RAF Boosting Guide - 7.3.5

[dorkseid]

OVERVIEW & WHAT'S NEW
Level scaling has greatly affected boosting routes, as a result there are FAR more options (Example, the Nexus is now available at level 58). There are however what I would consider optimized routes, and I will be discussing these below.

DUNGEONS BY LEVEL
58 - Hellfire Ramparts, Utgarde Keep
59 - The Blood Furnace, The Nexus
60 - The Slave Pens, Azjol-Nerub
61 - The Underbog, Ahn'kahet: The Old Kingdom
62 - Mana-Tombs, Drak'Tharon Keep
63 - Auchenai Crypts, The Violet Hold
64 - Old Hillsbrad Foothills, Gundrak
67 - The Shattered Halls, The Steamvault, Shadow Labyrinth, The Mechanar, The Botanica, Utgarde Pinnacle, The Occulus, Halls of Lightning
68 - The Black Morass, The Arcatraz, Magister's Terrace, The Culling of Stratholme, Trial of the Champion
70 - The Forge of Souls, Pit of Sauron, Halls of Reflection
80 - Throne of the Tides, Blackrock Caverns, Temple of the Jade Serpent, Stormstout Brewery
82 - Shado-Pan Monastery, Mogu'shan Palace
83 - Siege of Niuzao Temple, Gate of the Setting Sun
84 - Grim Batol, Halls of Origination, Lost City of Tol'vir
85 - Blackwing Descent

PRE 7.3.5 ROUTE
Ragefire Chasm 10 - 23
Stormwind Stockades 15-23
Scarlet Monastery 23 - 33
Scholomance 33 - 37
Stratholme 37 - 57
Hellfire Ramparts 57 - 63
Sethekk Halls 63 - 68
The Nexus 68 - 73
Gundrak 73 - 77
Blackrock Caverns 77 - 85
Temple of the Jade Serpent 85 - 90


WORK IN PROGRESS EDITING AS I GO

[dorkseid]

Currently boosting a Death Knight, keeping an eye on the dungeons that open up as he levels. Initial notes:
With RAF and a set of Heirlooms, DKs hit Orgrimmar at level 62. A single run through Hellfire Ramparts ended at level 64 when I turned in the quests. From there I moved to Gundrak.

I'm using a level 101 Brewmaster with his Artifact, a couple of encounters have been buggy. I've had a couple of situations where I haven't killed the bosses in a single hit, so I'm definitely going to be moving to a 110 character today. The TLDR it's going to take fewer instances to level, but it's going to take longer. Getting through that DK starting area took forever, though it didn't "feel" as tedious.

[Sservis]

Here's the full list for the TBC/Wrath range. You can pull this from wowhead now, Look at Database -> Instances -> Level range of expansion and you'll see the instances have their required level updated.

58	Hellfire Ramparts	Utgarde Keep
59	Blood Furnace	The Nexus
60	Slave Pens	Azjol-Nerub
61	Underbog	Ahn'kahet
62	Mana-Tombs	Drak'Tharon
63	Auchenai Crypts	Violet Hold
64	Old Hillsbrad Foothills	Gundrak
65	Sethekk Halls	Black Morass	Halls of Stone
66
67	Shadow Labyrinth	Botanica	Mechanar	Shattered Halls	Steamvault	Halls of Lightning	Oculus	Utgarde Pinnacle
68	Magister's Terrace	Arcatraz	Culling of Stratholme	Trial of the Champion
70	Halls of Reflection	Pit of Saron	Forge of Souls

Note that you can often enter instances before you can LFD for them. Hellfire Ramparts can be entered at 57 for instance. Quests unlock at the same level as LFD however.

The interesting question is if scaling makes it worthwhile to not move around. Only quests and productively using spare time while hitting the instance cap make travel worthwhile. If you consider logging off and doing other things (Emissaries on other alts/Invasions on other teams/etc?) worthwhile, then the instance cap is not a constraint. It's quite likely that in each level range there is a best instance or two to grind. Every other instance is worth running maybe once, only if quest XP is worth the transit time to the instance.

What proportion of your XP in was quests? Best measured by recording the numbers listed on quests/xp bar.

As an example with a lot of made up numbers...

If you gained exactly 2.00 levels, and it's 20 quests per level, you had RAF w/50% heirlooms [one ring], you did all 3 quests, then about 34% of your XP was from quests. A rerun would only be about 2/3 as effective in XP/hour.

However, if moving to a new equally good dungeon with 3 quests took you more than half the time of running another run, then staying to do another run is more effective in terms of xp/time when ignoring the instance cap. If you'd hit the instance cap running Ramparts and wouldn't consider waiting it out doing other things valuable, then some travel time is "free" and you could shift to other dungeons. Even Blood Furnace/Shattered Halls which are right there, but slower.

[dorkseid]

This is what I'm seeing in my run from 55-70.

Dungeon Clear bonus is terrible, and not worth it in and of itself. What IS worth it is the boss and mob XP. So, the best option is to park any raf alts in a safe space, run around with the boosting character and soak up the XP. Zone out, reset and repeat up till you're ready to move on, turn in quests and on to the next place. With regards to boosting characters, I find I really favor Brewmaster for this atm - rez if you need it, can zoom around with Roll/Chi Torpedo and Rushing Jade Wind generally takes care of the masses of targets while I run around.

Honestly, I don't think the XP from the quests is worth it on a time vs reward basis considering the travel time between instances, etc. I'm tending toward a streamlined list of dungeons where my boosted characters can soak the XP with minimal movement, such as Stockades, Hellfire Ramparts, Gundrak, Temple of the Jade Serpent, etc.

The one note of warning I will provide is that it's really easy to hit that instance lockout this way, so it might be advisable to actually spend some time looting along the way or something.

[Darth0]

After levelling 5 teams from 1 - 90 I feel I can finally comment on this thread. I should note that I do have RAF benefits and also heirlooms. Even if I didn't have RAF etc. I would still follow this route.

After trying to level teams as a group of 5 through dungeons I opted to boost in the end and noticed a "huge" difference in the time to complete a dungeon. After reading others lists of how they were doing the dungeons I did only a few dungeons to maximize my time. I did not want to travel around too much. Here's what I did:

1 - 11: Questing
11 - 37: Shadowfang Keep
37 - 60: Strathome
60 - 80: Utgarde Keep
80 - 90: Temple of the Jade Serpent

I should note that I really wanted to do Hellfire Ramparts but playing on the Mal'Ganis server I quickly realized that its a complete warzone in the area. Hence the change to Utgarde Keep. I came from a PvE server so that was a rude awaking. lol

[Peri Helion]

Darth0

Just to clarify - when you say you had RAF and Heirlooms, I assume you mean "Old RAF" with the 300% XP where Heirlooms still stack with it, correct?

Also - what would you say was the time on average for you to go 1-90?

[Darth0]

Peri Helion:

My bad ... yes I meant to say the old RAF system so I have the 300% plus heirlooms.

I am current running at 11-12 hours per team, 1- 90. Getting to level 60 is super quick but once I hit 70 it really starts to bog down to the point where I only get 1 level per instance for levels 70 - 80 and some times 2 - 3 runs for level 80 - 90. The time break out for myself is below:

1 - 11: 1 hour
11 - 37: 2 hours
37 - 60: 2 hours
60 - 80: 2 - 3 hours
80 - 90: 3 - 4 hours

[MiRai]

My bad ... yes I meant to say the old RAF system so I have the 300% plus heirlooms.

It's not really worth showing this information anymore, as it's just misleading to anyone who is beginning to multibox since they won't benefit from 300% RaF.


With that said, Blizzard just tossed out a stealth nerf to experience rewarded in dungeons when there is a "high level" character in the party used to boost. I have no specifics on how high of a level causes the nerf to show, so if someone wants to figure that out, then go for it.

EDIT: Blizzard has just released a statement about the stealth nerf to boosting with a high level character, and have said that they've now increased the experience rewarded from dungeons when doing 5-man content normally, from Classic through Draenor. So, that's good news.

Hi all,

From WoW’s earliest days, we’ve always had to take steps to limit experience gains for characters when grouped with someone of a drastically higher level. We recently became aware of a bug introduced in 7.3.5: a side-effect of the vastly expanded creature scaling was causing the logic to break when awarding XP in some situations. Earlier today, we applied a hotfix to creature experience that corrects this issue.

At the same time, we have significantly increased the experience awarded through queuing for random Normal dungeons from Classic through Draenor content. Running dungeons at the appropriate should feel rewarding, whether as a complement to or even an complete alternative to questing.

As always, we appreciate your feedback and will continue to keep a close eye on the pacing of the leveling experience in 7.3.5 and beyond.

[Mordikai]

I ran a Escape from Durnhold Keep this morning via the random BC dungeon finder. My group was all level 70, ~22% in. I did all of the quests and when complete the group was ~85% in. This is with heirlooms only (all sans fishing ring.)

[MiRai]

I ran a Escape from Durnhold Keep this morning via the random BC dungeon finder. My group was all level 70, ~22% in. I did all of the quests and when complete the group was ~85% in. This is with heirlooms only (all sans fishing ring.)

Did you post this in the correct thread? This thread is about boosting a team of 2-4 characters with a high-level character (the booster).

However, all the /played times for boosting listed in this thread, prior to Blizzard's change last night, are now moot.