All About Battle.NET / RAF and Boosting.

So an anonymous user commented on my RAF post that it didn't contain enough information. I had a quick skim over what I had written and indeed it was very vague. I thought I would start a new post and put in alot more detail incase people come accross my blog via google or it is linked somewhere.

RAF or Refer-A-Friend is a Service provided by Blizzard for WoW Accounts. It allows you to refer a friend and when you are in the same party and between the levels of 1-60 you will gain 300% XP and be able to summon the referred player once per hour. You will also be able to grant levels to the person who referred you as a reward.

There are two common ways multi-boxers use RAF. They use it to level several teams up very very quickly or they use it to level one team up and then usually xfer the characters off to their main accounts. Here is an example of the two ways:

A -> B -> C -> D -> E.
This method allows you to use a Level 80 Character on Account A and 'boost' the other 4 accounts up in instances. It also allows you to summon B who then summons C who then summons D who then summons E to an instance location. Useful for boosting in places like Scholomance at 45, or Sunken Temple at 40 where your lowbies who are usually naked with no flightpaths would not survive the trip. The reason why you can use a Level 80 on Account A is because the RAF relationship between B -> C remains true even if A -> B should cancel it out.

A -> BCDE
This method is normally used where you are going to level up a team from scratch and not use a Level 80. If you attempt to use a character on Acccount A that is 4 levels higher than any of the others in the party the RAF will break in this scenario. However if you want to generate the most level 60 characters by granting levels this is one of the best ways. If your starting from scratch on a new server this is the way I would do it.

You CAN use RAF within the same B.Net Account or outside it. However on the secondary account be warned that you cannot transfer characters out of a newly created battle.net account for 30 days. This means if you have mainaccount@fakemail.com and clonesraf@fakemail.com that if you want to xfer the characters off the RAF accounts and onto say your WOTLK accounts then you will need to wait 30 days.

You can also only have EIGHT Warcraft Accounts linked to one battle.net account. Keep this in mind when doing RAF as for most people they are throw away accounts that you will never upgrade to TBC/Wrath/Catalcysm.

I used a Protection Paladin for my boosting. Here is the dungeons I ran.

1-10: Quested on 4 Slaves.
10-15 Deadmines (Alliance)/RFC(Horde)
15-22 Shadowfang Keep
22-40 Stockades(Alliance till 27)/SM Armory/Cath (Alliance/Horde)
40-45 Sunken Temple
45 -60 Scholomance

So to summarize:
8 WoW Accounts per Battle.Net Account
The positive RAF relationship will always override a condition that would otherwise break it.
30 Day Transfer between newly created Battle.Net Accounts which have the same Last Name.

Hope this helps some people out that stumble accross my blog!

'Tis the Busy Season

Sorry for the lack of updates on my adventures. I've recently expanded my team a little by having the option of swapping my Warlock or Druid into the 4th and 5th slot replacing Slatzc or Slatzd if I choose too. This has been great for generating extra Emblems of Frost which I'm using to deck out my tank in the new crafted gear which is VERY expensive.

Absolutely loving Patch 3.3. The new random dungeon system is incredible. I had a few interesting bugs the first few days where I had dungeons with 1 or 3 bosses out of 5 availible but I've geared up quite a bit on my Shamans and I probably have another 70 or so badges before I'm done with Triumph PvE gear.

After reading alot of Team Skekraft's blog and decided I loved the idea of multiple Retribution Paladins. I already have a large amount of weapons and armour on my main Slatters but I really never play Retribution. I've always loved tanking and thats how I gear him. With my shamans getting very close to being as geared as they can from badges I think I will be focusing on collecting up some BoA Gear and making myself a DK + 4 Ret Team. If I decide I find 5 Paladins easier to play dropping in my main will be quite easy thanks to ISBoxer.

I've decided I'm not going to use RAF I'm simple going to stick to BoA Items. Using the DK for PvE/PvP might work out very well or it might just end up being too complex as I've never really done melee classes. At either rate I have another month or so before I get back to work so have plenty of time to experiment.

My new routine in WoW (and to-do list) should look something like this:

1x Prot Pally/4x Shamans. Do one Random Dungeon for Frost Badges.
1x Prot Pally/2x Shaman, Warlock Druid: Do one random dungeon for frost badges.
JC/Mining x 2/Alchemy/Tailor x2/Inscription - do daily/weekly x-mutes if can be bothered.
Do weekly Wintergrasp Quests on Paladin/Shaman. I love Wintergrasp!
Do weekly Karazhan Speed Clear for Mount if I can be bothered.

Focus on levelling my Ret / DK Team. Take it nice and slow and enjoy the levelling process before it all changes in Cataclysm.

This should give me plenty of options for things to do and maybe a new focus in Cataclysm. I know that my 'main' will never change - he simple has too much time/blood/sweat/tears invested into him.

So Slatsdk/Slatspa/Slatspb/Slatspc/Slatspd are born. Horrible names. Perhaps I should rethink a new naming convention?

A safe and merry Christmas to everyone.

3.3 Next Week? Here is hoping!

So all the various data mining and news sites for WoW are reporting that 3.3 is most likely next week. With no maint. window this week and the Release Build being pushed to the PTR from all the other major content patches I've experienced I'd say we are very likely.

This means a few great things for my Paladin and Shaman. Divine Guardian is changing so that with the right talents will now reduce all damage my party takes by 20% for 6 seconds as well as redirected all damage up to a total of 40% x 5 (or number of party members.)

Fire Elemental has also had its CD lowered to 10 minutes. Last I checked the PTR Glyphed this is down ot 5 minutes! Amazing for WG and Battlegrounds especially x 4. To add to the AoE explosions Fire Nova Totem has been removed and replaced with a spell called Fire Nova. This allows you to aoe out of any fire totem you have down. So technically you can cast Fire Elemental and then every 10, 6 or 3 seconds (depending on Talents and Glyphs) cast Fire Nova.

This will be amazing for AoEing down heroics and just random mobs. It also means if my Shamans pull some aggro I can reduce the damage they are taking also.

Not to mention 3 new 5 man dungeons, Ice Crown Raid, and all heroics dropping Triumph Badges.

Oh and not to mention a Guild Bank full of materials to make some serious cash the first few weeks of launch. :D

Time to farm a bunch more Abyss Crystals and stock up on Dream Shards. :)