July Leveling Update

So with July behind me, there will likely only be one more of these updates before I hit my goal of 9 level 80's before Cataclysm.

The release of the beta in early July clearly took its toll on my leveling progress. I managed to gain exactly 27 levels during the month of July, or approximately 0.87 levels per day. This brought my average for the year down to around 1.1 but even at that pace, I'm still predicting to hit my goal in early September!

Last week I switched to the Shadow Priest at one point and managed to get him into Dragonblight at level 74. He continues to be an excellent leveling toon. It was also an Alterac Valley weekend this past weekend on my server, so I took advantage to add a little spice to my leveling mix. From what I have found in the past, particularly if it is the holiday battleground, it is very possible to maintain xp per hour levels in excess of 500K doing Alterac Valley (and that's with a 50/50 win loss mix). The priest is fun in battlegrounds as both shadow and disc so I did a little bit of both.

I'll be picking up the mage starting today, and we'll see if we can drive her a little further past the priest before Thursday or so. Then it will be off to the Shaman starting on Friday or so.

So here is where we stand:

Joarvyk - Shadow Priest - level 74
Joara - Frost Mage - level 71
Joarbek - Elemental Shaman - level 68
Joarstab - Combat Rogue - level 68

I've also gotten some questions in early posts about my professions and suggesting that one task after I hit this goal might be maxing out all my professions. It dawned on me that I actually haven't mentioned it much here, but I've actually been doing that all along. I have two crafting professions left to have all of them maxed out across my various toons. Those two remaining are inscription and engineering and they are currently being leveled by my shaman and rogue respectively. Both are at level 350 and ready to be leveled through Northrend (oh - and I've already got the mats to finish both off).

I've also laid out gathering professions between all my toons so that I've got two gathering slots feeding each crafting slot (or at least I will once the warrior gets leveled).

So here is the profession mix:

Warlock - Enchanting and Tailoring
Death Knight - Mining and Blacksmithing
Druid - Skinning and Leatherworking
Hunter - Herbalism and Alchemy
Paladin - Mining and Jewelcrafting
Mage - Skinning and Herbalism
Shaman - Herbalism and Inscription
Priest - Herbalism and Mining
Rogue - Mining and Engineering