Faster ways to catch a booster?

No offense given, I don’t really care if you boost to get the rewards. I guess where it becomes somewhat annoying is when boosters apply for groups that are just obviously out of their skill range. It’s a little easier to tell who they are AFTER your key was failed and you search them up, only to find out they were in the same group of 3600 IO players for every single one of their dungeons. But any other tips people have for when they’re building their groups? I know I can just invite my friends, and I do when they’re on. But any other solutions?

You do that before the key goes in

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Look em up before you put the key in I guess?

If they’re smack bang on 2.5k (or 2k) and they ONLY play with 3k+ players then chances are they’re boosted.

Apart from that, it’s basically luck of the dice I guess? Only real way to mitigate pug RNG is to limit how much you pug by building a group of non-spuds to play with.

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Yeah guess I’ll start doing that.

I was just curious if the community found any other ways of quickly recognizing boosters without needing to look them up through a browser but wouldn’t hurt to just toss in a quick search I guess. Thanks!

I don’t KNOW, but I would guess that something that would stand out for a booster is that they their score will be a specific break-point, instead of some “natural” number.

Because once you get 2500 KSM, you’re not going to keep paying people. lol

The problem is that there’s some overlap. A lot of players are like me in that I might hate M+, but I’m a collector, so I want the mount. So once I get KSM … I’m mostly done. So my score might look like I boosted.

I guess ultimately the best way is to look up who they did runs with. But man… isn’t that a lot of work??? sheesh… This is a game, not a job at the FBI, running background checks etc.

Also keep in mind that: everyone makes mistakes. You might get a true banger of a 3200 player… who’s just having a bad day.

The bigger issue is: the M+ system is TERRIBLE and needs a change.

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Look them up on raider.io, but don’t just look for their score, check the history.
Check for the specific dungeon, did they run it multiple times or just once or twice? I’d rather take someone who has run it multiple times and maybe didn’t time it, than taking someone who has only run it once.

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Like Inna said below you, the difference between “I’m just hitting 2500/2k for the achievements/ilvl” is that boostees tend to have a really low amount of runs needed to get that score and a real lack of history.

For example, I can look you up and see you’ve timed over 20x 15’s. That’s usually a pretty good indication that you’ve actually played that character legitimately.

Not to mention that I can see that while you’ve either played with friends or chain pugged, but you’re not playing with the same 4 players over and over and over. And if you DO do that, the difference between a dedicated group is usually that that player is around the skill gap.

Ironically my Warlock is basically what a boost looks like. Though I have my main attached, so if you were suss, you can just have a squiz at that and it’ll show my Druid has timed almost 100 runs this season, so I’m (probably) not a potato if you were looking at me in LFG.

I hate that M+ has brought the game to this.

“Hmm. Your in-game IO score is decent enough… Let me look you up on RaiderIO now. Oh, and I’ll need a few references while I scan through your logs…”

And naturally, you’ll only get to this level of the, “M+ interview,” if you’re playing a meta class as no other class/spec will get past the screening process.

“This is just a formality, really… but where do you see yourself in five patches? What can you bring to this M+ team?”

Fun game, guys.

"Full disclosure. We’re not legally allowed to say, ‘No Ragnaros players,’ but, uhh… No Ragnaros players… "

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I couldn’t agree more.

I tried not wake the rest of my family from laughing when I read that. That is so true. My own take is that a non-boosted player will have a fair number of untimed 16s.

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It do be like that.

The situations ridiculous, but unfortunately necessary. Can’t just take the first 4 people who sign up if you want a half-way decent experience.

Look at their total number of timed runs. If they have none <10 or 15+ and only 10 at 20+ then they’re boosted.

I don’t like to go through the effort of looking up literally everyone who applies either so I use a combo of score not being too close to an achievement and having timed a ton of keys. I pretty much don’t invite people between 2500 and 2550 and they have to have over 20 timed 15-20s.

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Boosted or not there are bad players all the way up to 3400io…even higher for tanks and healers. The skill floor tends to be higher when you are several hundred points past 3k, but you still regularly see entirely mediocre players with this IO.

You just have to vet people by looking at logs. Look at their dmg parses in raid and m+. Check the parse by ilvl too. Raider io add on makes this easy by right clicking people and having a link directly to their logs. I’m not super picky unless I’m pushing a personal best, but I generally won’t take someone who parses in the 40th percentile or worse.

If you are familiar with their spec you can also check their talents, legendary, and covenant.

I used to be super lenient with people I accepted but it frequently backfired. Io is one of the least important things for me. I’ll take someone with lower io if everything else checks out. Also, I won’t take a tank that hasn’t timed at least 1 key of the level I’m trying to do.

I thought this was a Covid Booster thread.

I’m due for mine in 5 months…

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sure, but it’s not foolproof. my hunter is 3001. she’s not boosted, i just don’t care to push any farther on her. i help friends out with keys every week on her, but i’m not going to get the title so what’s the point in pushing score?

exactly. you wouldn’t believe how many 3.3-3.4k players still don’t know basic stuff like “you have to be in melee with the anima orbs in NW or they don’t do anything”. i’ve watched friends have like +24 keys bricked to that just this week.

Get the Raider IO addon. It will help a lot if that’s what you want to do.

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Raider IO addon, still super relevant.

It will give you a history of keys completed.

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Ok I’m just asking questions, for personal info, so don’t bite my head off… But isn’t this kind of thing what added to the popularity of boosting? I know boosting is an unpopular idea… but if there is a niche to fill or a need… someone’s going to come along that will fill the gap for money… Am I wrong? …

You can confidently invite anyone to a raid or arena and know they haven’t bought any kind of boost for achievements.

Stupid M+ why can’t you be more like raids and arena?

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