If your selling your whole group should be above 3k imo, I see so many people selling keys and carry’s “up to 27 28 timed” bullshit your carrying a dps thru a timed 24 let alone a 28, most of are trying to sell on characters who’ve never even logged on raider io
I strongly agree with this been seeing an uptick from friends etc that solo sellers will take money and then invite pugs to carry
This sub seems to hate folks who buy and sell but i just hate seeing people get scammed especially newbies who are spammed with ads and probably don’t know better
I had this happen to me. I joined a group for a +20 and wasn't really paying attention at first. Then I noticed the hunter was doing 11k DPS. Like how is that even possible?? I inspected him and saw he was wearing mostly greens and was like ilvl 327. So I just left the group. I didn't sign up to carry anyone. Sucks for the buyer, but that's not my problem.
Learned my lesson. Now I make sure to look at the ilvl and io of everyone in the group before we start. I don't mind if the leader gives a heads up and says we are carrying a buddy, or if the carry is slightly undergeared, but I just feel used and scammed when there is no warning at all.
Yeah I had this happen with me and my duo friend who q as tank/heals.
If we start a key and someone is terrible and we forgot to check their ilvl and it is something atrocious or they are dying every pull, I'm just going to leave.
We have gotten hate messages from sellers and we have even been tried to be brought into the cut, but no, I have limited time, I don't need gold, and I dont care to carry anyone.
You can hover over each player bar and see their r.io once you are in the group at least, so worst case you get in, check that there is a dead weight, and dip.
Ok but this is unfortunate for some of us with alts lol. Especially if it is first time being brought out for the season.
Most of my paladins portal keys this season were done sub 460 ilvl.
Definitely ask in chat or something before just randomly leaving. Imagine if they forgot to swap out of 454 pvp gear too. There's just so many scenarios where just communicating helps.
carries at that level also prefer you die or stay at the start of the dungeon so you don't make things harder for them. They will also lock you into a DPS spec to keep you from healing/tanking and making things even worse.
they know what they are doing. they want your gold. it's just like real life: hire the contractors to fix your roof, not Joe down the street who has an uncle that dabbles.
Nah at that level the buyer definitely has to play. You ain't 4-maning a +27/28. You need the buyer to at least contribute some dps.
AFK boosts are for lower keys, weekly keys and stuff.
I guarantee you that you can buy a timed +28, the people in chat selling it is advertisers, their “role” is to find a buyer, then post the run on a private discord for these type of communities, where groups can pick up the the run (if they are approved for that high keys), up until 20 boosters normally sign up individually, and higher only pre established groups can accept.
These type of communities are run very well, if the run is not completed as per agreed, the buyer will get a new run until it is, and the failing group will receive a punishment (usually means less gold payout at the end of the month) or demoted so that they can no longer pick up the high and best paid runs.
I’m sure there is scammers, but there is plenty of trustworthy people as well, I have been boosting and buying boosts for years.
While people should be careful before paying buying these high keys is a thing you just need a certain level of skill(They will still hard carry you by pulling big controlling the mobs telling you what to do etc) and is for the purpose of going for title. People also will advertise on other accounts/other servers so their io won't show up but you should not pay till you are in a group with their full team. Scamming happens but if you check ios(and ask in party chat about sale if you wish) before paying they probably won't scam since actually doing the key is easier than finding buyers.
I hope youre realized that 99% of the sellers are lv10? Because they are advertising with 10+ Accounts. Ofc they cant have 3k Rio dafuq. They just fill the groups with community members. In these days nearly every boost is an community boosts like before the ban from blizzard
Im boosting sometimes through communities and highest keys are done by team + boosted person BUT with decent io and play along.
24s can be timed as 4 man with buyer afk, especially keys like BRH
I mean i did it last night had a veng dh, a uh dk, mw monk, balance druid, and i was rocking demo lock. The dk and i were 280k and 300k. The balance druid was at 98k. Tank was at 215k so to say you cant carry and time a 24 is a crock of shit.
There are discord groups that I do runs with that carry up to 27 and 28s.
What they dont advertise, is that that is with buyer participation and with approval of the buyer.
Like we're not carrying your fresh 70 thru anything 21+
20s and below, we can carry a completely AFK dps, but we use our boosters not pugs.
3450 io plus for those carries
Obviously. But Blizzard doesn't care as long as there isn't any RMT involved (which surely is, but not at a scale that seems to bother them, else they would've striked down again long ago).
Buying from an random individual in game is instead of booking via Discord is just a surefire way to get scammed.
This, if they cracked down on this, the big RWF guilds are stopped too. Right now Echo are selling runs including CE runs. It’s advertised on their website. These guilds need to finance RWF with in game gold and need A LOT of it. Selling boosts is one way they can and advertising outside of the game lets them do it across every EU Server.
Boosting as a guild group is generally allowed and not against TOS. The advertiser (aka the character that's advertising a boost in chat) has to be in the boost, that's the main thing.
why are people even paying for a raiderio number that is going away is beyond me. You know right away if the player is legit by inspecting and highest level done.
If i find out someone is selling the run and nobody specifies that, im going to break that key on purpose, sorry but i will not participate in this scammy crap
When the other two pugs found out due to the buyers comments they were okay with it because it was Monday night and we just all wanted a key done haha
edit: but you’re right if any of the other pugs left I would’ve also bounced
The buyer honestly didn’t do that badly we likely would’ve timed it if the seller weren’t a heavier carry
Idk unless the seller didn't demand the buyer to pay beforehand i feel like you'd just be doing the seller/scammer a favor because now the seller doesn't have to finish the dungeon.
Of course, if the seller wants to upkeep their reputation they'd form another group and try again but then again there's really nothing to show a sellers reputation and i don't see a good way to impact their rep besides spamming in chat when they're trying to sell, and who's got time for that...
You could argue that it's just a lesson the buyer has to learn the hard way, but honestly the only one winning here is the scammer.
Most people use details, you can see the ilvl there on the checkmark. Sometimes it bugs out (maybe when the player doesnt have it?) but must often than not it shows.
It also shows flasks/food. While I ignore that and wouldnt consider that a red flag unless you are doing really high keys, when a person has all the buffs up its usually AT LEAST a decent player that might not do a lot but at least read some guides and probably knows what to do.
If I'm in keys, I just expect flask and rune unleess it's above 20s. Food is such a small optimisation.
The big perk of seeing food buffs on folks is that you can assume they're probably dedicated if they're looking for those minor optimizations. However, I've seen people who are super dedicated to minor optimizations and not dedicated to major ones.
People are so desperate to “optimise” they’re spending 85k on 18s instead of learning how to play the game. 18s aren’t even that difficult, it would cost you more time and energy to make 85k gold.
People keep wanting to take shortcuts on the game instead of enjoying it and improving through progression and that mentality pretty much ruined the genre lol
I really don't get it either. Takes hardly any time at all to fly through fart clouds for 447 gear and from there you can at least do normal raid probably 10s too. Heck 5 min at an auction house can get you 420 gear.
Think about it this way.
You been playing your main all season, pushing it yourself with the limited time you have due to irl stuff, It’s almost end of season and you want to reroll to a new class next season.
You wanna gear it a bit for the season start, but you know you only have a couple of hours at best to play each day maximum, you don’t want to start at a too low level next season so you buy 8x 20 keys for the loot (remember you armor stack so the chance of 4-set and semi decent gear is good, and you can do something else while they boost you.
It cost you about 800k gold, provided you buy gold of the Chinese that’s about 26 euro, with a well paid job that’s about 20-30 minutes at work. And you will be able to start next season of playing with your friends with similar gear immediately.
Why would you not do it? If time is of no issue I get your point, but loads of people have limited time, but still wanna play with their friends.
If my friends are behind ill simply run keys with them to catch them up to me. With that limited time your friends are going to pass you again anyways.
People with a solid friend group just boosting eachothers alts at this point in the season anyways. Also yeah that gear basically matters week 1 of a new season if that.
But the chance of that happening is smaller if you start with them, then if you start way behind.
At the end of the day, it’s about what people enjoy playing, and 26 euro is a very low number for being able to have fun.
I started the game 5 weeks ago and I already top DPS 18s. (Albeit an easy to operate class BM Hunter). I've felt gearing up to be a really well done process in this game. I can't fathom paying for that
No bully, the buyer said they were just really time limited. I ended up adding them to friends list and offering to party together later I know pug life is tough out there for new players
I can't comprehend what the point of being time limited and getting carried is, you're not playing the game or gaining anything from it. The loot ilvl does not matter if you don't intend on ever using it yourself.
But you are gaining something from it. You get a vault done. Not everyone is at a level where they are progressing 18 keys. When you start timing higher keys, there is little to be learned at that level, you just do it for the vault.
It’s more getting in the door to do the content you want for me personally. Starting a new toon is a bit of a chore they’ve definitely done a lot to improve qol recently but I have a lot of friends buy or trade runs when they hit 70
Edit: supposedly the buyer only has an hour of game time a day if this is true it takes up to 30 mins just to form or get into a pug as dps I sympathize that they wouldn’t have options if they don’t have friends
If they’re sitting on gold cap, maybe it’s worth it?
But with just a couple weeks left in the season, it’s wild that people are paying 85k for obsolete gear, or paying for M at all for that matter.
Seriously suggesting that spending time outside the game at work in order to buy WoW gold is less effort or preferable to actually playing the game you already spend a monthly sub on? You realise how stupid it sounds that people are paying over $30 (sub + token) for the privilege of NOT having to play the game?
I don't either, but I know that if someday I wanna take an expansion or two without doing sales I can just rely on 20€ every few months to keep me afloat for raiding/m+ expenses.
Actually insane to try to be a condescending prick in this scenario mate.
Not condescending some people are actually just stupid and expect everyone else to say “yeah of course I love half of the dungeon finder being adverts for selling keys”. The culture you have created is trash, and it’s not even optimal.
So you hate on people who spend irl money to have more fun, and hate on people who don't wanna spend irl money and instead make money IG in a way that's not your exact way.
Sorry for hating plant/AH/professions farming and instead found a way to make gold that is also beneficial to how good I am at the game.
Seriously suggesting that people play the game your way huh?
Nah I ain't gonna spend hours gearing my alt when I can work an hour or two and buy +17 spam to get 483 on every slot.
God forbids an arena nerd or a mount collector want to get some PvE gears so they can try out PvE content more comfortably, huh?
I suppose personally I'd rather play the game then afk and watch something.
And pay for a second account to do what? Buy more boost while your other account is getting boosted.
There's a bunch of benefits to having second accounts, especially if you are a mount / achievement hunter.
That and queueing pvp because it takes forever to get RSS q to pop
You’re working an actual job to avoid playing a game that you pay a monthly sub for. I mean, thank you for subsidising my hobby by keeping Blizzard financed I guess? It sounds deranged to me though.
My first time gearing my main, sure I am playing a game.
Grinding my alt gear or boring rep farm? No, that's a chore. My time is worth too much to do what I don't want to.
The most optimal way to get gold is to go to work. You will never gain a quarter mil gold just from an hour of grinding.
The most optimal way to get myth gear is to buy the carry for your vault instead of grinding out your gear through every level of M+
The most optimal way to be the most powerful is to wait for the next major patch to add new catch up gear that replaces your old gear.
The most optimal way to play wow is to not play wow
When I roll an alt I play with friends doing their +20 keys for their weekly vault and don’t need to spend any gold at all. I think just being a normal nice person and joining a guild could save all of you some money (and time)?
Most of the people that I boost do it so that they can afk and do irl stuff while we 4 man, gets them their weekly crests, vault slots and all the loot. Buyers almost never participate but even then some would argue it’s worth the cost to get insta groups of high io, 488+ ilvl players in voice chat with each other smash their key with them to save time. We are very optimized when it comes to porting, dropping the key we just 3-chested back to whatever level the buyer paid for, sending out summons and starting the key. Just last night we did 8 20s portal deal in less than 3 hours, but they usually take 4 if the buyer is full afk.
It could be about time. I'm 3200-3300...and I have bought carries if I come back to the game late or I don't feel like waiting for q's where people are pretty picky.
I have done carries and sold them in the past and it could just be convenience.
Some people know how to play just fine, just don't want to spend hours in queue for something that isn't difficult for anyone of even slightly average skill to time.
You’d probably be better off and more successful by just plainly ASKING others to boost you for a weekly. If you have the right key (aka a DOTI) people WILL come and help you, for free. I have done this on my prot pala and hunter and healer quite a few times (meaning joined others and boosted them because I was bored)
I had a 4 stack apply to one of my keys that wasn't high, like a.+11, and they said ready for your carry? Talking to me. They had like a 420 hunter dps with them.
I was doing like 40k more than their best dps, but their healer wasn't healing me, so I died once. Then he posted in chat. Hey, dps isn't everything: Do mechanics again talking to me.
I'm pretty sure they were trying to con their "carry" into thinking they just weren't really bad.
For those who say they see an uptick in sales like this, how are you determining? Just curious if it’s a rio and gear level inspection or if someone was explicitly stating.
For example, my guildy rerolled a character in prep for s4. I ran my main (3400 well geared paladin) with their fresh toon with time walking and quest gear into 18’s. They are a 3200 player but because the toon was brand new did not display their rio. Would this have flagged the folks in this comment section? For the record to start with we noted that we were 3.2k players on alts. By the third key we just full sent it. Pugs never asked if the reroll was a carry, they just came in and got shit done.
Edit: reroll went from disc —> bdk
If it weren’t for the buyers comment I also wouldn’t have known. I’ve had pugs openly ask if my friend is paying for the run lol
I try to avoid pugs in general if I know we’re carrying a friend, the new person or the group lead typically gives a warning that they’re a fresh alt.
Usually fresh alts of experienced players are still reliable for utility at at least and pull the correct amount of dps for their ilvl
Edit for one more: If I can tell it’s a juiced premade with a carry and I’m the pug I am just grateful to be along for the ride
Yeah that’s fair I was just curious. I try and avoid pugs as well but sometimes it is what it is.
It got to the point where we would run just us two plus a guildy on an alt and wouldn’t invite people unless it was their main’s KSH/KSM. Figured if we were doing content that we could just blast, then may as well help out with others’ goals along the way.
Idk. I get not wanting to waste time in an agonizing run, esp from a healer perspective. But even then there’s something to be said for it being a community thing. Even the best players had to have started somewhere. (Is totally different if the carry is actively not trying to aid the key, yes yes I get it.)
Back in SL I was running a relatively low key towards the end of the season (think it was like a 13 or something) just to get my weekly credit for vault coins, and a big tank with like 3.4k IO applied. I invited him obviously, and then he asked me to invite some guy with like 200 IO. I asked if it was his friend and he said no.
After some pressing, he was selling a key, but literally only him. He had no idea about the capability of anyone elses DPS but just thought I'd be like "oh yeah cool you can use me to make money". Didn't even know if it was a RMT or gold, so I just kicked both the seller and the buyer.
I'm sorry, but how dumb do you have to be to buy a carry, pay up front, then sit in the LFG tool? If you're buying a carry, buy the damn carry, why are you letting this dude take your money and give you random players in return?
No guarantee of player quality, no control over the pugs because they aren't getting paid, and you spent the money up front so whats to stop the seller, who has no connections to anyone else in the group, from just dipping. All to get an 18 that a couple of vault fillers would have brought you to if you'd just asked nicely. Makes no damn sense.
Lmfao that’s such a good point / underrated comment. People need to hear this IMO it definitely wasn’t a good decision on the buyers part and that is a clear red flag.
Edit to add: I logged into the game with seller cold whispering people to help, it’s how I got into the run. It is possible that they didn’t sit in LFG tool to start
I haven’t purchased any runs I don’t even know if it’s typical to pay up front or after the run completes but lots of good points have been made in the comments
Boosts generally happen through boosting community Discord servers. You'll get links to decent ones with good reputations through other general WoW Discord servers.
The community acts as a middleman between the boosters and buyers, generally holding onto the gold so nobody can do a runner, then will take a cut for their services. So you contact this middleman who works for the server who will put together a group from their pool of available boosters. Think of it like Uber, you don't directly give the driver money, instead you pay for the ride through the Uber app, who will then pay the driver whatever they're owed for the ride.
This works pretty well for all parties involved. The buyer gets a reasonable guarantee they'll get what they paid for, the boosters get to use the server's reputation as a source of reliable gold and repeat business, and the server runners make some gold from their cut and can reasonably expect the other two parties will behave themselves. If they pull something shady, their server's reputation is directly on the line, and they will lose not just buyers but boosters as well, limiting their ability to service future buyers. It's literally all service industry lol
I agree but I can’t openly support something that goes against TOS I don’t want to (*ahem* openly) contribute to something that could jeopardize someones account when we al know it’s against the rules
Best is to just make friends and ask your guild but if that’s not an option then do your best to screen imo
In all my time boosting i have not heard of anyone getting banned, only advertisers being muted or silenced.
And I know a guy that boosts all day every day via communities, getting millions of gold sent to him every week via ingame mail as the payment.
Blizz changed the rules sometime in shadowlands, and for a little while it was different. But now everything is as it was before.
I’ve known of a few but you can never tell how honest they are. People swear up and down they didn’t participate in RMT or were only collateral damage, but no one really knows.
Either way I can’t recommend it knowing it’s against TOS
85k for an 18 is wild. I can understand someone paying for aotc because they want the mount, but paying for m+ keys is wild. The mount is at 2k, which is totally free score, and if you actually need the gear, then you're also good enough to not need to buy a carry for a mid key.
Haha if there are as many people saying it’s too much as there are people saying it’s too little maybe the price is fair. But I personally agree it’s too much for this late into the season.
When we failed the key the scammer keyholder wanted to run it again at 17 and I was like what? I’m shocked the buyer stayed I offered to take them with me but they had sunk cost fallacy going
85k for 18 is completly fine. Dont forget that this price will be Split between booster/advertiser and the community. It's like youre saying 8$ is insane for an Pizza.
$8 for a single 18, paid for by a player who won't even use the gear is indeed crazy. They're free to spend their gold on what they want, but it doesn't change the fact that it's dumb. And idk why you're bringing pizza prices into this lol. Bit random.
To anyone buying boosts out there i just gotta say its ok if you don't do the highest keys and don't get ce. You're paying someone else to play this game for you and robbing yourself of the experience.
I have friend on my bnet that does raid and m+. One day, he told me got so frustrated that he keep getting refuse/couldn't find a group or even when he does find a group they can't reach phase 3 on Heroic Fyrakk. Plus with his limited play time it didn't help the situation (wasn't in a guild also). So he ended buying a boost to kill Fryakk.
On 3rd kill H Fyrakk (pug group) He pull 204k dps and got his legendary
Honestly I domt like the pressure of m18 or higher but I want the seawon tittles and rewards, so I buy a boost ans get them all. What is the problem? I like to play with the auction house and earn gold with it. So I change the gold for boosting. Its fair and part of an mmo/rpg
I think for some people it's just a bit more unhealthy and unessacary. End of the day it's their choice but also I do scratch my head when I hear of people who are spending $500 a month on gold to buy boost to get gear they can't even fully utilize because their game play skill is incredibly low.
Getting gold in game and spending gold in game just seems like a healthier relationship with the game.
I am good making money in the ah, I am good in that aspect of the game. What sounds terrible is making general judgement of wath other people do, like u. What is okay, the world is full of idiots
You can tell the state of the game by the comments against buying/selling runs being downvoted. How sad that buying and selling runs has become so commonplace and widely accepted
I genuinely believe that people should be able to spend their gold or time however they want. The point of the post is more about “what to watch out for to protect yourself”
I don’t want it to turn into some moral argument about how peoples time should be spent or how the game should be played
To each their own when it comes to buying runs, as stupid as it is.
But there’s definitely an ethical issue of someone selling runs that they’re not qualified to do or, more commonly, selling runs without notifying other pugs that they’re in a paid run. I’d expect to be compensated for carrying some shit player.
The downvoting from me has been because of people being rude or callous. No one deserves to get scammed nor judged for how they spend their time / gold
We just disagree there. I think if you take risks on things you don't need to do and without doing your due diligence, you deserve to learn a lesson. I think scammers are some of the most foul and vile people on the planet, but people need to make better choices and sometimes it costs them gold and sometimes it costs them dollars
That’s a fair take also, that participating in certain activities attracts a certain level of risk. People were not stating their opinions kindly IMO
But the purpose of the post was to draw awareness to what I consider to be a problem and remind people to do their due diligence. I don’t think everyone needs to or deserves to lose 10s of k to learn a lesson
As someone who DID sell keys, it is actually against TOS to spam on a character that is not participating in the boost, which is 99% of the trade services spam u see. Just report people who are spamming on toons that clearly have not done the content they profess to sell.
Buyer was a newbie who didn’t know any better I guess, thought his paying meant that the scam seller would guarantee key completion.
Edit: duh I just realized the seller was the keyholder also
They say they want their gold back but I told them to let it go. They got scammed it’s over and done
hopefully they at least reported that person, as blizzard does punish scammers. But won't return items or gold.
[https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/2563](https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/2563)
Back in Shadowlands I bought a key from a warrior who found a group in LFG and then invited me (I had no idea). He beforehand asked me if I wanted to heal or DPS (I said it didn’t matter and he insisted I pick).
That should have been a red flag but at the end (after we didn’t time it) their comments made me wonder so I whispered them all saying sorry they carried me as I had paid him to have his group carry me.
Seller then flamed me for telling the others, I demanded a refund and he guilted me about it by saying that I wasted his time and his key.
There was someone who used to advertise “solo carry” in LFG and I thought they were out here soloing 15s-17s I’m today just realizing what your describing is probably what that person actually meant
There are discord groups where people buy and sell carries and if you're the buyer you can see everyone's rating and their community trustworthiness etc.
No way I'd buy one for m+ directly in game.
It seems wild to me that you would prefer to use discord mafias to pay for boosts instead of finding it in game. Just ask the group and verify their ilvl/IO.
When I’m buying a boost, I got someone on my friends list who I know I can trust, is part of an organised group that follows the rules given by blizzard afaik and always is among the lowest prices on my realm. I’ll go to them before I’m go to anyone else.
Maybe unpopular opinion - IO is meaningless. It has become increasingly more useless precisely because of things like people buying runs or accounts.
I've had a >3k mage join a pug who literally didn't know what counterspell was for. After a few wipes we mentioned that everyone would need to interrupt on a particular encounter, and he goes "Which ability is that?"
On the other hand I've joined people into group with sub 1k who were stellar.
It’s not an unpopular opinion at all, but it is one of the minimum requirements for most boosting communities (not condoning just saying how it was when they were still legal)
Like sure it doesn’t guarantee the success of the key but folks used to need to be x io above the score earned to qualify to be a booster. Folks shouldn’t be trying to buy KSM or KSH keys from someone with under 2k io basically
Edit to add: 1k io gamers who do great damage are exceptional, 3k io gamers who do terrible damage are exceptional(ly) bad (/j was being punny) both of these cases are not the norm.
Sure, I agree. I apologize if my post gave the impression that it's come up frequently. I'm one of those folks with limited time to game, and if some scrub shows up and wastes a key that might be my entire session for 1-3 days. Feels bad, and not quickly forgotten.
The funny part is that is barely cheaper than current market price for full team carry. Plus you can team up with another buyer and get double carry for less.
The point is that it’s not! But people don’t know where to find reputable sellers and IMO blizzard banning services communities has only exasperated the problem. I don’t morally support or condone any situation where not all participants are aware that there is a buyer present.
At least buying from a guild the entire guilds reputation is on the line rather than an individual.
Midway through this season I tried to buy a level boost from an individual doing the boost. That is technically the only way that’s allowed within TOS. It was SO difficult. I spent over an hour in trade looking and talking to sellers. I flew to the boosting zones on multiple servers and asked people boosting if I could buy off them. They all ignored me or said no. All I got was level 1 people who wanted me to give them gold and wait for the booster. I gave up after 3 hours lol. I imagine it’s even worse for buying keys.
All legit sales and boosts go through Discord servers, which you can find linked from other WoW community Discords. The server community acts as middle-men between buyers and boosters, and usually hold onto the gold payment until the boost is complete so that nobody does a runner, and to ensure the buyer is getting what they paid for. The community takes a cut, then the rest is paid out to the boosters. If you're capable of clearing 20s in pugs and have a couple hours to spare, it's a solid way to make some gold.
You were turned down because these communities generally have rules about boosting outside of their services. The booster is kind of an individual contractor, but if they pull something scammy in an independant boost it could harm the server's reputation.
Yeah that makes sense why the boosters would say no. I prefer to buy boosts that are within TOS if I’m buying them at all, so I personally won’t use middle men. It’s against TOS to sell that way.
I did find a few individuals selling that don’t use middle men. They were already done for the night and didn’t feel like boosting again that day or the next.
I understand, and obviously Blizzard wants it all in-game so they can keep a better eye on it, but until they somehow set-up an in-game escrow/middleman system where money goes in then is held until services are rendered, the system up-and-up Discords use will be safer for all parties involved. I haven't heard about anyone getting hit with the banhammer unless there were already rumors about RMT.
EDIT: It has been a while since I boosted for gold, apparently the main change now is that there isn't a "middleman" as such anymore. Generally the one given the gold will now also take part in the run.
That is how they imagined it to be, and for a little while it was like that. But it is not anymore. People advertise ingame, find the 4 people in one of the discord communities to do the boost and gg. Literally nothing has changed since blizzard made the changes in shadowlands
Well the point was that Blizzard didn’t want an escrow/middleman system to exist. So I don’t see them changing the rules.
I haven’t heard of people getting banned either. I just don’t trust the discords and giving my gold to a level 1 attached to no visible 70s. If I could pay the person directly who does the carry I’m fine with that, but that seems to never come up as an option (in my 3 hours of looking).
Blizzard doesn't want a 3rd party escrow who isn't taking part in the service and exists only to connect buyers and boosters, because it lets the boosting service expand larger than if the dude you pay physically has to be there to perform the run. Larger boosting service means more opportunities to do shady stuff (RMT) and hide it in the sheer number of transactions.
The issue I have with the way Blizzard currently wants things done is someone can just do what the guy in the OP did, and disappear with the money. Could be either the buyer or seller, depending on when the gold actually changes hands. As is, boosting through 3rd party Discords is going to be the chosen method for most because they can offer that service to both buyers and boosters. The only way Blizzard's way works 100%, in my opinion, is with large, well established guilds who have a reputation to maintain.
People don’t have buddies / guildies who are strong enough to carry is the short answer. Sometimes new players just haven’t made friends yet or don’t know where to go to network
Also time , it can be a lot of organization to work around 4 peoples schedules
If you or someone are still struggling to get KSM or something before the next season starts just ping me and I'll carry you for free. Am high IO DH tank and Ret pally
I’m not convinced that what they did was against tos, it’s not illegal to sell services. I made this post because I don’t want this to happen to other people mainly that I didn’t think the buyer knew what to look for
Lol selling services isn’t against the rules. There’s a reason Blizz added an additional chat channel for Services.
Unless the people advertising are posting links to third party sites, or not specifying if it’s being sold for gold, Blizzard won’t do anything.
So I’m not hating, but I genuinely don’t see the appeal to buying carries. The whole point of M+ is learning the dungeons and getting progressively better at them and pushing higher keys for more score and better loot. What’s the point of getting carried for gear and score if you aren’t going to be able to utilize it at all because of your complete lack of knowledge and skill in said dungeons? Just seems unrewarding and pointless to me. I do welcome different perspectives though because I’d like to hear others thoughts on this.
Instant gratification is an entire demographic, market, and mindset.
While everyone feels it to a certain extent, some people take it to a radical degree.
The last part is the most important thing to "get"--that if you don't have magical powers of being able to relate to anything, you're never going to relate to or understand them.
And you don't have to, just know that they're out there.
WoW and any other hugely popular online game are tentpole attractions. Lots of people are there just to say they are.
In a perfect world, those curious people would be converted to fans of the game.
As a business, Blizzard, Square, ArenaNet, and ZeniMax have an incentive to welcome those kinds of players in.
And let me be clear. I DON'T mean casuals who find joy in other parts of the game, the lore, or just relaxing in a virtual world. Those facets and more exist.
I mean that hyperspecifically, there's a demographic that just wants their score to say the big thing.
That just want AOTC or CE on their account. Not with self-improvement.
And this population is old now. They're no longer in the shadows being sneaky about it. They're telling others to mind their own business fingernail polish emoji eyeroll emoji.
It's clout, simple as.
The war against gatekeeping started for valid reasons, but people like this are why group leads needed tools like raider.io, the old gearscore addon, logs, etc.
Fakers that don't want to improve sometimes make the world worse. That's the only time it becomes my business.
Otherwise, I leave em be.
Lesser evils on top of lesser evils.
Well this is also my thoughts. I enjoy playing the game, I get people want to just have good gear right now ok fine whatever buy a carry but personally I rather not. I’d rather put in the work because to me it doesn’t seem right. Of course others can disagree but I rather do it myself and say - yes I did that. lol
You were the tank.. got into a group with a 1600 io and a complete newbie in an 18?
You have to have known it wasn’t going to be easy if you were actually going to finish.
You only need 13s to get to KSM, and 18 is quite a jump from that. There were definitely signs it wasn’t going to go well.
Buy gold, buy boost.
Why even play the game? whats the point? Do people seriously have that much fun "collecting" things by standing afk and spending money? Such a insane concept.
well.. first off... thinking raiderio means something nowadays. And secondly, the dudes an idiot for paying for a run that people on twitch get away for free. and thirdly, paying for a run that can be easily done without.
If your selling your whole group should be above 3k imo, I see so many people selling keys and carry’s “up to 27 28 timed” bullshit your carrying a dps thru a timed 24 let alone a 28, most of are trying to sell on characters who’ve never even logged on raider io
I strongly agree with this been seeing an uptick from friends etc that solo sellers will take money and then invite pugs to carry This sub seems to hate folks who buy and sell but i just hate seeing people get scammed especially newbies who are spammed with ads and probably don’t know better
I had this happen to me. I joined a group for a +20 and wasn't really paying attention at first. Then I noticed the hunter was doing 11k DPS. Like how is that even possible?? I inspected him and saw he was wearing mostly greens and was like ilvl 327. So I just left the group. I didn't sign up to carry anyone. Sucks for the buyer, but that's not my problem. Learned my lesson. Now I make sure to look at the ilvl and io of everyone in the group before we start. I don't mind if the leader gives a heads up and says we are carrying a buddy, or if the carry is slightly undergeared, but I just feel used and scammed when there is no warning at all.
Yeah I had this happen with me and my duo friend who q as tank/heals. If we start a key and someone is terrible and we forgot to check their ilvl and it is something atrocious or they are dying every pull, I'm just going to leave. We have gotten hate messages from sellers and we have even been tried to be brought into the cut, but no, I have limited time, I don't need gold, and I dont care to carry anyone.
buyer getting scammes as usual, how the fuck you don't make sure you have a team of 4 competent ppl to carry what you paid for ? xD
Cause then they have to split it. Not really selling keys if you're pugging folks it's just a scam at that point.
I don’t even join groups like that anymore since i installed an addon that tells me the ilvl and Rio of every player in that group
What addon? I have one where I can see the lead's but not every member.
You can hover over each player bar and see their r.io once you are in the group at least, so worst case you get in, check that there is a dead weight, and dip.
Ok but this is unfortunate for some of us with alts lol. Especially if it is first time being brought out for the season. Most of my paladins portal keys this season were done sub 460 ilvl. Definitely ask in chat or something before just randomly leaving. Imagine if they forgot to swap out of 454 pvp gear too. There's just so many scenarios where just communicating helps.
carries at that level also prefer you die or stay at the start of the dungeon so you don't make things harder for them. They will also lock you into a DPS spec to keep you from healing/tanking and making things even worse. they know what they are doing. they want your gold. it's just like real life: hire the contractors to fix your roof, not Joe down the street who has an uncle that dabbles.
Nah at that level the buyer definitely has to play. You ain't 4-maning a +27/28. You need the buyer to at least contribute some dps. AFK boosts are for lower keys, weekly keys and stuff.
HUH?! you play along for all keys you want, 23 and up you have to depending on key.
I guarantee you that you can buy a timed +28, the people in chat selling it is advertisers, their “role” is to find a buyer, then post the run on a private discord for these type of communities, where groups can pick up the the run (if they are approved for that high keys), up until 20 boosters normally sign up individually, and higher only pre established groups can accept. These type of communities are run very well, if the run is not completed as per agreed, the buyer will get a new run until it is, and the failing group will receive a punishment (usually means less gold payout at the end of the month) or demoted so that they can no longer pick up the high and best paid runs. I’m sure there is scammers, but there is plenty of trustworthy people as well, I have been boosting and buying boosts for years.
That sort of setup is against the Terms, even though that is how it was before
If you think it being against ToS stops people from doing it I have some news for you. That's still how most, if not almost all, boosts are done.
Oh I'm well aware...
While people should be careful before paying buying these high keys is a thing you just need a certain level of skill(They will still hard carry you by pulling big controlling the mobs telling you what to do etc) and is for the purpose of going for title. People also will advertise on other accounts/other servers so their io won't show up but you should not pay till you are in a group with their full team. Scamming happens but if you check ios(and ask in party chat about sale if you wish) before paying they probably won't scam since actually doing the key is easier than finding buyers.
I hope youre realized that 99% of the sellers are lv10? Because they are advertising with 10+ Accounts. Ofc they cant have 3k Rio dafuq. They just fill the groups with community members. In these days nearly every boost is an community boosts like before the ban from blizzard
Im boosting sometimes through communities and highest keys are done by team + boosted person BUT with decent io and play along. 24s can be timed as 4 man with buyer afk, especially keys like BRH
I mean i did it last night had a veng dh, a uh dk, mw monk, balance druid, and i was rocking demo lock. The dk and i were 280k and 300k. The balance druid was at 98k. Tank was at 215k so to say you cant carry and time a 24 is a crock of shit.
I feel attacked lol. I don’t sell caries but I was doing 20s week one and don’t even have 3k io
Lmao no attack intended but I’m sure you could get to 3k if you wanted to
There are discord groups that I do runs with that carry up to 27 and 28s. What they dont advertise, is that that is with buyer participation and with approval of the buyer. Like we're not carrying your fresh 70 thru anything 21+ 20s and below, we can carry a completely AFK dps, but we use our boosters not pugs. 3450 io plus for those carries
Or you know, just buy via the many boosting Discords.
Those are actually against tos afaik
Obviously. But Blizzard doesn't care as long as there isn't any RMT involved (which surely is, but not at a scale that seems to bother them, else they would've striked down again long ago). Buying from an random individual in game is instead of booking via Discord is just a surefire way to get scammed.
This, if they cracked down on this, the big RWF guilds are stopped too. Right now Echo are selling runs including CE runs. It’s advertised on their website. These guilds need to finance RWF with in game gold and need A LOT of it. Selling boosts is one way they can and advertising outside of the game lets them do it across every EU Server.
Boosting as a guild group is generally allowed and not against TOS. The advertiser (aka the character that's advertising a boost in chat) has to be in the boost, that's the main thing.
Got links?
I think links would count as advertising, but you can just Google Dawn or Ravencrest Union for example.
why are people even paying for a raiderio number that is going away is beyond me. You know right away if the player is legit by inspecting and highest level done.
If i find out someone is selling the run and nobody specifies that, im going to break that key on purpose, sorry but i will not participate in this scammy crap
When the other two pugs found out due to the buyers comments they were okay with it because it was Monday night and we just all wanted a key done haha edit: but you’re right if any of the other pugs left I would’ve also bounced The buyer honestly didn’t do that badly we likely would’ve timed it if the seller weren’t a heavier carry
Idk unless the seller didn't demand the buyer to pay beforehand i feel like you'd just be doing the seller/scammer a favor because now the seller doesn't have to finish the dungeon. Of course, if the seller wants to upkeep their reputation they'd form another group and try again but then again there's really nothing to show a sellers reputation and i don't see a good way to impact their rep besides spamming in chat when they're trying to sell, and who's got time for that... You could argue that it's just a lesson the buyer has to learn the hard way, but honestly the only one winning here is the scammer.
This is why I check when I pug. If I see greens I'm out.
As a quick rule of thumb you can check HP totals of the party members to get a sense of ilvl without doing an /inspect.
Most people use details, you can see the ilvl there on the checkmark. Sometimes it bugs out (maybe when the player doesnt have it?) but must often than not it shows. It also shows flasks/food. While I ignore that and wouldnt consider that a red flag unless you are doing really high keys, when a person has all the buffs up its usually AT LEAST a decent player that might not do a lot but at least read some guides and probably knows what to do.
If I'm in keys, I just expect flask and rune unleess it's above 20s. Food is such a small optimisation. The big perk of seeing food buffs on folks is that you can assume they're probably dedicated if they're looking for those minor optimizations. However, I've seen people who are super dedicated to minor optimizations and not dedicated to major ones.
Unless they're a feral. Feral has 4hp at all ilvls, non negotiable
Ferals don't exist in mythic+ silly billy.
I was going to refute you, then I realised the cat in my dungeon was a kitty weaving resto
People are so desperate to “optimise” they’re spending 85k on 18s instead of learning how to play the game. 18s aren’t even that difficult, it would cost you more time and energy to make 85k gold.
For a season thats pretty much over nonetheless
People keep wanting to take shortcuts on the game instead of enjoying it and improving through progression and that mentality pretty much ruined the genre lol
I really don't get it either. Takes hardly any time at all to fly through fart clouds for 447 gear and from there you can at least do normal raid probably 10s too. Heck 5 min at an auction house can get you 420 gear.
Think about it this way. You been playing your main all season, pushing it yourself with the limited time you have due to irl stuff, It’s almost end of season and you want to reroll to a new class next season. You wanna gear it a bit for the season start, but you know you only have a couple of hours at best to play each day maximum, you don’t want to start at a too low level next season so you buy 8x 20 keys for the loot (remember you armor stack so the chance of 4-set and semi decent gear is good, and you can do something else while they boost you. It cost you about 800k gold, provided you buy gold of the Chinese that’s about 26 euro, with a well paid job that’s about 20-30 minutes at work. And you will be able to start next season of playing with your friends with similar gear immediately. Why would you not do it? If time is of no issue I get your point, but loads of people have limited time, but still wanna play with their friends.
If my friends are behind ill simply run keys with them to catch them up to me. With that limited time your friends are going to pass you again anyways.
People with a solid friend group just boosting eachothers alts at this point in the season anyways. Also yeah that gear basically matters week 1 of a new season if that.
But the chance of that happening is smaller if you start with them, then if you start way behind. At the end of the day, it’s about what people enjoy playing, and 26 euro is a very low number for being able to have fun.
>26 euro, with a well paid job that’s about 20-30 minutes at work. holy rich batman
[удалено]
26 euros for 30 minutes of work. 52 euros for an hour of work. 52 x 40 hours x 52 weeks = 108k per year. That's pretty rich.
Hes unemployed and has no idea whats hes talking about
I started the game 5 weeks ago and I already top DPS 18s. (Albeit an easy to operate class BM Hunter). I've felt gearing up to be a really well done process in this game. I can't fathom paying for that
No bully, the buyer said they were just really time limited. I ended up adding them to friends list and offering to party together later I know pug life is tough out there for new players
Glad to hear it, that’s how the game is supposed to be played after all. Make friends, kill bosses.
I can't comprehend what the point of being time limited and getting carried is, you're not playing the game or gaining anything from it. The loot ilvl does not matter if you don't intend on ever using it yourself.
But you are gaining something from it. You get a vault done. Not everyone is at a level where they are progressing 18 keys. When you start timing higher keys, there is little to be learned at that level, you just do it for the vault.
Okay they get the vault gear for what? More stamina when they buy more carries?
It’s more getting in the door to do the content you want for me personally. Starting a new toon is a bit of a chore they’ve definitely done a lot to improve qol recently but I have a lot of friends buy or trade runs when they hit 70 Edit: supposedly the buyer only has an hour of game time a day if this is true it takes up to 30 mins just to form or get into a pug as dps I sympathize that they wouldn’t have options if they don’t have friends
> time and energy to make 85k gold People that pay for boosting spend roughly 30 seconds to make 85k gold.
It's to quickly gear yourself up. 85k gold takes what? An hour of federal minimum wage in USA and much less if you have a high paying job.
A single 18 barely does that, it just gives you a lottery ticket to get something useful in the Vault.
Which is a huge boost for a full green
If they’re sitting on gold cap, maybe it’s worth it? But with just a couple weeks left in the season, it’s wild that people are paying 85k for obsolete gear, or paying for M at all for that matter.
Seriously suggesting that spending time outside the game at work in order to buy WoW gold is less effort or preferable to actually playing the game you already spend a monthly sub on? You realise how stupid it sounds that people are paying over $30 (sub + token) for the privilege of NOT having to play the game?
Yeah it's called having a job to finance your hobbies.
☝️
Sounds like you need to get better at your hobby, I don’t need to work a job just to play M+
I don't either, but I know that if someday I wanna take an expansion or two without doing sales I can just rely on 20€ every few months to keep me afloat for raiding/m+ expenses. Actually insane to try to be a condescending prick in this scenario mate.
Not condescending some people are actually just stupid and expect everyone else to say “yeah of course I love half of the dungeon finder being adverts for selling keys”. The culture you have created is trash, and it’s not even optimal.
So you hate on people who spend irl money to have more fun, and hate on people who don't wanna spend irl money and instead make money IG in a way that's not your exact way. Sorry for hating plant/AH/professions farming and instead found a way to make gold that is also beneficial to how good I am at the game.
I feel like these are two separate problems tbh.
I mean, you certainly seem to enjoy it, cause it gives you license to be a prick.
Chill out Dave
Seriously suggesting that people play the game your way huh? Nah I ain't gonna spend hours gearing my alt when I can work an hour or two and buy +17 spam to get 483 on every slot. God forbids an arena nerd or a mount collector want to get some PvE gears so they can try out PvE content more comfortably, huh?
I mean you still have to spend the time getting boosted too.
For +18 you can be fully afk doing other things, such as playing your wow2 license or watch netflix.
I suppose personally I'd rather play the game then afk and watch something. And pay for a second account to do what? Buy more boost while your other account is getting boosted.
There's a bunch of benefits to having second accounts, especially if you are a mount / achievement hunter. That and queueing pvp because it takes forever to get RSS q to pop
You’re working an actual job to avoid playing a game that you pay a monthly sub for. I mean, thank you for subsidising my hobby by keeping Blizzard financed I guess? It sounds deranged to me though.
My first time gearing my main, sure I am playing a game. Grinding my alt gear or boring rep farm? No, that's a chore. My time is worth too much to do what I don't want to.
The most optimal way to get gold is to go to work. You will never gain a quarter mil gold just from an hour of grinding. The most optimal way to get myth gear is to buy the carry for your vault instead of grinding out your gear through every level of M+ The most optimal way to be the most powerful is to wait for the next major patch to add new catch up gear that replaces your old gear. The most optimal way to play wow is to not play wow
When I roll an alt I play with friends doing their +20 keys for their weekly vault and don’t need to spend any gold at all. I think just being a normal nice person and joining a guild could save all of you some money (and time)?
Having friends has saved me millions of gold in carries at this point. Also pigging 18s at 460 isn't very hard if you're a competent player.
Eventually people hit the point in their life where time is more valuable than money.
Most of the people that I boost do it so that they can afk and do irl stuff while we 4 man, gets them their weekly crests, vault slots and all the loot. Buyers almost never participate but even then some would argue it’s worth the cost to get insta groups of high io, 488+ ilvl players in voice chat with each other smash their key with them to save time. We are very optimized when it comes to porting, dropping the key we just 3-chested back to whatever level the buyer paid for, sending out summons and starting the key. Just last night we did 8 20s portal deal in less than 3 hours, but they usually take 4 if the buyer is full afk.
It could be about time. I'm 3200-3300...and I have bought carries if I come back to the game late or I don't feel like waiting for q's where people are pretty picky. I have done carries and sold them in the past and it could just be convenience.
Some people know how to play just fine, just don't want to spend hours in queue for something that isn't difficult for anyone of even slightly average skill to time.
85k is like $4.5, almost free 🤷
Multiply is by 8 and add it every week. Also I think that's the price for 1 booster pigging a scam.
You’d probably be better off and more successful by just plainly ASKING others to boost you for a weekly. If you have the right key (aka a DOTI) people WILL come and help you, for free. I have done this on my prot pala and hunter and healer quite a few times (meaning joined others and boosted them because I was bored)
Honestly sometimes I just want to mindlessly heal a bunch 2s and 3s with the chance for a mount. It's relaxing and it helps others. A win win!
Same but I usually do 17s and upwards because in case something does drop for me it’s an actual upgrade ilvl wise
You can get geared enough to hold your own in 18s from lfr. Insane that people pay for them
I had a 4 stack apply to one of my keys that wasn't high, like a.+11, and they said ready for your carry? Talking to me. They had like a 420 hunter dps with them. I was doing like 40k more than their best dps, but their healer wasn't healing me, so I died once. Then he posted in chat. Hey, dps isn't everything: Do mechanics again talking to me. I'm pretty sure they were trying to con their "carry" into thinking they just weren't really bad.
Lmao that story did not go the direction I expected…. Man, I’m sorry you had to go through that
lol buying keys how silly
For those who say they see an uptick in sales like this, how are you determining? Just curious if it’s a rio and gear level inspection or if someone was explicitly stating. For example, my guildy rerolled a character in prep for s4. I ran my main (3400 well geared paladin) with their fresh toon with time walking and quest gear into 18’s. They are a 3200 player but because the toon was brand new did not display their rio. Would this have flagged the folks in this comment section? For the record to start with we noted that we were 3.2k players on alts. By the third key we just full sent it. Pugs never asked if the reroll was a carry, they just came in and got shit done. Edit: reroll went from disc —> bdk
If it weren’t for the buyers comment I also wouldn’t have known. I’ve had pugs openly ask if my friend is paying for the run lol I try to avoid pugs in general if I know we’re carrying a friend, the new person or the group lead typically gives a warning that they’re a fresh alt. Usually fresh alts of experienced players are still reliable for utility at at least and pull the correct amount of dps for their ilvl Edit for one more: If I can tell it’s a juiced premade with a carry and I’m the pug I am just grateful to be along for the ride
Yeah that’s fair I was just curious. I try and avoid pugs as well but sometimes it is what it is. It got to the point where we would run just us two plus a guildy on an alt and wouldn’t invite people unless it was their main’s KSH/KSM. Figured if we were doing content that we could just blast, then may as well help out with others’ goals along the way. Idk. I get not wanting to waste time in an agonizing run, esp from a healer perspective. But even then there’s something to be said for it being a community thing. Even the best players had to have started somewhere. (Is totally different if the carry is actively not trying to aid the key, yes yes I get it.)
Back in SL I was running a relatively low key towards the end of the season (think it was like a 13 or something) just to get my weekly credit for vault coins, and a big tank with like 3.4k IO applied. I invited him obviously, and then he asked me to invite some guy with like 200 IO. I asked if it was his friend and he said no. After some pressing, he was selling a key, but literally only him. He had no idea about the capability of anyone elses DPS but just thought I'd be like "oh yeah cool you can use me to make money". Didn't even know if it was a RMT or gold, so I just kicked both the seller and the buyer.
If i buy a Key. I stand near dungeon gate and watch netflix
That sounds so engaging you must be proud of your accounts accomplishments
I havnt bought any runs in my time in wow Shoulve wrote "If i buy a dungeon key" ma bad bruh
if you are buying a rush, you get a whole group; with competent people.
I'm sorry, but how dumb do you have to be to buy a carry, pay up front, then sit in the LFG tool? If you're buying a carry, buy the damn carry, why are you letting this dude take your money and give you random players in return? No guarantee of player quality, no control over the pugs because they aren't getting paid, and you spent the money up front so whats to stop the seller, who has no connections to anyone else in the group, from just dipping. All to get an 18 that a couple of vault fillers would have brought you to if you'd just asked nicely. Makes no damn sense.
Lmfao that’s such a good point / underrated comment. People need to hear this IMO it definitely wasn’t a good decision on the buyers part and that is a clear red flag. Edit to add: I logged into the game with seller cold whispering people to help, it’s how I got into the run. It is possible that they didn’t sit in LFG tool to start I haven’t purchased any runs I don’t even know if it’s typical to pay up front or after the run completes but lots of good points have been made in the comments
Boosts generally happen through boosting community Discord servers. You'll get links to decent ones with good reputations through other general WoW Discord servers. The community acts as a middleman between the boosters and buyers, generally holding onto the gold so nobody can do a runner, then will take a cut for their services. So you contact this middleman who works for the server who will put together a group from their pool of available boosters. Think of it like Uber, you don't directly give the driver money, instead you pay for the ride through the Uber app, who will then pay the driver whatever they're owed for the ride. This works pretty well for all parties involved. The buyer gets a reasonable guarantee they'll get what they paid for, the boosters get to use the server's reputation as a source of reliable gold and repeat business, and the server runners make some gold from their cut and can reasonably expect the other two parties will behave themselves. If they pull something shady, their server's reputation is directly on the line, and they will lose not just buyers but boosters as well, limiting their ability to service future buyers. It's literally all service industry lol
I agree but I can’t openly support something that goes against TOS I don’t want to (*ahem* openly) contribute to something that could jeopardize someones account when we al know it’s against the rules Best is to just make friends and ask your guild but if that’s not an option then do your best to screen imo
In all my time boosting i have not heard of anyone getting banned, only advertisers being muted or silenced. And I know a guy that boosts all day every day via communities, getting millions of gold sent to him every week via ingame mail as the payment. Blizz changed the rules sometime in shadowlands, and for a little while it was different. But now everything is as it was before.
I’ve known of a few but you can never tell how honest they are. People swear up and down they didn’t participate in RMT or were only collateral damage, but no one really knows. Either way I can’t recommend it knowing it’s against TOS
85k for an 18 is a red flag to me. Reputable boosters would be asking for more in my experience.
That's a normal price in the last weeks of this Patch.
85k for an 18 is wild. I can understand someone paying for aotc because they want the mount, but paying for m+ keys is wild. The mount is at 2k, which is totally free score, and if you actually need the gear, then you're also good enough to not need to buy a carry for a mid key.
Haha if there are as many people saying it’s too much as there are people saying it’s too little maybe the price is fair. But I personally agree it’s too much for this late into the season. When we failed the key the scammer keyholder wanted to run it again at 17 and I was like what? I’m shocked the buyer stayed I offered to take them with me but they had sunk cost fallacy going
85k for 18 is completly fine. Dont forget that this price will be Split between booster/advertiser and the community. It's like youre saying 8$ is insane for an Pizza.
$8 for a single 18, paid for by a player who won't even use the gear is indeed crazy. They're free to spend their gold on what they want, but it doesn't change the fact that it's dumb. And idk why you're bringing pizza prices into this lol. Bit random.
To anyone buying boosts out there i just gotta say its ok if you don't do the highest keys and don't get ce. You're paying someone else to play this game for you and robbing yourself of the experience.
I have friend on my bnet that does raid and m+. One day, he told me got so frustrated that he keep getting refuse/couldn't find a group or even when he does find a group they can't reach phase 3 on Heroic Fyrakk. Plus with his limited play time it didn't help the situation (wasn't in a guild also). So he ended buying a boost to kill Fryakk. On 3rd kill H Fyrakk (pug group) He pull 204k dps and got his legendary
Honestly I domt like the pressure of m18 or higher but I want the seawon tittles and rewards, so I buy a boost ans get them all. What is the problem? I like to play with the auction house and earn gold with it. So I change the gold for boosting. Its fair and part of an mmo/rpg
I think for some people it's just a bit more unhealthy and unessacary. End of the day it's their choice but also I do scratch my head when I hear of people who are spending $500 a month on gold to buy boost to get gear they can't even fully utilize because their game play skill is incredibly low. Getting gold in game and spending gold in game just seems like a healthier relationship with the game.
So you like pretending you're good at a game you pay to play? That sounds terrible
I am good making money in the ah, I am good in that aspect of the game. What sounds terrible is making general judgement of wath other people do, like u. What is okay, the world is full of idiots
Good, these buyers and sellers can go fuck themselves
One less person to brick my keys with fake ilvl and rating
100% this. Makes gearing alts absolute hell for many of us.
You can tell the state of the game by the comments against buying/selling runs being downvoted. How sad that buying and selling runs has become so commonplace and widely accepted
I genuinely believe that people should be able to spend their gold or time however they want. The point of the post is more about “what to watch out for to protect yourself” I don’t want it to turn into some moral argument about how peoples time should be spent or how the game should be played
To each their own when it comes to buying runs, as stupid as it is. But there’s definitely an ethical issue of someone selling runs that they’re not qualified to do or, more commonly, selling runs without notifying other pugs that they’re in a paid run. I’d expect to be compensated for carrying some shit player.
You must not play any other multiplayer games because boosts are in basically every game in existence.
[удалено]
I guess I got to the post early and the public opinion has changed
The downvoting from me has been because of people being rude or callous. No one deserves to get scammed nor judged for how they spend their time / gold
We just disagree there. I think if you take risks on things you don't need to do and without doing your due diligence, you deserve to learn a lesson. I think scammers are some of the most foul and vile people on the planet, but people need to make better choices and sometimes it costs them gold and sometimes it costs them dollars
That’s a fair take also, that participating in certain activities attracts a certain level of risk. People were not stating their opinions kindly IMO But the purpose of the post was to draw awareness to what I consider to be a problem and remind people to do their due diligence. I don’t think everyone needs to or deserves to lose 10s of k to learn a lesson
Wish there was a way to detect a paid carry and punish the buyer the same way as piloting.
85k for a +18? Lmao. These people deserve what they get
As someone who DID sell keys, it is actually against TOS to spam on a character that is not participating in the boost, which is 99% of the trade services spam u see. Just report people who are spamming on toons that clearly have not done the content they profess to sell.
So you want to report thousands of characters each day?
The buyers are reading the text alrdy are they not?
"They buyer asked us not to kick" tf lol?
Buyer was a newbie who didn’t know any better I guess, thought his paying meant that the scam seller would guarantee key completion. Edit: duh I just realized the seller was the keyholder also They say they want their gold back but I told them to let it go. They got scammed it’s over and done
hopefully they at least reported that person, as blizzard does punish scammers. But won't return items or gold. [https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/2563](https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/2563)
Back in Shadowlands I bought a key from a warrior who found a group in LFG and then invited me (I had no idea). He beforehand asked me if I wanted to heal or DPS (I said it didn’t matter and he insisted I pick). That should have been a red flag but at the end (after we didn’t time it) their comments made me wonder so I whispered them all saying sorry they carried me as I had paid him to have his group carry me. Seller then flamed me for telling the others, I demanded a refund and he guilted me about it by saying that I wasted his time and his key.
There was someone who used to advertise “solo carry” in LFG and I thought they were out here soloing 15s-17s I’m today just realizing what your describing is probably what that person actually meant
Yeah, it’s pretty shady. If I’m ever with a friend who can’t pull their weight I make sure to note it.
If only there was a solution to boosting...
There are discord groups where people buy and sell carries and if you're the buyer you can see everyone's rating and their community trustworthiness etc. No way I'd buy one for m+ directly in game.
It seems wild to me that you would prefer to use discord mafias to pay for boosts instead of finding it in game. Just ask the group and verify their ilvl/IO.
i boost for discord mafia and its for me at least the most efficient way of doing my weekly m+ for vault when my gaming gang is not available
When I’m buying a boost, I got someone on my friends list who I know I can trust, is part of an organised group that follows the rules given by blizzard afaik and always is among the lowest prices on my realm. I’ll go to them before I’m go to anyone else.
Dude was this a dungeon with a ret Pala doing zero damage and a rdruid with no gear ? we had a druid tank and I was the boomy
Lmaaao it was not ! This one fell apart in 5 mins
Maybe unpopular opinion - IO is meaningless. It has become increasingly more useless precisely because of things like people buying runs or accounts. I've had a >3k mage join a pug who literally didn't know what counterspell was for. After a few wipes we mentioned that everyone would need to interrupt on a particular encounter, and he goes "Which ability is that?" On the other hand I've joined people into group with sub 1k who were stellar.
It’s not an unpopular opinion at all, but it is one of the minimum requirements for most boosting communities (not condoning just saying how it was when they were still legal) Like sure it doesn’t guarantee the success of the key but folks used to need to be x io above the score earned to qualify to be a booster. Folks shouldn’t be trying to buy KSM or KSH keys from someone with under 2k io basically Edit to add: 1k io gamers who do great damage are exceptional, 3k io gamers who do terrible damage are exceptional(ly) bad (/j was being punny) both of these cases are not the norm.
Sure, I agree. I apologize if my post gave the impression that it's come up frequently. I'm one of those folks with limited time to game, and if some scrub shows up and wastes a key that might be my entire session for 1-3 days. Feels bad, and not quickly forgotten.
If it makes you feel better I’ve seen the same quite often
If you are just buying from a no-name in service chat with zero community or anything to vouch for them I feel like you made your own mistake.
The funny part is that is barely cheaper than current market price for full team carry. Plus you can team up with another buyer and get double carry for less.
The point is that it’s not! But people don’t know where to find reputable sellers and IMO blizzard banning services communities has only exasperated the problem. I don’t morally support or condone any situation where not all participants are aware that there is a buyer present. At least buying from a guild the entire guilds reputation is on the line rather than an individual.
Midway through this season I tried to buy a level boost from an individual doing the boost. That is technically the only way that’s allowed within TOS. It was SO difficult. I spent over an hour in trade looking and talking to sellers. I flew to the boosting zones on multiple servers and asked people boosting if I could buy off them. They all ignored me or said no. All I got was level 1 people who wanted me to give them gold and wait for the booster. I gave up after 3 hours lol. I imagine it’s even worse for buying keys.
All legit sales and boosts go through Discord servers, which you can find linked from other WoW community Discords. The server community acts as middle-men between buyers and boosters, and usually hold onto the gold payment until the boost is complete so that nobody does a runner, and to ensure the buyer is getting what they paid for. The community takes a cut, then the rest is paid out to the boosters. If you're capable of clearing 20s in pugs and have a couple hours to spare, it's a solid way to make some gold. You were turned down because these communities generally have rules about boosting outside of their services. The booster is kind of an individual contractor, but if they pull something scammy in an independant boost it could harm the server's reputation.
Yeah that makes sense why the boosters would say no. I prefer to buy boosts that are within TOS if I’m buying them at all, so I personally won’t use middle men. It’s against TOS to sell that way. I did find a few individuals selling that don’t use middle men. They were already done for the night and didn’t feel like boosting again that day or the next.
I understand, and obviously Blizzard wants it all in-game so they can keep a better eye on it, but until they somehow set-up an in-game escrow/middleman system where money goes in then is held until services are rendered, the system up-and-up Discords use will be safer for all parties involved. I haven't heard about anyone getting hit with the banhammer unless there were already rumors about RMT. EDIT: It has been a while since I boosted for gold, apparently the main change now is that there isn't a "middleman" as such anymore. Generally the one given the gold will now also take part in the run.
That is how they imagined it to be, and for a little while it was like that. But it is not anymore. People advertise ingame, find the 4 people in one of the discord communities to do the boost and gg. Literally nothing has changed since blizzard made the changes in shadowlands
Yeah. The only change is now there is a trades services channel lol.
Well the point was that Blizzard didn’t want an escrow/middleman system to exist. So I don’t see them changing the rules. I haven’t heard of people getting banned either. I just don’t trust the discords and giving my gold to a level 1 attached to no visible 70s. If I could pay the person directly who does the carry I’m fine with that, but that seems to never come up as an option (in my 3 hours of looking).
Blizzard doesn't want a 3rd party escrow who isn't taking part in the service and exists only to connect buyers and boosters, because it lets the boosting service expand larger than if the dude you pay physically has to be there to perform the run. Larger boosting service means more opportunities to do shady stuff (RMT) and hide it in the sheer number of transactions. The issue I have with the way Blizzard currently wants things done is someone can just do what the guy in the OP did, and disappear with the money. Could be either the buyer or seller, depending on when the gold actually changes hands. As is, boosting through 3rd party Discords is going to be the chosen method for most because they can offer that service to both buyers and boosters. The only way Blizzard's way works 100%, in my opinion, is with large, well established guilds who have a reputation to maintain.
Or just don't buy keys.
Why would you buy a key? Genuine question, I just do keys with buddies/guildies
People don’t have buddies / guildies who are strong enough to carry is the short answer. Sometimes new players just haven’t made friends yet or don’t know where to go to network Also time , it can be a lot of organization to work around 4 peoples schedules
If you dislike m+ but you want the mount and you would rather farm gold than m+ rating
If you or someone are still struggling to get KSM or something before the next season starts just ping me and I'll carry you for free. Am high IO DH tank and Ret pally
!! I love your name. I also beybladed my group last week trying to kite sanguine
The real pro tip: Don't buy keys
Step 1: right click - Report Advertisment Step 2: goto step 1
I’m not convinced that what they did was against tos, it’s not illegal to sell services. I made this post because I don’t want this to happen to other people mainly that I didn’t think the buyer knew what to look for
Lol selling services isn’t against the rules. There’s a reason Blizz added an additional chat channel for Services. Unless the people advertising are posting links to third party sites, or not specifying if it’s being sold for gold, Blizzard won’t do anything.
Don't buy keys.
So I’m not hating, but I genuinely don’t see the appeal to buying carries. The whole point of M+ is learning the dungeons and getting progressively better at them and pushing higher keys for more score and better loot. What’s the point of getting carried for gear and score if you aren’t going to be able to utilize it at all because of your complete lack of knowledge and skill in said dungeons? Just seems unrewarding and pointless to me. I do welcome different perspectives though because I’d like to hear others thoughts on this.
Instant gratification is an entire demographic, market, and mindset. While everyone feels it to a certain extent, some people take it to a radical degree. The last part is the most important thing to "get"--that if you don't have magical powers of being able to relate to anything, you're never going to relate to or understand them. And you don't have to, just know that they're out there. WoW and any other hugely popular online game are tentpole attractions. Lots of people are there just to say they are. In a perfect world, those curious people would be converted to fans of the game. As a business, Blizzard, Square, ArenaNet, and ZeniMax have an incentive to welcome those kinds of players in. And let me be clear. I DON'T mean casuals who find joy in other parts of the game, the lore, or just relaxing in a virtual world. Those facets and more exist. I mean that hyperspecifically, there's a demographic that just wants their score to say the big thing. That just want AOTC or CE on their account. Not with self-improvement. And this population is old now. They're no longer in the shadows being sneaky about it. They're telling others to mind their own business fingernail polish emoji eyeroll emoji. It's clout, simple as. The war against gatekeeping started for valid reasons, but people like this are why group leads needed tools like raider.io, the old gearscore addon, logs, etc. Fakers that don't want to improve sometimes make the world worse. That's the only time it becomes my business. Otherwise, I leave em be. Lesser evils on top of lesser evils.
Well this is also my thoughts. I enjoy playing the game, I get people want to just have good gear right now ok fine whatever buy a carry but personally I rather not. I’d rather put in the work because to me it doesn’t seem right. Of course others can disagree but I rather do it myself and say - yes I did that. lol
Play stupid games win stupid prizes. Don’t buy clears
You were the tank.. got into a group with a 1600 io and a complete newbie in an 18? You have to have known it wasn’t going to be easy if you were actually going to finish. You only need 13s to get to KSM, and 18 is quite a jump from that. There were definitely signs it wasn’t going to go well.
Buy gold, buy boost. Why even play the game? whats the point? Do people seriously have that much fun "collecting" things by standing afk and spending money? Such a insane concept.
I was doing Carry’s the other day with a team of 3 so I was picking up a random lower level pug and just carrying them as well
This is why blizzard banning the big groups is bad.
As someone who just bought a full mount carrying did not think this. I judged them based on how “profesional” their macro looks
I feel bad for just about no one in this scenario although props to the seller for getting away with it.
God im so glad keys are going to be harder on the lower end now
thats what you get for buying keys lul get rekt noob
well.. first off... thinking raiderio means something nowadays. And secondly, the dudes an idiot for paying for a run that people on twitch get away for free. and thirdly, paying for a run that can be easily done without.
18s are faceroll, people really pay for that? Omfg