Efficient use of RAF (Recruit a Friend)

Efficient use of RAF

Here is my question and I’m going to go a little on the extreme side (At least Extreme for me) . What is the most efficient way to use RAF. I’ve watched a few videos and came up with some solutions myself but I have a few unanswered questions.

The Rules as I understand them:

You gain 300% Exp while in a party and within range during quest and grinding. The two characters must be within 4 levels of each other and on the same server. You can only have 10 toons per server if I am not mistaken, not 100% on this one.

The friend can grant 1 level for every 2 they gain however they can not grant a level to a character at the same level or above. I.e. an 40 can not grant a level to an 40 but he could grant one to a 39. This becomes important if you think you are going to take two characters to 54 and then grant one 27 levels. You’d only be able to promote a different toon 27 levels up to 54.

Trial accounts can only progress to 20, Battle chest to 70, WotLK 80 and Cat to 85. 80 being the highest level you can gain any RAF benifits. As I see it on Amazon that’s $20, $39 and $29 per game. This is really a side factor but something to consider.

Summoning is an added bonus but not particularly considered for efficiency.
If you want the mount then a 60 day prepaid game card is recommend to get the mount up front.

A Group cannot consist of more than 5 players. Not saying you can’t have two 5 man groups or Raid with 10 but I believe you can’t earn Exp while in a raid. I believe this is important because you need Account A and B to be in the same group to get the RAF EXP gain.

Fact: Higher levels take more exp; so my assumption is that you exp is best used at the higher levels. Now the challenge is keeping the team within 4 levels of each other… If you keep promoting the character you are leveling they will not be close enough to gain the exp from RAF.

Step one is to determine what your endstate is, do you want 10 85 lvl toons on Account A or high level toons on all accounts. I started out thinking I just wanted to use Multiboxing to recruit myself into multiple toons on my one account but then learned I’d missed out on the best part of the game. It’s a whole new challenge and it removes some of the restrictions the game currently has; I don’t have to rely on other players, i.e. they don’t have to be available or deal with someone you can’t literally punch in face if you wanted to. I’ll caveat that with I generally enjoy the social part, it’s just the 1% I could sometimes go without.

Here are the different Models as I understand them:

Model 1 (Multiple Toons on account A, B, C, D and E can grant to A)
Limit: Account A must be present

A
B C D E

Model 2 (High level toons on all accounts)
Limit: Only B can grant to A

A
B
C
D
E

Model 3 (Combo, allows for flexibility, both B and C can promote to A)

A
B C
D E

If I can grant all levels earned by RAF without being in the team, I’ll leave A out for some of the rotations.

Model 3a (6 accounts, both B, C, D, E, and F can all grant levles)

Model
A
B C
D E
F

Leveling Team
B C
D E
F

Lets say you have 10 accounts and you have two goals, max out your toons on Account A and have atleast a few high level toons across the board. This is what I’m thinking:

Model 4 (Go for Broke… literally)
Model
A
B C D
E F G
H I J

Team 1
B C
E F
H

Team 2
C D
F G
I

Team 3
D B
G E
J

I appologize in advance if I placed this in the wrong section or if it is too winded, I'm pretty sure that is an understatement. I'm really looking for some advice from people who have used RAF, if they have a better plan or even just what you consider the best approach to the two methods; Mulitple high level toons on one acount or high level toons on each account.

[MiRai]

Everything I didn't quote was correct as far as I know, although, my knowledge could be rusty.

As I see it on Amazon that’s $20, $39 and $29 per game. This is really a side factor but something to consider.

Black Friday sales are literally 3 weeks away. You'd be paying a fraction of the cost of you waited to buy the games until then.

Summoning is an added bonus but not particularly considered for efficiency.

Summoning can actually be the most efficient way to "race" your characters to 80 while boosting.

A Group cannot consist of more than 5 players. Not saying you can’t have two 5 man groups or Raid with 10 but I believe you can’t earn Exp while in a raid. I believe this is important because you need Account A and B to be in the same group to get the RAF EXP gain.

If we're talking from a perspective of leveling a group of 10 at once, most 10 boxers run 2 groups of 5 together at the same time. It's
slightly faster to do that than level each group of 5 by themselves.

Here are the different Models as I understand them:

It's difficult to read all of what you had since spacing on the forums doesn't work the way you would think it does. Most people use
arrows (>) to indicate which accounts are recruiting which. I recreated what I thought you meant using your models and my arrows
with some added info.

Model 1 (Multiple Toons on account B, C, D and E can grant to A)
Limit: Account A must be present at all times and fall within the RaF guidelines in order for every other account to benefit.

A > BCDE

Model 2 (High level toons on all accounts)
Limit: E never gets any levels granted to it forcing you to transfer characters around or not use the free levels.
A > B > C > D > E

Model 3 (Combo, allows for flexibility, both B and C can promote to A)

A > B > D
A > C > E

Model 3a (6 accounts)
I don't know what you were trying to show with this model but I would do it this way:

A > B
B > C > D
B > E > F

Leveling Team
B C D E F

Lets say you have 10 accounts and you have two goals, max out your toons on Account A and have atleast a few high level toons across the board. This is what I’m thinking:

Again, with the bad spacing I couldn't tell what you were showing here and was confused as to why you had broken up 10 characters
into 3 different teams with overlapping accounts. I would be confident to say that any 10-boxer would just combine 2 of the
methods listed above in the 5-man section to get what they wanted out of a 10 man team while leveling.

I'm really looking for some advice from people who have used RAF, if they have a better plan or even just what you consider the best approach to the two methods; Mulitple high level toons on one acount or high level toons on each account.

Personally, the only reason I would ever multibox would be to have lots of high level characters across multiple accounts. If I wanted
lots of high level characters on a single account I would just manually level them myself and learn the class as I went along. What's
annoying as a multiboxer (if you're boosting) is that once you hit the top RaF level you're sitting in level 10 equipment with nothing
on your bars and if you've never played the class before you now have to figure out 30 new spells or abilities, where they should go in
your macros, where they should go on your action bars, and when/if you should actually use them.

[Ualaa]

If you're brand new, I'd basically go with:
A > B > C
A > D > E

As in A is linked (sent a referral out to) both B and D.
B and D each sent a referral to one account too.

Initially your toons are all low level, so you'd want to quest up.
Ideally with a quest stacking guide; the Jaime guide is decent and free for both faction.

You would want a toon that is a strong "Booster" on the A account in the first grouping.
Ideally that would be a Paladin or Druid, although a Warrior or an AoE class could work.
This "set" can be 5x Druids, or any mix you want.

RAF stops at 80th now.
So the goal would be a little over 80th.
Because the 81/82/83 quest stuff gets you massively stronger than an 80th toon, and you want to be able to boost in 80th instances.

Once you have your first group towards 80th or a little beyond this...
Use the booster on A, to run instances with a group of four new toons.
So your party is A + B + C + D + E.
Let's say you have: 82 Paladin, 1 Shaman, 1 Shaman, 1 Shaman, 1 Shaman.
Everyone is grouped.
The A > B link will not qualify for RAF, neither will the A > D link.
However B > C & D > E, both qualify because they're grouped, linked, in proximity, within +/- 4 levels of each other and are 79th or lower.
You want to kill things or complete quests that are Green (or Blue/Yellow/Red) to the BCDE characters.

I would take them through quests, grouped with the higher level.
Kill things very quickly, and get almost no experience per kill.
But be able to kill 50 mobs with the higher level, in the time that the 4x lowbies would kill 5 or 6 mobs.
So the quests are done very quickly, and the turn in is 300% of normal (so +200%).

Once the toons reach 10th or so...
You take them to level appropriate instances.
For example Deadmines is 10th level to enter, and probably geared towards 16th to 24th level.
So when they're 10th or 12th or so...
Run them through Deadmines repeatedly.
Have the higher level kill a bunch, then when an area is safer move the slaves up to them.
Park in a new position and kill a bunch more.
Repeat.

Elites are worth a lot more than normals; sure killing one elite with the four RAF toons is say 1000 experience a kill, but they take a minute per mob.
Your level 82 can kill massive numbers of level 25 elites, in seconds with Consecration + Retribution Aura or Swipe + Thorns.
Sure, you'll only get say 133 experience per kill, with the level 82 in the party...
But 133 x 25 mobs (in 10 seconds of combat -- a small "booster" pull) 3,325 is greater than 1,000 experience in a minute with a real chance of your toons dying.
My example numbers suck... boosting is usually 15-20x faster than running 5x toons of the appropriate level for the instance.
So if you could earn 5,000 experience per toon in 5 minutes somewhere, you'd be closer to 20,000-30,000 experience per toon with a booster.

And once the instance gets towards the higher end...
Mainly once your toons are high enough to be able to enter a harder dungeon, then move on.
Prior to Cataclysm (which changed the minimum levels of many instances), I liked:
- Deadmines 10-16
- Stockades 16-20
- Scarlet Monastery 20-44
- Zul'Farrak (the Tanaris one) 44-50
- Scholomance or Stratholme 50-56
- Ramparts 56-60...

I'd probably go Ramparts > Underbog > Auchindoun (the one with mostly melee) > Black Morass (Caverns of Time; just trash).
Not sure on the boosting in WotLK dungeons... probably Utgarde (the lower one) initially.
Check a site like wowwiki for dungeon levels.

Ideally you boost in sets of four.

Let's say you went 5x Druids for the first set.
Then you used the Druid on A to boost three sets on BCDE.
Let's say they're: Paladin, Shaman, Mage.

You'd have (purely from leveling):
A: Druid.
B: Druid, Paladin, Shaman, Mage.
C: Druid, Paladin, Shaman, Mage.
D: Druid, Paladin, Shaman, Mage.
E: Druid, Paladin, Shaman, Mage.

Your RAF links were: A > B > C .... and .... A > D > E
Because of the four toons on B, they give two toons to A (Paladin, Shaman).
Because of the four toons on D, they give two toons to A (Mage, Priest).
Because of the four toons on C, they give two toons to B (Hunter, Priest).
Because of the four toons on E, they give two toons to D (Hunter, Priest).

And the cascading...
B received two toons from C, so can give one more to A (Hunter).
D received two toons from E, so can give one more to A (Rogue).

Giving us:
A: Druid, Paladin, Shaman, Mage, Priest, Hunter, Rogue.
B: Druid, Paladin, Shaman, Mage, Priest, Hunter.
C: Druid, Paladin, Shaman, Mage.
D: Druid, Paladin, Shaman, Mage, Priest, Hunter.
E: Druid, Paladin, Shaman, Mage.

There are two jumps in the chain.
A > B > C and A > D > E.
Therefore 2^2 or four sets of toons leveled is ideal for cascading of the levels granted.
It's worth noting the last accounts (C and E) will be short toons compared to the earlier accounts.
And that A will have the most toons even though they only level with one toon once, and boost thereafter.
You could also do character transfers from A/B/D to C/E; if they're on the same B.Net account, there is no delay for the transers... otherwise there's a 30 day wait after forming the B.Net account before you can do a transfer.

Hope that helps you some.

Awesome! thank you both for the reply, that really does help out a lot. I'm not brand new to the game but I am new to multiboxing and I'm quickly finding out there are reasons why people have teams of 5 shammans / druids ect. The plan you laid out makes perfect sense. I apologize about the spacing, you are correct, I had typed it in word and it had made more sense before posting it, here is what I meant about 10 boxing and after reading your comments I believe I would make the teams like this:

https://plus.google.com/photos/115701369674710595508/albums/5670762359332291137#photos/115701369674710595508/albums/5670762359332291137

https://plus.google.com/photos/11570136 ... 9332291137 not quite sure how to post that

I tried using the arrows but couldn't seem to get it to look the way I wanted... so I decided a photo may be a little more clear.

Here I could use my 85 Rogue on account A to boost the team and I could level 2 five man teams... He's well geared and even though he's not a very good tank I think He'll do for a while. : )

Hmmm... would second team get credit for the quest if they aren't in the team with the guy doing all the killing?

Using this all of the lower level toons would gain RAF from questing, just very little from kill exp as Ualaa stated in his post.

To answer MiRai's question about why I would link 3 accounts to A, it is more circumstantial… meaning I already opened 3 accounts linked to A, originally thinking I was using Multiboxing to help level… now I understand how much fun it is on it’s own. But your right, in theory the best approach would most likely be linear allowing you to promote evenly across the accounts or to one depending on your goal. Also I agree that learning each character can be a steep learning curve while leveling this fast but I do like the challenge and it gives me something to research down range. I have some decisions to make about going from the 5 accounts I have now to 10 and thinking about black Friday coming up could be the deciding factor. Thanks for the pointers they have helped me out tremendously.

[MiRai]

To answer MiRai's question about why I would link 3 accounts to A, it is more circumstantial… meaning I already opened 3 accounts linked to A, originally thinking I was using Multiboxing to help level… now I understand how much fun it is on it’s own.

If you've already got 3 accounts linked to A then you can either just roll with it or ditch that third account and go with a 'normal' model.
Either way it should all work out. I personally don't utilize the level granting all that much myself unless it's for a single account because
you can never efficiently grant levels across all accounts without taking paid transfers into consideration.

[quote="Ualaa"]And the cascading...
B received two toons from C, so can give one more to A (Hunter).
D received two toons from E, so can give one more to A (Rogue).

I'm still reading through both of these post and gaining more information so again thank you for the input.

Pertaining to the quote above, I didn't realize that toons that were granted levels would recieve levels to grant to thier respective linked account, i.e. B was leveled to 80 through grant a level from two level 80 toons on C, so they now have 40 levels to grant to A. It took me a min to realize that's what you meant. If I'm wrong please correct me, if not That's freakin outstanding. I'm going to restructor my account to reflect what you've described above.

Another Question:
I haven't actually tried 10 boxing but the way I understand an instance, you wouldn't be able to take two groups into the same instance so you would be forced to either 5 man level them or level them outsise of an instance.... does anyone know if that's correct?

[MiRai]

Another Question:
I haven't actually tried 10 boxing but the way I understand an instance, you wouldn't be able to take two groups into the same instance so you would be forced to either 5 man level them or level them outsise of an instance.... does anyone know if that's correct?

Yes, you can only bring 5 characters into a 5 man dungeon, therefore, you'd have to either use quests or use battlegrounds as a means
to level all 10 together at the same time.

Keep in mind, you will receive endless hate if you go into WSG/AB/EotS/etc with 10 characters and become a burden to the team as a
whole.

Keep in mind, you will receive endless hate if you go into WSG/AB/EotS/etc with 10 characters and become a burden to the team as a
whole.

I appreciate the input, I'll keep that in mind, I'm not looking to create a bad environment, I'm not real sure if I'll try the pvp side for it, but down the road you never know. Thanks for the pointers.

[Ualaa]

Pertaining to the quote above, I didn't realize that toons that were granted levels would recieve levels to grant to thier respective linked account... if not That's freakin outstanding. I'm going to restructor my account to reflect what you've described above.

For every even level gained on an referred account, it can grant a level to the referring account.
Doesn't matter how you gain the levels.

The cascading of granted levels... giving levels to the "parent" account, based on levels received via granting from another account... it does rock.