It is Never to Early to Start Planning for 7.0

While  it is entirely true that we could be looking at another 10 months of warlords that doesn't mean that there are not a few things we should keep in mind when it comes to thinking about getting ready for the next expansion.

Maybe you have been through this before, maybe you have not, but I will tell you that it is very easy to keep telling yourself,  "I'll get to it later", and then before you know it the prepatch has landed and you are out of time because you are too busy trying to learn your new rotations, play with your new abilities, and finish off what seems like 101 other things you waited until the last minute for, that you missed the best time to do something, or missed the last time to do something.

We might not know what to expect and there is a hell of a lot that can still change.  After all the beta for legion is not even out yet.  But that does not mean you can't try to get a leg up and work on some of the more simple things before time starts getting short.  So I've made a very small list of a few things that might be worth considering, at least they are things I am currently thinking about.

Hunters, Get a Polearm

There is only one spec of only one class in the game that is changing the weapons they use come next expansion and that is the survival hunter.  While blizzard has said that they will make sure that hunters get a polearm when the patch comes, I say it is better to be safe than sorry.  For all we know blizzard will give hunters a free 630 crafted polearm.  If I had to guess they might give us a baleful weapon token that we can use while having survival as our loot specialization and maybe, just maybe, and empowered apexis fragment to upgrade it.

All we know is blizzard said survival hunters will get a weapon to help adjust to the charge.  I suggest not waiting for them or counting on them to do the right thing.  While you can not win a polearm on a coin roll, and you can not make one from a baleful weapon, if you are currently raiding at normal or higher, you can roll for one if no one else needs it.  Don't be a jerk about it, let anyone that can use it for main spec, or even for off spec get it first.  But if no one needs it and it is going to be sharded, ask to have it and keep it in your bags.  That way you do not have to depend on blizzard doing the right thing and giving you a polearm equal to the item level of your current ranged weapon (which would be the only fair way to do it in my opinion).

Even if you do not intend to play around with the new hunter melee spec, might as well grab one while you can.  It is better to have one and not need it, then notice you need one and not have it.

Make a Mog Bank Alt or Three

If you are someone that is interested in transmog but are out of bag space and was spending most of your time vendoring those items you got from your salvage crates instead of seeing what you might wear maybe it is time to think about holding on to them.  After all they are BoE mostly and you can send them to someone else to hold for you for the time being, and a guild bank alt can surely hold a lot of BoEs.

With the wardrobe coming anything you hold on to is going to only temporarily take up space.   Once 7.0 is released and you bind those BoE items to you by equipping them they will become learned and you can ditch them.

For the time being why not make a alt guild bank and send all those BoEs you snag from your salvage crates or from soloing old content over to the bank for safe keeping until it is time for you to learn them.

If you do plan on filling out your mog listing, now is the time because for all we know blizzard will nerf the hell out of salvage crates come 7.0, which would not be out of line for what they usually do to old money making options once a new expansions pre patch comes out.

Pro Tip:  As we do not really know if this will work this might not be the best tip but if it works, it is one hell of a killer tip.  If wardrobe does work how I (and it seems many others) believe it will work, anything you can equip will be added to your wardrobe.  So perhaps having a plate wearing character as your bank alt holding all those BoEs so you can equip everything, as in all the plate, mail, leather and cloth gear and then vendor it would be the best option instead of having to mail everything to classes that could do so. As a side note, when wardrobes are added soloing as a plate wearer so you can equip everything that is not class restricted sounds like a pretty good idea to me.

Switch Professions

A great deal of players dropped their gathering professions this expansion being it was so easy to get materials.  They figured they would never need them again.  A great many players I have spoken to in guild and other places have told me the same, that they ditched their gathering professions, and you might be one of those people too, yes you.

If you ditched a gathering profession this expansion perhaps you could consider picking it back up again.  Even if you only level your mining or herbalist through doing it in your garrison and never stepping outside, you should have more than ample time to get back to max level.  Skinning, sorry, but you will have to go out and skin.  I suggest nagrand.  Lots of animals, really super easy to kill now, and it is a ghost town there on most servers.

You will need your gathering professions again next expansion, but if you would rather just buy your materials instead of farming them, that is your right.  I like making money off you and I support that right of yours. ~insert over used 'show me the money' catch phrase here~

However, if you do plan to be self sufficient, perhaps you should start considering getting those gathering professions back before the expansion comes.  The last thing you want to do is be stuck collecting "fragments" of herbs and ore and skin for 700 skill levels before you get the real stuff after the expansion hits.

Or perhaps you were one of those people that made additional tailors to make a lot of bags, or made extra jewel crafters so you could take advantage of the lucrative jewel crafting daily every day.  It might be time to switch back to something more suitable for your characters.

Lets not even mention that right now many of us are sitting on a massive pile of materials, maybe even 10,000 primal spirits like myself, so switching a profession while you have those materials just laying around doing nothing anyway will be quick and easy.  And it will give you something to use those primal spirits on.

Pick a Third Profession?

Take this one with a grain of salt and call it more a dream of mine, as I have been saying for a long time that professions would be opening up some more.  Either by becoming account wide like mounts and toys and pets and so much other stuff has, or that they would be letting us take a third profession.  While I have absolutely zero proof either of these two things are happening, I do have a solid reason to believe we might be able to have three professions next expansion.  At least three.

Are we getting a third profession option?

I do not know how you would read this image, but to me it sure looks like that person had three professions, namely enchanting, skinning and herbalism. Outside of the obvious question of why the hell someone would choose those three professions to go together there is the one that jumps out at me.  Does this person have three professions and will we be having 3, or more, professions in legion?

It might just be something they were doing to test professions allowing people to have more during the alpha where this image was taken from for testing purposes, but with my best wishful thinking I am hoping this means we will have three professions come legion.

With that in mind, maybe it is time to start thinking what you want your characters to add.  For example, your herbalist and alchemist could easily meld well with adding inscription.  Perhaps your enchanting and tailoring alt could help your many plate wearing characters by collecting ore as well.  Or that blacksmith and miner you have could add either jewelcrafting or engineering, which both make some sense.  Or maybe you just have that druid that was a gathering alts for many years, because of their instant flight form, could now pick up the third gathering profession or maybe add a crafting profession you need to fill the spots so they can finally be promoted from being only a simple gathering alt.

All cool things to think about if you ask me.  And I am already considering what my third profession will be for all my characters.  Lets hope this was not just some "test" they happened to screen cap and show at blizzcon because I hate getting my hopes up for nothing.

(Edit:  Sadly Jaeger pointed out the quite logical thing that maybe the skinning and herbalism are just enchants to increase them while on the broken islands. I think he might be right.  Darn, I was so hoping for a third profession.)

Unload Materials

It is never too early to start unloading materials.  If you have been active all expansion or if you have a million and one alts, and you know you do, admit it, then you most likely have thousands of extra materials you will never use.  Heck, even if you do use them from time to time they are so easy to get now you can sell everything you have and restock on a whim as you need them with your garrison either by mining, herbing, or just trading extra garrison resources for what you need at the trading post.

Being the stacks are bigger now many of you might not even notice that you have more material than you will ever need.  It will just be clutter next expansion.  So ditch it now while someone still needs it.  Thanks to garrisons making people so much gold there are a great many player out there that no longer even try to gather, they just buy everything they need.  600 gold for a stack of food, on a bad day, proves that.  And I am on a small server.  So sell sell sell.  Sell while the selling is good.

Also you need to remember that blizzard has now, for a couple of expansions, made catching up on professions easier.  So much easier that you really do not need any old materials any longer.  So it will not be like the days before where at the end of wrath when infinite dust was worthless and I horded it and then sold it at the beginning of cataclysm and made an absolute killing when everyone wanted it but did not have any, just won't work as a gold making strategy any longer.

Blizzard will make a way to catch up with current materials so I will not be making a ton from old materials. Old materials, while they might still have some value, will never be worth as much as they are worth right now, because no one will need them next expansion or the one after that either thanks to professions always having catch up mechanics.

Ditch the old materials.  And while you are at it, ditch those 655, 685, and other BoEs you keep thinking "I'll sell later".  The window on getting anything from them is really closing fast.

Finish Those Challenge Modes

Anyone that might want the mounts or the transmog weapons from challenge modes, now is the time to start working on it.  If you do not have a group of friends to do it with then pugging groups that can net you all golds for the mog or even all silvers for the mount could take months.  Trust me, I know, been there and done that.  It is not fun and it sure as hell is not quick, you very well might need 10 months depending on how often you play.

The last thing someone that really wants these things wants to face it trying to get groups in the last few days before 7.0 comes out and seeing people ask only for people that already have gold.  Really people, if someone already has gold it would be easy to find a group that they would not be trying so hard now, or they would already have gold so why do it now, but that gripe about pugs aside, no one wants to miss getting the mount because they missed one silver in the closing days before challenge modes go bye bye.  Don't let that person be you.

What else do you think people should make sure to do?

Now, I know what all of you are going to say, "But Grumpy, the expansion is not coming out for as long as 10 months and 7.0 might be at closest 8 months away, why should be worry now?"  I will tell you why you should worry.  Because it is easy to get distracted, to go do something else, to think you will always have time to do this later.  Like it or not, there are a lot of procrastinators out there, me included, that think, "I'll do it later" and sometimes before you know it, later has passed and you missed the chance.

Maybe there are a few things I did not think of that come to your mind as things we should do before 7.0 comes.  Please share them.  I know I can use a gentle reminder sometimes and maybe someone else could too.