No luck this week

I sucked even worse this week. The pools just didn't seem to be spawning at the area I was fishing (same place as last week - right ashore of the Vile Reef). I know they're there because they were spawning there after the contest was won, which took 20 minutes. I did a /who for people 50+ in STV right before the contest, and it was around 25 people. Double that number for horde participants, and it seems as if the competition is somewhere around 50 people or so. Not as bad as I was thinking, but still pretty stiff competition. Excluding the BE warlock who spent the whole contest trying to fish one of those pools that are half ashore. :) Not that me and my 16 tastyfish have room to talk.

Next week. Maybe I'll try south of Grom'gol.

My timing sucks

I keep forgetting that the contest is 4pm local time. The difference between my time and server time keeps throwing me off. Doh!

Nap time.

In other news, I've been making a fortune off Northrend fish lately. Two or three different types are worth around 100g per stack, so I've been trying to fish up 3 or 4 stacks of each every day. Making around 1000g a day on fish! Not bad for a few hours work. I'm saving up for that super-expensive Kirin Tor ring. 6800 or so, which will make it the single most expensive thing I've ever bought in WoW (until I get the chopper!!). After today I'll be about halfway there. Unless my Relics of Ulduar sell - those things are marked really high, and I have almost 500 of them.

Pygmy oil has dropped drastically in price since the patch. Suckerfish are a lot more common now.

Old Ironjaw, FINALLY!

Finally got that sucker. Here's the data:

1662 catches
Longjaw Mudsnapper - 994 - 59%
Raw Bristle Whisker Catfish - 379 - 22%
Brilliant Smallfish - 278 - 16%
17lb. Catfish - 3
19lb. Catfish - 2
22lb. Catfish - 1
Lesser Healing Potion - 2
Lesser Mana Potion - 2
Old Ironjaw - 1

The guy next to me said he had way more catches and still no Ironjaw.

Now for the Rat.

Minutiae

A few small things I learned the first time out:

1. The contest is at 2pm SERVER time, not MY time (4pm) *duh*

2. While there may be pools active right where you're sitting at 1:59, they all respawn at different locations when the contest starts (although I believe the Tastyfish pools still spawn wherever there is normally a pool spawn point)

3. It would be a good idea to do a /who (right after the winner is declared) just to see approximately how many are competing.

4. If there are two people looking for pools, running ahead of you, it might be better to turn around and go the other way. Either that or pass them up when they both stop at the first pool they find.

That's about all I learned this time. Hopefully I can refine my technique a little for next time. And hopefully I'll be a little luckier. I think I'm going to make a map with notes as far as how many people are in each spot during each contest I participate in. I'll post it here after I get some data on it. I also plan to compile some /who data for each contest. Useful knowledge.

20/40 the first time out. Could use some improvement.

Back to Ironjaw.

Oh, also - my third Mr. Pinchy wish was "The Benevolent Mr. Pinchy" which spawns a huge crab-like guardian for about 10 minutes. Awesome. I had my Magical crawdad out at the same time, so I had to stop by the Commons in Ironforge to exclaim that I had crabs XD. Took a screenshot. I'll post it later when I get home.

This ain't gonna be easy.

So I thought I was doing an alright job dealing with the competitors. I had 20 tastyfish when the winner was announced. I was dealing with about 6 other people fishing in my "spot". I wonder if there's a better spot? Guess I'll find out next week. I'm not staying up to fish for rares. Gotta get some sleep. Better luck next time, I hope.

Jitters

So it's 30 minutes until the fishing starts. I have a spot picked out - right across from that little island to the northwest (forgot the name), but there were about 6 nodes pretty close together when I rode up. I believe the tastyfish spawn in the same place as the normal pools. I have my Mr. Pinchy out to intimidate the other fishers. I'm sure they're all shaking in their boots from the sheer intimidation of my obvious angling skills. ... bwahaha.... anyway, I haven't seen too many people out obviously fishing, so that's a good sign. Hopefully it'll stay that way.

More to come after the contest. Wish me luck.

*rubs magical crawdad for luck*

Extravaganza!

Tomorrow will be the first time in about a year I've participated in the Booty Bay Fishing Extravaganza. I'm not expecting to win, but to get a feel for how competitive the contest is, and maybe scout out some good fishing spots. Of course, I'm going to TRY to win - who knows, maybe I'll get lucky. If nothing else, maybe I can snag one or two of the rare fish and get some stylin' fishing gear.

I have a theory on how to "buy" the contest, if it comes to that. It's sort of cheating, but I'm not above it :) and it's not against Blizzard's TOS, either. We'll see.

Second Wish: Granted!

Got my Magical Crawdad pet on my second wish from Mr. Pinchy. Awesome!

Also did the Baby Crocolisk daily from Old Man Barlo. Caught him in SW on my first cast.

That leaves three more achievements until I'm "Salty" :

Old Man Barlowned
The Lurker Above
and
Winning the STV fishing contest.

Daily

Did another daily for Old Man Barlo - Shrimpin' Ain't Easy. Gotta love that quest name, lol.

Just fly north to Umbrafen lake in Zangarmarsh and catch 5-10 bloated whatever fish (I forgot what they're called), which you can open and loot one or two shrimp for each one you catch. The catch rate is close to 100%, so it takes no time at all. I think I might have caught one other fish that wasn't the quest fish.

One more thing I can check off the list.

The Lurker Above

I tried to do the Lurker Above achievement with nothing but a couple of water walking potions.

Didn't work. First, I tried to sneak past all the mobs, but the bog-lord type mob aggroed on me. Next I tried jumping down into the water with the water-walking potion buff, which also didn't work. The fish jumped out of the water, knocking me into the water to become lunch.

I haven't tried again yet, but I have made preparations. I have 3 stacks of Noggenfogger Elixirs for the slow fall effect, several invisibility potions to avoid fish aggro, and of course, the water walking potions.

Hopefully the combination of the three will work. I'll post when I find out.

Progress

So I've gotten the Northrend Angler, Scavenger, and The Deadliest Catch achievements.

Nothing special about these, except having to go to ZG twice for The Deadliest Catch - once to get Nat's Measuring Tape (quest), then to Dustwallow to Nat Pagle to complete the quest, which gives you the ability to buy Mudskunk Lures for 1g each. I bought five, thinking I might have to fish for a while to bring up Ghaz'Ranka. So I went back to Zul'Gurub to collect five Mudskunks to put in the lure. The pools were not hard to find. Pretty much wherever there is water, you'll find pools. The problem is, there are also big groups of elite Crocolisks near all the pools. As lev 80, I was (fortunately) able to stand pretty close to them without aggroing the group and easily fish up 5 Mudskunks. I went to Pagle's Point, where I found the Measuring Tape, I used the lure, which immediately gave me the achievement. I didn't even have to make a cast. Ghaz'Ranka was summoned, and I tried to run, but he killed me after 3 or 4 hits.

Achievement done. One step closer.

World Explorer

So I was close, and decided to get the world explorer achievement.

So for now, I'm Balsymcgee the Explorer. Temporarily, until I attain the awesomeness that is Salty Balsymcgee...

:)

Surprise!

So I was working on Outland Angler, and I started fishing Highland Mixed Schools for a little while to see if I could snag Mr. Pinchy. Got him on about cast #10. First wish was a blessing. Fingers crossed for the pet! On my way to Nagrand for Bluefish & Mudfish to complete Outland Angler.

Coinmaster!

I fished up the last two coins I needed for the coinmaster achievement. Now I'm going to take care of some of the easier fishing achievements. I was working on "Outland Angler" but I'm currently trying to fish up Mr. Pinchy. I'll work on that for a little while, but I don't plan to make a night of it. If I get lucky, I'll post about it.

Old Ironjaw

So far Old Ironjaw has eluded me. I don't have exact data in front of me, but I think I'm sitting at around 350 casts. All I've caught so far besides the regular fish are two 19-lb. Catfish and a Lesser Mana Potion, which I don't understand - we had Tauren as bait (someone got ganked and was lying face down in the pool). The guy next to me actually caught Old Ironjaw, but he had auto loot on, and somehow it recast and closed his loot window. Fortunately his Fishing Buddy recorded it, so I suggested he take a screencap and open a ticket. Maybe the GM's would help him out. I don't know, though. I pretty much fell asleep on my keyboard around that time.

All in all, I'd say I had a really good fishing day today. Hopefully Ironjaw won't give me too much trouble.

See you tomorrow.

Fishing Diplomat

Got the Fishing Diplomat achievement. Easy. Just went to SW and fished once.

On my way to Ironforge to get Old Ironjaw. Results to come.

Armory

In case you were wondering, here's my Armory.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Hyjal&n=Balsymcgee

That character is now an evil Horde zombie with a new name. Here's my current Armory link:

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Ravencrest&cn=Baconface&gn=Eternally+Forsaken

Old Man Barlo daily

I did the Old Man Barlo fishing daily, Felblood Filet. I went to the Fetid Pool in Shadowmoon, and caught the needed fish on my first cast, which was in the same drop as a Felblood Snapper (vendor fish). Maybe this is an easy one, but my luck's been awesome today.

On Second Thought...

On second thought, I think I'm going to tackle a few of the easier achievements before Mr. Pinchy. I'll post about it later.

Didn't Get Away

I installed Fishing Buddy before I moved on from Orgrimmar & Old Crafty. I headed for Stonebull Lake, where, according to the vast majority of reports on El's Extreme Anglin's forums (which seems to be pretty straightforward and accurate data primarily provided by the Fishing Buddy addon) seems to be in the running for the easiest place to catch one of the rare fish listed in the "The One That Didn't Get Away" achievement, right along with Howling Fjord and the Dark Herring. So I gave it a try, and the following are my results. Slightly skewed, because I had the hope that I'd be one of those super lucky people who catches the hard one in like 20 casts, so I made 20 casts before I started recording data. Here is the data I collected from Stonebull Lake in Mulgore, in my attempt to catch a 15lb. Mud Snapper:

Brilliant Smallfish - 270 - 61.1%
Longjaw Mud Snapper - 163 - 36.9%
10lb. Mud Snapper - 3 - 0.7%
12lb Mudsnapper - 2 - 0.5%
Bloated Smallfish - 2 - 0.5%
Minor Healing Potion - 1 - 0.2%
15lb. Mud Snapper - 1 - 0.2%

-------------------------------------

Now we have my dirty data - the 20 casts I made before I started recording info. So on top of the numbers and percentages listed above, add 20 casts of approximately the same drop rates of the smallfish and longjaw mudsnappers, with one exception. One out of 20 of those casts was a Pellet Rifle. The other 19 were normal fish.

Total fish - 462 to catch a 15lb. Mud Snapper at Stonebull Lake. Or 5 beers. Or 3 hours. However you want to time it. Any way you look at it, I've had a pretty awesome day today fishing. Both Old Crafty and The One That Didn't Get Away in less than 500 casts. Look at the stats - that's pretty lucky.

I was getting approximately 150 casts per hour. I said in my first post something about 50 casts per hour. I may have read that in El's forums, but I can say that it's not accurate, whoever may have said that. It wasn't El. Just wanted to clarify that it was NOT part of his awesome fishing guide, unless someone may have been talking about pool fishing, perhaps. Then I could see a realistic 50 casts per hour. The way I see it, all of these catches are based on RNG (Random Number Generator) results, so the only way to increase your odds is to cast as quickly and as often as possible. Kinda like playing the lottery.

So with that approximation (there were beer and bathroom breaks, wife aggro, etc.) it took me just over 3 hours to fish up the 15lb Mud Snapper.

There you have it.

On to Mr. Pinchy. More updates to come.

Old Not-So-Crafty

I got home at about 8:50, logged on about 8:55, and had Old Crafty in my bag by 9:05. Awesome. Special thanks to the undead DK who DID NOT mess with me, but stood right next to me, fishing, for the 15 min or so I was there. I forgot his name, but it started with a B and was only about 5 letters long... If anyone knows them, tell them thanks for me. I hereby vow to be cool to all horde fishing in IF, and will try to keep others from messing with them. I didn't get ganked a single time.

I think there must be an unspoken cross-faction unity amongst WoW anglers, for the most part.

/salute

First!

First of all, welcome to Balsymcgee's Salty Blog.

This blog will chronicle what I, Balsymcgee (Hyjal), have to do to earn the "Salty" title for my Alliance Warlock.

I have done a little research, and the time that this normally takes, from what I understand, is nothing short of mind boggling. There are regular accounts of players having to cast over 5000 times to earn just one part of the achievement. To put that in perspective, according to El's Extreme Anglin' Guide (the best source for WoW fishing info that I've seen), you can expect to make about 50 casts per hour. That's about 100 straight hours for one achievement, which is only a small part of earning the "Salty" title.

And that's not the hardest part, either.

One of the requirements is to win the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza. Hyjal is a mid-to-high population server. We have queues most evenings. Basically, there's probably going to be a LOT of competition at this weekly contest. I've done it a few times before, but it was probably over a year ago and I wasn't too terribly serious (or hopeful) about winning. Good thing, because I only had a handful of the requisite 40 Tastyfish needed to win when the actual winner was announced.

Anyway, I assume most of you are familiar with WoW fishing, the relatively new achievement system, and some of the titles and rewards given from those. For those that aren't, here's what needs to happen before you're "Salty."

1. Catch 1000 fish.
2. Successfully fish from a school.
3. Become a Grand Master Fisherman
4. Fish up a Weather Beaten Journal which will allow you to track schools of fish.
5. Fish 23 seperate copper coins out of the well in Dalaran.
6. Fish 15 seperate silver coins out of the well in Dalaran.
7. Fish 15 seperate gold coins out of the well in Dalaran.
8. Fish from 5 specific types of "Junk Nodes" located throughout Azeroth.
9. Fish something up in both Orgrimmar AND Stormwind.
10. Win the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza (maybe the hardest one of the bunch).
11. Fish up Mr. Pinchy and obtain the Magical Crawdad pet (it doesn't necessarily happen on the first catch, either).
12. Catch a rare, max-weight fish (any one of 10 - they're all super rare).
13. Fish up Old Crafty in Orgrimmar.
14. Fish up Old Ironjaw in Ironforge.
15. Fish up Gahz'Ranka in Zul'Gurub (this has prerequisites, and is also a 20-person raid instance).
16. Fish up The Lurker Below in Serpentshrine Cavern (also a raid instance).
17. Complete each of Old Man Barlo's 5 daily fishing quests.
18. Fish from six specific schools of fish throughout Outlands.
19. Fish from ten specific schools of fish throughout Northrend.
20. Fish up a Giant Sewer Rat in the Underbelly of Dalaran.


Now to give you a little bit of information regarding my progress as an angler so far.

I levelled my fishing to 375 during BC in about three days, primarily so I could catch fish and make food for my guilds' raids. Also because I wanted all my professions at max level. It helped quite a bit when I was farming the 5000g for my epic flyer. Golden Fish Sticks and Spicy Crawdad were pretty good sellers at the time. My guild eventually collapsed, and I largely abandoned fishing until Wrath of the Lich King was released.

Now, with achievements, titles, and other things to motivate me, I'm back in the game. Big time. I want the achievements. I have the patience. As maddening as some say it is, casting a few thousand times is less stressful to me than a total wipefest pug on an easy heroic. To make the decision to do this is made easier by my weird schedule. I work from 8pm to 8am Friday through Monday (Tuesday morning). I generally play from the time I get home until around noon, and at various times when my wife is asleep during the week. Basically it's tough to find a decent guild to raid with early in the morning, and I have to pay attention to my wife. My job told me I would be in deep doodoo if they found out I was playing WoW at work again (who f'ing cares what I do when it's totally dead all night? That's a rant for another time, though...). So, like everyone else, I have to be sort of responsible and play at semi-appropriate times, or people get pissed.

So since raiding seems to be out of the question, and I'm close to having the best gear I can get outside of a raid (don't get all theorycraft on me about this - I said close, and I KNOW my trinkets suck), that leaves achievements. As I was wondering around Mulgore, covering the zone for my Explorer achievement, I had the bright idea of going for the "Old Crafty" achievement. I really thought I was one of, if not the first to think of this. I basically stripped naked and ran right through the front door of Orgrimmar, through the plaza, hopping around like a naked madman, trying to get to the pond in the Valley of Honor, where I could hide behind a rock & fish in relative peace. Well, I made it all the way there without anyone following me, hid to the best of my ability, and started fishing. I was laughing to myself the whole time about the sheer audacity of it all, thinking to myself that I was such a crazy guy for streaking through what is arguably the most densely horde-populated area in the game. Who else but me would have the nerve to do a thing like that? I found out about three minutes later when another naked human ran to the exact spot I'd picked out, said "What's up?" and started fishing. Talk about deflating. But it was still really hilarious to me.

So that's where I am right now. Camped out behind a rock in Org, fishing naked for Old Crafty.

I haven't installed Fishing Buddy yet, but I will before I start fishing again in a few hours.

Here are the achievements I have earned so far:

1000 Fish
A Penny For Your Thoughts
Silver in the City
The Old Gnome and the Sea
Grand Master Fisherman
Fish Don't Leave Footprints

So I have a few of the easy ones.

Old Crafty is said to take as little as a few casts to well over 1000 casts to fish up. There is a bug that can supposedly be exploited to cut this time down drastically in most cases (has to do with the Baby Crocolisk daily), but unfortunately, I didn't find out about it until earlier tonight, and I'm already hunkered down all nice and cozy in Org. I think I might just stick it out so I don't have to run back through everyone, possibly attracting some bored teenager whose idea of fun would be to corpse camp me for a few hours. Another thing I've learned that would have been helpful knowledge before I dug in, is that I'm fishing right underneath a hunter trainer. Invisibility potions would have kept me from being tracked. Oh well - live and learn. Maybe I can buy some off the next naked ally I see run madly out of The Drag to ninja-fish with me.


This concludes my first of many posts to come. I hope to provide my small-to-nonexistant audience with a general idea of the effort it takes to earn the "Salty" title. Bear with me, because this is probably going to take a while. I'll try to make it entertaining, but no promises.

Thanks for reading. See ya soon.