Is boosting really worth it in the long run?

Community General Discussion
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Continuing the discussion from Boosting communities:

The problem with boosting for players who want to get higher is that they end up way out of their league and have no idea what to do. In heroic dungeons at a WQ iLVL you can ignore like 90% of all mechanics. But as you know at the higher level there are mobs and boss mechanics that absolutely have to be follows or it will one shot you.

And it is more than just a problem with boosting, you see new players who end up running with experienced players in heroic (free CTA cache) and don’t get told anything and on the rare occasion they are told what to do they won’t listen because most people just zerg, they can make all the mistakes, die on every mob and still end up being carried through.

The entire “It’s perfectly fine to carry low level players through content” is just not right. Players who don’t specifically go out to learn the mechanics or ask questions never end up learning because they are always being carried and thinking that is just how it is until they get into mid to high keys.

Like I have had above heroic level in siege ranged players hitting the actual last boss instead of the tentacles. Players on the last boss of UR standing out in the middle and not knowing what the light does. Last boss of Shrine I had in an M11 the other day, zero interrupts from the DPS.

And it’s not just the mechanics either, you get players who boost and get free and easy gear, like a rogue stacking with a druid tank and healer and 2 other leather DPS, 5 very easy pieces of gear. Do they have the right corruption? Does this boosted player have any essences? Do they have any currency for corruption? Or a cloak level to allow them to even use corruption? Do they even have the cloak?

I have been in groups (not my key, I join others) where the DPS on paper look OK, 465 iLVL, 1K IO… but than they fight starts and they are very obviously new just based on how they are moving, where they are standing and than the DPS numbers, 15K, 20K if I pull a big enough pack. Than you get players who yell and scream “YOU DIDN’T DO IT RIGHT!” when it was their own fault.

Like in UR 15 I had a group who picked up a mob pack after the second boss instead of skipping it, than complained that I was not facing the enemy the right way and it was my fault for them getting hit and killed. In an M15 in UR you should very well know by that point that those maggots that spray stuff on you, they just aim for a random player and go, it doesn’t matter where I aim them. In that same group I had a 459 DH who was sub 20K DPS, it was an obvious carry that they did not tell me about and that I trusted the other 3 are going to pull their weight, that did not happen.

It’s almost 50% of the dungeons I go into have players who just have no idea, and again, these are not low level dungeons. And no, just because I am the one who is complaining does not mean it is all my fault. Yesterday I tanked an AD 15 and UR 16 on time. The day before I healed a WS 15 on time.

Sure I am not the best player, far from it. But I will always ensure I am as best prepared as I can be before going down the M+ track. I will get any essences I can and thanks to the vendor during 8.3 I was able to buy all the essences for my druid, than research each week and dungeon on what the best essence is for the DPS, tank and heal.

I than start low in finish an M3 or lower in all dungeons, follow this by an M6 across the board and an than an M9. Once I am able to time all dungeons on M9 I move up and go into the higher keys.

Do you think all boosted players do the same? If they do, what even is the point of boosting? By the time you are able to clear an M9 timed on each dungeon you should very well have enough gear and a somewhat relevant IO to be able to join groups or start your own and not even need to be carried.

But no, players who pay for carries to join high level content do so so they can get a quick and easy iLVL and IO, but fail to realise they still need to farm essences and some corruption and cloak levels. They most importantly need also have the experience in playing that class. Like healing on a paladin and druid are so far apart in how they heal, a person who heals on one simply can’t just swap and think they can do it on the other just because they have iLVL, not without some experience.

So some boosted players just want gear to make it easier to do whatever it is they do or maybe get some achievements and mounts, but for those who want to join keys and raids it just makes it bad for other players.

3 Likes
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So I’ve read your post and you bring fair points. I’ve got a couple questions to bring up.

  1. Do you think it should be up to the booster(s) to teach new or unexperienced players X role?

  2. Is it the fault of the boostie or the booster that an individual doesn’t want to learn X content mechanic?

  3. At what point should Blizzard step in and claim that it is a community driven job to help these new players? Along with that should it be a community based decision or the individual choice?

  4. Lastly coming from someone who does boosts. As I do them for in game gold and nothing else. How am I harming the overall nature of the game in doing so?

Continuing in a discussion, is it my fault that someone who is unprepared to do X content tries to group up essentially punching above their weight? Or is that part of the individual responsibility? I ask these because it seems there is a lot of mentality on shifting the narrative of who is the bad guy. Neither side in my view are inherently bad. If you look at it from an IRL perspective, if I have no work ethic and no actual qualifying job qualities; but I go to Vegas and somehow pull out a million dollars from poker. Then I try and use that money to invest and it all goes poorly is that my fault for not putting self learning as a priority or is it the casino that gave me the money that I was reckless with. The example might be a bit iffy. Best I could come up with half asleep.

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A brand new player who boosts just wastes their own money. They’ll have a max level character with no idea how to play it or how the game works and people they play with are going to expect that they have knowledge they wont have.

An experienced player who boosts to play a role they aren’t familiar with… it depends. If they accept their role-noobness and attempt to learn how to do the role properly, studying it, listening to others, progressing through lower difficulties to higher… their money was probably well spent.

An experienced player who thinks max level toon with 450 gear is all they need to excel… they wasted their money and they waste other people’s time.

1 Like
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If a player is stupid enough to boost to do high end content without getting the skills needed for it surely they would quickly sink to the bottom of the barrel anyway? How long can they really keep it up?

Also, who is the question of is it worth it towards?
Is it the players getting boosted and trying content above their weight?
Or the community to try and ask Blizzard to ban it?

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So, and correct me if I have this wrong. It’s more on the fault of the boostie if they choose to try and skip content if they are entirely new? If they are doing an alt it’s a bit of a grey area. Makes sense, and I’d agree that with the lack of knowledge and know how they would sink to the bottom.

A question for you on that thought.
When a player sinks and gets disheartened with the experience from other players. What would you recommend the next step to be for that specific player? As the boosted player may be upset at the general community and then the people who were effected by that players skill or lack thereof would be upset at the people who boosted him. As just a reference to think about.

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This seems like a job for Raider IO. You’ll be able to tell a players experience in higher end dungeons regardless of gear.

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I joined late in BFA (4 weeks into 8.3) I quickly used my SL 120 boost on this DK so I was up to par and then I did all my required grinds (cloak and neck) to get up to par for the content then I started spamming dungeons, but knowing that everyone else has had 2 years of these dungeons I started with just 1 Temple of Sethraliss as it was always up on the group finder looking for tanks. I did a bunch of these to learn the mechanics and get my weekly chests.

I also tanked AOTC in a pug as due to my wifes work schedule and a new born I had no chance of making raid nights.

I recently timed my first 15 and am happy with my pre SL progress, with SL I plan to learn the dungeons more so I can push higher next season but I don’t see the point of buying content that is easy to do if you put in effort. I pride myself on doing mythic bosses first 4 and not dying to mechanics.

2 Likes
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You summed it up well.

Responsibility is entirely the boostie’s and he/she will have no one else to blame if they fail to communicate with others their lack of experience and skill and fail to learn to play properly and get treated badly by others. Its a reasonable expectation that anyone you play with knows how to play. A guy who knows how to play but still is doing a ton of things wrong is probably a jerk trolling the group. A guy who tells you upfront he’s new (or new to a role) and makes the same mistakes isn’t a jerk, just someone who needs advice and help. The effort made at communication will only differentiate the two.

Regardless, I would strongly recommend that a new player reroll a level 1 and play through the whole game.

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1 and 2. No, it is certainly not up to the booster to teach jack.

But, 3. It is in a way Blizzards responsibility to implement a system where new players can either learn, or if they are not performing at the level have some negative aspect about it. Like a reward for effort system of some sort, and yes it can be done, players are just not happy with that suggestion.

What if Blizzard put in a system to let other sell runs and the person who brought it would still get the run, get any achievement related matters like KSM, any gear that may drop, but a * against their name for that run so every knows they are paying for runs?

Maybe no loot? Or have their name scrubbed from the scoreboard so it cannot be reflected on the IO system? Basically whatever it is allow selling to be done through a Blizzard made system so we can limit what impact those buyers have against the legit players.

And as for selling, or even just boosting for free, the impact is more than some realise. Think of a brand new player who comes into the game midway through 8.3 when players already have some or most BiS corruption and are sitting 470+ iLVL. Person gets boosted, here is some gear and IO. But no essences? No corruption? Not much cloak level? At a quick glance they look OK, but they will never hit the same numbers or even close.

Than add in the fact they are new and don’t really know the class they are playing, neither do they know the dungeons and you end up with a player learning everything well above what they should be. I see it all the time, I help players in high keys and some of them each week collect their new M15 key, than in a weeks time they are asking who wants to join their M10, M9, M8 key or worse.

The question is to everyone really.

Is it worth you boosting someone and ending up with yet another player who has no idea and will end up ruining X keys before they learn? This will only end up having players frustrated and take a break from M+. Long term snowball effects can happen here if someone gets one after the other of bad runs they could end up leaving.

And is it worth it for a player to be boosted and be that guy who ruins others keys and is the long term reason some players stop playing? Is it worth it for Blizzard to allow this to keep happening and for the game to potentially go downhill?

We for sure cannot afford too many players to leave and hopefully SL addresses some of these issues with less loot.

But as for banning it, one after the other all the communities doing boosts are being banned anyway. Huokan was the latest hit, all gold gone and accounts banned. I don’t know exactly why or if it is even true, but people in game are starting to say it has already happened. Botting? RMT? Bringing the game to a disrepute? There are plenty of people I see daily now in trade chat complaining about boosts happening for many reasons.

This is a very good reason why I never boost a character for myself period. I have only ever boosted a character three times myself, once on my priest after I came back from a break, and twice on my sons account. He is 11 and won’t be raiding or M+ or doing anything group related for many years to come.

It’s mainly so I can learn the class, learn how they work in group settings and than learn them at max level before rushing into the high end stuff and being that guy.

1 Like
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I do not pay for boosts, and I have enjoyed climbing up the keystone ladder/getting AOTC without boosting. As new shaman healer(leveled this guy during 8.3), it has helped me learn this class so much and it’s been a blast.

Though, I really do not have anything against people who buy/sell carries. It’s just not something I’m interested in

1 Like
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I have boosted a few characters with the free complimentary boosts. Feels kinda bad though, I would much rather level them. For me at least, leveling is one of the more enjoyable parts of the game.

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leveling doesn’t teach you how to play well at end game content however. Because during leveling you are just doing your basic rotation mostly.

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Even before boosting there were high ilvl players who were incompetent and couldn’t do mechanics. A lot of casual guilds carry a handful of weaker players through raids and dungeons in order to help them get better or because they have strong enough players who can carry but don’t need gear. So terrible players end up getting good gear. It’s been this way for a while. Boosting didn’t create the issue. Some players are just selfish and don’t care enough about their team (whether that’s a pug or a guild group) to work at getting better.

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Question: IS BOOSTING REALLY WORTH IT IN THE LONG RUN?

Answer: Really depends on the player. I’m friends with a 15x gladiator and 1 time rank 1. He boosts his characters because it’s faster way to get to the end game. grinding yourself could take 200-300% longer. He has the income to do this and it’s his choice. So yes, for them, and many others, it is worth it.

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Your question was “Is boosting really worth it”. You then make a long post about the negative effects boosting has on YOU. In reality, boosting is well worth it for the player being boosted. It is why they buy it.

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Yea it’s totally fine. The mechanics aren’t that complicated, so a boosted player can learn the fights after a couple attempts. Now if that player is a new tank or healer? That’s a no-go, never, absolutely not situation

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to answer you tittle question,

Yes its worth it, I made 300k gold yesterday selling keys and a Heroic run, which translate as I made gold playing the game I love the way I love to play it instead of trying to make gold picking up herbs, ores, pets or whatever, WHICH I HATE DOING.
And about my buyers?, they are happy with the gear for their alts, so its a win for them.

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let them have the loot, but remove them from scoreboards and fix that io thing whatever it is so they they can be labeled scrubs

disclaimer: i dont really know what this raider io thing is, i dont use addons, and i have not bought a run so i am not that familiar with it, however i do see where it can be a problem for some people where they want to do that content and are being held back by some clueless person who doesnt know what they are doing

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Also because sometimes you need that last 2-3 players to even form a full raid and having a half brain dead player at sufficient iLVL is better than going in undermanned. 20K is 20K.

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Depends on the player…should you ever boost your main? No you shouldn’t. I just started playing an outlaw rogue 3 weeks ago and yes I’ve bought 3 +15 boosts for her and I’m already doing 65K ST so not great, but not terrible for a spec I’ve never played.