WoW Level 90 Character Boost How-to

by Magistrate - 11 years ago     show comments

World of Warcraft‘s 5.4.7 public testing realm (PTR) patch has been flagged as a “release candidate,” and players can expect to line up for its promised level 90 character boost sometime soon. In case you haven’t been keeping up with how the instant-90 system works, we’ve decided to put together a little something to get you in the loop.

Rockin’ It Old School

As it ages and expansions fly by, the amount of journeying, grinding, and leveling increases, presenting players with a daunting task: level for days and hope to play with your friends by the time you hit a playable item level for endgame content. has touted several mechanics to quickly get players to the latest content for years, including heirlooms, reputation commendations, and the soon-to-close Scroll of Resurrection.

But let’s face it: we’ve been to Gnomeregan enough times to make our daily work commutes look like vacations. Blizzard’s previous attempts at reducing the claw-and-tooth crawl to endgame have focused on experiencing old content in a shorter amount of time. Historically, this has been done, for instance, by increasing the experience output in certain zones or decreasing the amount of experience needed to reach certain levels.

Good-bye, Level Grind!

Fast forward to BlizzCon 2013, when Blizzard announced the level 90 character boost. As of 5.4.7, players will now be able to skip all of the leveling experience to date, including dungeons, zones, dailies–anything previously done to hit that sweet level cap. All of this can be done without ever leaving your tavern of choice–for a yet-to-be-disclosed price. (Edit: As of 2/18/2014, the price may or may not have been revealed to be $60 per character. See here for details.)

Aside from the free level 90 boost available to players who preorder the Warlords of Draenor expansion, the service–like realm transfers and name changes–will cost a fee and will be available through the in-game store. If you happen to want to treat yourself after a particularly large paycheck and don’t feel like driving to McDonald’s (poor choice), you can boot up your game, navigate to the store, and click your way to success.

Controversy aside, it’s unlikely you’ll be handed a fresh set of iLevel 561 legendary gear to hammer away at 25-man heroic Garrosh. But take your freshly-minted 90 to the Timeless Isle and you’ll find yourself in flexible raids in no time.

How It Works

OK, enough blabbering (an action which any dedicated WoW player should be envisioning in the language of the murlocs). The service is pretty straightforward, with in-game instructions provided along the way. But if you’re too lazy to download the PTR client and test it out for yourself, here’s basically how it goes (and here’s a video if you don’t feel like reading):

Oh, look, the superior blood elf mage! Notice the store icon on the bottom left.

First, you’re going to want to create a blood elf mage, since there’s realistically no better race/class combination in the game. That, or you can use your existing inferior character. Your choice (but you will be judged). From here, you can either log out again and select the store icon from your character list interface (shown left) or use the in-game store icon on the right of the action bar (it looks like a target symbol–hunters should be familiar with it).

Not many other paid services available in here just yet, but in case the obvious needs to be pointed out, select the Level 90 Character Boost option.

Second, navigate to the Services tab on the left and select the Level 90 Character Boost

option. In the screenshot above, you’ll notice that this transaction will cost a whopping 1.00 XTS. While we’re still uncertain what the conversation rate is to the American dollar, we do know that this is Blizzard’s testing currency and does not reflect an actual price.

Note that no matter what character you’re logged on to (if you’re doing this while playing a character) or what character is selected on your list, the level boost will not be applied to anyone.

Third, you’ll need to provide your Battle.net account password. Because, you know, you wouldn’t want your cat to be purchasing vanity items while you’re out of the house. Security n’ stuff.

No, you didn’t win the lottery. Just log off so we can move on.

As pictured above, if you’re logged in and doing this while playing a character at this point, you will be kindly asked by the Blizzard powers-that-be to log out to apply your level boost to your character of choice (which, again, should be a blood elf mage).

If you’re not logged on while purchasing the level boost service, proceed to step four below.

It’s shiny, it’s gold, and it’s yours–click on the level boost token in the top, right-hand corner of the screen. (Ignore some of the other elements like the race-change icon and the character template–these are standard options for the public testing realm and will not be included in the update.)

Fourth, you will notice from your character list screen that there is a new user interface (UI) element present–the level 90 character boost token (which is what I’m calling it since I have no idea what it’s named). To redeem this token, click on it. This will open yet another new UI element which will speed you along your way to purchased glory.

Choices…choices…but I have faith in you. You know what race you really want.

Fifth, you will be presented with two options. You can level boost an existing character by selecting him or her from your character list on the right, or you can click the red Create New Character button to begin from scratch.

It’s really not too late to go back and start a mage. Really!

Sixth and last (phew!), you will be able to choose the skill specialization for your new blood elf–er, level 90 character of choice. When you’re all done sealing your fate, click the red Next button and then the Level Up! button and you’re good to go!

If you’re curious about how this process works on a more visual level (and with that epic World of Warcraft menu screen music that probably makes you want to vomit by now), check out the video below: