With the changes in 3.3 instance boosting still viable?

[blbjtb]

Using my pally to gather mobs and AOE them down (slowly im sure but still) is it faster then questing? I would be using existing accounts BTW. Just kind of wondering the fastest way to level this alt team up?

[F9thRet]

I find it is. For example, at lvl 45 or so with rested, it takes about 2-3 runs in scholo on my 80 pally to level each person 1-1.5 levels.

From there at 55 on to ramps, and it keeps going up from that.

Level 65-66, I go out to Valgarde keep, position my toons where the bad guys are coming through the wall, and just tag them, let the guards kill. up to 68 in an hour or two. From there, UK is easy to multibox, as you have your 80 +4 others that you can draw on for firepower.

Stephen

[Frausty]

I find it is. For example, at lvl 45 or so with rested, it takes about 2-3 runs in scholo on my 80 pally to level each person 1-1.5 levels.

From there at 55 on to ramps, and it keeps going up from that.

Level 65-66, I go out to Valgarde keep, position my toons where the bad guys are coming through the wall, and just tag them, let the guards kill. up to 68 in an hour or two. From there, UK is easy to multibox, as you have your 80 +4 others that you can draw on for firepower.

Stephen

Do you get full xp for the kills just by tagging? hmmph, must check this out!

[F9thRet]

Do you get full xp for the kills just by tagging? hmmph, must check this out!

Hi Frausty, It seems to be full xp. I tried it again earlier, with two pallys at around 63-64. Was easy clearing a bar every 5-10 minutes or so.

Stephen

[Drizzit]

i just power lvl my druid 32-60 using instances. When i was doing my power lvling i just made sure that my toons dots on the mini map where still showing and i was getting xp (i am a worry wort so i always have them close).

It depends on your money situation and how fast to lvl them. I had a lvl 32 that i wanted to be 80 (read 60-80 best questing) and found it a lot easier to just buy 1 more account (original $20) and link it to the lvl 32 toon. I then created 2 new toons and at 32 i switched in my other toon. At 59 i made sure my "friend" toon dinged first (1 bar from 60 on other toon, just to be safe) and granted him a lvl so now he was 1 bar away from 61 and just doing the welcome to outland quest i was 61. It took me about 3 days to do, but was looting when i did ZF and Start for cloth. Then i granted my other 32 to lvl 60.

[Kicksome]

I think it's faster from 1-60 to boost, but after 60 the quests in outlands are crazy fast. Especially when you can get a flying mount at 60. Also, at 61 start Qing for AV, that's excellent exp. I did 61-70 over the weekend with 0 collection quests - crazy fast with a flying mount at 60. I think I got as far as finishing Nagrand.

Boosting is really slow after 61, I think you get like 7-8% of a level per instance in Northrend and maybe even Outlands. I was able to get Cold Weather flying at 70 since you can buy it on your main level 80 and send it to the same account on your alt (heirloom item).

Flying in Northrend speeds up questing a crazy amount. I think it's much faster to quest in Northrend vs. Grind instance (unless you are a machine). With flying at 70 - there's no doubt in my mind.

[Drizzit]

what where the changes in 3.3 that affected boosting?

[Ualaa]

In quite a few dungeons, your alts need to be a lot closer to the action, to get experience.
So you cannot leave them parked at the zone in, in say Shadowfang Keep and then go and clear the place on the main.
That kind of thing.

[EsaJunttila]

Yeah, I noted that too in a worst way. In Gnomereggan there is a miniboss who drops nice 2H-mace for feral Druid with 33% change. I did two runs toons in follow but noted that they died thanks to some aoe. Therefore I left them to post and used master loot. Then I get this mace at third run and surprice, I can't pass it to toons.

I did 20+ runs in 3 hours (twice waiting for 15 mins a system to allow me enter new instance) and then I gave up. I got second mace at run #12 and that's it. Call that a bad luck.

[Boylston]

I have been powerleveling my 4xPally team up with a Druid since the patch, and here's my observation.

First off, I don't notice any difference in the XP range that has impacted my pulling that much. I have used the following alt-park-spots so far:

Shadowfang Keep: Faces pressed up against the entry gates. 1 spot, no need to move them.
Scarlet Monastery: Cathedral, 2 spots: at the end of the first hallway but inside as I pull the lower courtyard, then second spot is faces pressed up against the waterfall spot between the two walkways up to the top level (for the upper level+cathedral pull). Same as I've always run.
Zul Farak: I drag them with me and kill the first pathway up until you have the right/left split in the zone, then park them there. They are not in full XP range for the entire rest of the instance, but I can drag mobs from the furthest reaches southward a bit into the XP range.

The big change for 3.3 is the AoE damage capping, which heavily penalizes DPS for more than 10 targets. I can imagine that this is a decent nerf to pallies, but it is not so severe for Bears, since swipe can be done on the run.

Using ZF as an example, pre 3.3, I would gather up 50-70 mobs and get them all into one pile and swipe them down mostly all at once. This is still possible in 3.3, but it takes significantly longer (and forces you to deal with the healing totems one way or another). Instead, I find myself pulling using travel form or kitty (for the extra speed) and trying to make a much longer snake-like train of mobs so that only 5-15 mobs are near me at any given time when I start killing. This allows them to take more damage and die faster, so that I can kill off the pack more efficiently than dealing with the cap (and generally allows me to kill them away from the healing totem trail that the casters have dropped).

I haven't gotten them to Scholomance yet, so I don't know if the XP range will impact the gate parking spot right before the first room, but I suspect that clearing that place will be fine from an AoE perspective since I can just swipe spam and never have too many loaded up at once.

I can imagine Pallies and DKs are at a significant disadvantage since they have to stop to drop consecrate and other AoE skills, but Bears aren't terribly impacted. It's still WAY faster than questing, in my opinion, and you don't have to deal with any of the gear issues until they are done.

My personal plan is to grind out ZF to 45, Scholo to 55, maybe a few runs of Ramps/Blood Furnace until they hit 58 and can Hellfire quest, then add in my level 64 DK and start instance runs+questing the rest of the way. Personally, I think I will have a significant learning curve in the outlands instances since I am a complete DK newbie. I figured the team composition isn't even worth trying out whole-heartedly until the pallies are 60+ and have divine storm.

They sure do look cute in their Mail from SM, though!