RAF Leveling Guide

Have you ever wondered if there's a way to powerlevel your way to 80 with multiple characters in World of Warcraft – by yourself? You might have seen some of those crazy multiboxers who have ten different PCs set up in their room and play them all at the same time. Well, with RAF (refer-a-friend) leveling, you can actually blast your way to 80 with several different characters of any classes you choose. This RAF leveling guide will show you how.

As a quick note, the recruit-a-friend system that was introduced by Blizzard several months back gave incredible bonuses to old and new players alike. RAF leveling is simple: you send an email invitation to WoW to someone, they start up a WoW account, and then you level together – with triple exp bonuses until 59. And the best part is that for every level gained, the referred account gets to grant levels to a character on the original account, provided that character is in the same area, and is not above the referred character's level.

Seem complicated? It is at first, but when you get the hang of it and start RAF leveling on your own, it gets pretty fun – and it's an amazingly fast way to blast to 80 with 4 or more characters on your original account.

I have done RAF leveling with two different accounts, so this guide will detail my own way of doing it. You can vary this strategy depending on what your preferences are – for example, you might like leveling by questing instead of instance-running, or if you might not have a high level toon to run yourself through instances. If that's that case, don't worry! You can still RAF level to 59 and beyond very quickly.

Here's what you will need to get started with RAF leveling:

• A decent computer that can handle running two or three WoW clients at once – or two PCs
• A regular account to tie the RAF account to, and a friend with an 80 to run you through stuff or your own 80 on a separate account (if you RAF instance level only)
• A fresh WoW box to upgrade your RAF account from trial (about $15-20)
• Time to devote to leveling your characters – this will take about 1-3 weeks depending on your schedule

Okay. First, you need to level your original character and your RAF character to 10 in the starting zone of your choice. If you have BC on your regular account, you will either need to upgrade the RAF or summon your BC character to a regular starting zone unless you upgrade the RAF account (not worth it in my opinion).

Once you get to 10 with both toons, get the best bags you possibly can for both of them (but keep in mind you will be deleting the RAF characters). Then head to the nearest dungeon – this is Deadmines if you're Alliance, RFC if you're Horde.

The breakdown of dungeon running will look something like this:

• Deadmines/RFC from 10-15
• Stockade/BFD from 15-20
• SM Library or Armory from 20-27
• SM Cathedral from 27-35
• Zul'farrak from 35-40
• BRD from 40-45 (or 47ish)
• Stratholme from 45-59

Provided you have an 80 to run you through these dungeons, you can very quickly get to 59 with your characters. With this strategy, I got 4 toons on my main account to level 59 in just a few weeks - and that was with keeping up my regular work schedule and only being able to play about 3 hours a day.

Tip: Don't try to get it all done in a day. It IS possible to get 1-59 in a day with this strategy, but you'll kill yourself. Instead, space it out over a few days. Getting 10 levels a day is a great goal so you don't burn out.

Congratulations, you're done with your first duo! The fun isn't quite over yet though. Now, you need to get a second pair up to 31 – yep, just 31, not 59. You're going to grant levels to the original account character and get two toons at 59 for the price of one.

Following the strategy outlined above, get your second pair of toons to 31. Then, take your 59 on the RAF account, get it in the same area and partied with your level 31 on the original account, and find the “grant levels” button. You'll be able to get your second character to 59 in about one minute with this technique.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Do NOT let your characters go over the 59 threshold. The second they ding 60, all RAF benefits are lost.

Keep in mind that you do have to level the rest of the way using old fashioned methods of questing or running some more instances.  That gets harder when you get to Northrend, so I strongly advise running your way from 60-68 with Outland dungeons, and then questing through Northrend to get to 80.  

Give yourself about another week to do this.  Remember, leveling's supposed to be fun, not a tedious chore -- if it becomes a chore, you'll burn out faster.

I also recommend leveling this way so that you can get a feel for the classes you've leveled up with RAF leveling.  This is especially true if you've never played those classes before.  Nothing worse than getting to 80 and having hotbars filled with foreign abilities you don't know what to do with!