Cataclysm: Time Saving Tips

As the hour draws nearer and nearer, here are some important time saving tips I've extracted out of my last minute preparation for the expansion. Only eight hours to go - are you ready?!

Time is money

• AH alts: Unless you have good reason, I'd suggest paying the 10g and moving your stormwind alts to Exodar or Darnassus if you haven't already. SW is going to be crowded for the forseeable future. Get them out of there - you don't need the hassle. For our horde counterparts - I'd imagine you'll want to evacuate Org and get to Thunder Bluff or Silvermoon
• Have your profession alts at their trainers of choice.Make sure you're ready to go for your 525 professions so you can capitalize early on materials attained from your main's leveling
• Get your alts to a inn/city, now. I know I had a few leveling alts straggling in storm peaks or icecrown. Even if you aren't leveling them for the first month, you'll want them in an inn ASAP. Rested XP is being reset for cata - this means capped toons and other toons will be treated the same. There's nothing you can do about your 75s and 79s losing 1.5 levels of rested, but the last thing you want to do is prevent them from regaining that time back while you level your main. I caught this last minute and was horrified at the prospect of losing 4.5 bars of free experience per day (3 alts - all being leveled shortly who wouldn't be gaining that 1 bar/8 hour rested status - terrifying!)
• Move as much as possible to one AH character. If you're like me you post various goods on multiple characters for ease of restocking, general record keeping, or some other reason. I ran into this problem on my jewelcrafter and enchanter particularly. I post various goods on them (vendor pets, recipes, scrolls, cut gems) - basically things that don't stack well and take a lot of room. This works fine for me late in the game - but i'm planning on feeding them tons of raw goods to DE/prospect - and I need that bag space now. By consolidating to one character, I make that AHing cycle a bit more time consuming, but it frees me up to do my daily prospecting that I'll be so frequently relying on

Money is...time?

• Get epic or master riding on your gathering alts. If you're like me and are changing mains, or just flat out planning on exploiting a previously underutilized gatherer come cata - swallow the painful temporary loss, and if you can afford it put down that extra 4-5k on upping your riding skill. If your gatherers are on separate characters (ouch) - I'd venture it's more economical to upgrade 2 150% mounts to 280% versus 1 150 and 1 310% - but that's your decision. At a minimum, get any miners you have to the fastest speed you can possibly afford. You'll be gathering for profit at least the first month of cata most likely - this should pay for itself in gold in a week, and you can never make back that time you lost.
• Unlike BC when most old flasks became slightly less useful (Thanks, tempest keep), wotlk flasks are perfect for snipping off a few hours of leveling time. With prices down as low as they are, I'd highly encourage stocking up on a few cheap stacks of DPS boosting flasks for grinding sessions. It's not going to double your leveling time, but more DPS is more DPS.
• Get your speed boosting enchants. Goblins/Worgen: Get your mithril spurs. If you don't have run speed talents or run speed to boots, now's the time to pick it up. Every step counts. And as a plus, you'll make all those AHers so incredibly happy as we'll be more than willing to sell you these goods at a 150% markup :)

A healthy mix of trading time for money and money for time should net you with more of both compared to an unprepared player come cataclysm.

See you in the wee hours - good luck everyone!