Portal Shards? To Plant Or Not To Plant?

Portal Shards - To Plant Or Not?

One of the newest items added within WoW Patch 5.1 has been the addition of the ability to till and farm Portal Shards on your Sunsong Ranch.  These new Portal Shards take up a slot on your farm, thus preventing you from planting and growing an item that will be worth selling or using for cooking quests and dailies.  Are they really worth it?

HELL NO!  Portal Shards are the biggest pieces of shit introduced into WoW since...ever!

Why Portal Shards Suck Ass:

I can't think of a single reason anyone (with a brain) would waste a farm slot on a Portal Shard, other than the first one you get for free from the vendor's quest because you just tried it out to see what it did.  The portal shards are absolute garbage that actually cost you more than the 2-3 gold the seeds cost.  Understanding opportunity cost, shows us that it not only costs the price of the seed, but also the profit of the item you could have grown in that farm slot instead. 

Example:  A portal shard costs you 2 gold.  If Witchberries sell for 10 gold each, then growing a portal shard just cost you roughly 52 gold because you could have grown a witchberries plant instead.  Just using Witchberries as an example - something else may be a more profitable option on your server.

 That's just 1 sacrifice of wasting a Sunsong Ranch farm slot on growing a Portal Shard.  There are plenty more reasons not to grow Portal Shards.

1. Farm Only - Portal Shards can only be used from within your phased personal Sunsong Ranch Farm.  WTF?  That means you cannot carry them around with you and expect to use them while out adventuring. 
2. Random Portals - When grown on your farm, you get a random portal that leads to a specific major faction city.  Not only does this suck ass in general, you also have multiple bag slots wasted on the various different types of Portal Shards that only go to the single cities.
3. Not Even Needed - With Hearthstones at 15 minute cooldowns, is there even a need to Portal off of your Sunsong Ranch, especially when there is a flightmaster within Halfhill that is only a single flight away from the Vale of Eternal Blossoms capital cities that house all of the portals?
4. Using a portal off of your Farm saves what 10 seconds as opposed to hearthing to the capital city where your Hearth should be set anyway?

Since the Unstable Portal Shard Seeds can only be purchased at Revered reputation status with the Tiller's Union, you will already be level 90 and have access to your capital city within the Vale of Eternal Blossoms.   Within your capital city is a portal room with a portal to each major city for your faction.  Be smart and set your hearthstone to there.  If you are not level 90, then you can't grow Portal Shards and your alts that are camped at their own individual Sunsong Ranch won't have access to them anyways.

Overall these Portal Shards are nothing but absolute garbage with no reason ever to be planted.  I've seen images of farmers growing a full set of 16 Portal Shards and I've just got to laugh and ask myself if people really are that dumb or just that lazy?

Anyone actually have a legit reason for using these stupid things?

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