[WoW] AOE Paladin Boosting, when to move on to next instance?

[Silaspop]

I tried this today, took me a couple tries to actually find Zolo, even with him showing up on my minimap. I reset four times, then couldn't enter anymore instances so I logged out for an hour and retried. I had to leave my mages at the beginning, and go through and kill the mobs on the way to Zolo. I still had all of my shields from running SM, and only wasted one. Took me a while to learn how to move them around keep my back against the wall while trying not to kill Zolo, and then resetting when he was low on health. 35-40 was a breeze once I got the hang of it, but took me about four hours, but still better than being stuck in SM.

Then I tried this with one level 39 rogue in my guild, and in two hours he leveled to 50 in way less time than expected.

[Naylix]

Regarding the demon-forged breastplate:

There is no cooldown! None - I've had it ticking on 8 mobs at the same time. When it procs, it does a green glowing "drain life" animation to the mob that procced it - looks exactly like the warlockspell. 1 tick pr second, for 4 seconds. For SM farming and similar, with lowest possible repairbills, get random lvl 5 shields (or whatever) - some block value on other items (enough to block most dmg, it's actually beneficial to block close to 90-95% of dmg, but NOT all of it. The proc can happen on partial blocks, not full blocks since they are not considered a "struck in combat". Add up spelldmg from "of the sorcerer" greens and add spelldmg enchants, and you can singlepull Cathedral almost without judging anything, and you definately dont need to heal. The mana trinket (Alembic of Infernal wooshie) will give you limitless mana for consecration (you still wanna kill fast, to keep xp/hour up).

Repairbots are good, and bring plenty of shields... unless it's cathedral, just loot a new shield every 3 or 4 tries from the boss Also, remember, due to the lvl difference, your chance to block doesn't have to be very high in your paperdoll info, as that info is in relation to your own level. You chance to block/parry lowlvl mobs is far higher

[daviddoran]

I've been standing right on the corner, and it works pretty well. I really need that figurine and the mana trinket, that would make all the difference. that breastplate sounds good too. Might need a few for breakage. I still have to be judging though, so unless I'm doing something wrong, it's not an entirely AFK thing. I just made a macro cast sequence for targeting a skele and judging light. Works for me. Once I get the chars im boosting leveled up I can farm those trinkets myself and not wait for a PuG. (Due to the levels of my chars, I'm inadvertenly ending up with 2x paladins and 3x locks, originally the locks were just for fun, but when running my pally, I wanted to add more and the locks were just low enough for VC, so i brought em along. Long story short, they are now a level or two behind the pally, and integral to my leveling (summons, SS) so this is now my highest group, and will be my primary "farming" group to gear out my paladins.) *guess it wasn't too short lol.

I'm gonna work on my other team, and let them build up rested time. Seems like a waste to not get double xp when it's so "free" Plus, it's taking me back to my 5boxing, rather than just boosting.

On my "main" 5 man team with unique classes, I'm currently trying out gnomer, just because my chars are 24-28 and I don't wanna do Stocks again, and I don't wanna struggle in SM GY. Plus there's some quests in there for some decent rewards. I should level up decently in there, then make the move up to SM. I will TRY to level without boosting in SM, (PvP server makes questing a bit annoying sometimes) and I should get some decent loot in the process.

[Morganti]

Ok, Valorin found the best way so far to do Zolo with just a shaman.

Here's the build:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=hZAb00xxZAbxxV0otez

Here's the description (or my interpretation of it anyway):

Nature's Guardian and Earthshield is what makes this train run. Drop a stoneskin (improved from talents), mana spring (improved from talents), and wrath of air (for more healing) totems. Let the skele's beat on you until you get to 30% and start popping earthshield and letting Nature's Guardian do the work. Basically you have infinite health as long as the skele's cant beat you down more than 10% of your health in 5 seconds (check the description of Nature's Guardian if this is confusing). You should never have mana problems, but if you pop off a few heals then drop your mana tide and start your totem cycle back over again. Keeping stoneskin up is paramount to your survival...YOU WILL DIE without stoneskin up.

I am leveling a group with a pally and lock, so I'm able to use the level 40 pally spell Blessing of Sanctuary to do my tagging damage via blocking. A shield spike would function here as well. The Blessing of Sanct also lowers the damage I take, so you might have to keep an eye on your health and pop more heals than I do (I never cast a heal unless I'm resetting zolo basically). The one caveat to this for me is when all of my armor goes red (except my shield of course) Natures Guardian and Earthshield cant make up the difference and I WILL die, so it's time for a reset then. I heal, jump down, Ancestral Recall out, repair, and then have my lock summon me back into the instance and begin again. You could also keep a repair bot alt parked outside the instance and other alts for 1 hour buffs for your shaman (Valorin does this to nice effect).

Anyway, hope this is helpful. All kudos go to Valorin. I'm just the messenger.

[Tehtsuo]

Ok, Valorin found the best way so far to do Zolo with just a shaman.

Here's the build:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=hZAb00xxZAbxxV0otez

Here's the description (or my interpretation of it anyway):

Nature's Guardian and Earthshield is what makes this train run. Drop a stoneskin (improved from talents), mana spring (improved from talents), and wrath of air (for more healing) totems. Let the skele's beat on you until you get to 30% and start popping earthshield and letting Nature's Guardian do the work. Basically you have infinite health as long as the skele's cant beat you down more than 10% of your health in 5 seconds (check the description of Nature's Guardian if this is confusing). You should never have mana problems, but if you pop off a few heals then drop your mana tide and start your totem cycle back over again. Keeping stoneskin up is paramount to your survival...YOU WILL DIE without stoneskin up.

I am leveling a group with a pally and lock, so I'm able to use the level 40 pally spell Blessing of Sanctuary to do my tagging damage via blocking. A shield spike would function here as well. The Blessing of Sanct also lowers the damage I take, so you might have to keep an eye on your health and pop more heals than I do (I never cast a heal unless I'm resetting zolo basically). The one caveat to this for me is when all of my armor goes red (except my shield of course) Natures Guardian and Earthshield cant make up the difference and I WILL die, so it's time for a reset then. I heal, jump down, Ancestral Recall out, repair, and then have my lock summon me back into the instance and begin again. You could also keep a repair bot alt parked outside the instance and other alts for 1 hour buffs for your shaman (Valorin does this to nice effect).

Anyway, hope this is helpful. All kudos go to Valorin. I'm just the messenger.

It's been mentioned before, but I thought I'd re-recommend the Naglering from BRD (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=11669) as an effective alternative to BoS or shield spikes. I use BoS on my paladin when I boost because rank 1 still keeps our friend Zolo up for over an hour, but when I have to boost a character on the Paladin's account, I plan to use this method with one of my shamans and will make a quick run through BRD to get a Naglering for him. It has an added bonus of being on an item with no durability, so you don't have to worry about keeping it repaired to keep it tagging skeletons.

[Morganti]

The comments on wowhead are saying that they dont see the dmg proc when using it with a level 70? Might want to verify before going to farm it and expecting it to work.

[Tehtsuo]

Good point. Funny, I know the reasoning for making level 60 effects disappear at 70, but in this situation it seems laughable.
"Oh no, we can't have level 70 players doing 3 damage to things that hit them, that'll be abused." I wonder if this was the abuse they were worried about. I'm off to look for other non-durability gear that does damage on hit, wish me luck.

Edit: Search was fruitless I'm afraid. Looks like shield spikes are the best choice.

[daviddoran]

My Naglering didn't seem to tag the skeletons, so I stopped using it. With my warlocks, the Imp's Fire Shield works ok too, but has to be constantly re-applied, meaning keeping the warlock in combat range, so he dies when i bubble.

I'll stick with BoSanct Rank 1 for the block.

[Memn]

/shrug if you guys really want to use your raid gear go for it. It costs me 65g to repair my gear from completely broke while it only costs me 13g for the green gear. Sure my BT gear last 2x as long but it costs 5x as much to repair. Don't want to run back 2x as much? That is why I bought the 2nd set of gear.

As long as I was using an intact shield and positioned so that I blocked everything I didn't take much durability loss on anything but the shield. When boosting in other instances, you have to expose yourself and take hits, but with Zolo, you can keep them all in front of you - so there is very little durability loss for the rest of my gear. YMMV. I just hate having another set of gear in my inventory just for boosting.

Of course, if you let Zolo hit you in the back you will take equipment damage...

[Tehtsuo]

I got my priest from 34-56 this weekend. I discovered you can use this method to 56, as half the skeletons that spawn are level 47. You just stop getting exp for the ones that are level 46. Also, repair bills were not a problem for me: I finished up the grind with the same bank balance as when I started. All I had to do was tell a friend in my guild what I was planning, and what I needed. The idea of standing in sunken temple and getting free experience was appealing enough to him that he bought me 25 Crested Heater Shields and gave me gold for all repair costs. Also, he proved very entertaining in party chat, saying "OMG" and "This is the coolest thing I've ever seen" from time to time, and reading out the exp/hour that his addon was showing him. I plan to get funded every time I do that with an alt by inviting friends to come along and soak exp in exchange for repair funding.