Mounts at 30?

So according to WoWWiki's 2.4.3 patch notes, mounts will now be available at level 30. Great - my Paladin is currently level 25 or so, and maybe this will get me focusing on her over my variety of other alts.

Then again, my Druid is level 19 right now. I'd been looking forward to travel form, but once I hit 30 I can blow 35g or so on a proper mount and get +60% ground speed, as opposed to the +40% of Travel form. I guess a proper mount has the disadvantages of cost and cast time, but really... the cast time isn't a huge deal, and neither is the cost, even for a first-time player. I took a tip from a friend and took mining as one of my professions on Melgarr, my first character; once I hit 30 and discovered Mithril, I had the 100g for my mount by the time I was level 38, after buying a few equipment upgrades. (I also treated myself to full plate armor with most of the money I made in that period, but that's a different story involving overpriced mithril bars and underpriced level 40 gear on the AH.) Now, I grant you, not everyone will know that kind of trick... but I would think (and I've not leveled many gatherers, but I would think) that any gathering profession could make 35g pretty easily, and it seems basic logic to me that a new player would take at least one gathering profession, as he needs money for his training until he reaches level 70 and, well, won't have too many other ways of getting money before he hits 70.

So what do we do about travel form? Do we bump it down t a level 20 shapeshift, like Ghost Wolf? Well, that sets the unprecedented situation of having two shapeshifts available at the same level (cat form being the other). It also makes Feral Swiftness near worthless (rank 1 is available at level 20, and you give up Feral Charge for it - not a fair trade for your bear form.)

Ok, so we move cat form back a bit to make up for it? Maybe? That doesn't seem like a good idea to me, as it would require redoing a number of lower-level talents and abilities to match the new level. You also gain Seel Form at 16, which already feels crushed between Cat and Bear (at 10)...

So moving cat form back seems a poor idea. Adjusting Feral Swiftness might be a better idea, but what do you adjust it to? In a raid situation, a cat druid doesn't need dodge percentage, however useful that might be while leveling. Then again, from what I know most raids are indoors and thus deny the move speed increase as well. Outdoor PvP (the three lower-level battlegrounds come to mind) make great use of the speed boost, especially as you can still attack in cat form (as opposed to losing travel form as soon as you breathe on someone). You can also carry flags in cat form with Feral Swiftness, which seems odd to me - the only other comparable speed boost I know of that one can use while holding a flag is Sprint, which is nowhere near maintainable, despite the much greater speed boost - in WSG, you can use it to either get to the flag or get the flag back to your base. So maybe Feral Swiftness should take a hit for the PvP side of the game.

The other concern I have is that level 40 was the "big level" - you get your armor upgrade in a few cases (to plate, or mail, or whatever, as appropriate for your class), you get your quest for a new weapon in others, and pretty much no matter what your character, if you were playing smart you got an awesome talent (Mortal Strike, Bloodthirst, Shadowform, etc), This was all in addition to your mount of awesome and win - I'm sure everyone remembers the first time they mounted up and realized they could easily outrun pretty much any enemy they ran across.

Before level 40 was hard for me. Levels 1-10 were pretty awesome (it was my first character, after all; I seem to remember an 8-hour first sitting in which I hit level 16 before deciding bed should come into play at some point) and 10-20 were alright (I got some neat tanking abilities, but tanking just isn't my thing), but 20-30 were kind of rough. I had Berserker Stance to see me through, though, and the quest to get it, while difficult, was made awesome by the reward. This was my first real "I'm a DPS warrior" ability, and it was great to finally leave Battle Stance. (It wasn't so awesome to realize that I wasn't well enough geared to deal with the 10% extra damage, but a couple levels took care of that.)

30-40 was... difficult. It felt grindy, but not excessively so, I suppose, but looking back I have to wonder if that was because I knew there were so many awesome things waiting for me once I hit 40. And thinking about it, I have to wonder if a large chunk of the anticipation wasn't for the mount, and whether I'd have dealt with it as well if I already had my mount.

And speaking of mounts, those recipes from before still haven't sold. It might be a sign to get off of my new mage and/or stop whoring AB and AV, but I'm not sure. All I know is, I'm not going to be super happy to be among the level 60s in AV that are still riding the +60% mounts.

Edit: Finally figured out how to put some fancy links on the side. There's two blogs there and they're both awesome; go read them.