Boosting Nerfed, Dungeon Experience Rewarded Buffed

[Fat Tire]

If my goal is end game with my team I will take the route of least resistance. If my goal is enjoying dungeons then it doesn't matter how long leveling takes because once I hit max level I will just start a new team.

[DualZilla]

I ran a ton o dungeons and quests over the weekend trying out different zones and methods for leveling

From best to worst

Without grandfathered RAF... Boosting would not have been viable... Only the experience for completion made it tolerable

On my non RAF team members once the rested burned out they got left in the dust

Best case I was getting 250,000ish from lvl 60-80 in TBC per dungeon pushing 1-1.2 mil an hour

Without RAF was maybe 200,000-300,000/ hour with rested exp in there as I rotated teams in and out

I was getting almost no exp from trash and 300ish exp from bosses...was in the 6-9 thousands for bosses pre nerf

I did almost all the dungeons in both normal and heroic and also a Raid including all the quests in TBC dungeons

I slogged through 20 of one just to get over the lvl 80 hump

If I wasn't used to the old exp gain rate and in a hurry to level before the RAF runs out...

Gathering actually started to look good at 1k +per harvest on non RAF but was tedious with several characters and until flying was just good as a supplemental exp boost

Questing is beyond slow with a team as invariably there are the quests where gathering 20 of something per toon blocks the quest line and takes forever with 5 toons

Best case was approximately 200-400,000 per hour with the RAF 300% on quest turn-ins generating that generous rate in lvl 40-60 zones

I briefly tried boosting with my 110 to speed things up trying to churn out higher completions of quests....but here too but the exp reduction was so not worth it... even when others tagged mobs to get credit in the zone...exp suffered mightily

Running dungeons at level through LFD was slow...The instant queues 5 boxing made it almost equal to questing when choosing specific dungeons

I ran about a dozen stockade dungeons in a row and by the end I was getting really good at not dying!

Trying to do random ones for the extra experience reward is ok as long as a long dungeon like Dire Maul doesn't pop

Again without RAF on my fill in characters...they got very little experience even at level standard non boosted leveling in dungeons

Standard completions are like finishing 3-4 quests at 45,000ish without RAF

I would say it took me 15-20min for stockade and 45min to an hour if I have to try to crowd control or get long dungeons Wailing caverns and Dire Mauls

80-90 was better as I ran a ton of stormstout for the completions boosted at about 10min per run...that is the quickest one to slog through

Now onto my next leveling team and first random was wailing caverns....grrr

As I am getting better boxing my teams it seems one and done per dungeon if doing all the quests through LFD is the fastest for me on dungeons I know well...

Pre and post 7.3.5 leveling is a whole different animal...

I liked leveling new characters but now...not so much...

Really wondering if I will be able to finish up the non RAF toons all stuck at 40ish....after the RAF toons leave them behind when they get to TBC and Wrath at 60

I was hoping to level the new allied races properly to get the heritage armor without any boosting with the freebie 110 boosts from the expansion...

but now I dunno...

[Svpernova09]

Except, it didn't take you 45mins to do a run and '5 man exp better' is relative to the awful amount it was before the buff. In my testing, it's just about the same as questing or 1 and 1/2 level per hour. Without RAF.

To clarify my point, I'm OK with running 5 man at level dungeons being better XP than boosting with a high level character. I realize that may not be a popular opinion, but that's what I meant.

[Xixillia]

So an aside comment on leveling instances. They are super painful now. LVL60 prot pallies getting 1shot by mechanics in full heirloom gear. :/ Is garbage, and not fun

[MiRai]

So an aside comment on leveling instances. They are super painful now. LVL60 prot pallies getting 1shot by mechanics in full heirloom gear. :/ Is garbage, and not fun

Which dungeon encounter(s) are you referring to? After 7.3.5, I had the chance to level a mixed team to level 61 before I had to call it quits, temporarily, due to a hardware failure, and I didn't really have any issues with a PAL/SHM/WAR/WAR/PRI team other than a select few encounters that took a few tries, but were eventually overcome.

[Ritley]

All these changes are making me think using my fully enchanted heirloom sets and making more to have enough for full teams is going to be worthwhile again. Pots and buffs as well.

[luxlunae]

To clarify my point, I'm OK with running 5 man at level dungeons being better XP than boosting with a high level character. I realize that may not be a popular opinion, but that's what I meant.

That sounds reasonable to me as well. In general you guys are describing a world that sounds acceptable (1.5 levels per dungeon?), maybe need to try my dungeon teams again.

My problem with "If my goal is end game with my team I will take the route of least resistance. If my goal is enjoying dungeons then it doesn't matter how long leveling takes because once I hit max level I will just start a new team." as an argument is that I LOVE leveling through dungeons, but if you get stuck in an expac where you are getting the same dungeon over and over and it is a shitty one, I don't want to run dungeons I hate more than once on a team.

[sothis]

i think i found some somewhat acceptable workarounds for most level ranges:

-15?-60 afk grind the dragon and orc spot in wetlands with ww monk+ox statue (im not certain when you can start there, i think the area is 15 or 20+, i did it 2 times yet but both with allied races that started at 20). While i did the spot i still had grandfathered RAF bonus active and i went from 20-60 in like 5 hours i would say.

-60-80 i afked the elite mobs in icecrown in the building next to the west of the raid. its slower than wetland but i couldnt stand bc/tfc questing. I think Hellfire Ramparts is a good alternative to boost via instance as you can leave the dungeon upon completion pretty quickly.

-80-90 i boosted lost city of tol'vir which i think is the best instance for the level range. i would guess one run took me 4-5 minutes just killing the bosses leaving the team at the entrance.

-90-98 i afked clefthoofs in nagrand with one team, it works like a charm and you are getting actually quite a bit of fur this way. I somewhat felt bad after i camped the spot and contested it against the oppsing faction with a high level team for 3 days now. With the rest of my characters that still need to hit 98 i moved on to boost in slag mines. You can run slagmines in under 6 minutes and the exp gain is somewhat acceptable. i am getting 600-800k/h i would guess.

Does anybody have expirience with afk grinding mobs via ww monk with ox statue? i dont want to get into any trouble as its kinda abusive in my eyes (but so is the new leveling system if you just want to get it done lol)

[Sservis]

To clarify my point, I'm OK with running 5 man at level dungeons being better XP than boosting with a high level character. I realize that may not be a popular opinion, but that's what I meant.

At level groups should definitely reward more experience than boosted groups per completion. I even agree that it should be slightly more in a xp per hour sense. Specifically, at level random dungeon groups should not be worse than boosting. At level specific dungeon groups should also be "not worse" than boosting.

I also think leveling secondary characters should be significantly faster than leveling first characters. On par with all alts have 300% RAF ish XP, but not level grants (make heirlooms grant a much bigger bonus).

[DualZilla]

In further testing I hit a duh moment...basically max exp per hour is limited to 10x instance completion +/- bonus objectives

10x being the number of instances per hour before lockout per hour...while boosting....which still seems the fastest way to level even w/o RAF

For example Stratholm main entrance live side has several bonus kills that give lump sum exp...about 30,000 without RAF (scales up a couple hundred a level 37-60) per completion with The 4-5 bonus kills

Not a huge difference doing say Ragefire or (stockades... I would guess as an alliance) 0-60 but stratholm is do-able

So
37-57 300,000 per hour in Stratholm at 10x/hour
57-80 700,000 per hour in Hellfire Ramparts at 10x/hour (takes about 5min per run due to ending above entrance)
80-90 800,000 per hour in Stormstout Brewery at 10x/hour

Was sub 100,000/hour no matter where I quested including Ghostlands which has a ton of quests

Diremaul at level doing random was best on first run due to quests and bonus objectives but still just over 150,000

plus boosting has added of looting bosses for transmogs...even at 30+ runs i don't get all the transmogs from a dungeon

addon called xpstat is a better exp addon cause can reset easily on a broker addon

addon called "saved instances" lets you know when you know when you enter the 9th and how long til next one is available...like say another will be available in 4 minutes