My Boosting Experience (70 Pally and Lowbie Hunter (and now Lowbie Shaman))

[Talamarr]

I'm currently boosting a hunter with a 70 tankadin and wanted to share my experiences as I progress. My plan is to do 100% instance boosting with this toon until he catches up with my shaman at 52. I'll then three box the 70 pally, shaman and hunter together.

Here is the path I've taken so far:

1-10: Quests. I stayed in Kharanos until I hit 10 and did my pet training. Then I took the tram to SM and headed straight to DM

10-15: Deadmines. It took a few runs and a few levels to get the efficiency down. Early on, I died a lot from the pather sneaking up on my lowbie. What I found is that the best way to deal with this is to move along through the instance as fast as possible. The pathers would finally catch up to me right before I entered the VC room so I would just hang out for a minute and kill them. I was getting roughly 8 bubbles per clear and I was clearing the instance somewhere between 10-15 minutes. I did hit the reset limit a few times.

15-20: Stockades. I really love this place for the simple fact it's in Stormwind making vendor / repair / rested area access so much easier. I typically three pulled the instance. First the straight hallway, then the left wing and finally, the right wing with the bosses. I tried single pulling the hallway and the left wing but it was too sketchy. The knockdowns make things a little hairy and it wasn't worth it, imo. Speaking of which, the knockdowns are probably the most annoying thing ever. I may load up on Free Action Potions next time I boost in there. All and all though, it went really smooth and I got about 1/4 a level per clear in about the same 10-15 minute window.

20-21: Scarlet Monastery. I made the loooong and deadly walk to SM, picked up the flight points on the way, honored the flame in each town and got several discoveries. This got me well into the next level. However, when I started clearing graveyard, I noticed I got the same xp / mob in SM as I was getting in Stocks. I noted that xp rate was slower in SM because of the level difference penalty. So I decided to hearth back to SM and do some more stocks.

21-25: Stockades. I'm baaaackkk. Really this seemed like the best move here. I had stocks down to a mindless science (watched TV while doing this) and just grinded out to 25. It didn't take long and I was able to pick up the kill quest at level 22 from the guy right outside the instance. (Note, there is also a Stocks quest giver in Old Town to collect 10 red bandanas that's worth picking up too).

25-27: Scarlet Monastery. I headed back to Scarlet Monastery and was getting MUCH better xp / mob. Almost double than before. I cleared Graveyard, Cathedral and Armory twice and dinged 27 (I think I was close to 26 when I left SW).

And that's it so far. At level 27 I'm close to 19 hours /played and there was a lot of BS time in there. My current plan is to stay in SM until 35 and then head to ST.

One other note, I had a friend bring his lowbie druid for 5 or 6 levels in stocks and was getting group bonus for about 10 extra xp / mob.

[Knobley]

Hi,
I'm doing the same run as you are and am just slightly behind you.

I'm using a druid to boost with, since I don't have pally.
I've got three accounts, so I'm alternating boosting 2 locks, and 2 pallies... (I NEED those pallies for the zolo trick).

I'm taking exactly the same path as you... and my experience is almost exactly the same.
1-10... quest
10-15... DM... same problem with you as the patrols... I figured that my druid would be slower at this than your pally, but the times you posted are about the same as mine. I pull everything to each door, and the swipe them down. It's critical to make sure not to miss any of the mobs or they will make mincemeat of your lobies. The patrols are also a problem. I learned to stop after sneed and pick up a patrol, and then stop again after the furnace room and pick up the patrol. When I remembered to do those things, all went well, but it took many trials to figure that out.

15-25... stockades... this is pure easy mode after dreadmines. I'm pulling straight to the back as well as to the end of the hall on the west wing in the first pull. Then the four rooms near the instance. then the hallway on the (and sometimes the rooms, depending on how bad the stun is getting) in the east wing. Everything else... rinse and repeat. 15 minutes = 1/4 lvl for the alts. As the alts lvl up they start getting more xp per kill, but, of course it takes more xp/kill to level up so that the end result is that the 1/4 lvl per run stays pretty constant.

My locs are at 25, and my pallies are at 21. I was very seriously considering moving on to SM with the pallies (since they're the ones I really want to lvl), but after reading your post, I'm gonna stay on at the stockades until they hit 25... then it's the loooong run to SM (twice) for my two little groups.

Thanks for your write up... lets me know I'm pretty much on track.

Knobley

[Drizzit]

sm might be worth the run. At lvl 20 -25 i was lvling like every three runs in cath. 25-30 was 4 runs. From 30-35 was 4. then 35 on was a pain it was 5 runs and add .5 after every time you lvl.

[Talamarr]

At lvl 20 -25 i was lvling like every three runs in cath.

Just cathedral alone? How many people in your group? Just the one lowbie? That seems like a lot more XP than I was getting. I'll have to double check that tonnight.

[Drizzit]

I was running my rogue (70) and 4 other toons.

[Knobley]

sm might be worth the run. At lvl 20 -25 i was lvling like every three runs in cath. 25-30 was 4 runs. From 30-35 was 4. then 35 on was a pain it was 5 runs and add .5 after every time you lvl.

I'm leveling every 4 runs of stockades, and I'm pretty sure it's in probably about the same times as 3 monestary runs. Repairs and seasonal xp boost are VERY handy so I'll stick here to 25. My pallies will be a tad less sqishy then.

[Talamarr]

27-31: Alternating between Cathedral and Armory. Graveyard is so/so, Library is pointless. Mobs leashing is not good for large PL pulls. I was able to get Cathedral down with 2 pulls and Armory trash with 1 big pull (I started skipping Herod after I got all of his drops for my hunter; not a very good time:xp ratio). I'm getting roughly 11k/instance pull. I'm at about 1 day /played time. I'm not going to break any speed records as there was some AFK, traveling and messing with pet training time in there. I never had a hunter so messing with the pet mechanics was interesting to me. But this sure is a lazy way to level (lazy FTW).

Also, for pally boosting, I recommend the trinket Uther's Strength. It really helps when you've got an ass-ton of mobs beating on you, the shield is up a lot of the time.

I'm going to try to one pull Cathedral tonight. Just head straight to Mograine and pull the whole zone. I think I tried this before and found that Mograine will reset but I'm completely fine with that. Trying to DPS him and that healing chick is annoying with Pally DPS and a lowbie hunter with no gear and no gun skill lol.

4 more levels to go and then I'm headed to ST.

[Thulos]

I've been boosting in cathedral with my paladin and 4 shamans in toe. It's really slowing down now at 37. I'd like to move to ST and do the Zolo trick but I can't seem to get a group together to do SH to get the figurine of the Collosus. Anyone know if its possible without the figurine?

[Talamarr]

I haven't done it yet, but I would assume you should be able to bubble heal if needed, assuming you didn't build up any aggro on your lowbies. You could also respec into Holy tree just for this and pick up 5/5 Spiritual Focus. That with concetration aura will give you 100% uninterrupted heals. I have the trinket and I may do this too just for backup and to help when boosting in higher level instances.

[Kyle K.]

I have been boosting my 4 horde Shaman now with my level 66 Paladin, and up to SM it was going very good. But I can not get anywhere near the 10 minutes per run for Armory, I average about 13-15 Minutes in armory with 3 pulls. I just take to much damage, even with 9400 HP. I get almost 1 level every 4 runs in Armory which I am not sure is a good. RFC and SFK seemed to go very quickly, but now it just seems to be a slow down, healers in Armory are the worst thing, it prolongs the fight and with limited mana it makes thing rough. Its been 16 Hours to level 25, which is nice, but I just feel I am going a lot slower then everyone else haha.