Leveling 80-85 methods

[heyaz]

So I'm pretty much done with questing, one for reasons of which we are all painfully aware, and two because xrealm zones have made Cata leveling spots a warzone - expect to be ganked relentlessly and camped.

My three ideas were dungeon boosting, AV/IOC esp. during CTA, dungeon boosting with a 90 tank, or the deepholm AOE spot. I went with the last. My experience there was excellent and I don't know if there's a faster way:

Deepholm AOE
This spot is excellent assuming you can get it to yourself (1 or less other 90s grinding it, no gankers). With xrealm zones this is going to require off hours or just getting lucky. My initial concern with this was not having the 3k'ish gold per toon after questing but this spot yields several thousand gold per hour with potion of treasure finding so it works out anyway.

Since there's no HGWT and I have no warlocks, I just summoned the toons to Stonecore and flew there.

I was using a 90 guardian druid to boost four toons. Times were as follows:
80-81: 30-40 minutes (rested), with a few other 90s hogging my mobs
81-82: 1hr 15 minutes (half rested), again 90s hogging mobs and several ganks on my alts
82-83: 2 hours (non rested), first half of level I was ganked at least a dozen times and lots of 90s farming there, second half I had it to myself.

I expect 83-84 to take about 1.5 hours if I can get it to myself. XP per kill goes up each level since the gap is closing. I'm working on perfecting the pull; I'm having problems with mobs evading and tethering back in the middle of me actively hitting them. Right now I do kind of a figure eight around the whole thing and put the guild banner in the middle so as to not lose range (it disappears).

It appears makes zero difference whether the alts participate or do damage, xp was the same so I had them fly above.

Ganking is not nearly as bad as leveling, but it happens. I was air ganked constantly by shadow priests and mages floating down, no matter where I put the alts they would get to them.

If I recall correctly, questing was 2.5-4 hours per level Before xrealm zone mass ganking, as I did on my shaman.

So far this is the fastest way I have found to get 80-85, by a huge margin.

Anyone tried any other methods besides questing and had good results? I figure a lot of us will be doing this several times...