Any thoughts on x4 lowbies & 1 60 lvl healer?

[Undeadlord]

I was thinking to powerlevel my new team with a 60 healer. This will basically enable me to do larger pulls and never wipe at all even at the brd range perhaps. You will also never have to drink much until 50+. If I make 4 warriors or 4 rogues then I will basically have no downtime at all and I will be able to pull nonstop. I know it's not the fastest way to level but its very consistent, it might beat x5 lowbies due to its consistency. Wipes cause insane amount of downtime, same goes to drinking etc. Most think about the fastest way to level but this usually involves risky stuff that cause wipes and is not consistent. E.g the mage one pulls in cath/mara/zg can go wrong in many ways. It's not something you can execute consistently especially on a bad day.

What do you think?

[nodoze]

Which level 60 healer are you considering using?

I am interested in what your findings are if you try it. I suspect a 60 Paladin with a high crit would be the most mana efficient for as close to non-stop across all the level ranges as you can get. Once you get to where the mobs are Level 48+ the Priest could be better if you can consistently give the Priest the killing blow and leverage Spirit Tap (the mobs have to be able to yield XP for that to proc).

Assuming you are leveling up 4 Warriors (I would stay away from multiple Rogues) I am not sure you will be able to pull that many more mobs at once as it doesn't matter how much healing you have if the warriors are insta-gibbed due to too much incoming damage. I could see doing somewhat larger pulls than with a same level healer and less stopping so you may indeed be clearing instances faster (though maybe not actually leveling faster).

The bottom line is that larger mob group size and less downtime (due to less drinking/wipes) will need to offset the penalty of having a level 60 in the party to make it faster overall to cap (and you end up with only 4 new 60s instead of 5 when done).

That being said being overall faster to cap isn't necessarily the only factor... Even with the XP penalty I really liked using my 60 Protection Paladin to gather up tons of lower level mobs and then AoE them down with the lower level 3 Warlocks+Priest boosting the Paladin's AoE... I don't know that it was necessarily faster than doing 4Warlocks+Priest or an all same level Tank+3DPS+Healer team but I did find it fun and certainly a lot less stressful than my previous melee team.

[Undeadlord]

Which level 60 healer are you considering using?

I am interested in what your findings are if you try it. I suspect a 60 Paladin with a high crit would be the most mana efficient for as close to non-stop across all the level ranges as you can get. Once you get to where the mobs are Level 48+ the Priest could be better if you can consistently give the Priest the killing blow and leverage Spirit Tap (the mobs have to be able to yield XP for that to proc).

Assuming you are leveling up 4 Warriors (I would stay away from multiple Rogues) I am not sure you will be able to pull that many more mobs at once as it doesn't matter how much healing you have if the warriors are insta-gibbed due to too much incoming damage. I could see doing somewhat larger pulls than with a same level healer and less stopping so you may indeed be clearing instances faster (though maybe not actually leveling faster).

The bottom line is that larger mob group size and less downtime (due to less drinking/wipes) will need to offset the penalty of having a level 60 in the party to make it faster overall to cap (and you end up with only 4 new 60s instead of 5 when done).

That being said being overall faster to cap isn't necessarily the only factor... Even with the XP penalty I really liked using my 60 Protection Paladin to gather up tons of lower level mobs and then AoE them down with the lower level 3 Warlocks+Priest boosting the Paladin's AoE... I don't know that it was necessarily faster than doing 4Warlocks+Priest or an all same level Tank+3DPS+Healer team but I did find it fun and certainly a lot less stressful than my previous melee team.

Yeah stress is a big factor, when you wipe a lot and face difficulties it demotivates you from playing more. I will use a priest because I will play alliance and that's the only healer I have, as a horde windfury could be better. I may not spot heal at all, although if I do I would probably be able to spam it endlessly. I'm thinking to use low rank holy nova just to make it even more brainless, also shadow word pain. The 60lvl healer can put a lot of pressure. Maybe I can go shadow too and use vampiric embrace which will aoe heal everyone.

Finally the good thing about this team is that you can buy a boost anytime which is much easier with 4 instead of 5. You can leave out your healer and bring the powerleveler in just to jump few levels if you have the gold for it.

How much exp do you lose with an 60 lvl in your group?

[jak3676]

When in a party, the experience from mobs is calculated as an average level within your party - not each individual's level. So if you're doing RFC with 4x Level 12's and 1 Level 60, your average char level would be calculated as L22, so you get pretty little exp per mob, but hope to make it up in speed. Once you get into the SM/ZF/Mara range, the level difference doesn't impact you as much.

See this thread to see the exact experience per mob by level. https://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/...b-EXP-by-Level

[nodoze]

When in a party, the experience from mobs is calculated as an average level within your party - not each individual's level. So if you're doing RFC with 4x Level 12's and 1 Level 60, your average char level would be calculated as L22, so you get pretty little exp per mob, but hope to make it up in speed. Once you get into the SM/ZF/Mara range, the level difference doesn't impact you as much.

See this thread to see the exact experience per mob by level. https://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/...b-EXP-by-Level

We built the following table to denote the average level of a 5box of low level alts with a level 60 when deciding on which dungeons to take:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...gid=1036339079

If I recall correctly I used the above with my 60 Paladin AoE Tanking to take my Alliance team of 3 Warlocks+Priest from levels 20 to at least 26 (team average levels 28-33) in the Stockades and then I took my team to The Scarlet Monastery sometime after level 26+ (team average level 33+). To get my team ready for the Stockades I did Hyperspawns with 4 Warlocks+Priest to level 20 and then trained up HellFire and then dropped 1 Warlock for my 60 Paladin (or sometimes my brother would come on his 60 Paladin instead).

That being said I think someone denoted that this was a decent general approximation of how the XP is awarded when a 60 is in the party but not entirely accurate.

[Undeadlord]

To get my team ready for the Stockades I did Hyperspawns

Thanks interesting info, may I ask where did you farm hyperspawns?

I have been looking for hyperspawns below 20 but I didn't find any that could outperform deadmines at 16 or pure questing.

[Undeadlord]

When in a party, the experience from mobs is calculated as an average level within your party - not each individual's level. So if you're doing RFC with 4x Level 12's and 1 Level 60, your average char level would be calculated as L22, so you get pretty little exp per mob, but hope to make it up in speed. Once you get into the SM/ZF/Mara range, the level difference doesn't impact you as much.

See this thread to see the exact experience per mob by level. https://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/...b-EXP-by-Level

Wait a sec...if that's true then when you get to sm graveyard at 30, the mobs are 32-33 and you are level 36 so you don't lose that much...although doing graveyard at 36 is not ideal. You have to do dungeons where the mobs surpass you 2-3 levels. Btw I was thinking that a shaman will be great for this since his totems can absorb most damage.

If your average level is about the same with the dungeons mobs then you get optimal exp? Aka doing deadmines at 10 with an 60 mage is average level 20 which is good enough for deadmines since you can stay there even up to 24 level, so you get optimal exp from the dungeon?

Individual levels doesn't matter ta all?

[nodoze]

Wait a sec...if that's true then when you get to sm graveyard at 30, the mobs are 32-33 and you are level 36 so you don't lose that much...although doing graveyard at 36 is not ideal. You have to do dungeons where the mobs surpass you 2-3 levels. Btw I was thinking that a shaman will be great for this since his totems can absorb most damage.

If your average level is about the same with the dungeons mobs then you get optimal exp? Aka doing deadmines at 10 with an 60 mage is average level 20 which is good enough for deadmines since you can stay there even up to 24 level, so you get optimal exp from the dungeon?

Individual levels doesn't matter ta all?

I denoted above that while this is a decent approximation this may not be 100% accurate. As mentioned above there were multiple posts where folk said it was different than a pure average (maybe discussed both here in the dual-boxing.com forums and in the classic wow isboxer discord channel as I can't remember for sure...).

I will see if I can find some of those posts but the bottom line is that having 1 60 in your full 5 man party doesn't nerf all XP and can be very worthwhile.

Edit: Some of the info seems conflicting... Seems relative mob level compared to boosted character level may matter a lot. Some indication having a really low level character in the party may help...

Edit 1: The following denotes that putting a lower level character into your group can help the overall XP (based upon what was said in the video):

https://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/...l=1#post428713

Edit 2: The following post begins a discussion on how it isn't 100% based on average level (more detail as you read through the posts/replies):

https://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/...l=1#post426836


If someone has a cogent summary or actual detailed statistics they can post/link/reference that would be great...

[Boxen]

Here's a link to a thread on hyperspawns:

https://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/...ht=hyperspawns

And here's a link to the spreadsheet derived from that thread:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...gid=1905033222

[nodoze]

... here's a link to the spreadsheet derived from that thread:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...gid=1905033222

On that page the zones highlighted in green can easily get you to be ready for The Deadmines (VC/DM). You can go to VC/DM earlier but I liked getting to level 20 and fully training up before going in. If you are on a PVP server all of those in green are in safe zones so folk can't easily mess with your team.