Farmers Market - Enchanting

This is how to make a little extra through grinding. How many people out there are still trying to get Baron Rivendere's mount? Hands up. Thought so. What about grinding through Argent Dawn or trying to find that old world recipe that has eluded us. At 80 it is easy to go back to old dungeons and fairly quickly clear them but we can find ourselves doing it over and over again.

I recently went through Stratholme again. I think I had some reason. It may have been that I just wanted to test what I was about to explain. I did want another crack at the mount. Wanted to see if i could go through it quicker as Survival over Beast Mastery. And wanted to see if I could get some more Righteous Orbs (1 dropped).

Anyway, what you need for this is a friend who is an enchanter, assuming you aren't one yourself. As long as they don't want to do any group work themselves, ask if they wouldn't mind grouping while you run through. Doesn't matter where they are in the world, the looting rules recognises there is an enchanter in the group. Now I don't know about you but those blues that drop in late vanilla dungeons are worth a lot more to me as shards than as vendor items. 5-15 times as much, considering the cost on AH.

Make sure you make it worth your friends while. Throw some gold, shards or something their way. Do they need cloth for rep? Plenty of runecloth in there.

And somewhere like Strath is great for this. 10 bosses if my count was right plus I came across a rare. I walked out with 11 or so shards from that. Otherwise I would have been vendoring the blues afterwards. Plus I did the same with the greens as it meant less bag space taken up.

Oh, and the mount didn't drop in case you were wondering.


NOTE: I wrote this a couple of weeks ago and noticed Markco had posted something similar a while ago while going through his blog earlier this week. I don't want to be seen to be stealing other peoples ideas and honestly hadn't finished going through his blog. This was something I think I remember seeing in passing as a comment and wanted to check to see if this was a workable strategy. Lots of people have probably mentioned it already. I just want to help spread the word a bit.

Farmers Market - How to grind

Okay, this may sound odd but today I'm going to talk about how to grind.

What do you mean, how to grind? Don't you just go to the area you need to and start running repeatedly through the same instance or just keep killing everything in sight?

Well, yes you do, but I like to think there is a bit more to it than that. So let me tell you what I do and see if it will help you with your future endeavours.

There are somethings out there that, if you want them, then you are going to have to grind for them. Some are BoP items like the darter pet for the Horde, mounts in instances, certain recipes. If you want these, you have to grind for them. Some are also items very rarely found on the AH or can be quite easily got yourself. I don't think I have ever seen a captured firefly but I have ground out 2. I don't by Orbs of Deception when I know killing the rare spawns in the arena at Dire Maul will get me one eventually (well actually 3).

So, we are going to grind. We need to get setup first. And the first priority is making sure we are comfortable. I play lying on my bed with my head propped on pillows, the laptop on a chair in front of me, the keyboard and mouse positioned where my hands would lie normally. This way I am comfortable and don't have to move much. Yeah, I know, lazy of me but it does help.

Next make sure we have some sort of distraction. Something that can keep a good part of your mind occupied. I personally watch TV. I setup a number of shows I enjoy. Actually, I have watched a lot of my shows this way. And when I say watched, I mean mainly listened too. Sometimes, you'll find yourself concentrating on the TV more than the game, especially if the show is really engaging. I went through the last season of 24 in one week and there were times I completely forgot the game. Music and books are other good methods although they can be better or worse depending on your mindset. Books can be harder because they require more attention than other things. But I did go through a Harry Potter book one weekend while mining underwater in Desolace.

So, we are comfortable and have distractions. now, make sure we have refreshments. Drink and nibbles also provide a little distraction and are useful to have around. It is easy to get tunnel vision and find yourself a few hours later dreadfully thirsty.

Now, ready to grind? No, your not. The last thing you need to do is research. Make sure you know what it is you are after, where it is and that you do have a chance of getting it. No use going to kill so and so mob for a Twisted Chanter's Staff because it highest drop rate only to find out it is a world drop. Please, please, please never try to farm a world drop. Not going to happen. Just play the game normally and pay the AH price. Those are your best bets. But make sure you are in the right area, killing the right mobs and that it will still drop. Research is important.

So, now you can start farming. And I would recommend you carry on for as long as you feel you can. Take breaks every now and then, get up and stretch your legs. If it starts to get frustrating, go and do something else. Remember you are relying on a random number generator to get what you are after. It might take a while.

Also, be respectful of others. They play the game too and you might face competition if they are after the same thing you are. If it gets too bad then stop and go somewhere else. There will always be other days.

The only time I ignore this is if the others are farming bots. How do i know they are farming bots. Well, a couple of ways. Most of them are hunters although I have seen warrior and paladin bots. Hunter pets are never named. They have some old gear. But more importantly, they behave strange. The hunters in Azshara farming the elite dragonkin were moving very strangely. They were ignoring some mobs, moved in erratic paths, jumped regularly, would randomly emote a wave and never ever reacted if I stole a kill from them, which I started doing to test their bottiness. The warriors in a cave in the Storm Peaks never reacted when I skinned their kills before they did and even tried to walk through walls to get to the mobs on the other side. If you find bots, report them. Blizzard do deal with them, even if it does take a while.

And one last thing, the excess useful stuff you pick up. Sell it for money. There will be others who want it. Get as much as you can for it. Erm, except if you are on my realm. Then I just want to buy it cheap off you. What? I have to make some money somehow.

Farmers Market - Outland Enchanting Recipes

Now, I mentioned yesterday how I didn't have any ideas for the market post but came up with two by the end of the sunday. Well, while writing my Musings I came up with this one. I decided to write about this instead of the other two topics that I would leave for another day, should I remember them.

I mentioned getting an enchanting recipe while questiing on Sunday. I had forgotten that in the higher zones in Outland that there were profession only BoP recipe drops. Thinking about it now I remember having my engineer grinding for them but since Wrath came out I think they have been all but forgotten. So this post will be about what enchanting recipes are out there that can be found from grinding mobs in Outland. I may include the Instance one even though I rarely go after those except for the occasional Vanilla ones. I'll cover other professions in other posts.

But grinding for recipes? Farming? Isn't that boring? Well, honestly, yes. It can be. And tedious. And frustrating. I have farmed a lot in my time. And I couldn't do it without TV. I lie on my bed, prop my head on the pillow and mindlessly grind with most of my attention on watching something. I have gone through a lot of shows doing that. And playing a hunter helped. My BiL noticed that at times I only pressed two keys and left it at that. I would bind pet attack and hunters mark to one key and a shot or sting to others and I would press the first followed by one of the others and then just let autoshot finish it. It meant I didn't have to apply as much attention as needed. And that has progressed through a lot of my playing. As long as I didn't have to read anything, I would just press certain keys and be watching my shows. Certain classes need a little more attention depending on the class, play style and situation.

But for farming I mainly used my hunter. And playing the hunter got me playing more. I have 4 on one realm. They are really easy to play. And make great farmers. Which is why you would often seen them used in Azshara by bots. Would drive me wild seeing the bots farming in areas I was trying to farm.

But if you wish to attempt farming, then please. Put something on in the background that can occupy part of your mind otherwise you are going to get annoyed and not get anywhere. Of course there are others that will say don't farm in the first place but some things you can only get through farming, whether rep or specific items. That is, of course, if you really need it.

Anyway, as promised, a list of the recipes and where to find them...

Specific World Drops

Enchant Weapon - Major Spellpower
Blade's Edge Mountains
Bashir Spell-Thief

Enchant Bracer - Spellpower
Blade's Edge Mountains
Bloodmaul Geomancer

Enchant Bracer - Major Defense
Netherstorm
Ethereum Nullifiers

Enchant Weapon - Major Intellect
Netherstorm
Sunfury Researcher

Enchant Cloak - Greater Shadow Resistance
Netherstorm
Voidshrieker

Enchant Cloak - Greater Arcane Resistance
Shadowmoon Valley
Eclipsion Archmage


Instance Drops

Enchant Boots - Fortitude
Mana-Tombs
Ethereal Priest

Enchant Boots - Dexterity
Auchenai Crypts
Raging Skeleton

Enchant 2H Weapon - Savagery
Shattered Halls
Shattered Hand Centurians

Enchant Bracer - Fortitude
Steamvault
Coilfang Oracles

Enchant 2H Weapon - Major Agility
Arcatraz
Eredar Deathbringers

Enchant Boots - Surefooted
Karazhan
Phantom Stagehands


Boss Drops

Enchant Cloak Steelweave
Magister's Terrace
Priestess Delrissa

Enchant Weapon - Mongoose
Karazhan
Moroes

Enchant Weapon - Soulfrost
Karazhan
Terestian Illhoof

Enchant Weapon - Sunfire
Karazhan
Shade of Aran

Enchant Weapon - Executioner
Zul'Aman
Any boss

Farmers Market - Thorium

Welcome to Farmers Market, a series I will be trying to run on a Sunday. Within it I shall be posting my tips and observations regarding farming for materials either you need or can then sell. I know, I know it is better to purchase a lot of these from the AH but sometimes it is easy or cheaper to get them yourself. Of course, someone has to farm them to put them on the AH anyway.

So today we are going to discuss Thorium. I used to hate hunting this stuff down but did have a favourite farming spot. I personally would go circling around the outside of Burning Steppes. I had a path I would take that I had developed over time and repetition, a route I knew off by heart. I preferred this location as it wasn't heavily visited, at least certainly not by the Horde.

Now my Brother-in-Law always preferred Silithis as he would run through the hives. Apparently that made for good mining but I hated having to move through there on foot. But he had his favourite and I had mine.

But now there is a new contender. Un'Goro Crater. This is somewhere I used to mine before I got tired of the low numbers of Rich veins. However, there have been some major changes. Rich and Small veins are abundant.

Just ride around the outside of the crater and you can't miss them. A lot of other people know about this location so you may find competition tough but the respawn rate is phenomenal. I have several time rode away from a vein only to find a new one has spawned there immediately or nearby. I have also found at times two or three nodes next to each other. Gatherings are rich along with high end Azeroth gems and Arcane Crystals. You may find nodes that are stripped of everything but dense stone, which is very annoying I know, but I grab everything. You never know when you are going to need large amounts of stone either.

So, happy farming.