Progress - isa23 team

[isa23]

I boosted my first team to 60th and am working my way through BC, about to move to Northrend soon. Here's what I did, based on lots of reading on this board:

1. Leveled group to 8 without booster, since it's quick anyway and I saved 8 RAF levels on my main account (I'd rather grind out 1-8 than 52-60).

Used an existing 71 DK as booster from here to 60.

2. Ragefire 8-10 (quick couple of partial runs for the sake of speed)
3. Shadowfang 10-20 (going 22 on second team since this instance is the ideal setup for not moving the boostees)
4. SM 30-42 (Almost all Cathedral runs, this is the most efficient. Ran Library a couple of times for the key & caster gear. Armory is decent at lvl36+ since the team has to stay closer)
5. Zul Farrak 42-45 (not sure this was worth the transit time, but I was bored of SM. The extra couple of runs in SM would have taken less time than riding all the way to Gadgetzan.
6. Scholomance 45-54 (will do to 55th here next time)
7. Stratholme 54-55 (I didn't find this as efficient as Scholo, will not do again)
8. Ramparts 55-58
9. Hellfire Quests 58-60 (for gear upgrades, Ramparts runs were not providing stuff for all slots quickly enough. These first quests were faster than the instance runs and more fun).

Due to reconfiguring the team a couple of times, deciding to do shamans, then warlocks, then mixed, I ended up with an odd bunch. Gift-leveled a paladin to 60th and dropped the 71 DK, so final team composition at 60 is:
Paladin (Protection)
Druid (Resto / Tree)
Shaman (Elemental)
Warlock (Destro)
Warlock (Demonology)

This group ran Ramparts at 60th, Blood Furnace at 61, Slave Pens at 62, Underbog at 63, Mana Tombs at 64 (multiple times, good one to farm for gear and easy to do) and CoT: Old Hillsbrad at 66th. I wiped on Auchenai Crypts due to Ghazan's proximity bomb effect and just skipped that one. Questing is fast and keeps levels moving when I don't feel like instance runs. Also provides good exp when no rest exp is available.

Currently 66th, happy with group performance in instances and questing. Paladin holds aggro great, Tree druid makes healing easy and efficient with HoTs, Shaman totem buffs, versatility and wipe protection are great. Destro lock and Demonology lock are great dps, wipe protection, and Felguard Offtank.

Buffs / benefits stack well:
+ Mark of the Wild / Thorns
+ Tree Healing buff
+ Imp health buff
+ Curse of elements
+ Felguard as offtank / dps
+ Healthstones / Soulstones
+ Elemental shaman crit buff
+ Wrath of fire / Wrath of air totems
+ Elemental totem if needed for another pet

I'm considering switching out the destro lock for a mage but I give up the imp health buff for arcane int. Food & water is nice though, and although the warlock dots are great on bosses, they are wasteful on questing and instance trash pulls since they only get a few ticks in.

I can't really give up the felguard, he's pretty easy to control and helps a lot in keeping large pulls where I want them and we can bounce aggro back & forth. Also the demo lock has slightly higher avg dps than the destro lock.

Binding Wild Growth (targeting the druid) on its own button gives me a strong HoT for the DPS/ healing group, since they are usually away from the tank. I can keep up with Life Taps and random damage done to them without having to micromanage healing. Otherwise, this is a 2-button affair with tanking cycle and caster DPS on one button and a second button for a HOT stack on the tank. A few others for grabbing aggro, targeted big heals, totem stacks, life tap etc.

So, pretty pleased that my group can run instances at minimum level and do fine in them. Actually faster and less stress than my experience in mixed 5-mans. I actually used to hate instances but now they are lots of fun. The only problem is that if I hit a wall (like Ghazan) there's not much adapt and work around without a big time commitment. I'm sure I'll work around mobility stuff later, but I'm not going to waste hours on it at this point.

Anyhow, comments, suggestions etc are very welcome. Looking forward to Utgarde Keep soon!

[Longshot17]

Nice info.

What made you change from DK to Prot Pally or was that the plan all along?

Also you changed from shamans to a mix, just for variety or other reasons?

What's your strategy/method for healing tank? The reason I ask is that I just use Healbot with reactionary chain healing (spamming... inefficient but works), and for the rest of the group I have a macro for each shaman that just targets self does a stopcasting and does a chainheal.

I'm starting up another team, and your config is close to what I've been considering, but I was thinking for the sake of variety to go with a different tank (I already did 2 groups with a prot pally), but I was thinking Priest instead of Druid (as many people say they are 2nd to shaman for healing multiboxed groups).... though I want a druid in my group

I'm going to follow your boosting guide (just started RFC last night). As I'm a boosting noob, where do you stand your guys in SFK? Or do you just go out and drag everything back... ZF style

[isa23]

Originally Posted by Longshot17

Nice info.

What made you change from DK to Prot Pally or was that the plan all along?

Thanks, I planned on a pally all along, but didn't have one already. The DK was the best I had to boost with, but once I ran with the pally at 60th, I think this group is faster without the DK. The DK does a lot more dps, but isn't specced for tanking. Now the group can level together. Also if I boosted with the DK til 70th, I'd end up with only one good toon on that account, now I'll have 2. Also makes for better questing since the tank can track the quest progress easily.

Originally Posted by Longshot17

Also you changed from shamans to a mix, just for variety or other reasons?

It was haphazard. If I had thought it out better, I would have a mage and lock rather than 2 locks. I have a mage leveling in team 2, but am enjoying leveling team 1 too much to spend that much time on 2.

I'll still level a shaman group, druid group, lock group and pally group if I can stand SM that much. 2nd team is at 31st now...

Originally Posted by Longshot17

What's your strategy/method for healing tank? The reason I ask is that I just use Healbot with reactionary chain healing (spamming... inefficient but works), and for the rest of the group I have a macro for each shaman that just targets self does a stopcasting and does a chainheal.

My binds are like this (not really optimal, but ok)
1. Focus tank, assist, follow, accept trade, accept quest
2. Tank / dps. Tank castsequence, shaman dps castsequence, warlock dps castsequence.
3. Hand of Reckoning (Pull/ get aggro). Same DPS castsequence macros on shaman/ locks
4. Can't remember, another pally skill. Maybe Avenger's shield. Same DPS castsequence macros on shaman/ locks.
5. Flash of light. Healing castsequence that always targets focus (heal tank).
6. Flash of light. Healing castsequence that assists focus (heal tank's target).
7. Shaman healing. (shaman never heals on 5 & 6. This is only used if something goes badly wrong.
8. Drop totems.

Healing castsequence (druid) is something like Lifebloom, Rejuvenation, Lifebloom, Regrowth, Lifebloom, Swiftmend, Healing Touch, Healing Touch.

So I have to keep the tank moving unless I want the tank to heal. I'll click 5 to get a lifebloom, then 3 or 4 to pull. Then it's just spam 2 & 5, 2 a lot and 5 based on how much healing is needed. Everytime I click 5 the tank tries to fire of a heal, but I'm constantly moving back & forth anyway so all I have to do is stand still for the tank to heal himself if things go badly.

Elsewhere I have a macro that does Wild Growth on the healer. Typically everyone is centered on him, so it heals everybody but the tank. Clicking this one or twice in a boss fight usually deals with incidental damage unless someone really gets focus fired.

Originally Posted by Longshot17

I'm going to follow your boosting guide (just started RFC last night). As I'm a boosting noob, where do you stand your guys in SFK? Or do you just go out and drag everything back... ZF style

In SFK, I do this:
1. send in the booster, let him aggro the worgen & wolf in the first room and just let him stand there.
2. Send in the other toons
3. Kill those first two mobs
4. Set follow and lead the group into the top right corner of the first room. They'll be standing against the fence/ ironwork that separates them from the courtyard area, looking at the dead deathstalker on the ground but separated from all the mobs by the fence.
5. Break follow and go kill everything. From what I can tell, nothing in the entire instance is out of exp range from that point. You may be just as well leaving them at the entrance, but the time to move them 30 more yards is minimal.

That's why I like SFK, no moving. Set them and do the run. SM Cath is ok, 2 moves seems to work well. Much of Scholo can be done from the stairs. All others that I'm aware of involve more moving or longer pulls.

[EaTCarbS]

My suggestion is to level as many characters as you can to lvl 60 before your RAF runs out. That way, If you want to try something new, you'll have those toons at lvl 60 already.

[Longshot17]

So no real advantage to having two warlocks vs. 1?

Also, I'm guessing this is a noob move on my part, but no one wastes a button on the shaman Totemic Recall?

I have a mage leveling in team 2, but am enjoying leveling team 1 too much to spend that much time on 2.

That's my problem, can't stop playing the 3 shammy group and I'm wasting valuable RAF time!

My suggestion is to level as many characters as you can to lvl 60 before your RAF runs out. That way, If you want to try something new, you'll have those toons at lvl 60 already.

If all goes right I should have a 60 DK, 60 Priest, 60 Warlock to add to my rotation by the end of this weekend (still got some some free levels to grant from RAF) provided my current noobie group gets to the mid 30s.

[isa23]

Thanks EatCarbs, I'm trying to do that and have it scheduled out. I'm barely staying on schedule to get 5 teams done in my 90 days, but I'm managing. I think 5 (locks, pallies, shamans, druids, either priests or mages) will be all I can handle.

Longshot, I have Totemic Recall bound, but it's on the L key. Have a few like that, buffs, occasional use things bound to out-of-the-way keys.

[isa23]

Here's the way I'm working RAF:
90 days long (ends 10/19 for me), with 5 potential teams, so 18 days to level each team.

Teams:
1. Shamans, since this is the standard and good in both PVE and PVP.
2. Warlocks, my favorite class and fun in PVP.
3. Paladins, lots of good reviews and this makes for a melee team which I wasn't sure I'd want.
4. Druids, versatile in PVE & PVP plus give me a druid on main account that can serve as a tank and a potential healer or nuker on all other accounts.
5. Either mages or priests, probably mages. Don't care for hunters all that much, but they're a strong choice. With locks I'm covered as far as pet classes go. Could also be a mix of mages, priests and hunters.

Rogues and warriors are left out. Will probably have a gift-leveled warrior on my main account as another tank. DKs start so close to 60 that they can be added anytime.

Now I've got 68 days of RAF left and have
Team 1: lvl 67 (got to keep leveling these to make gold for the newbies, training and mounts are expensive with no level 80)
Team 2: lvl 31
Team 3: lvl 20
Team 4: lvl 1
Team 5: lvl 1

I'm gonna be so f-ing sick of SM by October...

[Ualaa]

I did: Druids, Hunters, Shammies, Priests.
Have since leveled/am leveling: Death Knights, Warlocks.
Thinking of Pallies at some point.

Some of the groups, I did not touch for 2 years after RAF, but they are there. I've leveled each set to at least 68th, purely for alchemy transmutes specialization. In the process of taking them from 68th to 75th, which will be the minimum level for 525 in a tradeskill. Have 14 of my 29 transmuters at 80th, with 5 at 70th and 10 at 68th; a little here and a little there...

You can never have too many toons; they give you the option of additional teams down the road. And generate gold via tradeskills in the mean time.

[Longshot17]

Boosting going really good... actually having fun... doing SM Armoury for whatever reason got that one down to a good pattern.

What do you do to avoid the 'You have entered too many instances'? Or what is the timer?

[isa23]

Originally Posted by Longshot17

Boosting going really good... actually having fun... doing SM Armoury for whatever reason got that one down to a good pattern.

What do you do to avoid the 'You have entered too many instances'? Or what is the timer?

My attention span doesn't let me hit the limit - I'll do 2 or 3 runs, get sick of boosting, go do something else for a while and come back and do another few runs. I think you get 5 resets per hour.

An alternative is to do SM Armory, SM Cathedral, then reset & repeat.