Things left undone
by Allison Robert 
May 14th 2008 at 7:00PM
I've been farming a lot of ghost mushrooms and gromsblood lately in order to make Demonslaying Elixirs. My guild's farming trash in Sunwell Plateau at the moment and has taken a few half-hearted swings at Kalecgos, all of which ended in much hollering and arguing and waving of hands in the air. But despite the fact that Big Blue is likely to ride our collective ass for weeks, I like to think of myself as a long-term planner with a gimlet eye on Brutallus. So, a-farming I go.
The materials for the elixir are fairly irritating to farm in quantity, and I find myself in a lot of areas I never even leveled extensively in when I was raising my Druid main. Desolace? Paid it a visit to get some fishing done. Blasted Lands? Uh...passed through it on my way to Outland. Maraudon? Did I do that? I want to say I did, but was brought up short at learning of the existence of a scepter that allows you to bypass two-thirds of the instance. I know for sure I've never set foot in Dire Maul North, much less a Tribute Run, I'd never seen the live side of Stratholme, and I hadn't so much as clapped eyes on the Emperor in Blackrock Depths.
There's a lot of content that has a tendency to go by the wayside when there's something bigger and better coming up, and it started to bother me that my main had never seen so much of classic WoW. Mike touched on this the other day in a Breakfast Topic wondering what a worthy goal would be before Wrath hits, and this is a variation on the same theme -- dusting off older content, older quests, and just enjoying them for their own sake without the pressures of being undergeared, having to level, or making multiple irritating corpse runs (seriously, though, could the graveyard for the Blackrock instances be any less convenient?).
So for the past few weeks I've been on a pre-60 content kick, and most of it's turned out to be pretty cool. BRD has rapidly become something of a favorite because you get some crazy drops in there, and it's fun running around Shattrath sporting the finest in pre-60 blues. And, as you may observe from my helpful screenshot, it's the type of experience you really want to share.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Instances, Expansions, Lore, Bosses, Leveling
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Nathan May 14th 2008 7:16PM
You can find 4 spawn points close together for ghost mushroom in Skulk Rock in the Hinterlands. They spawn on a 10 minute timer or something, maybe less, but spend a few hours in there and you should be able to get a few stacks easily. The mobs are low so you can disregard them.
Well, thats where I used to go pre-TBC.
Ken May 14th 2008 10:47PM
Gah, here I go... giving away my farming secrets again.
OK, in addition to the Ghost Mushrooms you'll find in Skulk Rock, you can also get about 4 more in Jintha'Alor. The area used to be filled with epic mobs ranging from level 54-58, but Blizzard recently changed a lot of pre-60 outdoor epic encounters to non-epic encounters, so all mobs are non-epic now.
When you reach the very top, there's a cave with two guards at the entrance. Go in there and you'll find at least one (all the time). Then go back out of the cave, hang a right and go into the area where the queen is (big circular area). There's a cave back there with about 3 more mushrooms. Once you're finished in Jintha'Alor, go back to Skulk Rock and farm more. Wash rinse.
In my experience, you can farm the stuff faster than it respawns, so I believe it's on a 25-30 minute timer. When I finish 1 round, I go back to the first cave at the top of JA and hang out while I alt-tab (for about 5-15mins), browse the web, watch youtube videos or whatnot while waiting for the respawn. By the time that one respawns, you should have full respawns in the other cave at the top of JA. Get those, then back down to Skulk Rock and you should have a good rotation there.
Gromsblood can be found really easily in Felwood. I believe that's the zone where it's most dominant, and that's the zone I used to farm it from pre-BC while farming for Whipper Root Tubers and Night Dragon's Breath. It's about as common as Dreamfoil is out there, and that's pretty damn common. Since no one really farms that stuff much anymore, it should be a lot easier to find than it was for me pre-BC.
I'm glad to hear you're having fun with the old content, and sorry to hear you had to miss out on it way back when. I had my share of good times in Stratholme, Scholomance, BRD, LBRS, UBRS, and the works. I also had my share of bad times due to bad playes or a shitty group composition, or the noobs that like to treat UBRS like one big zerg fest.
The Dire Maul tribute run was fun and challenging. You should try it sometime. The timed Stratholme run was also very fun and challenging. Then there's Onyxia -- some of my friends and I 5-manned her about 2 weeks ago. Long fight but fun. There are also 4 green dragons (outdoor encounters) that are still ?? elites and still fairly tough for a 5-man group. The last time I did this with friends, I ran out of mana so much, I had to leave combat to drink about 9 times. If you really want a challenge, try 5-manning Blackwing Lair (if you're attuned).
Allison Robert May 15th 2008 11:29AM
Thank you both for the tips, and I'll keep an eye out. I've also installed Cartographer's herbalism package to try to speed the process up some (too bad Cartographer's a bit buggy in the wake of the patch), but there's no denying that farming both herbs will cost you an arm and a leg in flight fees.
5-manning BWL? I'd try it. BWL is one of the early steps in the scepter questline (which at this point I'm doing for ha-has as someone transferred to my server to open the gates) so maybe I'll turn that into my personal goal before Wrath hits.
Solidarn May 14th 2008 7:25PM
Imagine being an MC/BWL raider with that blackrock corpse run.
Reinard May 14th 2008 7:45PM
Man I do not miss MC at all :(
Allison Robert May 15th 2008 11:26AM
Some things are too horrible even to think about...
Johnnyd2 May 14th 2008 7:59PM
this may sound weird, but i never entered Feralas XD. just did STV and stuff.
Rob May 14th 2008 8:00PM
Really wish they would drop attunement on old instances. I've done only a handful of them, they seem interesting but extremely long. But no way am I going to spend 10+ hours to get attuned to go kill Ony. Sometimes I just think blizz only cares about Esports and profit.
Iwanttobeasleep May 14th 2008 8:20PM
Me too. I know they don't like to revisit old stuff, and I don't blame them, but I can't imagine it would take that long to remove. It's dumb that now the hardest, and only, attunements in the game are for raids that can easily be 5-manned by 70-raiders in Kara gear.
Timothy May 14th 2008 10:39PM
Are you kidding?? I'm looking forward to trying to tune to Onyxia. I'm also gonna try to attune to all those no longer necessary attunement instances. Just me, I guess, but I love the idea of attuning to these things. I also love collecting the keys.
Zerubabble May 14th 2008 9:21PM
Yeah, I just saw a good portion of Stratholme today that I've never seen before. I decided to solo farm for the Idol of Brutality from Magistrate Barthilas on my 70 druid. It made me want to go visit some of those other places I never saw.
jaenicoll May 14th 2008 8:07PM
Awhile ago, my guild's raiding frequency dropped severly and I found myself with time and the desire to catch up on some old content.
I discovered that completing old instance quests and reading up on their back story very fulfilling and soon found myself inventing umpteen personal challenges like soloing all old world bosses and completing all the old world uber quest chains.
One of my fondest wow memories is of the first time I managed to solo Stratholme and down Baron Rivendere within the 45 minute timer. Another is completing The Great Masquerade in Stormwind.
Sure the gear for the most part sucks (other than a few notable exceptions) and the accomplishment may seem trivial to some people but there is a bunch of stuff to explore in the old world that can be made interesting and challenging and it can be a helluva lot of fun too.
Longjohnson
Allison Robert May 15th 2008 11:32AM
I couldn't agree more; a LOT of the old content is great for lore junkies like myself and being able to experience it all at a relaxed pace without a harried PuG breathing down your neck is great.
I have yet to try soloing a Baron run but I think I could pull it off if I brought along some Purification potions (as a druid I can't do much about the rampant disease the mobs inflict upon you, and from what I recall at least one of them in Strat is fairly unpleasant even at 70).
Kyle May 14th 2008 8:42PM
I've never been to Emperor in BRD. I've been to the room with the torches though and wiped a bajillion times before giving up. Never been past MC in raids. Missed ALOT of major low levels quests that are practically famous. Never did LStrat on main when it was pre-tbc. Only did Scholo once. Never did Ony before 70 :(
Lots of other things but I can't remember. My plan was to level an alt that will go slow and expierence all of these things. Warrior at 70, hunter going straight to 70 for farming. Druid going nice and slow to see it all.
toxicw May 15th 2008 11:47AM
The Emperor is hell to get to. Did him on my 62 BE pally with
one 70 lock in group and 3 high 50's.
Is a nightmare to get to him. The torch guys are murder. Need some serious AOE in that room. Must have tried BRD 20 times before got to him. Just recently got keyed for Onyxia on my 62 dwarf pally. Still want to do the outdoor dragons, Blackwing Lair, Onyxia, and Naxxramus. No one mentioned Naxxramus, another instance in Eastern Plaguelands. Want to do Molten Core also, am attuned but can never find a group for.
70 BE Pally just got key for UBRS. What about the two instances in Slithius? Anyone ever do them? I haven't.
Have done the Dire Maul tribute run.
How about instances that looked planned but still not implemented. Near the Giants in southern Tanaris and demons in southern Winterspring. Love to explore!
Heleth May 14th 2008 8:52PM
This is one of the reasons I think blizzard is crazy not to add heroic modes (and legendary modes at 80?) to oldworld instances.
I mean especially now that they say that 10/25 raids are just the same things scaled.
Jack Spicer May 14th 2008 9:46PM
What they really should do is pick one or two instances to update and see what the response is. Heroic Scarlet Monastery for the win!
Kevin May 14th 2008 8:55PM
Around Christmas time I went and cleared all of BRD since I don't think I ever got passed the arena part while leveling. It is actually a really cool place to go solo when you don't need to worry about bad pugs. I think one day I will probably finish Mara and do dire maul, strat and scholo since the little bits of those places along with the lore is all really cool.
Jesmond10 May 14th 2008 9:45PM
I've set myself the goal of getting the full Shadowcraft set on my Rogue, along with a Barman Shanker and some other 60ish gear from original release. I'm up to 4 pieces, though getting someone to help me run UBRS for the chest might be an issue. I'm planning on getting into Wildheart, too, just for kicks.
I also wish I hadn't sold my Shaman's Elements gear, since I'd really like to finish that set too.
Kyle May 14th 2008 10:11PM
Oh, I might try that too with my warrior. I was also going to try and farm up Foror's book when I'm not busy for Quel'Serrar. ALWAYS loved the look of that sword and just want to carry it around.