When it was time to do my twice weekly Northrend Alchemy Reserch – a 3-day cooldown affair – I realized that like a moron, I had not kept enough Adder’s Tongue. No idea where it went. So of course I had two choices. Either bite the bullet, and buy the Adder’s Tongue at the Auction House or, Option B, act like the Herbalist that I am, go to Sholazar Basin and farm it myself.
*** Tired of being poor? Try this provenWoW Gold Guide and make over 300 Gold an hour, legally! ***
Since I’m writing this, you know that I opted for the less embarassing of options. Farming, that is.
Here is the map of my Adder’s Tongue Herbalism Route:
If you didn’t know it, farming Adder’s Tongue in Sholazar Basin is a piece of cake. Not literally, unfortunately, but it’s very easy. I only farmed for 12 minutes this morning, plus transit time to and from Dalaran, and here’s what I got.
48 Adder’s Tongue
18 Tiger Lily
4 Goldclover
1 Frost Lotus
To tell you the truth, I skipped over a wh0le bunch of Tiger Lily and Goldclover, which is not really my thing, because I was there for a very specific reason. Thing is, everything’s got a chance to drop some Frost Lotus, so I still gathered them.
Concerning the Adder’s Tongue herb route above, you can probably skip the southeastern route. It’s tiny and doesn’t have much potential. Stick with the Wildgrowth Manga and the western side of the map and you’ll soon have all the Adder’s Tongue you can use.
Because I don’t have a huge network of WoW gamers from whom I can aggregate data, I have to calculate my percentage drops in a different way. I go on my farming run, and at the end of the run, see what percentage of total drops what I was farming represents against the overall total.
*** Tired of being poor? Try this provenWoW Gold Guide and make over 300 Gold an hour, legally! ***
For example, this morning, I went farming for Frost Lotus in Storm Peaks. As you may know, the principal herb nodes in Storm Peaks are Lichbloom and Icethorn, each of which have a chance of dropping one or more (generally one) Frost Lotus when harvested.
So I farmed for about 25 minutes this morning, and I gathered the following:
26 Lichbloom
24 Icethorn
19 Crystallized Life
2 Frost Lotus
Crystallized Life doesn’t count towards my percentage total, since it may or may not drop from Herb nodes. Only the primary herbs, in this case Lichbloom and Icethorn, count towards the total. Notice that there is no Deadnettle. Guess I’ll have to go farm Goldclover or something like that if I need any of these.
But that’s beside the point. 2 Frost Lotus for 50 Primary Herbs means 4%, which is considerable better than what I got in Zul’Drak. Moreover, Lichbloom and Icethorn are higher-level herbs and are not only move valuable on the Auction House, they are also considerably more useful to level my Alchemy skill.
I realize that the sample I base myself on to affirm a 4% gathering rate is quite small. By that I mean minuscule. I hope to be able to build on it in the coming weeks and be able to give you a more precise estimate. But right now, it looks pretty good for Frost Lotus in Storm Peaks.
I’ve reached the end of my rope, as far as my patience for farming the same spot goes. I know I was supposed to go to Storm Peaks this morning and look for Icethorn and Lichbloom and whatnot, but I was in Zul’Drak and I figured, how about a little run around for old times’ sake? Once around the park and home for tea, James!
*** Tired of being poor? Try this provenWoW Gold Guide and make over 300 Gold an hour, legally! ***
Anyways. I stayed in the Talandra’s Rose area of Zul’Drak – the western part (or ‘Left’, for the geographically challenged, you know who you are) and flew around in circles waiting yellow dots to appear on my mini-map. I flew for 20 minutes – that’s all I could stomach – I gathered:
46 Talandra’s Rose
17 Deadnettle
17 Crystallized Life
1 Lousy Frost Lotus
Now I understand why those things are so darn expensive. They don’t drop! Another approximate drop rate of 2%.
But I’m happy to report that I won’t be farming there anymore, atleast not for a long while, until I run out of Talandra’s Rose. Thanks to my efforts over the last few days, my bank is now officially full of vegetal things, not to mention almost-expired meat that I’ve been collecting for months for when I decide to “level my cooking skill”, which may still happen at some point.
The Feral DPS rotation has been called the most complicated in World of Warcraft… and that’s the way we like it.
*** Tired of being poor? Try this provenWoW Gold Guide and make over 300 Gold an hour, legally! ***
Although calling it a rotation could be misleading as there is no set rotation to use, but rather an order of priority. Here it is in order of priority :
Or at least that’s the one I use (usually.) So what does this mean ? First make sure Savage Roar never ever drops. Try to keep Mangle up all the time. Refresh Rip as soon as it comes off with 5 combo points. Use Shred to generate combo points and whenever you have an Omen of Clarity proc. Refresh Rake as soon as possible, but make sure you let it run all the way through before you reapply (clipping Rake = bad.) When you have more than 10 seconds left on both Savage Roar and Rip and have 5 combo points you may choose to Ferocious Bite. I rarely do except when I will have to switch targets or the target will die or disappear in the next 15 secs. I usually just Shred some more before refreshing Savage Roar or Rip.
Now the other important abilities to use are Beserk and Tiger’s Fury.
Since Beserk has a 3 min CD, make sure to use it as early as possible on boss fights to get a chance to use again during the same fight at least once. Usually a good idea to use about 10-15 secs into a boss encounter if you won’t be changing target for its entire duration. I usually don’t use Tiger’s Fury right before Beserk as it cancels the damage bonus of Tiger’s Fury if you do. Shred as much as possible during Beserk, making sure to keep everything else up. If you can, finish Beserk with a Ferocious Bite, but only if Rip and Savage Roar have 8-10 secs left. If you have Tiger’s Fury you can get away with 8 secs.
I start the fight with a Mangle and Rip to generate my first Savage Roar and then Shred once before using Tiger’s Fury to generate enough energy to get 5 combo points to get Rip up (only if I’m not going to use Beserk right away.)
Remember that all these actions should be bound to keys so that you can hit them quickly and in sequence. If you’re mouse-clicking them, old school, you’ll lose a TON of DPS.
Hope that helps someone, and if I’m doing it wrong let me know !
=== About The Author ===
Etienne Brodeur is an IT professional. A Renaissance Man, his many areas of expertise include world politics, medieval history and World of Warcraft.
He currently resides in Montreal, Quebec.
In my ongoing efforts to gather some Frost Lotus, this morning I farmed the Frozen Herbs of Zul’Drak. If you’ll please refer to yesterday’s map that showed the entire Zul’Drap Herb Map, the frozen herbs are in the eastern, frozen part of the map.
*** Tired of being poor? Try this provenWoW Gold Guide and make over 300 Gold an hour, legally! ***
I must admit that I was somewhat hopeful that this would prove a little better than yesterday’s farming of Talandra’s Rose. I was dissapointed for two reasons. Obviously, the first reason is that I did not get ANY Frost Lotus drop. Not even one. I also did not get any Crystallized Life, which is weird, but that’s OK because my bank is full of them.
So, you ask me, what could be worse than not finding Frost Lotus when farming Frost Lotus. I’ll tell you what. The stupid Frozen Herbs – nature’s surprise gift-wrap! – principally dropped Goldclover. And if there is something I don’t need, it certainly is Goldclover. Seriously, I think I have 300 in my bank that I don’t know what to do with… Maybe I’ll sell them for coppers, or roll ‘em up and smoke ‘em.
No idea. But they are pretty much useless at this point.
One of the positive aspects of this morning’s farming is that I still managed to get some more Talandra’s Rose, which means that I probably have enough never to farm it again.
Tomorrow, I think I will be going to Storm Peaks and Icecrown, since the herbs I seem to need the most are there. And I still think the Flask of the North sucks.
I’m trying to figure out from which Herb nodes Frost Lotus drop the most often. They seem to drop from all Northrend herb nodes, however there has to be one that’s better, right?
*** Tired of being poor? Try this provenWoW Gold Guide and make over 300 Gold an hour, legally! ***
Right. So this morning I made my merry way to Zul’Drak, home of the never-ending supply of Talandra’s Rose. Just a small problem: some other Hordie was also farming herbs and seemed to be stealing all my nodes!
Besides bitching him out, there is little that I could do, so I figure I’d just shut up and farm, instead.
So I farmed for a solid 20 minutes, foll0wing a more or less circular route determined by my Gatherer Add-On. Here is the Zul’Drak Herb map, for your edification:
I stayed in the left part of the map, and I only gathered Talandra’s Rose. Here’s what I got in 20 minutes.
49 Talandra’s Rose
17 Deadnettle
14 Crystallized Life
1 Frost Lotus
I’m not sure what the best way to calculate this is… Because I forgot to count the number of herb nodes I actually farmed, and only tallied the results.
The primary Herb is Talandra’s Rose, so let’s say that Frost Lotus has a 2% drop rate when tallied against the primary herb, in this case Talandra’s Rose.
I’m not sure that the best way to calculate it. I’ll go again later today and see if the results differ.
I have finally discovered the reason why Frost Lotus are ever so profitable to sell on the Auction House. There is a little recipe that you learn, as an Alchemist, at still level 425. It is called the Flask of the North. Sounds cool, eh?
The Flask of the North is a Bind on Pickup item that has the following effect: Increases your Spell Power by 47, Increases your Attack Power by 80, or Increases your Strength by 40 for 1 Hour. It has the clear disadvantage of counting as both a Battle Elixir and a Guardian Elixir, however you’re free to die as many times as you want withing the allotted time, since the “effects persist through Death.”
The Flask of the North requires nothing more to craft that an Enchanted Vial and (4) Frost Lotus.
In all my years of playing World of Warcraft, I have never encountered a situation where it is clearly so much better to sell the materials than to sell, or in this case use, the crafted item.
I have been selling the Frost Lotus for over 50 WoW Gold each. Conservatively, this means 200 Gold for each Flask of the North you don’t make. This is pretty significant.
If you are looking to level your Alchemist skill, you are much better of making ‘green’ recipes and only leveling at 1-in-5 than making the Flask of the North. In fact, I recommend casting the Northrend Alchemy Research and crafting what you find there. I got the ‘Elixir of Lightning Speed’ the other day, made a whole bunch and sold them on the Auction House for close to what the mats would have sold for.
Don’t make the Flask of the North. It’s expensive to make, you won’t be able to sell it to anyone, and if that wasn’t enough, it’s not even that good.
Sell the Frost Lotus and buy yourself something pretty, instead.
I completed the Wrathgate quests yesterday, although I have not yet taken care of the missions that should bring me to Undercity to kick some serious Forsaken butt. I’ll take care of that this weekend, when I have the time to enjoy it.
*** Tired of being poor? Try this provenWoW Gold Guide and make over 300 Gold an hour, legally! ***
No, this morning I decided I wanted some Talandra’s Rose, and instead of going to Zul’Drak, the number-one source for Talandra’s Rose, I figured I’d try my luck at some Frozen Herbs in Dragonblight. As you may know – ot not – Frozen Herbs drop, as far as I’ve noticed, either Goldclover, Tiger Lily or Talandra’s Rose, with a slight chance for Frost Lotus.
Turns out I was lucky, and in only a few minutes aquired (13) Talandra’s Rose to use in my Northrend Alchemy Research. I promptly hearthed back to Dalaran, where I performed said research, and I learned the “Elixir of Lightning Speed.” Boosts your haste rating by 45 for an hour or something. I’ll have to see if it sells.
Incidentally, I also made a nice Dragonblight Herb Map, with recommended herbing routes. Here it is, it’s kind of a throwaway, since I have to get to work, but anyways, maybe you can use it. I’ll write more about it tomorrow or something.
![[del.icio.us]](http://hiddenwarcraft.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/delicious.png)
![[Digg]](http://hiddenwarcraft.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/digg.png)
![[Google]](http://hiddenwarcraft.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/google.png)
![[LinkedIn]](http://hiddenwarcraft.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/linkedin.png)
![[StumbleUpon]](http://hiddenwarcraft.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/stumbleupon.png)
![[Windows Live]](http://hiddenwarcraft.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/windowslive.png)
![[Yahoo!]](http://hiddenwarcraft.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/yahoo.png)
![[Email]](http://hiddenwarcraft.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/email.png)
Etienne Brodeur is an IT professional. A Renaissance Man, his many areas of expertise include world politics, medieval history and World of Warcraft.
