Cataclysm: Week One Goals

It's been important for me lately to have a realistic set of expectations and plans. Whether I'm playing every day or twice a week, it helps me feel accomplished and make sure I'm accomplishing what I want. Let's take a look at my plans and goals for the fist week of cataclysm. Will be fun to look back at this in a week and see how I did.

Day one - day two: Get the dailies rolling

I have one cook and one jewelcrafter that I'll be seriously focusing on for cataclysm. For me that means the most important thing on the first two days is to get the JC dailies started. I'll be looking to not only max my mining within the first day if I can help it, but farm as many stacks of ore as possible to get to 475 JCing to start the daily. If I need to, I'll probably be trying to snag as much "cheap" ore as possible on the AH. Might go as high as 200g a stack if I have to.

The reason for this? Illustrious Jewelcrafter Tokens. One a day, and you need 3 for each gem cut. I'm looking to be a little more competitive with JCing in Cata. The important thing with this is not to blow everything out of the gate, but the token system is a gated mechanism nonetheless. Getting 2-3 premium cuts the first week will set me up for some early returns, and missing ANY day on your JC daily will hurt in the long run. My hope is to see some excellent returns on this strategy 2-3 months into the expansion, when new gear is flowing rapidly, and gems are hitting their peak in terms of demand.

Day three - day seven: Grind, grind, grind some more

I'd absolutely love to be 85 on my main by next Tuesday. Short term I have 3 characters i "need" to get to 85, and if I can get my main (mining/alch) out of the way in a week, this sets me up well for focusing on my first alt (herbalism/jewelcrafting) the next week.

Nothing really fancy here for the tail end of expansion week. Farm, farm farm. If it's viable, I will gladly grind my way to 85 on gathering, but I expect to be too far behind the masses to ore-grind. I'll likely spend most of my time in Hyjal and then Deepholm, scouting out the optimal routes to fine tune the leveling process for my 2nd - 4th alts.

Junk in my trunk

Nothing too mind blowing here, but just for record keeping's sake, here's some of the boring details about what I'll be micromanaging:

• Greens: Sending to enchanter to DE and stock. Holding on to all my dusts/essences for likely up to a month. Leveling enchants will sell horribly the first few weeks, and I don't see a huge value in maxing enchanting early on. I also expect cata greens to be worth more as shards than at the vendor/ah. Might hold on to a few decent weapons if they look better than quest rewards.
• Cloth: Obvious. Sent to tailor to bolt and hold. Similar strategy to enchanting. Will wait to level this until it's better known what will sell, or what can be DEd at a decent rate. In no rush to max this either
• Ore: Unless this is going at an astronomical rate (500g/stack+) I'll likely be prospecting it all on my JC. This will take a short term loss either way, I know, but I feel I can "risk" a week's worth of less gathering profits for some more tokens/patterns long term. This is a gamble, no doubt.
• Herbs/Meat/Volatiles/Other trade goods: Sent to my bank alt. I've got a guild tab left over that's empty, and I'll worry about best using these after a week or so. I have 3 alchemists that I'd like to max relatively early, but I won't be getting any decent herb stockpiles until I level my herbalist starting hopefully in week 2 of cata.
• Blues/Epics: If I'm lucky enough to get any of these, they'll be immediately going on the AH for maximum value. I can't anticipate any of these gaining value in the first few months of the expansion.
• Vendor Recipes/Goods/Limited items: I didn't play the beta, so I'm not sure what to go after, but it's obvious that I'll be picking up any of these that are possible and mailing them to my bank alt
• AH play: Really looking to minimize this week one. I'll be selling only two things in the expansion: bags and glyphs. I'll spend the rest of my time going through my snatch lists for cheap ore/gems to level JC, and the rest of my time farming. Looking to limit my AH time to 15 minutes a day or less

To sum things up, if I could hit the following milestones by December 14th, I'd be stoked:

• Level 85 main
• Maxed mining on main
• 500+ JC, 2 cuts
• Breaking even on income/expenses

I'm sure the breaking even part for week one of a gold maker is a bit shocking - but with 150k going into the expansion I feel I can finally allow myself to take a risk - so here's hoping the JC "gamble" pays off and I can really push myself to 85 ASAP.

What are your plans for the first night and first week of cata? Are you going to try to push your main or go on a week long gold spree? Let me know your thoughts!