Initial Thoughts on Pandaria

[Merusk]

but I did get the first of 10 quest items I needed for the legendary.

This right here is all I needed to know. I was concerned that they were going to restrict  the epic drops to non-LFR-group-only in the same way Shadowmorne drops were 25-man raid only.   That's awesome.

[Azazel]

Cooking can be levelled up from 1 to at least 525 standing in front of and buying from one vendor trainer.

Who (name) and where?

[Setanta]

Cooking can be levelled up from 1 to at least 525 standing in front of and buying from one vendor trainer.

Who (name) and where?

I read that post and then found this:

WoW Cooking Guide 1-600 Leveling | MoP Cooking Guide 1-525 - The Fast Way

In Mists of Pandaria Cooking is getting a huge speed boost for any players 85 and above with the MoP expansion installed. You'll now be able to catch up your cooking to 525 MoP level very fast and easily as long as you have around 350g to spend which let's be honest, who doesn't at level 85 and above.

You'll want to start by heading to Valley of the Four Winds in Pandaria and going to the Halfhill Market where you can find Sungshin Ironpaw. Talk to her and train what you can, when you can. Below is a detailed layout of how things should go with most giving 5 skill points while orange. A very painless way to level Cooking.

    1-31: Make 6 x [Sliced Peaches]
    Required Materials:
    6 x [Pandaren Peach]
    31-61: Make 6 x [Perfectly Cooked Instant Noodles]
    Required Materials:
    6 x [Instant Noodles]
    61-91: Make 6 x [Toasted Fish Jerky]
    Required Materials:
    6 x [Golden Carp]
    91-121: Make 6 x [Dried Needle Mushrooms]
    Required Materials:
    6 x [Needle Mushrooms]
    121-151: Make 6 x [Pounded Rice Cake]
    Required Materials:
    6 x [Rice]
    151-181: Make 6 x [Yak Cheese Curds]
    Required Materials:
    6 x [Yak Milk]
    181-211: Make 6 x [Dried Peaches]
    Required Materials:
    6 x [Pandaren Peach]
    211-241: Make 6 x [Boiled Silkworm Pupa]
    Required Materials:
    6 x [Silkworm Pupa]
    241-271: Make 6 x [Roasted Barley Tea]
    Required Materials:
    6 x [Barley]
    271-301: Make 6 x [Golden Carp Consomme]
    Required Materials:
    12 x [Golden Carp]
    301-331: Make 6 x [Fish Cake]
    Required Materials:
    12 x [Golden Carp]
    331-361: Make 6 x [Blanched Needle Mushrooms]
    Required Materials:
    12 x [Needle Mushrooms]
    361-391: Make 6 x [Red Bean Bun]
    Required Materials:
    6 x [Red Beans]
    391-421: Make 6 x [Skewered Peanut Chicken]
    Required Materials:
    6 x [Farm Chicken]
    421-451: Make 6 x [Green Curry Fish]
    Required Materials:
    12 x [Golden Carp]
    6 x [Rice]
    451-481: Make 6 x [Peach Pie]
    Required Materials:
    12 x [Pandaren Peach]
    481-496: Make 3 x [Tangy Yogurt]
    Required Materials:
    3 x [Pandaren Peach]
    3 x [Yak Milk]
    496-511: Make 3 x [Pearl Milk Tea]
    Required Materials:
    6 x [Yak Milk]
    511-521: Make 2 x [Wild Ginseng Soup]
    Required Materials:
    2 x [Ginseng]
    2 x [Wildfowl Breast]
    521-526: Make 1 x [Rice Pudding]
    Required Materials:
    1 x [Rice]
    1 x [Yak Milk]

Going to try it out as my newest and highest toon has no cooking.

[Zetor]

I didn't see Golden Carp on the vendor, so you may need to do some fishing (or AHing) too.

[Ironwood]

This would explain why Golden Carp is worth a metric fuckton on my server.

[luckton]

Golden Carp is the MoP trash fish.  As long as you're not fishing in a pool, you've got around a 50% chance of getting it.  It valuable because it's used in a number of generic 500->535 recipes, one of those being a daily quest for the serpent riders' faction to make 5 Fish Cakes.

[Ironwood]

So if I'm reading that right, it's easy to level cooking for your big guys, but starting from a level 1 char, you're doing it the hard way ?

[luckton]

From level 1, it's just like any other prof.  As long as you keep up with it as you level by killing stuff and cooking the meats, you can stay afloat.  The quick leveling bit that they added with MoP is for those that want to get in on the Cooking craze now that they've made it more interesting, so long as you don't mind the gold sink.  Honestly I wish they did that with all professions at this point in the game's longevity, but god forbid we make this game TOO easy   

[Ironwood]

No, I'm sorry, but that's bullshit.  Due to the incredible speed at which you level, coupled with the skill gains on a prof versus a gather, it quickly knocks you right out of synch.

It's something that they should have sorted by now, but they haven't.  They started doing it with the Blood Elves and spiced bread, but it's just not enough.

[luckton]

For a brand new, cut right out of the mold player that has never played a MMO before, I can see the current system still working, because that new person is going to take time and do and learn things, not just straight shot to 90.  The quick prof. leveling for Cooking is for us vets that don't want to kill raptor after raptor for each of our alts just to get max cooking.

[Ironwood]

I'd be surprised, but ok.

[Zetor]

Can't you get almost-max cooking relatively easily during the thanksgiving event (fully through vendor-bought materials)? I seem to remember I did that on two of my chars.

[Ironwood]

Yeah, you can.  The Thanksgiving was what allowed me to level up really quite high on 3 of my chars.  The turkey capture is a pain in the arse (especially for my priest, since thanksgiving was over when he went out to catch them), but it was much better.

[Simond]

Speaking of Tillers and cooking: Consider what this individual sells, then look at this quest. Now also remember what this jolly individual will exchange for a token.

tl;dr - all MoP cooking ingredients are convertible into any other MoP cooking ingredients.

[Ironwood]

Odd.  One wonders why the fuck the price of Carp is so high then.

[Merusk]

Yeah but the conversion factor is shit on that.  Baskets take 20-100 items and the bags give 5-20 of an item.  Dropped items being on the low and planted/farmed on the high-end.

Odd.  One wonders why the fuck the price of Carp is so high then.

1) People are dumb. I"ve seen may "I can't find any goldfish pool!" comments in general.
2) People hate fishing.  Fish have always had a higher price than other items - at least on my server.
3) Needed for the Cloud Serpent dailies. Price will drop as more people hit exalted and don't run them anymore.

[luckton]

It's takes 100 farm-grown veggies (non-meats) to make a basket, while it takes 20 meats from NPCs to do the same.  It's not bad if you're in a pinch and need just a handful of something to make food for your group or yourself that night, but it's not a profitable thing.  Even with 16 food plots, unless it's Jogu the Drunk's Foretold Pick of the Day, you can't farm enough of any one veggie to make a basket (5 quantity per plant x 16 = 80).  If it 'is' Jogu's Pick, then you get enough and then some ( (5 quantity per pick + 2 bonus) x 16 = 112).

So far, my planting strategy has been to max Way of the Oven (which I did the other day), and then plant what I need to master the other Ways.  I'll worry about Harmony mote farming later.

[Miasma]

Yeah don't trade in any veggies for a grocery bag, they sell for a lot of gold right now.  As in they cost way, way more than herbs or ghost iron on the AH.  To get the last 25 skill points in each type of cooking takes a metric fuckton of veggies.  I imagine the price will go down once everyone has 16 plots and people aren't trying to cap out each cooking line.

If you want to get to 600 in the each type of cooking you will also need five items of hundred year soy sauce per line, each cost a mark of iron.  If you don't need them for tradeskills you can also trade in one spirit of harmony for one mark of iron at the harmony vendor near the flight path at your eternal blossoms city.

I love what they did with the trash fish this expansion, it's actually useful.  Didn't know you needed it at the 1-525 trainer.

Edit: Oh another reason why veggies cost so much is that there are ten seperate friendships to build up and they each want five items of food each day for, like, a lot of days.

A good guide to the friendships.  If you only want to focus on one it would probably be Tina Mudclaw, she gives the farm hut a makeover and basically turns it into player housing.  Note that the blue exclamation marks don't even appear unless you have at least one item of food the person wants.

[luckton]

Simplified Tillers' guide.


 

[Hawkbit]

No, I'm sorry, but that's bullshit.  Due to the incredible speed at which you level, coupled with the skill gains on a prof versus a gather, it quickly knocks you right out of synch.

It's something that they should have sorted by now, but they haven't.  They started doing it with the Blood Elves and spiced bread, but it's just not enough.

As someone who just rolled a Monk that is at 62 now, I agree.  My experience was that for Mine/JC, I hit every node I passed and supplemented maybe 50g from AH gems to have 300/300 when I strolled into Outland.  The ore is plentiful and the leveling smooth for professions.  Except for Cooking and Arch.  Neither is a huge deal, because the levels went so fast to 60 that I never once sat to eat.  At lvl 62 my cooking is only 178, and I treated it like nodes, collecting everything I saw and skilling up whenever in a city.

[Fordel]

Wait, when did WoW add Harvest Moon?

[cmlancas]

Currently, raiding is hard.  Like, you better be in 463s or come back next week with your LFR/VP stuff.

We were 8/8 H, but couldn't get the council members past 75%.  Hoping to get back in on Friday, but a lot of our raidmembers aren't much interested in gearing up their toons with so many other things to do.

I don't get all the "have to complete every daily" folks.  I've been doing dailies at a leisurely pace and will hit honored with Golden Lotus today or tomorrow.  Not having honored/revered hasn't stopped my fun in the slightest.

[Miasma]

Stopped raiding because people need to come back with better gear.

Dailies haven't stopped my fun in the slightest.

Well the daily grind stopped your raiding because people need to grind out all the factions to get that better gear to come back and raid.

And are you talking about normal or heroic mode?

[Simond]

Wait, when did WoW add Harvest Moon?

The same time they added pokemon.

[Paelos]

And both are fun.

[Rokal]

1) People are dumb. I"ve seen may "I can't find any goldfish pool!" comments in general.

This is actually a legitimate complaint. You can't fish up trash from pools, so any fishing skill will work fine for them. If you want to catch Golden Carp, you need to go through the slog of leveling fishing and waste 5-10 hours with the profession that gives archaeology a run for it's money as the least-fun activity in the game.

I switched to a monk for MoP which meant starting with 0 fishing again. Currently at ~300 and the experience has not been enjoyable.

[Fordel]

Wait, when did WoW add Harvest Moon?

The same time they added pokemon.

Do you get to comfort your cows?

[Miasma]

1) People are dumb. I"ve seen may "I can't find any goldfish pool!" comments in general.

This is actually a legitimate complaint. You can't fish up trash from pools, so any fishing skill will work fine for them. If you want to catch Golden Carp, you need to go through the slog of leveling fishing and waste 5-10 hours with the profession that gives archaeology a run for it's money as the least-fun activity in the game.

I switched to a monk for MoP which meant starting with 0 fishing again. Currently at ~300 and the experience has not been enjoyable.

If you build up Nat Pagle friendship you can level your alts to 600 without ever fishing, just costs gold.  I guess 12k for 0-600, not including any discount type benefits.

Nat's Fishing Journal

Nat Pagle friendship, however, requires a lot of fishing on an 85+ who already has fishing skill.

[Azazel]

Rep tabards made those factions 'grinds' ridiculously easy, I'd already be exalted with everybody by now and waiting around for my raid days or leveling an alt out of boredom by this stage in Cata or Wotlk. You could easily do a rep a day, if not more and it required no more of you than wearing a tabard and doing what you were doing anyway. Dungeons were triple dipping on rewards, you got rep, gear and JP/Valor Points to buy more gear should the right stuff not drop or simply gear you even faster. Sure each faction had dailies but it was useless to do, unless you wanted some gold, I hadn't done any since the crusaders in Wotlk.

I'm going to disagree with you there. Even in the times when I had a lot of time to play, and as a tank (instant queues) there's no way in hell I'd max a rep in a day. Further to that from your post would suggest that you ...play a little more intensely than the average person.

[Ingmar]

Yeah it may have been possible to do a rep a day, but easy? Whatever man. Easy for an unemployed teenager in the summer I guess.

[Azazel]

Looking over that cooking shit.. wow.

I think I'll play till Jan-Feb or so (my sub expires at the end of December) then I think I will actually take a year off (and play Battlefield, xbox and paint miniatures instead) and come back a year later to play in Nerfedl-Panda-Land where reps and dailies and grind don't matter anymore.

Don't get bored! You should do this every day!

 
I already have a real job with built-in grind. At least that one pays me with real money. The rep grind in this expansion overall seems far worse than what went before, excepting maybe Vanilla and specific things like Molten Front. After work yesterday the most my wife or I could be bothered doing amounted to three kill quests in the Jade Forest chain, and the bits before and after them where you trim trees, paint a picture and find your centre. Granted, that's not much but even if you only play for an hour a day you should be able to achieve some progress. How long does that cooking "do it every day" session take? It looks like an hour of fucking about in and of itself.

[Simond]

People ask for something to do outside of dungeons and raids.
Blizzard give it to them.
People whine about the grind.
Sky is blue, water is wet, fire is hot, MMO playerbase is unpleasable.  

Quick reminder: None of the factions are actually mandatory. All of the JP gear had the faction requirements pulled within a few days of launch.


e: Meant to reply to this a while back and forgot -

Yeah but the conversion factor is shit on that.  Baskets take 20-100 items and the bags give 5-20 of an item.  Dropped items being on the low and planted/farmed on the high-end.

To spell out the inevitable conclusion to my previous chain of thought. Most people using the AH are imbeciles. Bear that in mind alongside the Tiller trade-in, and I suspect one could get any amount of any ingredient one would require fairly cheaply.


...or make a lot of gold. You know, either or. 

[Azazel]

Quick reminder: None of the factions are actually mandatory. All of the JP gear had the faction requirements pulled within a few days of launch.

Okay.. so what exactly is gated behind the rep grind at this stage? And FWIW if you could Tabard your way to rep instead of only grinding dailies, I'd have been fine with it. I'm all about choices and more than one way to do things.

[luckton]

All current tier valor gear will be gated behind the factions.  When the next tier comes out, they'll step the current tier down to Justice, and you'll still need to grind for access to the latest and greatest.

Alternatively, since gear can be upgraded now with Valor points, there may not be that much MUDflation in newer gear anyways.  So the gear that's there is more valuable because once you've got it, you can make it better and keep using it rather than cycling stuff out so often.

[Paelos]

Valor is pretty easy to get now. With the cap at 1000, you can hit cap by doing the dungeons pretty easy, and scenarios.