Cataclysm Phasing Old Content - Farming in Cataclysm

Posted by Markco at 8:00 AM

Some massive changes are coming into play with the world of warcraft phasing system in cataclysm. For one, phasing is no longer going to be limited to the mobs and nodes you see in an area. The ground intself will become phased, as well as buildings and other obstructions that have never before been moveable. There's even talk of leaving much of the old world intact for players who haven't reached a high enough level to experience cataclysm yet. That means that if you buy the old game, you won't see the torn up world until a higher level or some quest or something. This has very interesting implications for farming old world mats after cataclysm launches.

Obviously you will still be able to farm old world mats even if you participate in whatever quest unlocks the destroyed and changed world, but who's to say there won't be easier places to farm highly valuable old world mats in the old azeroth versus the cataclysm version? Perhaps the zombies in eastern plaguelands will be the best place to farm for essence of undeath and it will be used as a major leveling block for archaelogy? There's really no way to know how important old world mats will be, as blizzard has already stated that they want to change the number of skill levels you get for crafting harder to make items and to make leveling professions easier in the earlier stages of the game.

I could be totally wrong on all accounts for my vision of cataclysm, but I know for a fact that blizzard is going to be forced to make level 1's in azeroth phased into a different zone then level 85's. Imagine a level 85 camping lowbies in the barrens on a flying mount. /shudder

Now, how can you avoid having all your farming level 85 toons getting phased out of awesome old world farming spots? I'm assuming that level 80+ is going to be where you get phased into cataclysm, so leaving behind a level 70-79 is probably all you will have to do.

So, am I dead wrong on my predictions of cataclysm? Perhaps reading too far into it? Or is this discussion getting you to wonder as well about how to profit from azeroth wide phasing?

Are you wondering what materials you should stock up on for Cataclysm levelers? Will the changes to leveling professions make items like thorium ore easier to obtain or required less to mid-level professions?