Monday, April 20, 2009

Fishing in Patch 3.1

Patch 3.1 is here! ... and there are many new things to see and do. First and foremost, I want to touch on one of my favorite things in WoW; fishing! Fishing has changed DRASTICALLY this patch, and in my humble opinion it is all for the better. The most notable change is that you can now fish anywhere, so long as your fishing skill is at least 1. Now, if your fishing skill is 1 and you choose to fish in Northrend, you can. No fish will get away anymore. In exchange for this, you catch grey junk items that vendor for a few copper. Personally, I would much rather chill in Dalaran fishing up junk than to go back to old world and fish up Raw Longjaw Mud Snapper. Perhaps that is just me. The good news is that you will also gain skill from fishing up junk. Before now, you did not gain skill because your catches simply got away if the area was too high for you to fish in.

Now, my fishing has been maxed on Riven for a long time, but I've dreaded having to finish leveling it up on Itami and other alts because it is so time consuming, and because I would not be able to fish in Northrend for quite awhile yet. With this change, I've nearly maxed Itami's fishing (it was at 325 when the patch hit) in a couple of days and I'm almost finished the achievement at the Dalaran coin fountain again. Awesome! Also, I can do the new fishing dailies on her as well. Two chances a day at new fishing loot = awesome!

I plan on catching the new sea turtle mount on both Riven and Itami. Granted, Riven has the Glyph of Aquatic Form which makes her swim very fast already, but having a cute turtle mount is too irresistible! For this reason, however, I'll probably attempt to catch the turtle on Itami first. Perhaps it's just what I need on Riven, though, to finally win the STV fishing tournament and get Riven her Salty title!

In the PTR, some datamining found not only new and adorable fishing poles, but also cute bobbers! One looked like a rubber duck, one like a murky head, one like a gnome head and more. Unfortunately, nobody has figured out where these come from yet, but I am hoping and hoping that they will be discovered soon because they are sooo cute! Not only that, but they will make fishing in a tight spot like the Dalaran fountain a lot easier when there's a lot of people there. Last night there were so many people at the fountain, I had to trace my fishing line to figure out which bobber was mine!

To top it all off, the fishing cast time has been lowered from 22 seconds to 17, thus making it that much faster to level your skill and get the fish you need for cooking. The only downside is that the pools most likely respawn at the same rate, so if you happen to make rounds in a particular area, you may find yourself waiting a bit for pools to re-pop once you fish them all.

If you like making Fish Feasts, Wintergrasp now has fishing. Everything you catch in Wintergrasp is fish that are used in Fish Feast, with the exception of the new giant clams. These clams contain ~3 Succulent Clam Meat or Northsea Pearls (perhaps even a Siren's Tear if you are very lucky!) and they stack even if you don't open them up. Huzzah!

All and all I'm thrilled to death with the fishing changes and really excited about collecting all of the poles, the sea turtle mount and the many flavor items that you can get as rewards. Let's not forget you can also get epic gems too, which is hella cool since they haven't put any new player crafted epic gems in game yet with the exception of Dragon's Eyes. W00t.

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