Trapped at cooking 298Follow

I started playing my level 52 mage again after resting him for about a year ;) I got to level 60 quickly then decided I should make sure all my professions were maxed out before going to the Outland. My cooking was at level 298 but all my recipes were now gray, presumably due to changes made in one of the patches. It turns out that getting those last two levels are not that easy if you don't fish. There is recipe that you can get from a quest line in Silithus (which I avoid like the plague), another from Dire Maul and three that involve fishing. So I ended up having to fly to Feralas to get the Baked Salmon recipe, then sending my druid to Winterspring to fish for the salmon.

Actually I bought one of these first thinking it would be sufficient to get me to 300 but it was gray.

Do the quest in Silithus for smoked desert dumplings. It will get you to 300. The only other option is to spend weeks fishing for that salmon. I found the Silithus quest much eaiser than casting for those fish (which I believe requires 425 fishing skill). The raw fish are never on AH either.

Whitescale salmon requires a base skill of 330 to cast and 425 to prevent getaways all together. Somewhere in between those two figures you can catch some fish, but obviously it will behoove you to level your skill as high as possible and also use lures plus any equipment with a bonus to fishing skill. I did take the time to go out to Silithus for the Smoked Desert Dumplings, it wasn't that bad, although I was only out there for about an hour.

For anyone in a similar situation re: cooking, in addition to the Baked Salmon recipe I would also recommend getting the recipe for Mightfish steak. It can be bought from the same vendors and if you are going to be spending the time fishing and cooking anyway, Mightfish Steak gives a nice buff to stamina. Large Raw Mightfish require the same fishing skill(s) as the salmon and can be fished in the Bay of Storms off the coast of Azshara. It is bit more out of the way than the Eastern Plaguelands or Winterspring (where the Whitescale salmon are caught) but it can be done. You need to swim away from the coast to one of the islands out in the Bay and fish there, I find it a pleasant way to spend an hour.


Ah, don't forget there is a cooking daily too. :)

While I fish and cook on every character I make(am I a glutton for punishment or do I just find it relaxing? Both!) I understand not everyone wants to do that. However, fishing has been very good to me so it is win/win for me. I like the buff foods I can make and the money I earn with fishing is icing on the cake.



Edited, Jun 12th 2008 9:31pm by Miskreant

I max both cooking and fishing on all my characters, including my mage. Since you don't need to be in a higher level area to max fishing, it gives you something to do while listening to the trade channel in major cities, hawking your enchants, etc. With fishing there's always the possibility that you'll come across a wreckage pool, and in Outlands you can fish for motes of water. Not only does cooking give you nice buff foods, but the cooked food sells to the vendor for more than most raw food.

I leveled my cooking to 300 on my Druid by sending my 70 Lock to Azshara Bay of Storms for Darkclaw Lobster. The Lobster Stew recipe is available from Vivianna and Sheendra Tallgrass in Feralas, and I made a bundle selling my excess lobster on the AH.