Gathering, Collection Quests and Other Annoyances
Collections
Just about anyone who's been doing this for a while will tell you that collection quests are the bane of our existence. They aren't even that fun as a solo player. They are downright brutal for a multiboxer, since WoW doesn't like to share quest drops among party members very often. The good news is, you usually don't have to do them. Unless you're obsessive and can't imagine leaving a zone with quests undone, you can usually just skip collection quests. WoW almost always has 2 zones that you can level in per bracket, so you should never have an issue with not enough quests. And if you do, you always have the option of going to the other zone or doing dungeons or Battle Grounds to supplement your XP.
That said, sometimes you just have to suck it up and do them. Certain collection quests are needed to advance questlines that you can't or don't want to skip. The only tip I have for those is don't drive yourself crazy. Spend a little while doing the quest, then go off and do another quest and come back to it.
If possible, check out a leveling guide or do a search for the mobs or mobs in the area on wowhead to see if there's going to be other quests tied to those same mobs or locations. I always do this first because nothing sucks more than spending 45 minutes on a collection quest only to find out that the next step to a totally different quest was going to send me right back out there.
And always, always, always make sure you make everyone loot. Some quests actually do share questdrops for the whole party, but if you use Assist/IWT to loot on everyone at the same time, only one will pick it up and everyone else will get "that object is busy". Usually your master will win out on the lootgrab and you won't see that message, so always double-check.
Gathering and Professions
At first glance, you might think the best thing to do is take all the professions you could want across your team from the start. Usually, this is not a good idea. Most of the time, you are never going to be in the sweet-spot where the stuff you craft is going to be useful. It will either be too low, too high or you will outlevel it in hours anyway. Most likely, you will outlevel the areas you need to gather the mats from too fast to gather all the stuff you need to keep a crafting skill up to date.
It's very, very easy to waste a lot of time crafting. If you have RAF ticking away, you don't want to be spending hours upon hours in a city trying to level crafting when you could be out earning XP. Especially since you may not like the team you have at high levels.
It's usually a better idea to just take gathering professions while you're leveling and either sell the mats you gather to make money for things like mount and spell training, or store them for later use. Most people take mining and herbalism on their mains and skinning on an alt. This is a good standard to go by since it's a lot easier to go back and gather what you need at max level or simply take all that money you earn and buy what you need off the Auction House.
One thing to keep in mind is that gathering skills reward XP. Taking herbalism and mining on a main can cause you to rather quickly outlevel your other toons, so you might need to get creative to keep everyone close in level. You can either skip a few quests here and there on your main, try giving everyone "equal time" with gathering skills, try level locking your main {I don't know if that actually works} or in a case where you have a higher level toon on one of your accounts, you can put heirloom gear on the toons that don't get gathering XP or do a few rounds of boosting using a max-level toon in place of the one that's too far ahead.
Me personally, I also like to include an enchanter so I can DE drops in dungeons and other BoPs as I level up, since some of those mats can bring in some good money. You might also want to include a tailor or leatherworker since most cloth and leather doesn't sell for much {at least on my server} compared to the DE mats. This does 2 things. First, it allows you to feed your enchanter so they are always able to DE what they get. Second, it allows you to turn those bulky stacks of cloth or leather into bolts and upgraded leather, saving you precious bag space. Since I already have several teams leveled, I just send off my cloth/leather to one of my high-level tailors/leatherworkers to craft and send those to the enchanter to DE as needed.
So, what do you take when you're all leveled and ready to do tradeskills?
Alchemy - always a popular choice. Most multiboxers have several alchemists because transmuting is a pretty consistant moneymaker. I myself have 8 I think, most of them on alts I don't play, but I still have 2 on my main team. The flasks are a nice buff to have and it's hard to ignore the profit or savings in being able to transmute gems and special metals.
Blacksmithing - I always like to have BS on my tank. The extra sockets are always nice especially combined with JC only gems, and I'm sort of addicted to skeleton keys since I don't have a rogue. It's also pretty useful since I have 3 plate wearers on my team. Being able to craft plate gear takes a little pressure off getting drops, especially if I can gather my own orbs, and BS always offers some very nice weapons/shields even if you aren't a team full of plate wearers.
Jewel Crafting - The JC only gems are always a welcome boost. Prospecting is a pretty good money maker, too, either selling raw gems or cut ones. Even if you don't sell the gems, you'll save money cutting them for your team instead of having to buy them off the Auction House.
Enchanting - Just like Jewel Crafting, you'll save and/or make a lot of money with disenchanting. With several toons who are always going to need enchants, you don't want to be throwing away money on the Auction House every other day. You should be able to pull in a constant flow of enchanting mats from dungeons and questing. And there's always the stuff you're not going to be able to sell on the Auction House, like all those greens you make while leveling things like JC. Plus, the ring enchants are sweet.
Tailoring/Leatherworking - Just like Blacksmithing, they can be great choices for helping to gear your team up. Both offer nice bonuses. Personally, I have these on alts and not my main team, just so I have someone who can do them. Things like bags, cloaks, threads and armor kits are nothing to sneeze at, but I didn't feel like they offered enough for me to level them all over again on my main team. Blacksmithing, on the other hand, would allow me to make weapons and shields for everyone using BoP orb drops, so I thought that was reason enough to relevel it. But that's my personal preferance. If you've got a lot of cloth/leather/chain wearers on your team, you would get a lot of use out of having a LW or Tailor who can grab the orbs and make gear for them.
Engineering - this is an iffy one. People seem to either love it or hate it. People even bounce between loving and hating it. People like me. On one hand, I love it. Things like gas clouds and the like for bonus elementals is awesome. There's a lot of cool toys, the tinkers are nice enough and I love throwing bombs. But I also often feel like it's pretty lackluster for the amount of effort and money I put into it. It's never something I'd give up Alchemy, BS, JC or Enchanting for and so far it's one of the only skills I've refused to level again. It just doesn't offer anything incredibly useful to my team as a whole.
Inscription - This is the only other skill I refuse to level again. A lot of people swear by the money-making potential of it but I don't think that's bonus enough to keep it leveled on my main team. I'm happy enough to have it on a dusty old alt somewhere.
The Gathering Skills - I always keep Skinning, Herbalism and Mining on my main team so I can gather my own mats to use or sell. I usually split them up between my DPS because I want the bigger bonuses that come from the crafting tradeskills on my tank and healer. I always figure a stronger tank and healer makes things easier when gearing up, so I have BS and JC on my tank for the extra sockets and JC only gems and Alchemy and Enchanting on my healer for the flask, Alchemist Stone and ring enchants. Then each of my DPS slaves have a crafting tradeskill and a gathering tradeskill. In case you missed it all the way down at the bottom of the other guide, here's how I manage gathering from the slaves.
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