Enchanting - Sources of Cheaper Materials For 5.4

With the upcoming changes to Enchanting in Patch 5.4, I thought I'd have another look at how I work with this profession & how I could source my enchanting materials as cheaply as possible. I've always just dabbled in the scroll market with the sole exception of the Enchant Weapon - Agility enchant for heirloom weapons. That enchant made me 1000's of gold over the last few years and at one point, I had upped the price to 1200g. It's one of the markets I let go when I took a mini break & I haven't got back into it since.

Until recently, I've just been buying my Spirit Dust off the Auction House when it fell to 2g-ish but in the last few weeks, it's been consistently at 4-5g all the time & the scrolls just aren't selling at high enough prices or volumes to justify that raw material price. At 2g a piece, it was reasonable to convert the Dusts up to Mysterious Essences too but not now.

So I needed an alternative source of cheap Spirit Dust & Mysterious Essences other than the Auction House. I looked at just buying cheap Green armor pieces off the Auction House but usually the prices are just above the level that I need to make cheap dusts so although I still check regularly, I don't get many bargains that way.

Back in November 2012, when Mists was still quite fresh, I did a series of posts with small, simple spreadsheets in them - including a 'Converting Enchanting Materials' one. The link for the conversion spreadsheet is still active & is a very quick & easy way to see at a glance whether converting up or down is worthwhile. Please feel free to download it if you want to - just please don't edit the online version!

Now that things have settled down in game & prices are more stable, I'm finding that Windwool Cloth is almost always around the 20g a stack mark - that means my Tailor can craft the current PvP Bracers using 4 bolts of Windwool Cloth (ie 1 stack) and then disenchant the bracers to give me an Ethereal Shard - I say 1 but often it is 2 Shards with the Guild perk, Bountiful Bags. That means that I can get my Ethereal Shards for 20g or less (depending on procs) which is usually 10g or more cheaper than the Auction House.

Using my handy dandy little spreadsheet, I can easily see that at that price, if I convert the Shards down to Dusts, I'll get a minimum of 9 Dusts for that 20g - not quite 2g a piece but still much better than the current 4-5g on my Auction House! The only problem with that method though is that Mysterious Essences are so expensive! If I break down a Shard to an Essence, do I really want to break expensive Essences down to Dusts! Or even worse, at 20g a Shard, when converted up to a Sha Crystal which then only costs 100g & they sell for around 300g most of the time!

I get around this conundrum by making & disenchanting lots of Bracers! By diversifying across the raw materials market & the scrolls market, I make sure I'm selling at a profit, no matter what is actually selling. Lately though, again in preparation for Patch 5.4, I'm storing up my Essences - I'll either make a killing on the scrolls or own the market for Essences - or at least, that's the plan!

And finally a really neat tip from one of my readers - Philip H. emailed me a couple of weeks ago to ask a question and gave me a little of his game story too. He mentioned something in his email that I had never even thought of so I asked & he gave me permission to let you know about it. I may be slow & you are all doing this but it does require a special set of circumstances so I have a feeling there's not many using this tip!

Basically Philip had leveled his main and been raiding, LFR'ing & doing a lot of max level stuff. He'd also vendored all of the useless soulbound Epic items that he couldn't use. At a later date, he decided to make this character his Enchanter and once he had leveled it to max, he used the Blizzard item restoration service to get back all those Epics he had vendored previously! Say hello to lots of free Sha Crystals!

You can get back upto 50 items at a time but can only use the service once a month but it's still a great idea. Obviously, it only works if you've vendored or deleted useless Epics before you learnt Enchanting but it's worth bearing in mind if you're considering changing professions on your main.

Have I missed some other way to get cheap enchanting mats? I'd love to hear your comments.

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20 Days of Gold Making - Day 9 Favorite Niche

Hmmm, my 20 Days of Gold Making questions seemed like a pretty good list to me originally but now I'm trying to write the posts, some of them are stumping me! Today's burning question is "What is your favorite niche market & why?" but I'm really reaching for an answer for this one!

I'm really not very organised in my gold making endeavors, I jump in & out of markets, craft a bit here, flip a bit there so narrowing it down to one niche is kind of difficult. I've had pretty good sales with the Netherweave Bag market, Essence of Air & the related enchants do well but not very often & of course, glyphs (if you can call them a niche market!). Niche to me though, means a smallish market, very specialised & not necessarily a huge profit earner. It has a narrow target audience, usually few competitors & not a huge supply of the item which allows for higher prices & profits albeit in smaller sales quantities.

Working with that definition, I'd have to say low level enchanting materials is probably one of my favorite niche markets. I periodically dominate the Strange Dust market & have always had good profits from the Greater Eternal Essence market. I'm a bit of a hoarder so any armor drop that doesn't have a transmog value, good stats for levelers or just doesn't sell, usually get disenchanted. I also used to buy very cheap green armor off the Auction House to disenchant, in an effort to get the guild achievement for disenchanting 25,000 items -  Dust, Dust and More Dust! I should probably get back to that soon as we never did manage to check that one off the list!

When I was leveling alts all over the place, my enchanter was kept pretty busy disenchanting every day so she has a bank stuffed full of all sorts of dusts, essences & crystals from all levels! It makes for a very pretty view when I open all her bags but right now, I'm just trying to maximise the sales prices to clear some space!

As I'm sitting here writing this, I suddenly thought 'why don't I try a 'profession package'? lol, I have so much saved up, I could probably put together a full leveling kit & sell it via trade! I've heard/read of others doing this with various professions, maybe I should give it a try! I just need to check what I have already, fill in the gaps & start barking! I'll let you know how that goes :)

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Converting Enchanting Materials For Easy Gold

Converting Enchanting Materials for Easy Gold

I haven't actually done anything with my Enchanter yet during Mists of Pandaria but I have been seeing lots of tweets & chit chat about converting enchanting materials for profits so I thought I'd have a look into it. I quickly realised that a mini spreadsheet was the way to go so once I got my head around the formulas, this is what I ended up with!

Last time I posted a screenshot of one of my mini spreadsheets, lots of readers asked for it to be available on Google Docs - well I didn't have a clue how to do that then but this time, I managed to work it out! You can access the Enchanting Materials Conversion spreadsheet via Google Docs (or Google Drive, whatever they call it now!) & I hope I've made it freely available to view & download. If not, let me know & I'll see if I can get it sorted out!

Enchanting Materials Conversion Spreadsheet

All you need to do is to change the prices in the yellow boxes to the prices currently on your own server Auction House. As you can see, converting down is rarely going to be profitable but I wanted to include it, just in case! The figures above are from my server today - Ethereal Shards are slightly underpriced today based on the conversion rates so there's no point converting materials up to those. However, being so 'cheap' they do make the best material to convert up to a Sha Crystal if I want to use my daily enchanting cooldown for that. The only other way to get a Sha Crystal is to disenchant epic armour & weapons & I don't think anyone is going to be doing that for a while yet in Mists of Pandaria (except maybe raiders gearing up of course).

The Undermine Journal, Sha Crystal  Supply & Price Chart

You can easily see from the Undermine Journal screenshot how low the supply has been over the last week but also how the Ethereal Shard price has moved too. It's the Ethereal Shard price on the green line, in case you were wondering.

This means that Sha Crystals are probably going to remain pretty expensive for the next few weeks at least - once more people have access to epic gear & epic crafted items through dailies & reputation grinds then we may see the supply of Sha Crystals increase. But until then, it's probably worth keeping an eye on this market - I know I'm going to but I'm going to be careful too - I got a little hurt by the maelstrom crystal market at the start of Cataclysm although I was a very new gold maker at the time. Hopefully I've learned quite a few lessons since then!

Oops! Seems Molsan & I share a brain! He did a great post yesterday on almost the same subject so maybe pop over there for a second viewpoint if you have time :)

If you're leveling your enchanting & need infinite dust then this 'Hunt for Infinite Dust' post may be useful - just adjust the prices for your server of course!


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Farming Meats in Mists of Pandaria - All You Needed To Know!

Farming Various Meats in Mists of Pandaria

As I leveled some of my cooking skills in Mists of Pandaria, I found that apart from fish & vegetables, I needed various meats too. So I set off to investigate and found some of the best places to go & farm those meats for yourself. You could buy them off the Auction House of course but with prices still quite high, I decided to farm instead especially as my only level 90 is also my Skinner and I can always use more leather!

Over the past week or so, I have covered where to farm these meats & provided little maps to show you exactly where the areas are.

• Raw Tiger Steak
• Raw Crab Meat
• Raw Crocolisk Belly
• Raw Turtle Meat
• Mushan Ribs
• Wildfowl Breast

I received a couple of comments on those posts with helpful extra information & I've since found some other useful bits to add so I thought I'd put them all here for you in one easy reference post.

Wildfowl Breast - Tailswish pointed out that the Glade Singers have a 'sleep' spell which some farmers might find irritating - I know I did, especially as I pulled about 3 at once! Felt like Sleeping Beauty there for most of the fight! lol

Raw Crocolisk Belly - Tailswish let me know that the Crocs in Vale of Eternal Blossom aren't always the daily so it may be best to stick to the area in Krasarang Wilds for these. I farmed some last night on my very slow paladin - 35 in 35 minutes (plus all the leather of course) not too bad but would have been better on a quicker alt. I didn't have to wait for any respawn at all, especially once I realised there were some crocs in the mid part of the island too!

Mogram was kind enough to tell me about the rare spawn Blackhoof in Valley of the Four Winds - he drops an amazing Battle Horn which allows you to pull enemies from 40 yards away - great for mass AoE farming (if you can handle the mobs of course!).

I focused my posts on farming to level the various new Ways within the cooking profession but these are not the only uses for some of these meats.

• Raw Tiger Steak - used for the Pandaren Banquet (10 per) & the Great Pandaren Banquet (20 per) which are the 10-man & 25-man raid feasts. However there is a small benefit to individuals to use their own specialised food rather than a Banquet in a raid situation so it may be that your raid team will ask you to bring your own food buff.(thank you to ScottieGazelle for the banquet info).
• Raw Tiger Steak - also used for Chun Tian Spring Rolls which is the level 90 buff food for tanks (+450stamina)
• Raw Crab Meat - used in Steamed Crab Surprise, the level 90 buff food for healers (+300 spirit)
• Raw Crocolisk Belly - used in the Mogu Fish Stew, the level 90 buff food for intellect users (+300 intellect)
• Raw Turtle Meat - the basis for the Sea Mist Rice Noodles, the level 90 buff food for agility users (+300 agility)
• Mushan Ribs - used for Black Pepper Ribs & Shrimp (damn that sounds good!), this is the level 90 buff food for strength users (+300 strength)
• Wildfowl Breast - used in Wildfowl Ginseng Soup which is a level 87 buff food for hit (+275 hit).

I do hope you found this series of farming posts useful - sometimes knowing where to farm is all you need to get some gold flowing. As the newness of Mists of Pandaria wears off, many players who are currently farming to level their professions will move on to raiding, challenge modes, pet battles & all the other new stuff Blizzard has provided for us. If you have the patience & time to do some farming yourself, I expect these meats will hold fairly good prices at the Auction House - perhaps a little farming in between battlegrounds would be good for PvP'ers gold making too.

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Mists of Pandaria - Where to Farm Wildfowl Breast

Where to Farm Wildfowl Breast

Wildfowl Breast drops from most of the large birdlife in Pandaria - not only Cranes but Bonesplitters, Corpsepickers & Plainshawks too. Wildfowl Breasts are the most widely used meat in the various cooking specialisations too - 13 for Way of the Wok, 50 for Way of the Steamer & 25 for Way of the Oven so that's at least 88 you will need if you want to complete all the Ways for the final achievement.

Initially the drop rate of Wildfowl Breasts was really high but has since been lowered so it's difficult to tell for now what the average drop rate is. Most comments seem to indicate around a 40-50% drop rate which is still not too bad as there are loads of mobs at lower levels to farm.

Wildfowl Breast farm areas - Valley of Four Winds

There doesn't seem to be a 'best place' to farm these so I've picked a couple of areas I found whilst leveling. As you are questing through Valley of the Four Winds, you will probably find yourself killing Glade Hunters, Glade Singers & Glade Sprinters in the Gilded Fen, just south of the Pools of Purity. These mobs have 147k health and move around a fair bit so you could easily pick up 2 or 3 at a time or just chain pull if that's your preferred farming method. They are only level 86 mobs & my undergeared DK is killing these quite happily so a well geared 90 would probably cut through them in no time!

Also in Valley of the Four Winds are the Whitefisher Cranes with just 139k health. These are in the far west of the zone, just below that annoying Headland that I couldn't explore at level 86 or just south east of Paoquan Hollow in the Singing Marshes.

Wildfowl Breast farm area - Kun-Lai Summit

In Kun-Lai Summit at level 87ish, you will end up questing in Shado-Li area up against the wall to Townlong Steppes. Once you've finished rolling barrels onto your enemies, you'll find the Kun-Lai Corpsepickers hard at work on the piles of dead bodies. With 215k health, these are a little harder to kill than the Cranes in Valley of Four Winds but they are in a smaller area & respawn fairly quickly. Not the most pleasant area to spend time in, the drop rate seems to be around the 50% so if you want to get your own back on these carrion birds, this is your spot!

Another lower level area is in Krasarang Wilds, all along the river area between Thunder Cleft & The Incursion area. There are also tigers in the forest so if you do manage to clear all the birds, you can kill tigers whilst you wait for respawns. I didn't farm here heavily as I was in full quest mode but the Carp Hunters have only 147k health so should die easily to a level 90.

Wildfowl Breast farm area - Krasarang Wilds

I'm questing again on my DK, working my way through Valley of the Four Winds. I've done the Gilded Fen quests & also the quests to get grain at the brewery (where those annoying little imps are!). The Hawks that have stolen the grain bags also give Wildfowl Breasts & I already have 28 in my bags without having to farm at all. Sweet! It helps to have some music going & a good mouse saves your wrists from fatigue too

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Mists of Pandaria Cooking Meats Series
Got all your Wildfowl Breasts but need to know where to farm the other Mists of Pandaria cooking meats? Check out my other posts in this series.

• Where to Farm Raw Crab Meat
• Where to Farm Raw Crocolisk Belly
• Where to Farm Raw Turtle Meat
• Where to Farm Raw Tiger Meat
• Where to Farm Mushan Ribs

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Mists of Pandaria - Where to Farm Mushan Ribs

Where to Farm Mushan Ribs

Strangely enough, I couldn't find any decent photos of a Mushan for my post header but I imagine their ribs would be familiar to Fred & Wilma! So where to farm Mushan Ribs in Pandaria? As usual, you have a choice of places, some better than others depending on your character level.

Starting off with the level 86/87 farmers, I'd suggest Valley of the Four Winds, at the Grassy Cline, not too far from Pang's Stead at the start of the zone or in the far south west, near the Nesingwary Camp (that guy gets everywhere, doesn't he?). At the Grassy Cline you will find Adolescent Mushan with 276k health as well as adults with 322k health. Both have a drop rate for Ribs of around 40%.

Mushan Ribs farm areas, Valley of the Four Winds

However, I found them a bit tough & slow to fight, especially as it's close to the Turtle farming spot I mentioned yesterday & there's almost always someone farming in that area. A better spot for these I think, is the Nesingwary Camp area. The Dustback Mushan there have only 129k health (unless you stumble into the Dustback Warders with 322k health!) and still have around 40% drop rate. As a small bonus, there are also turtles & tigers in the area so you can combine all 3 meats in your farming session. The one annoying thing I found was the stealthed foxes! There I was, happily questing away & Bam! damned fox appears & throws everything off! lol

At level 89/90, there are plentiful options including the Longshadow Mushan & Longshadow Bulls in Townlong Steppes. Both have just 271k health & a better drop rate of around 50%. It's a fairly big area though so you may have to run around a bit.

Mushan Ribs farm area - Townlong Steppes

Another option at level 89/90 is to head to the SE corner of Dread Wastes again, this time just south of the Lake of Stars. Here you will find a plentiful supply of Bluehide Mushan with around a 60% droprate (per Wowhead). However, they also have 394k health so killing them will take a bit longer than the Townlong Steppes area but if you are level 89, just think of the XP gains!  The other plus point for this area is the proximity of the Crocolisks in the lake & the Chillwater Turtles to the north & east. Combination farming is great if you are farming for leather & want to sell the meats on the Auction House.

Mushan Ribs farm area - Dread Wastes

My personal preference here is the Townlong Steppes area - middling health level & middling drop rate. With my new found lust for killing on my Blood DK, I'm not skinning these though - a serious boo-boo for a goldmaker! I took my skinner over there & logged in & out to try to skin as much as possible - that slowed me down but at least I got plenty of leather too. Long term, I have to rethink who is going to be my Skinner. My DK has Jewelcrafting & Inscription - both profitable professions but more importantly, both have lots of items learned via research & dailies so I just cannot bring myself to drop either of those professions. My other option is to work out what the heck I'm doing wrong on my Paladin but for now, I'm just poodling along, enjoying the scenery in true Pandaren style!

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Mists of Pandaria Cooking Meats Series
Got all your Mushan Ribs but need to know where to farm the other Mists of Pandaria cooking meats? Check out my other posts in this series.

• Where to Farm Raw Crab Meat
• Where to Farm Raw Crocolisk Belly
• Where to Farm Raw Turtle Meat
• Where to Farm Raw Tiger Meat
• Where to Farm Wildfowl Breasts

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Mists of Pandaria - Where To Farm Raw Turtle Meat

Where to Farm Raw Turtle Meat in WoW

Next up in my Where To Farm series is Raw Turtle Meat. This is used by the Way of the Pot (13) & the Way of the Oven (50) so if you are leveling all the cooking Ways, you will need 63 of these at least. As with all the previous mobs, these Turtles can also be skinned so if you can, take your Skinner!

For level 89's leveling through the Dread Wastes, head towards the Lake of Stars in the far SE corner. Just north of the Lake, you will find Chillwater Turtles - 394k health but with a 60% drop rate & of course, lots of lovely leather for skinning. If you do have to wait for respawns, you can always pop into the lake itself & grab yourself some Raw Crocolisk Belly {link} too.

Raw Turtle Meat farm areas - Dread Wastes

If you need Raw Crab Meat, you could combine Turtle & Crab farming over in the Briny Muck area - neutral mobs with the same health & drop rate as the Chillwater Turtles. I'm always a big fan of multi-tasking if you can.

For lower level alts around 86/87, there is the well known area between Grassy Cline & Pools of Purity in Valley of the Four Winds. The spawn rate is crazy good here & the Wyrmhorn Turtles have only 110k health. It's a well known leather farming spot though so you may have to find your little corner & hope for a good respawn rate. The Gold Queen has some good tips on this spot - funny thing is, I just got my Paladin here the day she released her post! Talk about good timing! Also close by are the herds of Mushan but that's for tomorrow's post.

Argggh! Just found out Blizzard have reduced the numbers of turtles here. I popped over & had a little try out - there are definitely fewer turtles there to start with but they still have a healthy spawn rate & I still managed to get about 30 Raw Turtle Meat in 25 minutes. As far as I can tell, they are in smaller groups or dotted around the lake so it's just harder to pull a huge number of turtles all at once.

Raw Turtle Meat farm area - Valley of the Four Winds

Looking at my server on The Undermine Journal, it's fairly obvious that the initial rush to farm here has slowed down. There is still a fair amount of Raw Turtle Meat available on the Auction House but today for example, the price has shot up to almost 10g each as there are only 50 or so available. Just 3 days ago, there were only 70 or so available but the price was just under 2g each! I guess someone decided that price was too low maybe? (hehehe!)

For sheer speed of killing, I'd say go to the Valley spot to farm this meat, especially if you are a skinner. If you're not, then maybe find a friend who is & really go to town on these poor defenceless turtles - win/win for both of you - you get the meat & your friend gets the leather. You'll have to decide between you what to do with Motes of Harmony though.

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Mists of Pandaria Cooking Meats Series
Got all your Raw Turtle Meat but need to know where to farm the other Mists of Pandaria cooking meats? Check out my other posts in this series.

• Where to Farm Raw Crab Meat
• Where to Farm Raw Crocolisk Belly
• Where to Farm Raw Tiger Meat
• Where to Farm Mushan Ribs
• Where to Farm Wildfowl Breasts

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Mists of Pandaria - Where to Farm Raw Crocolisk Belly

Where to Farm Raw Crocolisk Belly

So Day 3 and we're onto farming for Raw Crocolisk Belly - used in cooking for the Banquet of the Wok, you'll need 50 of these just to level your Way of the Wok cooking skill. I found 3 areas where you can farm these up & all come with built in leather too so take your skinner if you can! Just pop some good tunes on your player & go to town for a while!

For level 87 alts, head for the Cradle of Chi-Ji in Krasarang Wilds & just a bit further east you will find the Mortbreath Skulkers & Snappers. These crocs have 215k health and a Raw Crocolisk Belly drop rate of around 45% according to Wowhead. Along with the meat, if you are skinning, you are most likely to get Sha-Touched Leather but you could also pick up Prismatic Scale & of course the wonderfully gross Plump Intestines.

Raw Crocolisk Belly farm area - Krasarang Wilds

At level 89, you will probably be working your way through the Dread Wastes so head down to the far South-east corner to the Lake of Stars. Here you will find the Coldbite Crocolisks with 394k health but a much better drop rate of around 60%. If you are level 89, the XP gains will also be very useful on your journey to level 90.

Raw Crocolisk Belly farm area - Dread wastes

As with so many farming spots, being an area where a Daily quest happens brings both advantages & disadvantages. As a skinner, I will always prefer a Daily area to farm as there is almost always spare carcases to be tidied away too. It can make farming for meat a bit slower though so you have to decide for yourself if the extra leather is worth the extra time taken to gather the meat.

If you like to farm like this, then at level 90 there is a daily quest at Whitepetal Lake - a smallish circular lake in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. The crocs here are Stillwater Crocolisks with 394k health & a 60% drop rate for meat, just like the Coldbite Crocolisks mentioned above.

Both the Coldwater & the Stillwater Crocolisks have a slightly higher drop rate for Motes of Harmony too although with my farming luck, the difference is not really noticeable. These higher level mobs almost always drop Exotic Leather rather than Sha-Touched Leather which is great news for skinners.

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Mists of Pandaria Cooking Meats Series
Got all your Raw Crocolisk Belly but need to know where to farm the other Mists of Pandaria cooking meats? Check out my other posts in this series.

• Where to Farm Raw Crab Meat
• Where to Farm Raw Tiger Meat
• Where to Farm Raw Turtle Meat
• Where to Farm Mushan Ribs
• Where to Farm Wildfowl Breasts

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Mists of Pandaria - Where to Farm Raw Crab Meat

Where to Farm Raw Crab Meat

Following on from yesterdays post about where to farm Raw Tiger Meat, today we have some nice places to farm Raw Crab Meat, also for the Way of The Grill. You will need 50 Raw Crab Meat to make Banquet of the Grill x5 so it's a bit more of a grind to get these.

I only found two good areas for skinning & killing crabs for their meat but by far the best one is in an area of the Dread Wastes called the Briny Muck. These are level 90 Rockshell Snapclaws or Muck Sifters with 295k health. I prefer the Muck Sifters as they are neutral & you can take your time to heal up if you need to without pulling aggro!


Raw Crab Meat farm areas - Dread Wastes

There are occasional patrol mobs but they are fairly easy to kill or avoid - whichever is your preference. I spent just 30 minutes here a few nights ago & got 45 Raw Crab Meats as well as all the leather. Now I'm pretty slow at farming (especially on my Paladin) to be honest, I've never quite got the hang of pulling lots of mobs but after a little persuasion, I've just added a Blood spec on my Death Knight & so far I'm loving the AoE farming potential. It's a shame she's not my skinner or I would be in total heaven!

For lower level farming, pretty much the whole coastal area of Krasarang Wilds has Viseclaw Fishers & Viseclaw Scuttlers - at 184k health & only level 86, these have a lower drop rate of Raw Crab Meat (about 35%) but add in skinning & XP gains and it's a perfect spot for your lower level alts to grind.

Raw Crab Meat farm area - Krasarang Wilds

Raw Crab Meat is currently the 2nd most expensive meat at the Auction House on my server, selling for about 8 gold each. At 45 in 30 minutes, it's not going to be my best gold-making farming grind unless I can improve my killing speed but for leveling my cooking & researching a blog post, it will do me for now.

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Mists of Pandaria Cooking Meats Series
Got all your Raw Crab Meat but need to know where to farm the other Mists of Pandaria cooking meats? Check out my other posts in this series.

• Where to Farm Raw Tiger Meat
• Where to Farm Raw Crocolisk Belly
• Where to Farm Raw Turtle Meat
• Where to Farm Mushan Ribs
• Where to Farm Wildfowl Breasts

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Mists of Pandaria - Where To Farm Raw Tiger Steak

WoW - Where to Farm Raw Tiger Steak - awww really?

If you are leveling your Cooking skill in Mists of Pandaria, you will need various fish, vegetables & meats, depending on which of the new 'Ways' you choose. The easiest method for vegetables is either to grow them yourself on your Farm or if the price is sensible, to buy them from the Auction House. There is an option to buy small quantities from Nam Ironpaw in Halfhill Market using your Ironpaw tokens but for now, those tokens are much more useful to buy the 100 Year Soy Sauce for the banquets you need to make to finish leveling any of the Way specialisations.

The fish required for cooking are also easily found - just level your fishing from appropriate Pools anywhere in Pandaria or, again, the Auction House if the price is acceptable to you.

Farming for the meats however, is not something that most people like to do. The supply on the Auction House isn't too bad right now, with so many people leveling toons, some meats are available naturally as drops from questing kills.

So where can you find Raw Tiger Steak & how much do you need? Well, The Way of the Grill is the only Way that needs them & then only 25 to get to the next recipe. Where is also a nice answer - lots of places! Any tiger in the zones of Pandaria have a chance to drop them although the higher the level, the higher the drop rate seems to be.

One thing I would suggest if you can - take your Skinner! Farming skinnable mobs for meat & not skinning is kind of silly really - you are leaving all that lovely saleable leather just lying around & if you don't skin it, you can bet your last dollar, someone else will! If you haven't leveled your Skinner to 90 yet, don't worry - there are plenty of tigers that are farmable by a reasonably geared level 85 & you will get lots of lovely XP too.


Raw Tiger Meat farming Areas - Jade Forest

For level 85 Horde players, there is an easy source almost as soon as you arrive to start questing - the Sha-Infested Tigers just outside Honeydew Village. They only have 135k health with a drop rate around 35%. As a quest mob, you may face some competition but the spawn rate isn't too bad & of course, you can skin any corpses that other people leave behind!

Also in Jade Forest for level 85's - there is a large area just south of Serpent's Heart filled with Golden Tigers - 158k health & a 35% drop rate so a little harder than the starter zone ones but available to both factions as are the Wild Stalkers & Wild Prowlers just NE of Pearlfin Village. This is also a questing area but the spawn rate is good enough to support multiple questers & farmers. For skinners, there are also Stoneskin Basilisks here too.

Raw Tiger Meat farming - Kun-Lai Summit

The level 87/88 Zouchin Tigers with 271k health are plentiful & have a better drop rate of around 50%. These can be found in the far North of Kun-Lai Summit area. With lower health than level 90 tigers, these may be the best farming option for speed - the slightly lower drop rate is counter-acted by the easier killing. It's also far enough off the main farming areas that you will probably have them all to yourself!

If you have made it to level 90 then the various dailies are now available to you - including the Order of the Cloud Serpent ones in the Windward isles to the NE of the Jade Forest. One of the dailies is to get Tiger Flanks from the Windward Tigers and as a side effect of course, you get Raw Tiger Steak too. This area is rather like the crocs in Tol Barad - a skinner's heaven - with all the toons doing their daily, there are lots of skinnable corpses just laying around for you.

Given the Asian theme across Pandaria, it's not surprising just how many areas have tigers (even though they are endangered in the real world). I found that I had almost enough Raw Tiger Steaks by the time I got to level 90 so I didn't have to go & farm these. But if you are not so lucky or you would like to farm leather & a profitable meat at the same time, then these areas should help you do that easily.

Have you found a little corner to farm Tigers? Would you share it or do you want to keep it to yourself!

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Mists of Pandaria Cooking Meats Series
Got all your Raw Tiger Meat but need to know where to farm the other Mists of Pandaria cooking meats? Check out my other posts in this series.

• Where to Farm Raw Crab Meat
• Where to Farm Raw Crocolisk Belly
• Where to Farm Raw Turtle Meat
• Where to Farm Mushan Ribs
• Where to Farm Wildfowl Breast

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Check out this great Zygor Guides review

Tiger Cub © Image by DigitalArt2 on Flickr under Creative Commons licence
Pork Chops © image by StuartWebster on Flickr under Creative Commons licence

The Hunt for Infinite Dust

A week or two ago, Huntermastery sparked a good discussion with his post about what not to stockpile for Mists of Pandaria. One of the items on his list was Infinite Dust. His argument was that abyss crystals were a more effective way of storing stuff that could be turned into Infinite Dust & Cosmic Essences, rather than storing multiple stacks of dust & essences. It turned into quite a good discussion which you can read about on his follow up post about Abyss Crystals if you'd like to.

Now I'm not trying to resurrect that discussion but I've never had much luck with the Abyss Crystal shatter as a source of infinite dust, I've always used my Jewelcrafter to make bloodstone bands, crystal citrine necklace & sun rock rings to disenchant. I have a permanent watch set up for the gems & I only buy them when they are below 3 gold each & preferably below 2 gold!

Since May this year, I've also been picking up very cheap Wrath armour to disenchant - I check the dust price & base my armour buy price on that. I also only buy the top end greens - level 78-80 as they give an average of 5 dusts per item.

So I thought I'd lay out some results from a little test I did last week. I've used The Undermine Journal mean price for my cost prices as I had a lot of stuff in my bank already.

Abyss Crystal Shatter

13 Abyss Crystal (TUJ mean price 427.70g) = 18 Infinite Dust + 41 Greater Cosmic Essences (TUJ mean price 491.34g)

Overall profit = 63.64g

This is a perfect example of my previous experience with the abyss shatter - I always get more GCE's so as a source of infinite dust, it is very frustrating even though GCE's still sell pretty well.

Wrath lvl 78-80 Green Armor

14 various items all at 10g or less, approx cost 140g = 78 infinite dust + 5 greater cosmic essences (TUJ mean price 533.70g)

Overall profit = 393.70g

Jewelcraft Rings/Necks to Disenchant

60 x rings/necks approx cost 210gold = 102 Infinite Dust + 22 lesser Cosmic Essences + 5 small dream shards (TUJ mean price = 758.74g)

Overall profit = 548.74g

I made a variety of bloodstone bands, crystal citrine necklaces & sun rock rings. The bloodstone, sun crystals & huge citrines were bought over time as an average of 2g each & the crystallized earth required cost approx 75 silvers each.

TUJ Mean Prices used

Infinite Dust 6.25
Greater Cosmic Essence 9.24g
Abyss Crystal 32.90
Lesser Cosmic Essence 4.47g
Small Dream Shard 4.58

Summary

I realise the abyss crystal sample size is way too small to be really representative of the possible outcome but to be honest, at an average of 32g each, I just didn't want to spend out more cash, knowing my previous luck! Also, bear in mind, I'm trying to source Infinite Dust specifically in this post - if I just wanted Wrath enchanting mats then it wouldn't really matter too much :)

The easiest way right now is the Wrath greens - there is an abundance on my server as people are rushing their alts through Northrend before Mists of Pandaria arrives. Some items are below 5g so even if they only give me 2 infinite dusts, I'm still snatching them up!

Conversely, the gems for the rings/necks seem to be increasing in price - it took me a fair while to get enough gems to craft this many rings. If I hadn't been clearing out all my bank bags, I probably would have had a much smaller sample size!

If you need Infinite Dust - where do you get yours? Do you bite the bullet & pay AH prices or have you tried a different way? Let me know - would love your comments.