Recruit-a-Friend Nerfed

[Sservis]

Tradeoffs in various leveling methods (7.3.5 after RAF changes)

I debated putting this in a new thread, but it's germane to the current situation.

tl;dr - Depending on your marginal time value, Buying Boosts, Starting New Accounts, RAF and Transfers, or Heirlooms are your best option. If you're willing to use new accounts, only Buying Boosts and Starting New Accounts are really in the conversation.


Goals

Because I like puzzles and math, I've been thinking about the tradeoffs in various leveling methods. Below are the rough costs of various options to fill out one existing account on one realm with each class at 100 in terms of $ and time. I am ignoring a DH. I also will assume that doing multiple accounts at a time is desired. If only a single is desired things tilt towards Option Boost more.

I will be quoting rates per hour as the tradeoff between $ and time. If you can find a part time job or consulting gig (or better, work overtime) this is the take home rate that's required to make this option worse than straight boosting. Note that the numbers are highly dependent on being able to use each option to it's maximum efficiency (so groups of 5) If this doesn't happen, then options with RAF or hourly costs are less valuable and should be lower in the list.*

Also see the *** note about how $ costs can be reduced with $ -> ebay TCG mounts -> gold -> battle.net balance.


Summary

Note that if you can earn more (take home after taxes) in a job (over time/second job/extra consulting/whatever) than the quoted figure, it will take fewer hours to achieve your goal if you spend the time outside WoW.

• $440, 0 hours - Option Expansion Boost - better for straight $ cost, but more hassle. If you do this, the hourly rates below drop as about $200 in the savings figure disappears.
• $660, 0 hours - Option Boost
• $40/$70, 40 hours - Option New Accounts (RAF) - Saves $600, costs 40 hours more, $15.00/hour. ($10.00/hour vs Option Expansion boost)
• $315/$345, 40 hours - Option Transfer - Saves $320, but takes 40 more hours $8.00/hour This is higher if you fund transfers with battle.net balance, although that has a cost too. ($3.00/hour vs Option Expansion boost)
• $0, 100 hours - Option Heirloom - Saves $660, costs 100 hours more, $6.60/hours ($4.40/hour vs Option Expansion boost)
• $165/$195 120 hours - Option RAF existing with transfers - Saves $480, but takes 120 hours more. $4.00/hour ($2.67/hour vs Option Expansion boost)
• $40/$70, 180 hours - Option RAF existing - Saves $600, but takes 180 more hour. s $3.33/hour ($2.22/hour vs Option Expansion boost)

Detailed cost explanations (not in the same order)

• $660, 0 hours - Option Boost - buy 11 boosts

• $0, 100 hours - Option Heirloom - 40 hours** to 90, 6.5 to 100 after that is 40 * 10 + 20 * 1 + 6.5*11 or 491.5 hours, call it 500. Doing 5 accounts at once means this is 100 hours per account. I'm going to assume boosting is slightly faster, but more mind numbing and ends up about the same in terms of time.

• $440, 0 hours - Option Expansion Boost - Buy the battle.net and expansions, they come with a boost. Regular prices are $20 and $50, so more expensive, but if purchased on sale, cost is in the $40 range per character. This does require churning your battle.net account with adding new accounts, using the ticket system to delete them, repeat.

• $40/$70, 40 hours - Option New Accounts (RAF) - This is faster in that with circle RAF, only the first set needs to be leveled to 90. So 40 * 1 + 12 * 8+ 6.5*10 = 201.5 hours, I'm going to call this 200. This can be done 5 accounts at a time, so 40 hours per account. However you are on the hook for new accounts. Sale/regular prices listed.

• $315/$345, 40 hours - Option Transfer - Done with the same method as Option New Accounts (RAF), but transferred to existing accounts. This is worse than Option New Accounts, but you might be tied to your existing accounts. Note that you may be able to fund the transfers with battle.net balance or sales and the $ cost could be less. Also acquiring the battle.net balance likely has an opportunity cost that should be factored in if used.***

• $40/$70, 180 hours - Option RAF existing - Existing account has a RAF link created with 1 additional account. Level to 90, 7x 40 * 7 + 6.5 * 11 + DK time = 351.5 hours. This can be done on two accounts at a time, going to call it 180 hours per account. This is slightly better if the boost can be used

• $165/$195, 120 hours - Option RAF existing with transfers - Similar to Option RAF existing, but transfer the newly created characters over. Level to 90 4x + DK time uses 5 transfers, 40 * 4 + 6.5 * 11 = 231.5, Can be done on two accounts at once, going to call this 120 hours. This is likely better than the previous option as it saves 60 hours at a cost of $120. ($2.00/hour equivalency)

Footnotes

* Hours generally multiply by 5 if you only want a single account, although for the RAF existing options only multiply by about 2.

** 20 hours to 60 based on Mirai, 20 more to 90 and 6.5 from 90 to 100 are complete guesses on my part. If better numbers should be used, let me know what the should be and why.

*** All $ costs can be offset with Battle.net balance. For instance, a buying TCG mounts, reselling for gold on the AH, buying tokens does yield positive value. As a quick check, there's currently a Spectral Tiger card on ebay for $1,150 from a decently reputable seller, yields at least twice the gold cap (if sold on the auction hall, probably more through private sales). 19,000,000 gold turns into slightly more than 110 WoW Tokens, which turns into $1650 in Battle.net balance. Effectively giving a 33% discount on any of the dollar costs above. More value can likely be quickly achieved if mounts that sell below the gold cap are used since their full value can be realized on the AH.