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Alliance 1 to 300 Cooking Guide 300 to 375 Cooking Guide Artisan Cooking Guide Cooking Guide
Cooking / Fishing: Beginner to Master in 2 Hours
by Jeff "Ethec" Woleslagle
Players have long avoided the Cooking profession, not necessarily because of a lack of materials, but moreso because of the preponderance of different materials. Whereas blacksmiths can go off mining for a few days and cart their accumulated bronze, iron, and whatnot to the forge, working with a narrow but deep pool of materials, cooks are forced to buy recipes that incorporate hog haunches, spider legs, stringy wolf meat, boar intestines and whatever other animal parts. A cook's gamut of materials is incredibly wide, but shallow. Since a recipe for hot dogs is not yet in the game, this approach doesn't make for good skill grind sessions, unless you have a lot of spare cash and can buy inflated stacks of wolf's meat when they appear on the auction from time to time.
Quite simply, I'll give you a method for raising your cooking skills from 0 to 150 by fishing for recipe ingredients, thus raising your fishing skill from 0 to 150 at the same time. While it will be a productive two hours, I don't promise a fun two hours; your eyes must be on the screen most of the time. For those of you not cut from the traditional MMOG cloth, this might be your first experience at true skill grinding. There is a method to the madness, and the best part is: when you're done, you'll be able to feed yourself well into your 30s!
A note to Alliance players -- though the method below will certainly work for you, the locations will obviously be different. I'm doing this from a Horde perspective, but I'll do my best to localize the method for folks on your side of the fence in a note at the end. Any feedback you could give would be appreciated!
So, you know those two albums from iTunes you've been wanting Download 'em, hit play, and let's get started!
What You Need...
Besides the obvious (patched WoW account in good standing, duh), you need 12 inventory slots, 20 spare silver (you should recoup more than half if you sell back your components at the end), and a low-latency connection (fishing while lagging will fray your nerves faster than a 4am phone call). You should be at least level 10-- you won't be in any real danger, but level 10 is required for Journeyman Cooking and Fishing - and have "opened' the flight path between Orgrimmar and Thunder Bluff. Also, make sure you've learned fishing and cooking from the appropriate trainers. You should also know how to fish- there's a tad bit of skill to it. If you need help on this, check out our Fishing FAQ and Cooking FAQ.
Finally, you'll need about 2 hours, but it needn't be a marathon session - split it up however you like!
Getting Started
Head to Orgrimmar's Valley of Honor. I like this "newbie pond" because it offers a fairly decent split of 3 different fish and a trainer and supplier are within arm's reach (literally) of where we're going to be fishing. Fish which just happen to work with three different Cooking recipes which will push your skill all the way to 150+ later on. Buy 4 "shiny baubbles" from the fishing supplier on the dock- this will get you to Fishing skill 50, and any additional money spent on lures and bait is a waste for what we're fishing for. Cast a "shiny baubble" on your basic fishing rod, find a comfortable spot on the dock, and start fishing. Any success will result in a skill raise and a fish - don't worry about the types of fish right now. Just keep fishing --renewing the "shiny bauble" as appropriate -- until you hit Fishing skill 50. It took me about 30 minutes.
At Fishing (50) hand Lumak, the fishing trainer the requisite 5 silver to learn Journeyman Fishing. This raises your skill cap to 150. Go back to fishing, except no shiny baubles now. Keep fishing until you hit 100, another 35 minutes for me. Catch a wind rider to Thunder Bluff and take heart, we're more than halfway there!
In Thunder Bluff
When you arrive , go one level down from the landing area in the central totem. The first building on the right is the cooking trainer and supplier; pick up the recipes for "Bristle Whisker Catfish" and "Longjaw Mud Snapper" from the Cooking supplier. Behind you and a little ways to the right is the Fishing trainer; grab the "Brilliant Smallfish" recipe from the Fishing supplier.
Stonebull Lake
Our next destination is Stonebull Lake in Mulgore; go another level down in Thunder Bluff through the central totem and take the southeast elevators down to ground level. When you leave Thunder Bluff via these elevators, Stonebull Lake is directly south. If this area is still unsafe for your level, stick to the road and patiently avoid wandering mobs to avoid aggro. Follow the road across the bridge and situate yourself on the little sandbar in front of the town- this location is close to both a cooking fire and a vendor. Time to fish!
We came to Stonebull Lake because of its abundance of "Raw Brilliant Smallfish;" you should already have 20 or so in your pack (if you have less, no worries, that's why we're here!). These buggers will level your Cooking from 1 to 70ish so we'll need lots of them... 110, give or take. Fish away! All the while, you'll get Fishing skill increases.
Now we're cookin'
When you hit 100 or so (or your packs start to burst, either way) turn around and snuggle up to that bonfire. Make sure you right-clicked that "Brilliant Smallfish" recipe to memorize it, and click "Cooking" in the "General" tab of your spellbook. Select "Brilliant Smallfish," click "Create All," and go take a well-deserved break. Ah, the power ot stacked components.
Repeat this process until you've reached a Cooking skill of 50 to 75; then speak to the cooking trainer in Bloodhoof Village to pick up the Journeyman Cooking skill! Note that you must train in Journeyman Cooking to raise your Cooking skill cap from 75 to 150, otherwise you'll waste skill points when you hit the apprentice skill cap at 75 (thanks Bill!).
You'll notice the color of the recipe turns from orange to yellow (at Cooking skill 50) to green (Cooking skill 65) to grey. Orange means you'll raise your skill on almost every success, yellow with 75% of successes, green with 25% of your successes, and grey with around 0%. Quit when you hit grey if not before. Sell off the finished stacks if you wish, but make sure not to sell any of your unprocessed fish!
Your Fishing skill should start to slowly peak around 150 as you mass-produce the cooked Brilliant Smallfish. When you've finished, memorize the "Longjaw Mud Snapper" recipe and start churning out cooked Snappers. When you run out (this takes a while), memorize your last recipe and cook up some "Bristle Whisker Catfish." I hit Cooking skill 128 when I exhausted my Snappers and 153 when I'd run out of Catfish.
Whew! 300 points between a gathering and production profession, in about 2 hours no less, is nothing to sneeze at! Sell off what you can't use to the NPC vendors. Don't plan on selling too much of this fish at the Auction House. You might catch a few folks unawares, but these three types of cooked fish are available from NPC "superior fishermen" vendors in Booty Bay.
If you want to level Fishing and Cooking past 150, you'll need the appropriate Masters books. Masters books for Fishing are available for both factions from Old Man Heming (no joke, but I'm sure Ernest is turning in his grave) in Booty Bay. Cooking Master Books are available in Shadowprey Village (Desolace) for the Horde and, for the Alliance, the Outpost near .