Cataclysm: Hitting The Cap

No - not that cap, unfortunately - but I did manage to hit level 85 on my druid last evening. It went a bit rougher than expected - but overall I had a very successful session. Here's some quick lessons learned for everyone as they hopefully finish out their first level cap, or perhaps start on their second.

Adventures in hitting the cap

Getting the last 4 million XP or so took me... far far longer than I wanted it to. Twilight highlands is a great zone - but I ended up getting stuck in a pug from hell that took nearly an hour. I should have bailed on it earlier - or never started at all. Based on my experiences in both questing and dungeoning towards the cap - here's some brief recommendations on each instance and how they're best used while grinding to 85.

• Blackrock Caverns: Fun, quick, and gives you a chance at some all important early blues which you can use to speed up your questing process. At a minimum I highly encourage running this at least once. Very puggable. I think I completed 3 or 4 of these runs between 80 and 83.
• Throne of Tides: Never did it - having never touched Vashj'ir at all in my questing process. Based on the time it would take to get to Vash, find the instance, and then get out - I'd recommend skipping this. Not because I have anything to say about Throne of Tides - just because that zone seems so horrific to level in. If for some reason you didn't start in Hyjal - then I'd probably have a go at this.
• The Stonecore: This one is a bit tricky. It's definitely puggable - I completed it twice out of my two groups, but it is definitely a huge step up from BRC. Mechanics in here mean you will wipe, or at least take longer, with a substandard group. Absolutely encourage it if you have a guild group - but I probably wouldn't push my luck after the initial run. With the pacing and difficulty of the zone, it's simply not efficient at all in terms of XP/hour once you've done the quests inside.
• Vortex Pinnacle: This was an enjoyable and fairly quick run. I did it once at 83, simply to complete the quests inside. There are definitely a few tricky pulls and my pugged even wiped on trash once, but overall this is something that most groups should be able to do reasonably fast. Recommend trying this out on your way to 85.
• Lost City of the Tol'Vir: I really enjoyed this zone, and it was very pug friendly. Trash seemed very similar to WotLK, it's pretty tame and can be moved through very quickly. That being said - I'd only go through this one once on your way to 85. The XP is nice the first time through, but you have so many other useful options with questing. Get in and get out nice and quick in about 20 minutes or so.
• Grim Batol: This one was a nightmare in a pug. It has all the elements of a bad dungeon for efficiency: Vehicle based combat, lots of trash, the ability to fall to your death. Did I mention vehicles? Maybe I just had a bad run of luck, but I'd absolutely recommend against running this in a pug on your way to 85. Save this for your guild after you're capped.
• Halls of Origination: Didn't do this one until 85. It's an absolute thrill however, but it has some mechanics that I could understand a pug having issues with. My guild group moved through it fairly well, but we were all 85 and in blues

Overall - I'd encourage running every instance at least once except Grim Batol and Halls of Origination. There aren't too many worth running repeatedly, to be honest. Especially once you hit Deepholm and Uldum which are very streamlined in terms of xp/hour.

Adventures at 85

Once I capped 85 I couldn't help but resist the lure of some guild dungeon runs. I was able to get geared for heroics - which requires an iLvl of 329 by the way - in a couple of hours. Between a few key instance drops and some JP gear items in addition to what I picked up questing, I'm essentially 'heroic ready' after three days on my main. I'm definitely excited about this.

Next up tonight will be some more heroics as well as some more ore farming. Now that I'm at 85 I plan to put in some tactical alt play on my two gatherers. I was able to get my mining up to 505 in an hour of farming. The goal for tonight will be to cap that out so I can start pyrite farming - which has been oddly plentiful in Uldum.

If I can snag a few more pieces of heroic gear tonight and get my hands on some ore, I'll feel pretty good about things. Should be able to start my JC daily tonight as well, finally...

That's all for today. Hoping to get some good work in this weekend on professions so I can throw a little more gold oriented advice in here.