Cataclysm Daily Quests, Part 1: Daily basics and profession dailies
by Aiden James Kosciesza 
Dec 31st 2010 at 5:00PM
Read the entire WoW Insider Cataclysm Daily Quest Guide series!
Since their introduction in the Netherwing quest line in The Burning Crusade, daily quests have become an integral part of World of Warcraft's design. Chances are you're familiar with the concept of dailies themselves and probably did your fair share of them during Wrath of the Lich King, but it's a whole new world out there. In this article, we'll go over the new daily quests in Cataclysm, their rewards, and how to get the most out of them.
To make sure we're all on the same page, let's go over the basics of daily quests. In addition to or instead of normal, one-time-only quests, certain NPCs throughout the world will offer "daily" quests. These quests are repeatable and bear a blue exclamation point rather than a yellow one to indicate their status. In the quest log, they'll be marked (Daily) and once you complete one, there'll be a counter at the top of your quest log showing how many daily quests you have completed that day.
When dailies were originally introduced, it was only possible to complete 10 per day, which meant you had to pick and choose which ones you'd complete. The limit has since been raised to 25, meaning you can spend a far greater amount of time on daily quests and also reap greater rewards. To break up the monotony somewhat, many daily quest givers will change their quests each day, picking from a set table of quests they offer. Generally speaking, the number of dailies offered by a particular quest hub will remain the same from day to day, though the specific quests may rotate.
Why do dailies?
The first reason to do dailies are the large gold rewards for completing quests at max level. Players can easily use this as their primary method of attaining gold if they have no interest in playing the auction house.
The other rewards for daily quests, however, should not be discounted. Almost all daily quests provide reputation with an associated faction, and many provide additional rewards such as skill-ups for profession dailies, commendations for Tol Barad dailies, and achievements for certain Therazane and Uldum dailies. Perhaps most importantly, however, daily quests are currently the only way that level 85 characters can perpetually contribute on a solo basis to guild XP. We'll discuss this aspect of dailies later; for now, let's take a look at the specific quests available.
Stormwind and Orgrimmar: Cooking and fishing dailies
If you've been eagerly anticipating Cataclysm, these are probably the first new daily quests you encountered in the shattered world. To ease the leveling process for secondary professions cooking and fishing, Blizzard has added daily quests that provide skill-ups in their respective professions as well as gold and rewards.
Unlike the other dailies discussed in this article, the cooking and fishing dailies are available to low-level as well as max-level characters. Cooking dailies have the added bonus of a Stormwind Cooking Award / Orgrimmar Cooking Award upon completion. These awards are the only way to purchase Cataclysm cooking recipes, so you'll need them if you want to level cooking to 525 and finish The Cataclysmic Gourmet. However, low-level characters will not be able to stockpile Cooking Awards for level 85; there is currently a maximum limit of 10 awards stored in your currency panel. Lowbies can spend their awards on the Crate of Tasty Meat, which costs 2 Cooking Awards and contains Cataclysm-level cooking materials that can be sold or saved to level cooking later.
The NPCs Robby Flay (Alliance) and Marogg (Horde) each offer one cooking quest per day, randomly selected from five options. Completing all five of these quests awards the achievement Let's Do Lunch (Alliance / Horde). Completing each quest awards one skill point in cooking, one Cooking Award, 7g 40s, and Alliance or Horde reputation.
The different quests will send you to various areas of the city to collect items, and unlike the Dalaran daily cooking quests, none of them require you to actually cook. Interestingly, one of the Alliance quest options, A Fisherman's Feast, actually allows you to use fishing skill to complete it; in addition to stealing the items, you can simply fish them out of the canals near the fishermen. It's also notable that troll characters receive an alternate version of the quest Stealing From Our Own requiring them to steal from the goblins rather than from trolls, as all other Horde races do. Cooking awards can be used to purchase goods from Bario Matalli (Alliance) or Shazdar (Horde).
The fishing quests are given by Catherine Leland (Alliance) and Razgar. Each offers one fishing quest per day, randomly selected from five options. Completing all five of these quests awards the achievement Fish or Cut Bait (Alliance / Horde). Completing each quest awards one skill point in fishing, 7g 40s, and a Bag of Shiny Things. If you have yet to pick up the Weather-Beaten Fishing Hat or Strand Crawler pet, this bag has a chance to drop them for you. Unlike the cooking dailies, most of the quests do actually require you to fish.
These profession dailies are a great place to start off, not only because they're conveniently located in capital cities but because of the skill-up rewards they provide. Of course, once you reach maximum skill in cooking and fishing, these quests become a bit less valuable; the cooking quest continues to provide Cooking Awards, of course, but if you've already gotten the rewards you want from the fishing bag, you may find yourself skipping the fishing daily in favor of other options.
Next time, we'll take a look at the daily quests in the new Cataclysm zones. Stay tuned!
Read the entire WoW Insider Cataclysm Daily Quest Guide series!
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from leveling up a new goblin or worgen to breaking news and strategies on endgame play.Filed under: Cataclysm, Guest Posts
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 3)
babasyzygy Jan 2nd 2011 4:31AM
Simply not true - you do not need 350 fishing to do the Dalaran fishing dailies, I was doing them with a skill under 300.
Tuscansalami Dec 31st 2010 5:58PM
I'm interested in finding out what this so called archaeology daily quest is supposed to be - there was a note in one of the patch or hotfix lists that mentioned an archaeology quest was now properly marked as a daily, but for my life, I have not been able to work out what it was referring to...
Hih Dec 31st 2010 6:35PM
When you zone into one of the new Cata dungeons with a high enough archaeology skill, there'll be something in the instance near that start that has a blue ! over it. You need to use a keystone specific to that dungeon (Highborn Scroll, Tol'vir Hieroglyphic) for some (very) minor buff that lasts in the dungeon. Stuff like 10% more damage to Naga in Thone of the Tides for example.
Until keystones come WAY down in price, it's generally not worth using them, unless maybe you're trying for one of the more difficult achievements and want a slight boost.
MisterRik Dec 31st 2010 5:51PM
I've gotten nothing but lures, a handful of silver and copper pieces, and really cheap vendor trash from the SW fishing daily bag.
Re: the "A Fisherman's Feast" cooking daily - i was quite happy to discover that it allows you to fish up the catfish for yourself in addition to stealing them from the barrels. My main is a human paladin, and IMO stealing goes against what paladins represent (and the same is probably true for priests of certain races, and really, any other class, to various degrees on an individual basis). So my paladin always catches the fish herself, even if it does take a bit longer. My other toons of other classes have no problem with the "stealing".
Jeff (Not that one ^ ) Dec 31st 2010 5:58PM
Fishing up the catfish always takes me less time than stealing them because the barrels spawn so slowly. I discovered that my Herbalist Warlock could see them on the minimap though. There are a lot around the lake in SW.
MisterRik Dec 31st 2010 7:26PM
Yeah, my herbalist can "track" the barrels, as well as the spots to dig up worms for that one fishing quest. I suspect it's a bug.
Jeff (Not that one ^ ) Dec 31st 2010 6:00PM
There was an article somewhere about the "Interact with Target" keybind. This is great for catching the crabs in SW. I'm never fast enough to click on them and it just annoys the hell out of me. Now I can just tab-target one, swim over it and hit my keybind and BLAMMO--crabs!
I've also had reports that it's great for rescuing critters in Hyjal.
Innocente Dec 31st 2010 6:03PM
Another incorrect point :
The cooking quest to gather the Boar Meat rewards TWO cooking awards !
Does the author even play the game?
Ruth Dec 31st 2010 7:35PM
Yes, this. One of the cooking quests gives two of the awards, and another gives two skill points. I believe the same goes for the fishing quests. This is the same for both the Loliance and the Borde, errr, I mean the Alliance and the Horde.
Rolly Dec 31st 2010 7:19PM
Latency check, click quests confined to small areas with everyone chasing the same spawns are quite simply not fun in my book.
I've canceled, this whole expac is not the Blizzard I knew.
The very first quest to go to Vash alliance side has alliance soldiers with orc sounds on the boat when Budd jumps in. WTF Blizzard, female goblins with male voices as well????
Re-introducing tired old mechanics from vanilla;
DID YOU THINK WE HAD FORGOTTEN?
DID YOU THINK WE HAD FORGIVEN?
meh I'm done.
arcaneterror Dec 31st 2010 7:56PM
Don't let the door hit you on the way out bro.
Ruth Dec 31st 2010 8:46PM
Yeah, we love that door.
killercactiii Dec 31st 2010 8:50PM
I love the irony of these /ragequit comments. You stop playing the game, but still bother to read fansites.
Cephas Dec 31st 2010 9:19PM
...and what exactly does this have to do with an article about Daily Quests? Take your crying elsewhere.
Tuberon Dec 31st 2010 11:59PM
Oi, yes.
Chetti Jan 1st 2011 1:16AM
Does anyone know if the fishing/cooking dailies in Dalaran reward a skill up for turning them in. I've done the ones in Stormwind (I think I need one more of each for the achievements), but I haven't been back to Dalaran since.. well the night before the shattering when I moved my hearth to stormwind. I'm not really focusing on the secondaries at the moment, trying to get to 85, but I do plan to go back and make the rounds (Dal/Shat/SW fishing... Dal/SW cooking) as I max them out later. No biggie if it doesn't, I don't think I've seen in mentioned.
Happy New Year, Folks!
Angeloscuro Jan 1st 2011 2:36AM
Dailies at Dalaran do not provide skill ups sadly :D but they do give nice rewards and vendor trash which sell for higher gold value.
Jeff (Not that one ^ ) Jan 1st 2011 5:00AM
I think the Grim Batol one is something like 5% less damage taken throughout the dungeon. Not too shabby.
Abbell Jan 1st 2011 11:06AM
Was anyone else annoyed by the racism in the org daily cooking quests? The stealing the rice one is hitting the trolls up for everyone but the trolls, and the trolls steal from the goblins. And then for the taking back from the thieves quest all the thieves are trolls and goblins...
This made me a little sad as that trolls are my favorite race to play...
Also it seems that the troll version of the rice stealing quest doesn't currently count for the achievement....
torin.games Jan 8th 2011 4:16AM
The troll version of the rice stealing quest does award the achievement. I got it on my troll.