing about a long time ago and decided to create a second account for my horde characters and I wasnt intending on doing any sort of multiboxing, but then I wanted to level up my shaman quickly and so I moved her to my second account and used my hunter to level her up (this was before I heard anything about RAF)

And then a friend of mine was multiboxing using his gf's character just before lich king was released during the scourge invasion and then I found out about RAF and created a RAF account off my main AC and 2 more off my secondary AC.

So now I have 5 accounts (A, B, C, D, E), none of them are linked anymore and I have started to now seriously play the 5 box team I setup.

But I am reading about people saying that they are just going to create throw away accounts to RAF a team quickly.

The question is, we spend, in my case and other people from England, another £40 buying 4 more games and another £18 per game for 2 months of extra time and people are saying that they are just going to bin the accounts after they have RAF'd their team. To my point of view, thats a fair wack of money just to level 5 toons to level 60.

Can anyone please explain why, if I wanted to RAF a new team, I should spend £120 (approximately $200USD) just to level up a new team?

And do you transfer the 4 new members to your existing accounts and just delete the RAF accounts.

Also, how does new account 4 get their zhervra mount when they are on the end of the chain while the main account and the other 3 RAF accounts get theirs?

[Kedash00]

well if you are just looking at 1-60 then the cost isnt much since you buy the core game at 20 bucks and get a free month so you are really paying 5 bucks per game, but if you have already upgraded the previous 5 to BC and Wrath then that's when the cost dosen't seem worth it to me personally, but to each his own. multiboxing isn't cheap by any means, but everyone has their hobbys

[Catamer]

depends on whether or not your goal is 0->60 as fast as possible.
I've got 17 level 80s so I'm kind of enjoying playing twinked out lowbies (in pairs like 2 hunters) in BoA gear. I feel like they level way to fast as it is.
I boost them in SM using a druid bear tank but I only do that when they enter a new BG level, 20->25 or 30->35 so they don't just get owned in the BGs.

[Dramoth]

depends on whether or not your goal is 0->60 as fast as possible.
I've got 17 level 80s so I'm kind of enjoying playing twinked out lowbies (in pairs like 2 hunters) in BoA gear. I feel like they level way to fast as it is.
I boost them in SM using a druid bear tank but I only do that when they enter a new BG level, 20->25 or 30->35 so they don't just get owned in the BGs.

I dont mind the grind really because it means that I learn more about multiboxing as I go along rather than having one of my level 50-60's boosting the kids through instances and the like (although I think that I might do that tonight with a couple of them, just to level them quickly )

I am just wondering what people actually do with the extra accounts they have after RAF'ing a team?

[Oswyn]

I am just wondering what people actually do with the extra accounts they have after RAF'ing a team?

I got carried away with RAF. I have 9 closed accounts! I wish they would offer RAF if we resurrected accounts.

[Ualaa]

Call A the initial accounts, or keeper account; the accounts you already own.
Call B the referral accounts, bought just for RAF. These will be ditched at some point.

Let's say you have 5 existing accounts, which you're keeping.
This will work best if you already have a Druid on one account.
And would like four more (keeper Druids) to join your existing keeper Druid, as a 5x Team.

Unfortunately we cannot link to an existing account, only from it.
So each (Type A) account needs to refer its own friend.
So we have:
--- A1 - B1
--- A2 - B2
--- A3 - B3
--- A4 - B4

We will need to create our new "keeper" toons on each of our A accounts.
We also create our "throw away" toons on each of the B accounts.
The B accounts need to be the same faction, but don't need Burning Crusade or Wrath of the Lich King.
They just need to group, with the toon we are keeping.

Since we can only put 5 toons in a group.
And we will be boosting if possible.
The best options look to be....

Group A1, A2 with B1 and B2, and use a high level on A3, A4 or A5 to boost with.
Then group A3, A4, with B3 and B4, and use a high level on A1, A2 or A5 to boost with.
This results in 4 new toons on A1-A4 at 60th, in two thirds the normal time.
IE, RAF boosting is 3x faster, so 1/3rd the normal time, except we do it twice.

This costs us 4 Type B (throw away) accounts.
We would purchase just the classic game, as that is cheaper then a battlechest.
We don't need to be able to make Draenei/BloodElves on throw away accounts.
And RAF ends at 60th, so we don't need Outland either.

When the Type B accounts pays for its first month, the referring account is credited with 1 month of playtime.
So if we finish our RAF inside the first month...
Then we can stop at this point, having paid one month subscription for B1, B2, B3 and B4.
But getting one month subscription free on A1, A2, A3 and A4, for a net cost of no extra subscription paid.
At the one month point, we're only out the cost of 4x Vanilla Warcrafts.

If you need more then a month of RAF time, it starts to cost a bit more.
In addition to 4x Warcraft games, we spend 1 month of subscription costs (per throw away account) extra in month two.
In exchange for this we receive a Zhevra mount on existing accounts.
If you can level your new team(s) to 60th in month 1, I'd rather pass on the Zhevra mount and 4x one month's subscription.

If you want the maximum RAF time, pay for 3 months on the throw away accounts.
The end cost, over and above what you'd be paying anyway is:
1x the cost of the game plus 2x one-month's subscription.
Even though we pay 3x one-month's subscription, we get 1x one-month's subscription free from doing so.

[Dramoth]

Call A the initial accounts, or keeper account; the accounts you already own.
Call B the referral accounts, bought just for RAF. These will be ditched at some point.

Let's say you have 5 existing accounts, which you're keeping.
This will work best if you already have a Druid on one account.
And would like four more (keeper Druids) to join your existing keeper Druid, as a 5x Team.

Unfortunately we cannot link to an existing account, only from it.
So each (Type A) account needs to refer its own friend.
So we have:
--- A1 - B1
--- A2 - B2
--- A3 - B3
--- A4 - B4

We will need to create our new "keeper" toons on each of our A accounts.
We also create our "throw away" toons on each of the B accounts.
The B accounts need to be the same faction, but don't need Burning Crusade or Wrath of the Lich King.
They just need to group, with the toon we are keeping.

Since we can only put 5 toons in a group.
And we will be boosting if possible.
The best options look to be....

Group A1, A2 with B1 and B2, and use a high level on A3, A4 or A5 to boost with.
Then group A3, A4, with B3 and B4, and use a high level on A1, A2 or A5 to boost with.
This results in 4 new toons on A1-A4 at 60th, in two thirds the normal time.
IE, RAF boosting is 3x faster, so 1/3rd the normal time, except we do it twice.

This costs us 4 Type B (throw away) accounts.
We would purchase just the classic game, as that is cheaper then a battlechest.
We don't need to be able to make Draenei/BloodElves on throw away accounts.
And RAF ends at 60th, so we don't need Outland either.

When the Type B accounts pays for its first month, the referring account is credited with 1 month of playtime.
So if we finish our RAF inside the first month...
Then we can stop at this point, having paid one month subscription for B1, B2, B3 and B4.
But getting one month subscription free on A1, A2, A3 and A4, for a net cost of no extra subscription paid.
At the one month point, we're only out the cost of 4x Vanilla Warcrafts.

If you need more then a month of RAF time, it starts to cost a bit more.
In addition to 4x Warcraft games, we spend 1 month of subscription costs (per throw away account) extra in month two.
In exchange for this we receive a Zhevra mount on existing accounts.
If you can level your new team(s) to 60th in month 1, I'd rather pass on the Zhevra mount and 4x one month's subscription.

If you want the maximum RAF time, pay for 3 months on the throw away accounts.
The end cost, over and above what you'd be paying anyway is:
1x the cost of the game plus 2x one-month's subscription.
Even though we pay 3x one-month's subscription, we get 1x one-month's subscription free from doing so.

Thanks Ualaa for that...

I like that idea of just getting vanilla accounts for throw aways and only doing the month on them.

And I do have a keeper druid on my A5 account he is currently at lvl 52. However, I dont have any high level toons on what would be A3 or A4 although by using A5 as the account for boosting with RAF, I could in theory boost A1, A2, B1, B2 then swap over to A3, A4, B3 and B4 easily enough.

At the moment, the guild that I have all my solo boxing toons in is reorganising our raiding priorities and looking at setting up some raid alliances with a couple of other guilds so we can raid 25man content so I have a fair amount of time on my hands