Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Expansion Planning - Why You Should Be Thinking About It Now


On our guild website (which is on the side and yes, we are recruiting), one of the members asked a question that is something to really be considering about this time in the game.  What are your plans for the expansion?  It was a question that I kind of took for granted, but the more I thought about it, I still had a lot of planning to do.  Here is a list of things to think about with the expansion coming up:

1) Leveling - This seems like the most obvious but is one of the things to think about, especially with multiple characters.  I'm happy with the changes they are making to druids and mages, so I'm going to be leveling them first.  I have heard a lot of people who play hunters are not happy with the changes and are considering going to a different alt since they don't like the focus system.  These are all things to consider.  Some people may even consider starting over and playing a worgen or a goblin which means you may be further behind the raiding curve.

2) Professions - I originally thought that I was going to just keep my professions the way there were for the time being.  Now, I'm considering changing my main's professions from skinning and mining to leatherworking and jewelcrafting.  If I'm going to change them, the best time to change them is at the end of the expansion.  The base mats are going to be cheaper at the end of the expansion and you will have a head start on the next expansion by being able to collect the stuff along the way to level in the expansion.

3)  Raiding versus PvP - Is your character's focus going to continue being raiding or will you change focus to being more PvP?  What you are going to focus on in the expansion becomes important now because you will want to start gearing your character that way?  Will you need the best resilience gear to level through battlegrounds?  Will you want to build a tank spec to get to level 85 quickly?  All those should be answered now to get yourself ready for what you are going to be doing.  And it is not just not thing about what you are doing, but what will your role be.  Currently, I'm moonkin with a tanking offspec.  Considering how gear will be working in Cataclysm, I'm considering putting my hatred for healing aside and learning how to heal so I only need one set of gear in Cataclysm.

4) Gold - How much gold are you going to need to make it easy to level and get you ready for the next raiding or PvP areas?  This is counting repairs, gems, reforging, enchants, leveling professions, etc.  As Isaid, my goal is to get about 5 - 10k gold on my main and about 5k gold on my alt.  My alt may be easier since he is making enchants all the time.  My main is selling primordial saronite, which is making about 500g per piece.

5) Guild - If you know that something is going to come up that will take you away from your current guild, it may be time to consider guild changing.  And you will want to be with your new guild at the start of Cataclysm to help with guild leveling, rep, etc.  Also, with the changes with 10 and 25 mans being on the same lockout, you have to think about whether you want to stay with a 10 or 25 man guild since guilds will not be able to run both.  I'm currently going to be staying with my guild and doing 25 mans since I get the most enjoyment out of that in game right now.

I'm sure there are a bunch more that I cannot even think of right now but are all things we have to think about going towards the expansion.

2 comments:

Ceraphus (aka Avatar) said...

my guild has more and more started leaning towards 10 mans, as we have really enjoyed running those as of late

Redhawks said...

@Ceraphus

With equal loot in 10 and 25 mans, I think you are going to see a lot of guilds become 10 man exclusive since you are not able to do both per week. My guild talked about it when the news came out and we decided to just stick with 25 mans. However, what it does open up is for the first 10 people to 85 can start raiding after they get geared up in heroics, etc.