Discoveries

(Sorry for the multiple edits; I'm not sure how feed readers work, but I assume you get all of my other versions...whoops.)

Many of the things that I'll be posting about, regarding The Experiment, are the simple discoveries that I make due to the limit on leveling that's self imposed on our group. In short, I've found new enjoyable activities for low level characters.

Once the leveling process/pressure is removed from the game, I felt free to look at other aspects of the game that I've previously disdained or avoided due to my perception of it as a waste of time. Fishing was one of those activities.

But when you are faced with the option of killing lvl 4 or below mobs for cash/items OR leveling a secondary profession (and, it turns out, a primary one), I'll take the latter. It feels less like grinding if I'm getting something out of it, even if it's only fishing skill....

So, without further ado, allow me to sing the praises of fishing...

1. Cooking. This is the most obvious benefit to catching large quantities of fish. Not only do you have the mats readily at hand, but also, the cooked fish heal more and sell for more (in most cases).

2. Alchemy fish. Yes, in my time in The Barrens, I only found Oily Blackmouth pools, but those fish are selling at a nice price on the AH. I sold a stack of 20 for 3.50 G. Oh yeah!! Gimme dat fishin' pole!!

3. Floating Debris pools. There's no telling what you can fish up from these pools. Strangle kelp, Rumsey Rum Light, and Tightly Sealed Trunks. The first two are nice to see, but the last one is pure GOLD!!! Yes, you get some coppers (sometimes that's the only thing), but usually, there are at least one of the following:
Bolts of linen
Bolts of Wool
Light leather
Medium leather
Mana pots
Lesser healing pots
Green quality items
and last, but certainly not least - Weather Beaten Journal.

Yes, I got ALL, (ALL!!!!) of those items from Tightly Sealed Trunks. I almost wet myself when I saw the Weather Beaten Journal drop! For those of you who may not know what that is, the Weather Beaten Journal allows you to track fishing pools as little yellow dots on the minimap. The skill works just like Track Minerals or Track Herbs.

4. Tailoring/Leatherworking. Of course, with the mats listed above, it's easy to see how one can work on a primary profession without killing anything for xp. A conservative estimate is that of the items I've created via tailoring, at least 40% of the bolts have come from fishing, if not more. And all of the wool items have come from fishing (four 8 slot bags).

So, it turns out that I've either found a minigame or created a minigame in WoW. It's called Find the Fishing Node! Of course, by the time I found the journal, I'd already memorized where the pool spawns were up and down the coast by Ratchet, but I can already see a time in the future when this skill will be paying some nice dividends. In fact, I have Daxenos out fishing now! He whines and cries about it, but I know he'll be happy once he gets HIS journal...lol.