Leaving Northrend at 78

[eduardo]

I know that its commonly been the consensus among botters and non-botters alike, that you should wait until level 80 before going back to Azeroth to level to 85, however, seeing as how you can now put together a relatively cheap set of level 78-79 cata gear, would it be a bad idea to leave Northrend at 78-79 to grind in the cata zones?
I currently have a level 78 (almost 79) warrior that I am botting in Storm Peaks. Once he dings 79, he will have a full set of cata gear, and I feel that keeping him in Northrend for another level will be a waste of time.
The main thing I am worried about is getting whispers from other players asking why I am not still leveling in Northrend, which will draw unwanted attention. I am pretty sure that my xp/hr will be better grinding in the Hyjal than it would be even if I was questing in Northrend.

Has anyone tried this yet?

 

[caddy]

I thought you had to be 80 to enter the new zones?

 

[Morga]

I'm not even sure you can get any quest in cata zones till 80, but if all you are going to do is grind then I guess it doesn't matter.


Morga

 

[eduardo]

I thought you had to be 80 to enter the new zones?

Nope, you can grind there whenever, but you have to be 80 to get any quests.

I'm estimating that I could get about 400k xp/hr grinding in Hyjal, vs ~300k/hr questing in Northrend. And I'm talking about hand leveling in Northrend...who wants to do that? Grinding in NR, I would probably do about 175k/hr.

 

[leeg00]

Nope, you can grind there whenever, but you have to be 80 to get any quests.

I'm estimating that I could get about 400k xp/hr grinding in Hyjal, vs ~300k/hr questing in Northrend. And I'm talking about hand leveling in Northrend...who wants to do that? Grinding in NR, I would probably do about 175k/hr.

What I did is grind right in front of starting area in hyjal. The elementals spawn very fast. So it didn't take long to get from 78-80

 

[lofi]

Nope, you can grind there whenever, but you have to be 80 to get any quests.

I'm estimating that I could get about 400k xp/hr grinding in Hyjal, vs ~300k/hr questing in Northrend. And I'm talking about hand leveling in Northrend...who wants to do that? Grinding in NR, I would probably do about 175k/hr.

You can enter Hyjal with a flying mount at level 78 if you purchased Cataclysm and bought Flight Master's License (flying in Azeroth).

You cannot get any quests until 80 which doesn't matter if you're just grinding.

However, if you're under 80 and you die in Mount Hyjal, you respawn as a ghost in another zone (e.g. Ashenvale). It is not possible to run back to your corpse since you do not spawn on a ghost gryphon. When this happens the only solution is to spirit res and fly back or hearth back to Mount Hyjal. As such, I would highly advise against botting in Mount Hyjal until level 80.