Since I pre-ordered Warlords of Draenor, one nice little perk was being able to receive a boosted level 90. I debated whether to create a 90 on my friend’s server or just boosting an alliance toon on another server I occasionally play on. What ended up happening is that I figured that since my friend rarely is on World of Warcraft recently, it made far more sense to just boost an ally to 90 from level 1 since I never had a max level alliance toon. This would allow me to potentially hang out with a few streamers that I follow and give me a feeder class to the other allies I have on that server. Not to mention getting the Double Agent achievement. As the rest of my toons are all level 90 and fairly reasonably geared, it made far more sense to just boost on Alliance toon rather than having a redundant Horde character. However, after doing this for myself, I decided to ask a broader question: Is boosting worth the money?
I’m not talking about the “free” boost that accompanies the Pre-Order of Warlords of Draenor but purchasing a 90 for $60. I do think that the price is high, but my guess is that Blizzard wants to avoid flooding the market with “n00b” players that end up griefing people in LFR and similar situations. Still if you really examine what they’ve done, you have to realize that they priced roughly $15/month at a rate of 4 months for a level 90. Considering that I’ve leveled numerous other toons to 90, I felt that the price itself is still a bit high. At most, even when I was working, getting a toon from 1-90 should take roughly 2 months max, which implies that the pricing for this instant boost is probably double what the actual value is.
However, there are other factors you might want to consider in this before purchasing additional boosts. The first consideration is whether you really want to spend the time leveling. For myself, I think the answer depends on what you want to get out of the situation. Do you just want to save time? Or would you want to experience the leveling process and learning a new class?
In my case, I already have a maxed out hunter. After he obtained his legendary cloak, I honestly had nothing else to do for him except grind gear from Ordos once a week. Yet I love playing a hunter and feel very comfortable going either as Survival or Beast Master. So creating an alliance version of my Tauren Hunter made a ton of sense. On the other hand, I really want to learn how to play an Arms Warrior, Subtlety Rogue, Fire Mage, Elemental Shaman and Unholy Death Knight since I’ve barely touched those specs. For me then leveling using those specs would be better than a paid boost. Heck, I might add a Brewmaster Monk and Guardian Druid to that list. That would leave the Warlock, Priest, Paladin as options to boost since I’m fairly comfortable in those specs/roles (in the case of a Priest, I don’t see myself going healing; so boosting as a shadow priest would be a possibility).
Another thing to consider is just convenience. One thing that quickly hit me as I started to get gear for my new hunter is the lack of gold and professions that I could easily share between my toons. Fortunately, I was able to give her gold indirectly through sending her spare gear, which I could craft into epics and sell for a reasonable amount. However, the Auction House still is fairly expensive and without my old industry of toons supporting each other, I feel as though I will struggle a bit going solo. Boosting other toons with money could possibly give me a nice advantage in that it could help with the profession side of things. Having those spare farms with all those materials really make a huge difference. I might have to spend some time working on those other professions (unless I boost my death knight) but it might be worth the money rather than dealing with the Auction House’s prices.
Either way, it’s not a frivolous decision to make on the spot. I would definitely consider your budget before splurging on an instant 90. Consider your goals with your new 90. Try to understand your class rather than diving head first and expecting everyone to make up for you. Do some preliminary work as well.