Leveling 80-85 methods

[heyaz]

ganking in 80-85 area's is insane. I got camped so many times it was retarded. Questing took way more than 7-10 hours from 80-85. On future teams...I dunno...

How does instance grinding with a 90 soloing the 80-85 dungeons compare to questing/this. It would avoid the ganking issue.

So, a 90 tank does not simply "solo" cata dungeons, like wrath dungeons, as it were. The mechanics are irritating as hell and it only takes like 3 packs of mobs to kick the crap out of my 90 guardian druid (ilvl 460ish), so big pulls and mowing them all down for big xp and a reset is out of the question... unless your tank can do something mine can't.

Just running through it at a regular pace wasn't very good xp for me, at least not in snorecore. The alts contributed very little and usually just died, so I left them way back but all the crap flying around just kept wiping them no matter where I put them. Those are cata dungeons for you.

[heyaz]

but you can get ganked here just as much like you said even if you fly in the air, or your main gets ganked.

The ganking there was nothing like when questing and with what was going on in the rest of the zone. It cost me maybe 1-2 hours total but I eventually figured a few things out: hide the alts in the rocks, don't fly them above, and leave your booster there and log in and check the zone regularly because it varies. My biggest issue was other horde hogging the mobs, not gankers. I frequently shared the area with alliance and as long as we kept to our respective sides, no one engaged. My druid was only ganked I think 4 times total and he was never camped, I just went right back and continued. But your mileage may vary.

So, time lost to ganking here was very minimal.

[Ishar]

When I did WOTLK, my tank was only 81; so I couldn't just grab the whole instance and AE it down. I pretty much had my DKs follow my pally around and killed stuff more-or-less legitimately. They died sometimes due to annoying mechanics, but it wasn't a constant thing. [i.e. I usually had to solo the boss fights with them sitting pretty far away]. I found the XP/Hour to not be amazing, but far higher than straight questing. I figured I could do the same thing in Cata if my tank were bigger, but maybe not from what your saying.

Still, its the other major option, since BGs are definitely crappy...

[Ualaa]

I'd think, if you have the option of a legitimate dungeon finder team.
Five toons, one who can tank and one who can spec to be a healer, even if you don't run them that way... as long as you have enough heals and a tank...
You take those five and use Dungeons to level to 90th.
Even if you do trash and then reset and use dungeon finder to avoid the limits on instances per hour.

Once you have a 90th booster...
You can park the alts somewhere and boost... such as Deepholm.

You could also borrow your tank and/or healer...
And level additional toons through instances.

Plus you could park your level 90 team nearby.
And quest or boost other toons.
If you're camped, log on the level 90 team and see how they like that.

[JohnGabriel]

Boosting has greatly improved this expansion. Both dungeon boosting and mob-grind boosting are easier.

A couple that come to mind.
AOE looting is simply amazing. Make tons of gold selling cloth drops or save tons of gold leveling tailors.

They fixed the lower level aggro thing. At level 85 sometimes I would have to sit on a group of mobs for a second or two before they aggroed, but now at 90 I dont even have to get that close and can aggro them on a run. It feels so much smoother and quicker.