Countdown to Cataclysm: Fishing in Cataclysm
by Mathew McCurley 
Dec 5th 2010 at 1:00PM
Deathwing may be ravaging the countryside and tearing through the sky, striking fear into the hearts of the denizens of Azeroth, but his malice can never shake the iron will of Azeroth's brave fishermen. Rod and lure in hand, these salty heroes fuel our fish feasts, ride our turtles, and regale us with stories of Old Crafty and Old Ironjaw. Flip your Titanium Seal of Dalaran and hope it lands on adventure ...
Fishing in Cataclysm has been made easier and more fun, with the addition of new fishing dailies in your faction's home city. Not only do these new dailies give you a new bag of goodies, but they now award fishing skill points for fishing. Those of you veteran anglers know the drill -- your trade is a buff food bonanza, allowing you to cook up some of the best food in the game to give your group and raid the advantage they need.
I've always been a fishing fan, since the early days of World of Warcraft. Here's a quick rundown of some of the new fishing content for Cataclysm.
The new skill, Illustrious Grand Master Fishing, enables players to raise their fishing skill to 525.
New fish
Cataclysm is adding in a bunch of new fish in the new level 80 to 85 zones. While the world has been torn asunder, Azeroth's native sea creatures have survived Deathwing's fires, and things haven't changed other than some zone levels and fish caught there. Here are the new fish you'll be catching in each zone:Regular fish
- Algaefin Rockfish Twilight Highlands, Tol Barad, Vashj'ir
- Blackbelly Mudfish Uldum
- Deepsea Sagefish Twilight Highlands, Uldum, Tol Barad, Vashj'ir
- Fathom Eel Tol Barad, Uldum, Vashj'ir
- Highland Guppy Twilight Highlands
- Lavascale Catfish Deepholm, Uldum
- Mountain Trout Mount Hyjal
- Striped Lurker Mount Hyjal, Twilight Highlands
Miscellaneous fish
- Albino Cavefish Alchemists use the Albino Cavefish to create Deepstone Oil, so find an alchemist buyer for your extra Cavefish stock.
Fishermen are now able to fish up Volatile Fire and Volatile Water, two of the new component materials for most crafted items and recipes. Volatile water is a somewhat common catch in Cataclysm fishing pools, and Volatile Fire is fished up from Pools of Fire in the lava areas of Twilight Highlands and Mount Hyjal.
New achievements
A bunch of new fishing achievements have been added in Cataclysm for the dedicated fisherman.
Personal Achievements
- The Limnologist Catch all of the freshwater inland fish in World of Warcraft.
- The Oceanographer Catch all of the saltwater coastal fish in World of Warcraft.
- Fish or Cut Bait Complete all five of your factions new Azeroth fishing dailies.
Guild Achievements
- That's a Lot of Bait Catch 10,000 fish from fishing pools; rewards the ability to purchase the recipe for Seafood Magnifique Feast, Cataclysm's fish feast and best group/raid food buff.
- We're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat Catch 50,000 fish from fishing pools.
- Like Shooting Fish in A Barrel Catch 100,000 fish from fishing pools.
Dailies
Five new fishing dailies have been added to Stormwind and Orgrimmar, awarding anglers a skill point to fishing and a Bag of Shiny Things. Sadly, these new bags do not contain the new fishing poles introduced in the Dalaran fishing daily, but they have the chance to contain a Strand Crawler companion pet and the Weather-Beaten Fishing Hat.
New Alliance fishing dailies
All Alliance fishing dailies are given out by Catherine Leland in Stormwind.
- Big Gulp Find a precious locket by fishing up monkfish in the Valley of Heroes in Stormwind and filet it open.
- Diggin' For Worms Use an Overgrown Earthworm near Lake Olivia to catch a Crystal Bass from Olivia's Pond.
- Hitting a Walleye Catch 8 Hardended Walleye in Stormwind Lake.
- Rock Lobster Collect 6 Rock Lobsters from lobster cages below the Stormwind Docks.
- Thunder Falls Catch 4 Violent Perch from Thunder Falls.
New Horde fishing dailies
All Horde fishing dailies are given out by Razgar in Orgrimmar.
- A Furious Catch Head to the Southfury river and catch a Giant Furious Pike.
- A Golden Opportunity Using Razgar's Filet Knife, find a Drowned Thunderlizard in Thunder Ridge and cut off its tail. Then, use the tail to eletrocute 3 Golden Stonefish and bring them back to Razgar.
- A Staggering Effort Kill a Stag north of Orgrimmar and use its eye as bait to catch a Sandy Carp in the Valley of Wisdom.
- Clammy Hands Loot 10 Monstrous Clam Meat from big clams out east of Durotar.
- No Dumping Allowed Fish up 6 Toxic Puddlefish in the goblin area of Orgrimmar.
Fishing and cooking are best friends -- El's Anglin' has the best guides working up both your fishing and cooking skills at the same time, for both factions. Complementary to the fishing dailies are the new cooking dailies, allowing players to collect Chef's Awards to purchase seafood cooking recipes. Alliance chefs can pick up their dailies from Robby Flay in Stormwind and Horde chefs can grab their dailies from Shazdar in Orgrimmar.
Here's the cream of the crop for all you fisherman out there. The materials for a Seafood Magnifique feast should fetch a pretty decent price on the auction house, for those people out there who don't want to spend that time catching it up themselves. Save your leftovers, and you'll be sure to find a buyer on the auction house.
Fishing is fun, profitable, and can provide lots of fun achievements and miscellaneous cool things. As one of those professions that has gone through many changes in both function and use, fishing is a fun alternative to crafting professions, while still remaining a valuable skill to have. Don't let its potentially daunting nature get you down; take fishing slow, use it in conjunction with other skills, and have a great time becoming one of the greatest anglers Azeroth has ever seen. Salty salute!
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it; nothing will be the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion (available Dec. 7, 2010), from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.Filed under: Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 4)
Swifteye Dec 5th 2010 1:39PM
I have a stupid question, for anyone patient enough to hear me out and who might know what I'm talking about based on what limited crappy information I'm able to provide.
I used to love farming fish, but since the new patches, I can barely see pools on the water at all. I am almost certain this has to do with one of the several video graphics I turned down in order to be able to run WoW at over 3fps... liquid effects, spell effects, auras, etc.
Does anyone else have this problem? And more importantly, is there a specific graphic option I can crank up that will let me see fishing pools easier yet isn't connected to a ton of other graphics that turning up will choke my speed?
Thanks if anyone can help... didn't really know where else to ask, heh.
Zaros Dec 5th 2010 1:51PM
The water graphic on "Low" is what makes it hard to see. Either learn "Find fish" to make them sparkle or turn your graphics water detail to "Fair" to allow pools to be more visible. When on "fair" the pools look like tiny whirlpools in a sea of calm blue. As long as you only fish and avoid combat, a low FPS shouldn't be too much of a distraction while fishing as long as you change it back after.
truffel8 Dec 5th 2010 1:52PM
I do believe that there is a graphic on it's own for the "sparkles". I think it's the Particle Density one. Turn that one up and see if it makes it any better for you, because I'm not 100% positive on this. I hope it works for you though!
Swifteye Dec 5th 2010 4:32PM
Thank you so much for the help! I think I'll mess with the particle density first, because I do have Find Fish and the sparkles are nearly invisible to me as well... if that doesn't work I'll tweak the water quality settings. I hesitated to try that one because even on "Fair" I had noticeable slowdown (I wanna say 30-40fps compared to my usual 60)... but I suppose you're right; the sluggishness doesn't matter so much for fishing by itself, heh.
Thanks again for the tips! I don't necessarily miss fishing so much, but I certainly do miss cooking up tons and tons of fishy noms without having to shell out scads of gold on the AH!
Lee Weaver Dec 6th 2010 9:48AM
best answer is buy a good vid card and turn averything back up.
alpha5099 Dec 5th 2010 1:46PM
I'm definitely looking forward to working on the new fishing achievements. My main is already Salty, but I still need several of the rare catch achievements (Old Ironjaw, Old Crafty, the turtle, and the rat). I can understand why not everyone would like fishing, but I think it offers a great alternative time sink. Wanna do something while chatting with people in game? Waiting for the raid to start? Don't have time to do much in game but want to kill 15 minutes? Fishing! Catch it!
I hope they do add more things to the new Fishing daily reward. I already have the crab and the hat, but I never managed to get either of the fishing poles from that bag. Maybe a new pole or two, and a new pet. Hell, if they want to be really generous, put the Sea Turtle in as an incredibly rare drop.
Valorum Dec 5th 2010 1:55PM
wait... I have to catch 10,000 fish before I can even get the recipe? Or did I read that wrong?
glyakk Dec 5th 2010 2:07PM
Not you personally, but the entire guild as a whole needs the achieve before it can be unlocked to purchase.
Ice Dec 5th 2010 2:52PM
Might as well be personal.. I'm like only one fishing on our guild anyway.
Have to get people interested or I get myself insane.
squig_masta Dec 5th 2010 3:28PM
So assuming at worst case scenario you always catch your fish in the last second (17 seconds) it'd take roughly 47 hours of combined fishing time between you and your guildies to unlock the recipe (17 seconds times 10,000 fish, divided by 60^2 to convert to hours). Probably the best way to get it done is ask all your guild members to spend 10-20 minutes fishing everyday, even if they fish up frogs in stormwind. Depending on your guild size you should have it in a week or two.
LeepinLeemur Dec 5th 2010 2:02PM
Remember that with multi-tracking, you can track fish while tracking other stuff!
Al Dec 5th 2010 2:44PM
http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=5477
I hope that's a Far Side reference.
Drakkenfyre Dec 5th 2010 6:06PM
Fish or cut bait is a saying older than hell.
It means "Fish, or cut bait for us", meaning fish or do something useful.
Ametrine Dec 5th 2010 2:57PM
http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/Fish+or+cut+bait
Despite what most folks somehow seem to think, not everything in WoW is a pop-culture reference.
Kurash Dec 5th 2010 2:59PM
As awesome as The Far Side is, that saying has been around a lot longer than the comic strip.
Al Dec 5th 2010 5:07PM
Hence the "hoping" part. But any excuse to 'correct' someone, this is the internet/
Socialcockroach Dec 5th 2010 3:07PM
I seem to recall that Blizzard was planning to change how fishing worked.. that they were going to make it more of a mini-game. What ever happened to this?
Mergetvs Dec 5th 2010 3:16PM
The same thing that happened to Dance Studios.
popeguilty Dec 5th 2010 3:17PM
Well, it's BoP, which means that the only people who can use it are the people who have spent the time to catch 10,000 fish, which is over two days of fishing. (Days in the sense of /played.) That's why I don't see much demand- the only people who will use them are the very tiny number of people who are obsessed with fishing.
Rufio Dec 5th 2010 3:39PM
Are you refering to the recipe? It's 10,000 pools fished by the entire guild, not per person, so as previous commenters mentioned, your average guild should have it in a matter of weeks to a couple of months at most.