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| About Time |
New Way To Track
A new mini-map UI was included within the newest Patch 4.0.1. Now all players can select multiple options to be "tracking" within the mini-map. Each trackable group on the mini-map has its own marker as well. Previously we could only track 1 thing at a time. I rolled a test character and confirmed that both Mining and Herbalism (or Find Herbs and Find Minerals) can both be shown on the mini-map together (see above image). This is a very nice change.
Double Gathering
With this new change it is much easier to make an uber-farming character with both herbalism and mining simultaneously. A macro to swap back and worth tracking types is no longer needed. You now can see the nodes and herbs on your mini-map. This now is the ideal set-up for making money while leveling because it just became much easier and not annoying. If you were leveling a character with double gathering you would never have to pass up a mineral node or herb again. This is much faster of a leveling combo than Herbalism or Mining and Skinning. Removing skinning when thinking of speed. A major drawback is the time it takes to skin. So Double Gathering as Miner / Herbalist is the ideal choice for ease and speed purposes. Both selling herbs and selling ores / bars are in constant demand on any server and the new gold standard when making money while leveling.
Track Low Level Quests
You also can now turn on the ability to always track low level quests. This is nice because if you were a miner or herbalist working on the Loremaster Achievement, you couldn't track low level quest givers and your nodes. Now it is set it and forget it! So the new mini-map changes that Blizzard gave us are a very nice addition indeed.
What Class And Race Combo Do You Think Is The Best For A Farming Only Alt?
Druids are the best alts for any type of gathering, since they can gather without having to leave flight form. That saves the time dismounting and remounting, and leads to significantly increased speed while farming.
ReplyDeleteFor herbalism, Tauren druids are exceptionally good. As of 4.0.1, their racial "Cultivation" not only increases their herbalism skill by 15, but makes them gather herbs in less time than other herbalists. It takes Tauren 0.5 seconds to gather herbs, whereas other races it takes 2.0 seconds.
I don't know of any race that currently gets such a mining bonus.
You could also argue that hunters and death knights would be good because they are able to spec into + 10% mounted speed, but paladin's crusader aura is 20%, so that's superior.
Well said Sir Nicholai. I believe the ideal farmer is a druid herbalist/miner as of this patch. Flight Form is just so nice for farming. Worgen will get the skinning speed bonus in Cataclysm. Dwarfs get a bonus to mining, but I don't believe they get a bonus to mining speed.
ReplyDeleteLooks like Find Fish can also run together with the others.
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ReplyDeleteWell noted. Having multiple "Finds" up at once does make things easier - especially now with the 310% mounts - leads to less overshooting.
ReplyDeleteToggling Find Herbs / Find Mines became such a habit that for the first half hour, I kept toggling away.
Why would it be slower to have skinning as one of the professions? It takes as much time to skin a corpse as it takes to loot a mining/herb node - except that you can skin the quest mobs too while "just doing quests"
ReplyDeleteTakes much longer because you tend to have a pile of corpses to skin at a time. Ever try to skin during a fast moving dungeon group? Real easy to get left behind.
ReplyDeleteye ofc but that's on dungeon leveling, where you might have other players with same gathering professions like you in the group (be it herb, mine or skin).
ReplyDeletehaving more corpses to skin is arguably a better reward for having skinning, since you don't even have to run around in diference spots to skin them, providing they were aoe'd down.
i do have a druid herbalist + miner alt and until now i've used the Spotter addon that would automatically switch the active tracking between the two. but i still think that either of the 3 gathering profession would be a good choice for any "gatherer alt", be it leveling alt or max lvl one.
being able to track multiple things at once it's amazing even if you don't have any of the gathering skills - several times i've been searching for the class trainer in a crowd of NPCs, or searching for a repairer, food vendor, inkeeper or such. sure you could track them all previously, but having all of them active it's just an amazing thing, especially while leveling. or even on your max-lvl char, you can now have low-lvl quests active, while still tracking the food vendors, repairs, mailbox and such. simply awesome :D
Beleive me, I am loving it too! Love being able to see Mining Nodes, Gas Clouds, Schools of Fish, and Low Level Quest Givers all simultaneously!
ReplyDeleteI used to promote either herb or miner along with skinner, but based on total profit from herbs and ores / bars over skins /hides, I gotta stick with Miner/Herb as the new best combo and druid for sure. Although worgen skinner with one other is an excellent choice as well, especially if you plan your leveling route through beast rich zones.
It's extra fun now with the added xp-gain voor gathering materials.
ReplyDeleteAlthough druids are the obvious choice, I made a hunter specifically for this. So my pet can occupy itself with the occasional mob close to the node. This way less nodes get 'stolen'.