Preparing for Deathwing

In only a few short weeks, we will begin the charge to kill Deathwing, but before we even think about the ultimate goal of the next expansions we need to consider what steps we can take now to help us.

The tasks can be broken down into a few small chunks under 2 wider categories, namely things we can do before December 7th and things that can be done after December 7th. I'm going to call these Before and After just to keep it short and sweet.

Today I am going to look at the Before tasks and the After will be covered in a topic early in December.

1) Auction: log onto you characters and move to you nearest bank. Open all your bags (shift+B) and sort through all your items. If it is not soulbound, consider putting it on the auction house. It is worth more now than it will be in 4 weeks and if you find you need it just buy it again.

2) Vendor: Staying in your bank, sift through your bag and bank slots and look at all the soulbound items you have. If you're like me you'll have a collection of memory items, armor, weapons, 1st epics etc. now I'm not proposing you vendor these items but you should set aside one bag slot and fill it with your memory items. Any other items vendor them. You will never use them, they will be at least 1 expansion out of date in a few weeks anyway and you need gold more than junk in your bank. You'll be pleasantly surprised how much gold you'll get from this part. I have done this myself and my Flight Master's License will be paid for by the proceeds. So you'll fly in Azeroth for free.

3) Delete or Complete: You'll still most likely have some stuff left in your bags and bank slots. Many will be quest items. Now is a great time to complete the quest and get rid of the junk. If you can't be bothered to complete the quest abandon the quest and delete the item, sometimes the item vanishes when you abandon quests if yours didn't delete it.

4) Professions: Get all your professions to maximum level if you haven't already. Many people and guild banks will be emptying bank slots and trying to make sure they get the best price for it but mainly focused on not getting left with worthless junk. This means you get to level your professions at their expense. If you goods can be disenchanted and they do not sell quickly get an enchanter to disenchant them for you (offer a tip they'll hopefully refuse it but will thank you either way). Come Cataclysm you'll then be able to level your professions from day 1.

5) Get Guilded: Cataclysm is all about guilds, you need to be in one and now is a good time. If you have friends maybe even form your own guild. Being in a guild also gives you access to people to level with which makes the whole process faster and more fun.

6) Addons: Over the course of the expansion you will probably have acquired addons for many things. Review these addons and determine if they are really needed. If you're really brave you could just ignore this part and onCataclysm release day simply delete your Warcraft install and start from fresh. This will most likely give a a performance increase so its a worthwhile task. Although you may need to spend some levelling time setting up your essential addons.

7) Levelling Build: Consider making one of your specs a levelling build. This is not a viable max DPS raid build but rather one that helps you level faster by minimising incoming damge, maximising outgoing burst damage and minimising recovery times between fights. A mage frost build is a good example of this.

8) Food and Drugs: Make a supply of buff foods and potions that will help speed your kill rate and minimise downtime. If your cooking isn't upto the challenge maybe now is the time to speed level it. Its not too difficult and if Pilgrim's Bounty is a repeat of last year, this will be easy enough to get your skill upto 350 which puts you ready for Northrend cooking.

9) Pre-Order World of Warcraft: Cataclysm: You wouldn't want to miss out because your store sold out now would you?

10) Relax: If you've made it this far you're ready to go. Sit back and enjoy life in the knowledge that the biggest obstacle between you and level 85 is now getting your pre-ordered game from store to your computer.