What are the best places to farm for Items and Gold (LVL60) : World of Warcraft General Discussions

I know that there are lots of other places in here where good farming spots are mentioned but I'm too lazy to go looking all over. I want to know the best places to get the good items. I need to be able to solo these as a LVL 60 mage. I'll give 10 points for each good suggestion meeting the requirements below more for better ones and less or none to crappy ones...

please give detailed information regarding where the spot is, what monsters to kill and what special drops to anticipate.

Good:

Location: Western Plaguelands, Weeping Cave
Monsters: Rotting Behemoth, Decaying Horror
Item Drop: "Recipe: Greater nature Resistance Potion"
Monsters: Devouring Ooze"
Item: Pet: "Disgusting Oozeling"

Notes: to get to the cave, go to the river which splits the Eastern and Western plaguelands and go up the western side and the cave is up a little to the left. Watch out for the Devouring Oozes as they spawn 4 to 5 little oozes when they die. AOE kills them good..

Not Good:

I like to kill Crimson Welps in Winterland (wheres that place) cause they sometimes drop Sinew.

I have 150 Points allocated to this and am willing to pay points for good tips! . Thanks and I am looking forward to your good info! Doesnt have to be as structured as above but informative and descriptive please.


Thanks!!

WdAuRdEeZ

Location: Western Plaugelands, Felstone Field
Monsters: All of the undead there
Item Drop: Bone fragments, Runecloth, occasional green, rare blue, and hopefully an epic (i have yet to find one but my friend has), also drops minions scourgestones (if you have the argent dawn commision) which can be handed in for rep with argent dawn

Notes: As a 60 mage you could slaughter these things, they have really little health and dont do much damage, could probably run in there and kill 5-6 at a time (depending on your armour) by just running around using AOE instant casts. Felstone field is right in the middle of WPL really, you can find it by just following the path, it is a tiny bit north west of the center actually!

THIS IS NOT MY GUIDE! I DO NOT TAKE CREDIT FOR IT!

OK heres another Guide now people. Be nice and leave some REP.

Horde Grinding Spots:

0-15 - Questing fastest possible exp.
15-20 - The Barrens - Harpies *
15-20 - The Barrens - Bristleback(s) *
20-25 - The Barrens - Bael Dun Exavs *
20-25 - Hillsbrad - Hillsbrad Farmers (etc)
22-26 - Thousand Needles - Galak Scouts (etc) *
26-30 - Hillsbrad - Mud Gnolls *
25-30 - Thousand Needles - Grimtotems
30-38 - Shimmering Flats - All monsters. *
38-40 - Dustswallow Swamp - Very North East Islands, Murlock Warriors/Oracles.

Horde And Alliance Grinding Spots:

40-46 - Ferales - Woodpaws (stay away from the ones that disease for slow casting speeds) **
46-48 - Ferales - Frayfeather Skystormers *
48-50 - Ferales - Harpies
48-51 - Southwest of Gadgetzan - Thistleshrubs *
50-54 - Western Plaguelands - First 'field' to the left, assorted monsters.
54-60 - Western Plaguelands - Scarlet Lumberjacks
* = Recommended

EXP Rates:

Levels 30-40 = 18-20k exp/hour
Levels 40-60 = 20-30k exp/hour
Spell usage and order:

Typically, you don't want to use spells such as Arcane Missiles, Frost Bolt, Cone of Code, and other horrible DPM/slow spells. Your basic spell order should be something similar to; Fireball, Fireball, Fireball, Frost Nova + Strafe Away, Fireball (Until low HP), Scorch (Until dead). Of course, this doesn't work for everything, but you get the general idea.

Click here for a video example

Tip: Strafe SIDEWAYS away from monsters, instead of just backing up. Backing up is 70% movement, Strafing sideways = 100% Movement. I've seen LOTS of mages just back up. Getting optimal distance helps a lot - especially if you're using intelligence gear.

Tip: Loot fast! Shift + Right click the body of the monster to auto-loot everything. So many people don't know about this feature, it's amazing. I admit, I didn't even know about it for a very long time.

Knowing your mage:

Knowing how much damage your spells do helps A LOT. This doesn't only help in grinding, but with PVP too. I would suggest getting a UI that displays the opponents (monster/player) HP as a percentage. This makes it easier to familiarize yourself with damage. I suggest using either Nurfed's UI or CT Mod. Personally, I use CT Mod and some of the Nurfed add-ons together. The general point to knowing your mage's damage, is optimizing your mana use. You don't want to cast a fireball when the monster has only 10% health left - because your fireball's normally do around 20%. Get the idea?

UIs and Add-ons:

As I just previously said, I personally use CT Mod with some of the Nurfed Add-ons. However, there are some other good UIs out there, such as Gypsy that lots of mages use.

As for add-ons, I also use the following:

CastAway: Spell Sequencer with adjustable reset timer
Spell Alert: Notifies you when an enemy monster/player starts casting, and includes what spell they're casting.
CoolDownHud: Displays transparent icons on screen of the spells that are on cooldown, along with how long is left on each.
StatusBars: Displays your HP/MP at the bottom of the screen.
Decursive: Lets you bind a hotkey to decursive, which will cast remove curse on you/your party/your raid, if they have a curse on them.
Mage Gear:

Initially, I would suggest all mages get any * of intelligence gear possible. Max your mana out as much as you can. If not, settle for Eagle/Owl gear. You don't want to start having eagle gear equipped (as a priority) until 40+. Meaning, every time you go to AH, check out gear for levels 40+, because eagle gear gets harder to come by.

What about AOE leveling?

Lots of people claim AOE leveling is the best possible way to level at all times. I haven't found this to be true. However, there are certain spots/levels when AOE grinding is the best and easiest way to level. I haven't find many other AOE spots in which I consider viable. It's important to note that dying decreases your exp/hour rate A LOT, so if there's a good chance of you dying, it might not be worth the trouble at all. However, I must say that if you have a priest, then AOE leveling becomes a much better possibility. However, designing your talents around AOEing slows you down for obvious reasons; you always will need a priest to level at maximum speed, and it's not solo.

Talents, what's the best?!

I've leveled 3 mages past level 40, in retail. Two of them being 60, and the last one being 40. This doesn't include any of the betas. I can safely tell you from what I've experienced, a pure fire build is the fastest way to level initially. This doesn't mean being pure fire at level 60, however. As many know, talents such as clear casting are very good. I've toyed with this a bit. I've noticed clear casting doesn't start making a good amount of difference until around 40-45. So, I would suggest picking a pure fire build (please stay away from some of the less-used fire talents, such as flame strike), and have it planned out in a way that when you hit 45, you'll have 16 arcane and the rest into fire. Why? 16 arcane is IAM, Clear casting, Evocation, and IAE. All the necessary and supporting spells a mage needs.

Tips: Read Alcaras's thread on talents, located here (Click Me). Plan your build in a way that meets what I said, but conforms to one of the arcane/fire // fire/arcane builds. This might save you some cash in the long run, while giving you the opportunity to test out one of the best viable builds in the game.

Manage your time away from grinding:

WoW is a very easy place to waste time in. From constantly checking AH to doing professions, you can find yourself with a huge amount of wasted time on your hands if you don't pay attention.

When checking AH, check for gear for later (but not too far off) levels too. Doing this will save you AH trips in the long run.
Know what spells you get every two levels. Typically, it isn't worth interrupting your grinding if the spell you receive isn't going to increase your grinding time. If, for example, you're getting a new fireball spell, that's definitely worth the trip.
WoW is WoW. There is no getting around it. Traveling in WoW takes a huge amount of time. I've seen a huge amount of people go looking for better pits, for an extra 1-2k an hour, instead of just sticking it out and getting that 20k+ for that amount of time the other guy wasted LOOKING for a place to level. Even with teleports, don't fool yourself, try to limit your traveling as much as you can.
Professions. Professions are a very popular time waster. STOCK UP. Instead of turning clothe into bolts, and bolts into gear, every time you get materials, STOCK UP. Do it all in big bundles. Keep the materials in your bags if you don't need the space (some spots don't drop so much, some do), if not, stock it up in a local bank.
Instances. Lower level instances are such a waste of time for a mage. The equipment received from doing them doesn't increase your performance like melee classes. I suggest skipping the lower level instances and head straight for the ones that matter; the end-game ones.
Dying. As I said earlier, if you're dying a lot, it might be best to chose an alternative pit. Dying reduces your exp/hour rate a lot. It pretty much is equivalent to AH trips as a mage.
Best professions for a mage:

This is typically different for the type of server you're on. The best options for a PVP mage are Alchemy and Engineering (I cant confirm Engineering myself, but there's a large amount of mages that think so, so I'll go with that for now). Other options would be Enchanting and Tailoring. I wouldn't suggest tailoring, I consider it quite useless. I've had 260 tailoring on one of my mages, maxed tailoring on another. There's very few items you can make that you'll find useful, mainly bags. Tailoring is probably a lot more useful on a priest.

Mage Armor or Ice Armor?

It really depends on the monsters you're grinding on. You'll want to use Mage Armor when you can. Although the spell does very little, that little might be the 20 mana you need to caste a scorch or fireball to finish a monster up. If the monsters do quite high damage, use Ice Armor. An example of this, would be (from experience): Woodpaws in Ferales don't hit hard if you level on them correctly (the basic spell order I stated at the beginning of this guide), but the Stormers (initially) after Woodpaws hit faster/harder, so I had to use Ice Armor to grind there (only the first level).

The 1-2 levels before a new fireball spell:

These levels can be VERY painful. What I found to help a lot is saving all quests for these levels. Even if, for example, it's quests you complete by simply grinding on monsters (Shimmering Flats), don't turn them in until they're going to turn gray or you're on one of the levels before a new fireball spell. I do NOT suggest doing purely quests, but knowing which quests are easy/grind-able on helps a lot. Also, a higher level friend might be more willing to help you, if they know it's the level (or two) before a new fireball spell, and they know you've stacked up quests so they have a wide selection to help you from. If you cant do this, simply keep grinding and deal with the extra couple hours or so of how long it takes to level. Personally, all I did was not turn in grind-able quests as long as I could hold out - until these levels came up.

Dealing with the boringness of grinding:

There's no way to get rid of it. There's ways to deal with it, fortunately. The basic ways are to simply play music while grinding, or position your TV to a location where you don't have to turn much to watch it, or chatting in game. Grinding doesn't require you to watch your screen 100% of the time, even on a PVP server, so watching TV isn't too hard. A method I personally like is talking to friends, RL or on team speak, both are good choices to help you forget about what you're doing. One thing I urge everyone NOT to think about is how long it's taking to level, it'll make you extremely bored/frustrated.

Why do people grind if it's so boring?

A simple, yet complicated question. The simple answer is that we're power gamers/PVPers. We want to get as strong as possible as fast as possible. The part where it gets complicated is where casual gamers and such are reverting to grinding, too. With the current state of WoW, there's very little reason to do quests. One of the only reasons is that you get more involved with the story/history of WoW. Another is that it is more entertaining than grinding. While I'm not going to try arguing with either of those, I will tell you the following:

There's very few rewards to doing quests, one of them being able to buy mounts from other races in your faction. This, funny enough, isn't very possible. The other being you get discounts. I'll let you know now that you can easily obtain an honorable status by questing from 1 to 14-15, which is what I did. Grinding rewards better than questing, more materials, more gold, more of a chance to receive rare drops (blues that bind on equip), and most importantly, faster/better exp. Also, you can grind to 60 and then proceed to do instances, which means you end up with the same gear as everyone else, but faster.

There are different types of power leveling.

Grinding - Single target grinding, which is what this guide is based on. Some quests are done, but only the ones that can be done while grinding. This is -the- most boring form of power leveling.

AOEing - Killing multiple monsters at the same time with AOE spells. Sounds better than it is. Some quests are done, but only the ones that can be done while grinding. More entertaining than normal grinding.

Power AOEing - AOE grinding with outside support. This outside support is usually a support class healing you, which enables you to AOE a larger number of monsters and not have to worry about your health or survivability. Survivability is why solo AOE grinding is flawed. Little quests are done. Probably the best form of leveling. Fastest and most entertaining (you have someone to talk to, joke around, etc). The only downsides are finding someone to preform this task for you. Note: Outside support means you're not partied, IE; you're getting all of the experience.

Well, which is that fastest?! Power AOEing -> Grinding -> AOEing

How long did it take you to max, using these methods?

7 days 7 hours. However, I did it while the DM AOE grinding spot was still viable. This was recently nerfed. This took off a bit of the time it wouldve normally taken me to max out. This guide gives you the luxury of already having all of the spots listed out for you, and if you follow the guide, it should shave quite a bit off the time for you to max out. So with those changes, you should still be able to each a 7-8 day marker.

Mage Macros:

Here are some macros for mages. They work great for their purpose.

Polymorph Macro:
Announces the gender of the target, as well as their level.
/script if UnitSex("target") == 1 then SendChatMessage("Sheeping Female " .. UnitLevel("target") .. " %t","say") else SendChatMessage("Sheeping Male " .. UnitLevel("target") .. " %t", "say"); end
/cast Polymorph(Rank 4)
Counter-Spell:
It will cancel whichever spell is casting and cast counter-spell. Works GREAT in PVP.
/script SpellStopCasting()
/script CastSpellByName("counterspell")
WOTF:
When you get feared in PVP, you automatically lose your target, this will automatically target the last person when using WOTF.
/cast Will of the Forsaken(Racial)
/script TargetLastEnemy()
Reparty:
This will leave the party and reparty the person of your choice, resetting the instance. Replace "Person" with the players name.
/script LeaveParty()
/invite Person

Thanks for those, although the second one is full of info, it's not what I'm looking for. The first is good but I knew already about that. I guess I'm looking for better places.. I'll keep trying on my own also.

WdAuRdEeZ

Have ya tried farming members of the "twilight hammer" in Silithus? They drop alot of Runecloth // Encrypted Twilight Text, nice coin drop rate, and can drop great items!

Location: http://thotbott.com/?m=248896
Drops: http://thotbott.com/?n=248896

I had really good luck last night in the Weeping Cave spot I used as an example in the first message. I found [Pattern: Living Breastplate], 4X [Living Essence] I then found a Silver Elite Scarlet mob at the Lumber mill in WPL and got a [Pattern: Frostguard] when finishing up a quest.

I'm still open to new ideas..
WdAuRdEeZ

My tip to you is farm the Dust stormers in the north west corner in silithus, they drop Essence of Air, wich is always quite profitable, and they drop a few green items and such, with a few random world epics on the side
when you are tierd of those, you can go a few meters deeper into the corner and grind the earth elementals that roam there, they are weak and go down quick, drop elemental earth, essence of earth etc
i made 1000 gold in a short week there, with casual playing
maybe i was lucky, but so can you be

Good luck!

Hey there,

Lots of the suggestions are already places I've been and farmed. Following is a list of the places I farm or have already farmed and some info about each:

1. WPL Weeping Cave: Living Essences, Recipes, good silver and greens
2. Silithus NW Corner: Elementals dropping decent essences and greens
3. Deadwind Pass: Ogres, Sky Shadows, Unliving Residents Etc.
4. Dire Maul Elite mage Ogres (outside instances) good silver, better greens


Those are the main ones I can think of.. I've done others though..

WdAuRdEeZ

Nice guides here, they will help me i think

If I dont get into another Strat run tonight I'll try the Twilight hammers again, I got tired of all the scarlet sets which are filling up AH though and cant be disenchanted.. I looked on Thott though and they have some pretty good drops!

WdAuRdEeZ

Location: Ungoro crater, the big mountain in the middle
Monsters: all the flaming things
Items: essence of fire, heart of fire

Just kill kill kill, pretty good drops...

WPL and EPL are the best! and if you can AOE than thats EVEN better!!

But, mainly.. Run around Winterspring, Ashzra, wpl, epl, and a lot of other high area's and you will need the explioted gather mod and run around those area's and BAM:) phat loot, about 20s - !@#$%^&* load of items in there, at most you get 2-3g per chest. and holy !@#$%^&* thats at the minimunm adads as ads

Location: Scarlet Monastary
Monsters: everything!
Items: SILK SILK SILK SILK SILK!!!!! a hell of alot of silk drops from there and if u are an enchanter then u can de all the blues that the end bosses drop... also lots of greens drop

Just run in and AOE, healing pots recomended!

I have 90 more points to distribute! Any other good tips?

WdAuRdEeZ

can anyone tell me where to go for a lvl 26 for gold?