If Commendations of service stay the way they are... the gem market could die

[Ualaa]

With each previous expansion, we've had the level cap go up by 10, and the trade skill cap go up by 75.
Cataclysm is half this value, but its reasonable to assume the trade skill cap will go up by some value.

Currently we need to be level 65, for 450 skill (and 68th for Transmute Specialization).
With the cap going from 80th to 85th, I'd guess we will need toons to be 75th to reach the new trade skill cap.
But that is a guess.

Not sure how much it will cost, to purchase enough herbs to go from 450 to ???.
Multiply that by 30, and will be expensive.
I'm in the same boat, going with around 30 alchemists.. 29 most likely, but possibly 31.

Ideally, we have a bunch of gold saved, and use that to level up our alchemists as we can.
And use the ones who get to 525 (??) to gradually finance the others.

Diversity is definitely nice.
But a lot of your eggs in one place can work too.
Looking at Gems/Jewelcrafting, since its been out... it has been relatively the same.
Not saying the style won't change in Cataclysm, but I would be surprised if it does.

[Shodokan]

With each previous expansion, we've had the level cap go up by 10, and the trade skill cap go up by 75.
Cataclysm is half this value, but its reasonable to assume the trade skill cap will go up by some value.

Currently we need to be level 65, for 450 skill (and 68th for Transmute Specialization).
With the cap going from 80th to 85th, I'd guess we will need toons to be 75th to reach the new trade skill cap.
But that is a guess.

Not sure how much it will cost, to purchase enough herbs to go from 450 to ???.
Multiply that by 30, and will be expensive.
I'm in the same boat, going with around 30 alchemists.. 29 most likely, but possibly 31.

Ideally, we have a bunch of gold saved, and use that to level up our alchemists as we can.
And use the ones who get to 525 (??) to gradually finance the others.

Diversity is definitely nice.
But a lot of your eggs in one place can work too.
Looking at Gems/Jewelcrafting, since its been out... it has been relatively the same.
Not saying the style won't change in Cataclysm, but I would be surprised if it does.

Well i mean buying the mats to level it for me won't be a problem I plan on having over 500k gold easily by cataclysm. So it would have to cost over 16k per character for it to be out of reach.