State of play on Cataclysm's eve

So Cataclysm starts here...
The zones for levels 1-60 are released and I expect over the next couple of weeks they will see a lot of activity, hopefully this will result in a lot of gathering data appearing on the internet. I have a level 80 on two different realms and while one is focused on crafting the other is a gatherer.

Status Report
Darkspear;
Warlock (Tailor/Enchanter) level 80 – doing dailies for gold, working on Silver Covenent and Wormrest Accord.
Death Knight (Blacksmith/Jewelcrafter) level 65 – currently inactive
Druid (Miner/Herbalist) level 46 – currently inactive

Hellfire;
Death Knight (Herbalist/Skinner) level 80 – levelling herbalism/skinning/fishing/cooking (all around 300)
Paladin (Mining/Blacksmith) level 64 – aiming to reach level 68 by December 6th
Hunter (Skinner/Engineer) level 49 – working on venomous ravarsaur mount, aiming to reach level 58 by December 6th
Druid (Miner/Herbalist) level 14 – bank alt

There is a lot of hype about realm firsts, there is no way I will get one of those and to be honest I have no interest in them. I am content to get to max level a few weeks later than the first wave, I do however want to take advantage of those that do. So my level 80 herb gatherer/skinner will be keeping a close eye on the AH. I have already started recording the price of herbs twice a day at times I am likely to post, this should help identify gaps in supply and the best herbs to gather for gold per hour. When I get back into the new zones I’ll be spending an hour in each to see what I can farm and recording the information. I’ll get a clearer picture of what sells once I start listing on the auction house. Something for a future post.

I intend to avoid getting frustrated by over populated zones while levelling my characters and my plan is to level my 80s initially in Northrend. My Death Knight has not done any quests in Icecrown or Storm Peaks and if my experience in the beta is correct just doing dailies can net around 25-35% of a level per day. The reduction of xp required for level 70-80 will leave my Paladin (mining/blacksmithing) in a strong position to reach level 80 quickly as well. Because all rested xp is to be reset to zero when cataclysm launches it is actually best to level a lower level character first so I may be spending some time on levelling my (currently) level 14 druid (mining/herbalism) however my weekday time will probably be largely used up just running dailies on my level 80. The advantage of delaying is that when I finally hit the new zones most of the bugs should have been fixed and the number of players competing for mobs should be much lower. The first few weeks in the beta were pretty frustrating with quest choke points so levelling my Paladin through Northrend and Hunter through Outland should be very time efficient.

Something that will take me away from that is keeping up with my girlfriend who rolled a druid on another realm, we plan to 2 man as many instances as possible. I created a Hunter but seem to be constantly a couple of levels behind here which makes holding aggro an issue (she heals my pet tanks). It also gave me an opportunity to see how much I have learned when it comes to rolling on a new realm, gold is a slight issue. I struggled at levels 5-15 due to little gold and no bag rewards, because she had Herbalism/Skinning I picked skinning and leatherworking. I found training costs kept me broke for much of the time and often I couldn’t train new skills until I was halfway through the level. All of this wasn’t made easy by the lack of a pet until level 10, fortunately I know how to kite. A stack of light leather sells for about 2 gold so eventually I was able to buy some better bags, as a rule I have around 20 slots available at level 21. I am just around even on gold at the moment. On the other hand she has over 100 gold from farming herbs! To try and catch up I have been running pick up groups without her and these do make for quicker levelling and of course there is good gear to be had. The only instance we have 2 manned so far is Ragefire Chasm (RFC) at level 18/20 but this was before patch 4.0.3a and many spells are going to be nerfed so it will be interesting to see when we can complete Wailing Caverns.