I did the math

...and I've spent close to two million gold on mounts over the past year and a half.

I feel less shame about being an AH player who has never reached goldcap now. I am a mount collector.

I still don't have either of the Spectral Tigers though.

Finally...

A 200 mounts achievement has been added to the 5.3 PTR. I take this as a clear signal to start working on mounts again. As of this writing I'm at 180 or so, so it shouldn't be too much of a stretch if I put some effort in.

Up to this point in the expansion I've been mostly ignoring the goldsink mounts, such as the Jeweled Panthers, engineering rockets, that 120k reforging mount, etc, because there was never any point in buying them now; I could just as easily buy/craft them later on, and in all likelihood for cheaper. But now we have a handy deadline. I'll start setting gold aside, and as long as nothing extraordinary appears on the Black Market before then [like Invincible or Mimiron's Head] I'll make the purchases after the patch drops.

For now though, there are I estimate around three thousand welfare mounts that I've yet to bother to grind from the Pandaria factions. Not to mention all the pre-Mists mount grinds that I abandoned when the expansion came out. Maybe I wont end up having to spend anything.

Actually playing

My death knight, Geldt, reached level ninety, and I'm not really sure what to do with him now. I'm still missing a few meta gem cuts so I'll probably at least run a few Heroics until I can pick them up.

What has surprised me is that I'm enjoying Unholy spec more than tanking as Blood spec-- surprising because I normally love tanking. I find Blood has a steep learning curve and a radically different playstyle to the Warrior which I am way too familiar with. Death Knight is almost like a backwards Warrior-- instead of charging to enemies you grip or silence them so they come to you. I feel like learning to tank at an acceptable level would require me to un-learn a good deal of my Warrior technique. It also occurred to me how superfluous having a second level ninety tank is, considering I much prefer playing the Warrior.

Unholy on the other hand is a blast. I've said it before, but the disease-spreading mechanic is great fun, and I love classes that feel like they're using many different damage sources. I actually think I prefer this class to Enhancement Shaman, mainly because the AoE is easier to manage.

So this has been a nice diversion from... not playing the game, I guess. Now I'm eyeing my level eighty-five hunter and remembering all the times I had previously returned to that class to realise that I had forgotten how much fun it was.

Still "playing"

The AH is more than half my game currently. I buy using the mobile app while I'm at work and run TSM on a second account at home.

As far as actually playing the game is concerned, since 5.2 I've done a bit of Thunder Isle, a bit of Archaeology, some odd jobs around my farm, but I still feel a pretty powerful ennui about endgame. I think I need to raid again. I suddenly realised that there isn't anything compelling me to complete new solo content on my "main" toon Syrannia. I could be going in there with my warlock Coreus or another class which is more interesting to solo with than Arms warrior. Not that I dislike Arms specifically-- I just prefer ranged classes when not tanking.

I decided to start levelling my Death Knight, Geldt, from eighty-five to ninety, so I picked up Jewelcrafting on him to finally get those meta gem schematics which only drop from Pandaria mobs. I had to dump Mining to do it [Alchemy stays-- you can never have too many alchemists] so I levelled mining again on my Paladin, dropping Jewelcrafting to do so [again for him, Alchemy stays].

It's a bit of an odd thought, but what I always find disappointing about relearning professions is when you finally hit 600 skill and no achievement pops up because you already got the "two maxed professions" one from before.

So my professions as they stand are:
Syrannia [90 warrior] -- Blacksmith, Goblin Engineer
Coreus [90 warlock] -- Enchanter, Tailor
Tashraal [90 shaman] -- Scribe, Gnomish Engineer
Geldt [86+ death knight] -- Jewelcrafter, Transmute Alchemist
Ghamor [85 hunter] -- Leatherworker, Transmute Alchemist
Judicas [85 paladin] -- Smelter, Transmute Alchemist

Arldern [85 druid] -- Herbalist, Elixir Alchemist

I'm pretty happy with that. Herbalism is the weakest link, as only a gathering profession, but I have from time to time found the need to go out hunting for specific herbs that are not available on the AH, and farming herbs in druid flight form is still the best way.

The only profession I don't have effectively maxed out is Skinning, which is fine with me because it's by far the most useless profession. I think I've given Skinning to every new toon I've rolled in the past two years, but it's been that long since I actually levelled anything. I'm sure I'll get there with my Monk eventually.

So I guess this is the game for me these days. I spend more time organising my shit, "preparing" to play the game, than actually playing it. I spend hours tweaking my sell prices and buy alerts, I min-max my professions, and I love to buy levelling BoEs pre-emptively if I think there is any chance I'll find it useful. I've been buying a bunch of Mists BoEs for my L85 Hunter, for that point in the future when I finally get around to playing him again, realising the whole time that if anything it will actually make the game more boring to play due to overgearing.

But yeah, I reckon I'm set up pretty well now, for when I do end up playing the game.