Zul'Farrak Pwrleveling pull strats?

[Tdog]

The undead packs in Stratholme are awesome to boost with when you are a prot paladin.

Lotsa dps vs undead too.

Yea I'm definitely planning on trying out strat once I get my team outta ZF.

[marvein]

Even though the first half of the instance starts the same if you do live instead of dead you can get some tasty cash drops like righteous orbs or the ever so elusive flask of distilled wisdom off the last boss, on my server atleast that pattern sells for around 300g easily. Just thought Id throw that out there. People still love crusader for the lower bracket twinks (since mongoose has become king of the 39 bracket)

[Team Squishee]

I would have thought the top floor of Sunken Temple would work well for levels 40-45 , lots of AOE pulls up there.

[Jaws5]

for 38-45 try Ultaman. Use back door , pull all bats and other scorps. then 1 big pull of troggs. that opens up 2 -3 boss really fast. nice way to gear your 5 mans.

[Ramesses]

So I am looking to do a 4shammy 1paly boost team. Paly is currently being leveled to 60, and I will probably try to take him to 70 myself before my hardware arrives and the 4 shammies are created.

So it looks like youve had much success with +damage gear and prot build. Would you reccommend this to others with a similar team makeup for boosting the shammies up? What are benefit/limitations?

[Tdog]

So it looks like youve had much success with +damage gear and prot build. Would you reccommend this to others with a similar team makeup for boosting the shammies up? What are benefit/limitations?

Well It depends on your gear but I personally have a strong spell dmg set on my pally and a mediocre actual tanking set. With spell dmg gear in a prot build you will still be able to take the hits just fine. Melee dmg reduction is capped at 75% anyways which at lvl 43-46 which is what most of the mobs in ZF are at requires an amount considerably lower than the 16k armor my shockadin gear set has. Imho for a pure booster spec I'd simply skip toughness talent.

So imo shockadin gear set vs. tanking gear set for boosting purposes...

Pros:
-Higher consecration dmg allowing you to mow down mobs very quickly(Which is a majority of your dmg for boosting)
-More SoR/JoR dmg. (Very nice for downing healers quickly)
-Larger mana pool
-More +healing/mp5 (not needed but nice)

Cons:
-Takes more dmg (like i stated above your melee dmg reduction is capped at 75% which at these lower lvls isn't a very high armor amount, however you dont have near the dodge, parry, and importantly block)
-For the extremely large pulls you are much more likely to need to be able to rely on heals than when you're boosting in tanking gear, which some mobs interupt making it impossilbe to get a heal off with 50 mobs shield bashing you also cutting off your offensive abilites as paladins only have one school of magic.
-Less sheild block=less dmg reflection (Less BoSanct or any other block based dmg reflections)

Summary:
+spell dmg gear = more dmg taken, much more dmg dealt, less downtime
tanking gear = less dmg taken, more sta, slower killing time, requires less mana thru dmg reflection

TBH I'd use w/e you have a better set of for SM->ZF. If you have a strong block dmg reflection set go with you're tanking gear. If you have a strong +spell dmg set go with that. I wouldn't drop alot of money into a boosting set as you can simply pull a few less mobs if you're really getting overwhelmed. I'm past ZF now and about to go into Strat. At this point I'm starting to lean towards str8 tanking gear again or a good mix. I'll post what I figure out though as I figure it out.

[Osium]

With a Paladin you're looking at a gap between about 44 and about 53.

Nothing is very good with a paladin until you can take those Shamans into Stratholme. The reason I say about 53 is that unless your paladin is insanely geared you're not going to grind XP faster than you can quest it. At 53 the Shamans can actually start to sort of help.

ZF is terrible for a paladin for the reasons already mentioned. BRD is the same situation. It simply isn't going to be worth your while over quest grinding without a higher level helper. Uldaman is actually slower than SM.

If you want the XP gravy train to continue in that gap there is only one answer. A warlock. I subbed a warlock in for a paladin at 45 when I got desperate and ran out of ideas for the Paladin. I went to ZF, put the shamans on AF and ran through the instance insta dotting everything. I was doing about 100k per hour. That will easily take you to 52-53 in a few hours. From there you need to simply bang out a couple more levels and then go to hellfire ramparts. You will do a solid 60-70k an hour in Ramparts with a paladin tanking it for you and it will only speed up as you level and less stuff is red. The bonus is you start to collect gear and working on your instancing strategies ;p

[Ramesses]

With a Paladin you're looking at a gap between about 44 and about 53.

Nothing is very good with a paladin until you can take those Shamans into Stratholme. The reason I say about 53 is that unless your paladin is insanely geared you're not going to grind XP faster than you can quest it. At 53 the Shamans can actually start to sort of help.

ZF is terrible for a paladin for the reasons already mentioned. BRD is the same situation. It simply isn't going to be worth your while over quest grinding without a higher level helper. Uldaman is actually slower than SM.

If you want the XP gravy train to continue in that gap there is only one answer. A warlock. I subbed a warlock in for a paladin at 45 when I got desperate and ran out of ideas for the Paladin. I went to ZF, put the shamans on AF and ran through the instance insta dotting everything. I was doing about 100k per hour. That will easily take you to 52-53 in a few hours. From there you need to simply bang out a couple more levels and then go to hellfire ramparts. You will do a solid 60-70k an hour in Ramparts with a paladin tanking it for you and it will only speed up as you level and less stuff is red. The bonus is you start to collect gear and working on your instancing strategies ;p

Thanks for the advice!

What level was your paladin when you hit the 45 wall? What kind of gear was he in?

Thanks.

[Mystrana]

Best place i found with my pally tank was ST lot of Dragon kin grouped together and some undead as well so i lvled there till they hit 51 from 42 then went BRD and hit arena and the rings for the 4 plus mobs groups
But i would say ST so far was the best place other than Scholo and Strat.

[Greythan]

If you want the XP gravy train to continue in that gap there is only one answer. A warlock. I subbed a warlock in for a paladin at 45 when I got desperate and ran out of ideas for the Paladin. I went to ZF, put the shamans on AF and ran through the instance insta dotting everything. I was doing about 100k per hour. That will easily take you to 52-53 in a few hours.

Can you elaborate? With the lock were you dotting up a few mobs heavily, letting pet help, and then moving on? Sort of a straight, non-ae type of grind approach?

Reason I ask is my 70 lock can easily get taken out by SM mobs when trying to Seed of Corruption AE if something goes wrong. I can't imagine running through a higher level instance letting any meaningful melee dps hit the lock.