Gold farming

I've recently been farming water motes in Nagrand; I'm attempting to work towards first my epic land mount, and then a basic flying mount which I need to finish Karazhan attunement. I have a feeling that before I'm finished I'm going to want one of those pointed straw hats that the Chinese wear out in the fields; it's already starting to feel like that. ;-)

Still, it's peaceful, and actually a lot more pleasant and preferable to farming air in Shadowmoon. I really don't like SMV at all, to be honest. Not only is there a lot more competition there, (in terms of other people farming motes) but the drop rate is lower, and the atmosphere of that zone is hellish and extremely unpleasant.

For the water, most people seem to charge around 16-19g per primal; I try and charge anywhere between 14.95 and 15.45, depending on what the market is doing. I find they sell a lot faster that way. Also, there have been times where I used to try and ride the market a bit, with copper in particular. I used to find that if the market spiked, and I followed suit, it would go down again very quickly, and my own item therefore wouldn't sell. Hence, I'm finding that being more consistent on price works better.

If you're going to farm water motes yourself at some point, one item I really recommend farming Gnomeregan for is the Hydrocane, which allows you to breathe underwater. Wowhead places the drop rate at 18%, which feels about right, since I had to re-enter Gnomer six times to get it. It drops from Viscous Fallout, who is the first boss in Gnomeregan and is located in the first large, open room not far from the entrance. Googling for Gnomeragan map will give you the layout, anyway. He's an elemental, so put ele tracking on to find him. The troggs on the way in are a bit of a pain, too. They're not at all difficult to kill, of course...but they do slow things down a bit.

Getting to Gnomeregan for Horde players also would otherwise be a real pain, but thankfully there's a goblin teleporter to the instance in Booty Bay. If you get the boat from Ratchet in the Barrens, once you're there, look for a goblin NPC called Scooty who is standing right next to a teleporter pad. Talk to him, and he should either give you a quest and the transponder you'll need for the teleporter, or hopefully another transponder even if you've done the quest. Then just walk into the teleporter, and hearth out once you've got the 'cane. It might be a bit confusing when you first port in, as well...since it drops you beneath the surface, but still outside the instance. If you walk forward a ways, you'll find the entrance.

Something else that I was going to write about; I'm finding Survival is working fine for me as a farming spec. I usually kill one of the lake spirits in 3-6 hits, depending on how much I crit. I'm using Steady, Arcane, Auto, Steady, Auto, Steady, and then the mob will be dead by then usually. If I'm impatient, I'll put multi in after the second Steady, but my mana gets drained very quickly that way since although I also have Efficiency, I only have one point in TotH at the moment.

Better armored targets are a bit different; for them I drop an Immolation trap at about half way from max range, (120 mana with Resourcefulness, does 1200 damage with Clever Traps) use Serpent Sting as a pull shot, send my boar when the mob hits the trap, and then jump out to max range while my boar gets aggro. After that it's either the usual Steady, Auto in most cases, or straight autoshot with periodic re-application of Serpent Sting if I don't want to pull aggro. I soloed Tusker the other day, and the way I did it was pure autoshot with Serpent, because that way she stayed on my boar and I didn't pull her.

The other reason why an Immolation Trap and Serpent Sting can be important is that they're a form of insurance for if I don't crit. My damage is almost entirely crit based, but at 21% my crit chance is still a little unsteady; sometimes I'll get 3 in a row, and other times I can do entire kills without getting one. The trap and Serpent go closer to adding the damage difference I'd be doing if I was critting, even if I don't, so I get more consistent fight durations.