Breakfast Topic: Meanwhile, back at the farm...
by Mike Schramm 
May 21st 2007 at 8:02AM
Whenever I hear the phrase in that title, I think of one of my very favorite children's books.ANYWAY, this Breakfast Topic is entirely selfish. Lately, I've continued to try and build up enough gold to get my epic mount, as well as bring my alchemy skill up, so I've been doing lots and lots of farming lately.
And I've come up with a few tips for doing it-- watch a movie while I'm at it, make circles around zones that have exactly what I want (Felwood, Un'goro, and Hellfire Peninsula have been great for Herbalism, but I've never done Mining or farmed for Tailoring items or Motes), and make sure to pick up bags meant for crafting items, so I have enough room to haul what I need.
So what tips have you picked up for farming? Some people are crazy about it-- I know my guildleader has done it for hours, getting both mining mats and herbs for our guild-- and surely they know lots of inside stuff that us casual players take a long time to pick up. What would you recommend to someone who heads out into Azeroth and Outland looking for nature's gifts?
Filed under: Herbalism, Mining, Skinning, Tailoring, Items, Tips, Tricks, Breakfast Topics, Making money
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Smutcakes May 21st 2007 8:20AM
Farm feliron behind the dark portal. A good amount of nodes popping up, often deserted by other players and the best thing: no mobs. Had mining maxed by the time I hit 60.
Primal Water: Terrokar lake. The droprate is sucky, but the eels are total pushovers. I average 10 motes in 10 minutes and it's just outside of Shatt, no travel time for a quick grind. Also neither a flying mount nor max fishing skill needed.
Quoi May 21st 2007 9:28AM
A little heads up for frost mages looking to farm primal waters: there are Muck Spawns in Halaani Basin that drop Motes of Water and are not immune to frost attacks.
Chika May 21st 2007 9:48AM
Seems like the large lake behind the horde base and below the Plateau of the Elements in Nagrand is also a good place to farm water motes. Just throw some music on and grab an underwater ability to stay under for some time and you can farm the water spirits in a big circle.
The actual Plateau is also good, but you'll probably have major competition, dependent on the server (Reg. vs. PVP)
Mining, well, I have to say in SMValley, I can grab nodes pretty quickly and for lowbies, Stonetalon Mountains Charred Vale is awesome. Just do rings around it and after 40 minutes, your bags should be overflowing.
And Google is always your best friend, cuz someone out there has farmed and written about it and did it better than you. Always someone who can grind better...
Psyclerk May 21st 2007 8:53AM
I call shenanigans on getting 10 motes every 10 minutes out of that lake in Terrokar. Even two or three shotting the eels, it takes me 20-30 minutes to get 10 motes. This assumes that I have the lake to myself, which these days is extremely unlikely. Unless you go at the best off-peak time, the lake will likely be camped to pieces. The respawn is not too bad, but once there are more than four or five players in the water, you're better off trying somewhere else. It doesn't help matters that those eels are part of a quest.
Razzo May 21st 2007 8:59AM
As an Affliction warlock i go for the cornsortium dudes in netherstorm. It's amazing how many you can pull at a time and they drop pretty sweet amounts of Netherweave Cloth and greens. Haven't counted the time vs. the gold but i like it there allthough you might stumble into a rogue or 2 on your way.
chaz May 21st 2007 9:13AM
I always end up buying Primal Lifes, and grinding the others. The droprate has just always sucked for me. Motes of Water, Mana, Fire, Earth are all pretty for me - why the hell does Life suck so much?
Wow, I just sounded unintentionally emo there.
Anyone have a better spot to grind motes of Life than the Dead Mire?
Bryce Fischer May 21st 2007 9:23AM
Primal Lifes are the easiest. They drop off the Bog lords in southern Zangar... I have like primal life's sitting in my bank from a day of grinding there.
Quoi May 21st 2007 9:28AM
@4
Quagg Ridge in Southern Zangarmarsh. Fairly high droprate, and the mobs are easy to kill with a fast respawn.
For mages, Skald in Blade's Edge cannot be beat. Weak mobs, good grouping, fast respawn. There are 3 solid AoE pulls in the area, and by the time you kill one, another pops up. Motes of fire, greens, and the odd blue (got a Staff of Divine Infusion the other night) make this place a real money maker.
Ryan May 21st 2007 9:42AM
@4 Grind those bog lords, but get an herbalist to go grinding with you, since you can also get the motes by 'herbing' the corpses.
Kyle May 21st 2007 3:25PM
@3
I totally agree. Those guys can be pulled in 2-3, killed easily and drop a fair amount of coin and cloth (with the aoccasionjal green/blue). They also have the Insignias for Consorturium rep.
Yashima May 21st 2007 10:47AM
I am herbalist/alchemist (transmuter). I rarely go herb farming unless everybody else is raiding.
So basically I make gold with selling off excess herbs, fishing+cooking, disenchanting, a bit of AH-luck now and then, transmuting cheap primals/essences into more expensive things (undeath->water->air, earth->water->air).
Mote farming:
* earth = AH
* life = herbalist
* water = fishing/transmute
* air = transmute
* mana = Netherstorm/Herbs
* fire = I hate farming fire ...
* shadow = who needs shadow anyway?
Other things I sell:
* I love selling vendor recipes on the AH ... it is not a lot you can make with that but a lot of small amounts add up over time.
* Leather of all levels still sells pretty good (I just found out that thick armor kits more than make up for the costs skills/equip of the alt that crafts them)
* anything needed for crafting "twink" items.
* Potions/Elixirs, haven't sold any for quite some time, but used to be pretty profitable before the 2.1 announcement ... have no idea whether that already changed since I have my mount now and am hoarding mats for the new improved "discoveries"
* cooked fish/food
* essences/primals
* enchanting mats
* herbs
* faction items I don't need
* twink items I don't need (rarely)
* anything that's not gray ...
The trick is not finding stuff to sell ... just play. The trick is when to sell for what amount and sometimes what stacksize and keeping an Alt on the AH at all times and doing regular AH business. If you don't sell a lot of things you will not make a lot of money and if you won't stay at it you will never learn the prices and which items really do sell on your realm. My advice is to only start speculating when you have bought or sold some of the item in question and know there is a market. Stay away from epics and even blues ... you need to invest too much of your budget with too great a risk.
Spread your "portfolio" prices go up and down all the time. Wait for the right moment to sell those primals ... and stick to the leather market while it's good.
Check patch notes and get to the sweet stuff ahead of the patch. Hoard up on "Ancient Lichen" now since it will be need in stacks of 10 in 2.1 for the druid epic flight form quest. (unless they changed that *g*)
Know quests and recipes ... always sell the right stack size. People are more likely to buy 4 slightly overpriced fel iron bars for the key quest for Shattered Halls then 10 cheap ones that still cost more in sum than the stack of 4.
So just my 2c to the fun game of getting more gold than most others in your guild and impressing them with your knowledge of the worth of every item that drops ... and you don't even need Auctioneer to do it ;)
Sylythn May 21st 2007 10:13AM
At least on my server, it's cheaper for me to buy Primal Earth and have my GM transmute them to Water. Hit up your local alchemist to take advantage of things like this.
Salty May 21st 2007 3:25PM
Why are people only talking about motes? Mote farming is one of the most boring and tedius tasks in the game (although next patch, Essences will drop from lv70 elementals - Essence of Fire, Essence of Air, etc). Furthermore, if you actually use primals in your profession, I don't see why you'd sell raw primals - same goes for ore. I can never sell a stack of adamantite, I make grenades, bullets and scopes constantly. There are plenty of other funner places to farm (yes farming can be fun). Here's just one example: Blackrock Depths.
Go in there with a godmode 70 like a rogue, hunter, pally or druid! It's easy to make a few hundred gold a day, go to BRD and reset it 5 times, hope you get a Fiery enchant off of Loregrain or smoking heart of the mountain off Roccor. Kill almost all the bosses and sell the BOP blues in the bar (the gear sells for 1-3g but the weapons are usually 3-6g and there are over 20 bosses in BRD). It may take you a while to figure out the optimal path to go (trade secret here), but I can clear the whole instance solo w/ my 70 hunter.
Kill a LOT of mobs, get the argent dawn rep items and hock those. AD rep items were sorta trivial at 60, rep came from scourgestones and people used the AD rep items for half-decent blues and purples. But now that those items are worthless and strat/scholo runs are a lot rarer, people are buying the AD rep items for all of the profession recipes at higher faction. Sell the runecloth, vendor the 20 large brilliant shards. It takes the same amount of time it took your 5-man at lv60.
LBRS is the best for this, but any lv60 instance will do: Tier 0.5 junk blues (devout, beaststalker, etc). Nobody really cares about these things anymore, they go for 5-25g at most, but they're BOE blues >lv50 that disenchant into LBS and of course you can sell them and/or help gear up your upcoming guildies.
It's pretty clear that a lot of lv70s, esp right now, are getting tired of endgame or getting tired of trying to get into endgame. A lot of people have started new toons and are in their 30s, 40s and 50s. Everyone knew that after TBC the market for lv50-60 gear would flatten out and lots of people sold nice stuff dirt cheap. Now the bank alts are emptied out for birds, all of those old obsessive 60s are now raiding Kara, and all of those drops from lv60 instances are so much more rare!
KL May 21st 2007 3:44PM
My highest right now is level 39 (mostly because I have a bunch of alts and I spend a lot of time on farming and leveling professions) but I have found some good places to farm for those that haven't hit 70 yet. For low-level herbing right out of the starting gate, my favorite place is south of Lake Alameth in Teldrassil. There are herbs everywhere (thanks to there being no ore in Teldrassil) up to Mageroyal and Briarthorn. As for mining, the obvious Tin/Copper choice is Loch Modan--I used to run laps of the whole zone and get stacks of it in very little time. For mithril, I love the Charred Vale in Stonetalon. There's a ton of mithril and iron, and you can farm harpies for feathers and cloth while you're waiting for respawn. Another good mithril spot is Highperch in Thousand Needles. You can also skin the mobs there. If you're alliance on a PvP server, try and get there at an offtime--lots of horde running around (I'm on Stormreaver, which is PvP, and I've gotten ganked many many times here). Another good grinding/farming spot for cloth, money, and Vibrant Plumes (Darkmoon Faire reputation) is Roguefeather Den, also in Thousand Needles. The harpies respawn quickly, are easy to kill once you hit level 30, and drop silk. The cave also has several iron nodes and a chest or two.
If anyone knows any other good spots to farm mithril or herbs around skill level 95 or so, I'd appreciate some tips.
As for 'farming' the AH, there are two mods I absolutely cannot live without: Auctioneer and Bottomscanner. Auctioneer saves statistical data from the AH so you don't have to remember what silk cloth was selling for three days ago. Bottomscanner scans the most recent 50 auctions posted and alerts you whenever a bargain pops up. However, it doesn't take away the fact that you have to know the AH and the economy on your server--you can lose a lot of money if you take all of its suggestions, but you can make a lot of money if you know what things are selling for. Auctioneer also helps tell you how to price your auctions, and lets you know whether it's worth it to sell or if you should hang on to it for a couple of days.
Hope this helped, even though I'm quite a ways from the endgame.
Alkahn May 21st 2007 4:29PM
I found this podcast a handy guide for making money. There's a sequel to it (that talks about the AH) on www.wcradio.com as well under the "Short Stuff" archive:
http://www.wcradio.com/archive/ShortStuff/Ka-Ching%20Episode%201.mp3
T May 26th 2007 3:26AM
11 and 14 have GREAT points!
Stack size is very important - a stack of 2 righteous orbs or 4 large brilliants or whatever will sell very well - know your crafting and you'll go far.
Auctioneer is GREAT for money, and you and all your guildies should pick up the Gatherer mod as well. That way, you will eventually know where all nodes and plants and chests in an area are.
Furthermore, make friends with or be a crafter/chanter, and you can basically manufacture money. On my server, I get a friend to make me wicked leather headbands. I provide her all mats, and a cut of profits. Mats for headband cost ~1g50, and it DE's to an illusion dust or 2, a greater eternal essence or 2, or occasionally a large brilliant shard. I always double, and sometimes triple, my money. All servers are different, but there's almost certainly some crafted item that will in bulk DE for more than value of mats.
glexen Jul 26th 2007 8:47PM
i dont have my epic mount but i run around hellfire peninsula and that place is mine-crazy.. i have a gatherer mod which helps a lot too.. just dont let someone fly up while ur fighting and take ur mine >.