I've been farming a lot of ghost mushrooms and gromsblood lately in order to make Demonslaying Elixirs. My guild's farming trash in Sunwell Plateau at the moment and has taken a few half-hearted swings at Kalecgos, all of which ended in much hollering and arguing and waving of hands in the air. But despite the fact that Big Blue is likely to ride our collective ass for weeks, I like to think of myself as a long-term planner with a gimlet eye on Brutallus. So, a-farming I go.
The materials for the elixir are fairly irritating to farm in quantity, and I find myself in a lot of areas I never even leveled extensively in when I was raising my Druid main. Desolace? Paid it a visit to get some fishing done. Blasted Lands? Uh...passed through it on my way to Outland. Maraudon? Did I do that? I want to say I did, but was brought up short at learning of the existence of a scepter that allows you to bypass two-thirds of the instance. I know for sure I've never set foot in Dire Maul North, much less a Tribute Run, I'd never seen the live side of Stratholme, and I hadn't so much as clapped eyes on the Emperor in Blackrock Depths.
There's a lot of content that has a tendency to go by the wayside when there's something bigger and better coming up, and it started to bother me that my main had never seen so much of classic WoW. Mike touched on this the other day in a Breakfast Topic wondering what a worthy goal would be before Wrath hits, and this is a variation on the same theme -- dusting off older content, older quests, and just enjoying them for their own sake without the pressures of being undergeared, having to level, or making multiple irritating corpse runs (seriously, though, could the graveyard for the Blackrock instances be any less convenient?).
So for the past few weeks I've been on a pre-60 content kick, and most of it's turned out to be pretty cool. BRD has rapidly become something of a favorite because you get some crazy drops in there, and it's fun running around Shattrath sporting the finest in pre-60 blues. And, as you may observe from my helpful screenshot, it's the type of experience you really want to share.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
5-14-2008 @ 7:16PM
Nathan said...
You can find 4 spawn points close together for ghost mushroom in Skulk Rock in the Hinterlands. They spawn on a 10 minute timer or something, maybe less, but spend a few hours in there and you should be able to get a few stacks easily. The mobs are low so you can disregard them.
Well, thats where I used to go pre-TBC.
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5-14-2008 @ 10:47PM
Ken said...
Gah, here I go... giving away my farming secrets again.
OK, in addition to the Ghost Mushrooms you'll find in Skulk Rock, you can also get about 4 more in Jintha'Alor. The area used to be filled with epic mobs ranging from level 54-58, but Blizzard recently changed a lot of pre-60 outdoor epic encounters to non-epic encounters, so all mobs are non-epic now.
When you reach the very top, there's a cave with two guards at the entrance. Go in there and you'll find at least one (all the time). Then go back out of the cave, hang a right and go into the area where the queen is (big circular area). There's a cave back there with about 3 more mushrooms. Once you're finished in Jintha'Alor, go back to Skulk Rock and farm more. Wash rinse.
In my experience, you can farm the stuff faster than it respawns, so I believe it's on a 25-30 minute timer. When I finish 1 round, I go back to the first cave at the top of JA and hang out while I alt-tab (for about 5-15mins), browse the web, watch youtube videos or whatnot while waiting for the respawn. By the time that one respawns, you should have full respawns in the other cave at the top of JA. Get those, then back down to Skulk Rock and you should have a good rotation there.
Gromsblood can be found really easily in Felwood. I believe that's the zone where it's most dominant, and that's the zone I used to farm it from pre-BC while farming for Whipper Root Tubers and Night Dragon's Breath. It's about as common as Dreamfoil is out there, and that's pretty damn common. Since no one really farms that stuff much anymore, it should be a lot easier to find than it was for me pre-BC.
I'm glad to hear you're having fun with the old content, and sorry to hear you had to miss out on it way back when. I had my share of good times in Stratholme, Scholomance, BRD, LBRS, UBRS, and the works. I also had my share of bad times due to bad playes or a shitty group composition, or the noobs that like to treat UBRS like one big zerg fest.
The Dire Maul tribute run was fun and challenging. You should try it sometime. The timed Stratholme run was also very fun and challenging. Then there's Onyxia -- some of my friends and I 5-manned her about 2 weeks ago. Long fight but fun. There are also 4 green dragons (outdoor encounters) that are still ?? elites and still fairly tough for a 5-man group. The last time I did this with friends, I ran out of mana so much, I had to leave combat to drink about 9 times. If you really want a challenge, try 5-manning Blackwing Lair (if you're attuned).
5-15-2008 @ 11:29AM
Allison Robert said...
Thank you both for the tips, and I'll keep an eye out. I've also installed Cartographer's herbalism package to try to speed the process up some (too bad Cartographer's a bit buggy in the wake of the patch), but there's no denying that farming both herbs will cost you an arm and a leg in flight fees.
5-manning BWL? I'd try it. BWL is one of the early steps in the scepter questline (which at this point I'm doing for ha-has as someone transferred to my server to open the gates) so maybe I'll turn that into my personal goal before Wrath hits.
5-14-2008 @ 7:25PM
Solidarn said...
Imagine being an MC/BWL raider with that blackrock corpse run.
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5-14-2008 @ 7:45PM
Reinard said...
Man I do not miss MC at all :(
5-15-2008 @ 11:26AM
Allison Robert said...
Some things are too horrible even to think about...
5-14-2008 @ 7:59PM
Johnnyd2 said...
this may sound weird, but i never entered Feralas XD. just did STV and stuff.
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5-14-2008 @ 8:00PM
Rob said...
Really wish they would drop attunement on old instances. I've done only a handful of them, they seem interesting but extremely long. But no way am I going to spend 10+ hours to get attuned to go kill Ony. Sometimes I just think blizz only cares about Esports and profit.
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5-14-2008 @ 8:20PM
Iwanttobeasleep said...
Me too. I know they don't like to revisit old stuff, and I don't blame them, but I can't imagine it would take that long to remove. It's dumb that now the hardest, and only, attunements in the game are for raids that can easily be 5-manned by 70-raiders in Kara gear.
5-14-2008 @ 10:39PM
Timothy said...
Are you kidding?? I'm looking forward to trying to tune to Onyxia. I'm also gonna try to attune to all those no longer necessary attunement instances. Just me, I guess, but I love the idea of attuning to these things. I also love collecting the keys.
5-14-2008 @ 8:07PM
jaenicoll said...
Awhile ago, my guild's raiding frequency dropped severly and I found myself with time and the desire to catch up on some old content.
I discovered that completing old instance quests and reading up on their back story very fulfilling and soon found myself inventing umpteen personal challenges like soloing all old world bosses and completing all the old world uber quest chains.
One of my fondest wow memories is of the first time I managed to solo Stratholme and down Baron Rivendere within the 45 minute timer. Another is completing The Great Masquerade in Stormwind.
Sure the gear for the most part sucks (other than a few notable exceptions) and the accomplishment may seem trivial to some people but there is a bunch of stuff to explore in the old world that can be made interesting and challenging and it can be a helluva lot of fun too.
Longjohnson
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5-15-2008 @ 11:32AM
Allison Robert said...
I couldn't agree more; a LOT of the old content is great for lore junkies like myself and being able to experience it all at a relaxed pace without a harried PuG breathing down your neck is great.
I have yet to try soloing a Baron run but I think I could pull it off if I brought along some Purification potions (as a druid I can't do much about the rampant disease the mobs inflict upon you, and from what I recall at least one of them in Strat is fairly unpleasant even at 70).
5-14-2008 @ 8:42PM
Kyle said...
I've never been to Emperor in BRD. I've been to the room with the torches though and wiped a bajillion times before giving up. Never been past MC in raids. Missed ALOT of major low levels quests that are practically famous. Never did LStrat on main when it was pre-tbc. Only did Scholo once. Never did Ony before 70 :(
Lots of other things but I can't remember. My plan was to level an alt that will go slow and expierence all of these things. Warrior at 70, hunter going straight to 70 for farming. Druid going nice and slow to see it all.
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5-15-2008 @ 11:47AM
toxicw said...
The Emperor is hell to get to. Did him on my 62 BE pally with
one 70 lock in group and 3 high 50's.
Is a nightmare to get to him. The torch guys are murder. Need some serious AOE in that room. Must have tried BRD 20 times before got to him. Just recently got keyed for Onyxia on my 62 dwarf pally. Still want to do the outdoor dragons, Blackwing Lair, Onyxia, and Naxxramus. No one mentioned Naxxramus, another instance in Eastern Plaguelands. Want to do Molten Core also, am attuned but can never find a group for.
70 BE Pally just got key for UBRS. What about the two instances in Slithius? Anyone ever do them? I haven't.
Have done the Dire Maul tribute run.
How about instances that looked planned but still not implemented. Near the Giants in southern Tanaris and demons in southern Winterspring. Love to explore!
5-14-2008 @ 8:52PM
Heleth said...
This is one of the reasons I think blizzard is crazy not to add heroic modes (and legendary modes at 80?) to oldworld instances.
I mean especially now that they say that 10/25 raids are just the same things scaled.
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5-14-2008 @ 9:46PM
Jack Spicer said...
What they really should do is pick one or two instances to update and see what the response is. Heroic Scarlet Monastery for the win!
5-14-2008 @ 8:55PM
Kevin said...
Around Christmas time I went and cleared all of BRD since I don't think I ever got passed the arena part while leveling. It is actually a really cool place to go solo when you don't need to worry about bad pugs. I think one day I will probably finish Mara and do dire maul, strat and scholo since the little bits of those places along with the lore is all really cool.
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5-14-2008 @ 9:21PM
Zerubabble said...
Yeah, I just saw a good portion of Stratholme today that I've never seen before. I decided to solo farm for the Idol of Brutality from Magistrate Barthilas on my 70 druid. It made me want to go visit some of those other places I never saw.
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5-14-2008 @ 9:45PM
Jack Spicer said...
Ancient Lichen will become the new Ghost Mushrooms when WotLK comes out.
I don't even think its possible to find this stuff outside of instances unlike Ghost Mushrooms.
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5-15-2008 @ 12:02AM
ErsatzPotato said...
Lichen can be easily gathered from "skinning" low-mid level BC mobs with herbalism outside of instances & raids. It's also sold as one of the rare vendor spawns at Darkmoon Faire.