RAF: The good, The bad and The ugly. Ultimate level boosting guide!

[Deleted]

RAF Guide:
Hello everyone, i have written this guide to provide players with in-depth understanding about RAF leveling. RAF leveling offers a lot potential to get yourself a quick level 85, however there are certain limitations that must be understood before you can level effectively with this method. I know that numerous of guides exist but still I felt that not one guide provided complete information about the best leveling experience. This guide will feature leveling spots, best setups for maximum experience gains and a method to get this setup as cheap as possible. The method I use I mostly based on RAF leveling spot in Icecrown, which is known by most of the more experienced levelers. As of late I have leveled 3 level 80’s in approximately 2.5 day played time with methods I’ve collected from various sites. I do not claim to have discovered these methods nor do I want get recognition for them. This is merely a compilation of existing information.

Basics:
Recruit a friend is a referral system. A WoW player can invite a friend to also start playing WoW. If the friend accepts he will get 10 days free play time and their accounts will be linked for 90 days. There are a certain benefits which both playercan gain when their accounts are linked which I’ve summed up below:

- 300% experience gain: When the main account and the guest account quest together they will receive a 300% experience bonus on both killing xp as on experience granted by quest. Both accounts must be in a 4 level range of each other to benefit from the experience gain. However when you kill an elite mob this level boundary no longer exists. In other words when you killing an elite mob you will get the 300% experience bonus regardless of the levels of both the main and the guest account. (I will explain the in more detail in the Method section).
- Summon friend: Self-explanatory
- Level-granting: For every 2 levels the GUEST (so the one that was referred to by the main account) gains, he can grant 1 level to a character of the main account. However this guest account character must be a higher level that the character you’ll want to give a level to (so a level 2 character on the guest account can’t grant a level to a level 79 on the main account etc.)

Method:
As I’ve said earlier, the method involves a grinding spot in Icecrown called Cathedral of Darkness. This location consists of a room in which about 50 level 80 elites reside. The major advantage of this spot is the fast respawn time of the mobs (Chosen Zealots). They respawn every 2.5 min so theoretically you could get up to 1200 kills an hour. Because the mobs are elite the level boundary will not play a role. Now I will give an example of the most basic setup:

1 x level 85 on the Main account (the one who kills the mobs, preferably a Blood DK or a Ret/Prot paladin, but I’ve seen hunters and Warriors with success aswell)
1 x level 10 on the Guest account (the character you want to boost)

So basically what this does is, it creates a situation where you kill roughly 1k mobs an hour with your 85 so that your Guest account characters gets an insane amount of xp. The reason I used a level 10 character is because leveling from 1-10 the normal way is superior to leveling it with this method. When you level to level 10 with this way you could potentially gain 6 levels an hour. As awesome as this may sound, this setup offers a few limitations. You will only gain levels on your guest account characters, so if you only want to boost a character to 80 quickly than you’ll have to transfer him from the Guest account to the Main account (which costs 20 euro’s). On the other side if you level a level 80 on your guest account you will gain 40 grantable levels which you can give to a character on your MAIN account. So what you could do is, boost 2 level 80 on your main account and grant 80 levels to a character on your main. If you only want to boost for level granting I strongly advice against this however. A more efficient way would be to level 2 x level 20, 1 x level 41 and a level 80. This way you won’t have to level 2 level 80’s which takes WAY more time. The 2 level 20 will grant the first 19 levels (up until level 20) the level 41 will grant the next 20 and the last 40 will be granted by the level 80.

Another method which involves a little bit more cash is to transfer a level 85 to your Guest account (Must be exactly same name on both accounts no exceptions) and boost a character on your main account. This way you’ll only have to pay the 20 euro fee one time! (Or twice if you want your level 85 back when you finish boosting). This will also give the opportunity to give the low level on your main account heirlooms for even faster leveling.

Optimizing leveling setup:
This is where the guide gets interesting!
Experience gained is influenced by the average group level of the group. So when you boost your level 10 with a level 85 the average group level will be around 47.5. If you add more characters to your group (for example a level one from a third account) your experience will spike up quite a bit because the average level will be around 32. Consequently adding a higher level to the group will lead your character to get less experience. When summing up all the information we’ve discussed above the optimal setup for a level 10 would be this:

5 x RAF linked characters
Group consists of:
Level 85
Level 10 -> Boosting character
3 x Level 1 -> On three different account linked with main account

Adding stuff like heirlooms, inviting to guild for the perk and placing a Guild banner for 15% extra experience could potentially increase the experience gain even more!

Optimizing leveling setup for people without a good boosting character:
In a more realistic setting you will only have access to two or three accounts. Also when you lack gear or only have casters to use things could get a bit harder. However you can still benefit from this and I’ll try to explain how. This might get a little bit more complicated so if you don’t understand just ask in the thread. Let’s say your guild mate and you both want to level another character. You only have 85 priest at your disposal and your friend has a Ret Paladin. Both of you buy a second account with RAF. When you log on to your Priest (85) and your friend is on his Ret both of your second account chars will benefit from the RAF bonus. HOWEVER if you change your Priest for another character on your account that is below the level of the char on your GUEST account, you will not benefit from RAF.
I will illustrate below:

WORKS Scenario 1:
Level 85 Priest -> Your character on main account
Level 85 Ret -> Friends character on his main account
Level 10 linked to your account
Level 10 linked to your friends account

DOES NOT WORK Scenario 2:
Level 10 Mage -> Your character on main account
Level 85 Ret -> Friends character on his main account
Level 10 on guest account linked to your account
Level 10 on guest account linked to your friends account

In the last scenario only your friends level 10 will benefit from the RAF and not you. Also the experience gained on his character would increase, but the experience increase does not way up to decrease you’ll get.

I want to do it right now, but it’s expensive !
If you are interested in this method you’ll probably think the following:
Ok now what.. Cool method, but these extra accounts cost a shitload of money man! And you are right in a way. However the time you’ll save on leveling could be spent on other stuff like working . And when you buy an extra month on your guest account you’ll receive an awesome mount + a free month on your main account.

Creating and Buying more accounts:
Last week Blizzard had a online deal where you could buy Battlechest (Classic+TBC) and Wotlk for 5 euro’s each. When you create a starter account now you will have to pay 15 euro to upgrade to Battlechest.

*EU PLAYERS ONLY*
EU players can still profit from this method. These links still work so you can buy Battlechest and WOTLK for 5 euro’s each. First you login to your battlenet account. Close the window and paste the links in your browser. You can now buy Classic and Wrath for 5 euro’s. (Last time checked on fifth of September)

(Will post when i have enough posts so i can actually post a link in a thread... -_-)
*EU PLAYERS ONLY*

[Deleted]

*EU PLAYERS ONLY*
EU players can still profit from this method. These links still work so you can buy Battlechest and WOTLK for 5 euro’s each. First you login to your battlenet account. Close the window and paste the links in your browser. You can now buy Classic and Wrath for 5 euro’s. (Last time checked on fifth of September)

(Will post when i have enough posts so i can actually post a link in a thread... -_-)
*EU PLAYERS ONLY*

Sorry for the necro, but I've been looking for these links everywhere. Anyone else still have the active link for EU from the last sale? The one that ended on 1st of Jan I believe, or the one from October. I had bookmarked it, but lost that, and can't find the original thread back either.

[Deleted]

Ugh tough necro. The perma 50% bchest link is dead. There is however a new one, and not only does it apply to bchest, it applies to all expansions if you buy them in 1 sweep. I have it, but i'd rather keep it for only the people I raf with...for obvious reasons ofc.