WoW demon Cortyn has just farmed 600,000 gold in Dragonflight – and only noticed it much later. Can this still be replicated?
I like grinding. I really like the new reputation system with the fame levels in World of Warcraft Dragonflight. There are many small intermediate steps, where you keep getting small but interesting bonuses. That’s why I’m currently investing about 90% of my time in Dragonflight to bring the various reputation factions closer to the maximum.
But on the night of last Sunday, I was surprised by a sudden gold blessing while grinding. I had earned a whopping 600,000 gold coins over 6 hours and almost didn’t notice it – all thanks to a somewhat hidden “trick” while fishing.
Actually, I just wanted to peacefully farm my reputation with the Tuskarr of Iskaara. This can even be done through fishing at a certain fame level. Because sometimes you find various upgrade items while fishing. These can be used to enhance goodies like fishing nets or harpoons with the Tuskarr.
After the first upgrade, it is possible to exchange these upgrade items directly for reputation with the Tuskarr. In other words: If you want, you can simply earn reputation with the Tuskarr by fishing.
Iced Fishing Brings Gold Blessing – Through Spoiled Fish
Since I have already unlocked “Iced Fishing” at fame level 10 with the Tuskarr and you can get the corresponding upgrade items there, I went to the ice surfaces, drilled holes in the ice, and fished.
This has the advantage that the holes stay open for up to 10 minutes and continuously provide fish. So there are schools that last a really long time, no matter how many fish you pull out. In total, I spent almost 5 hours there casting my fishing rod (in which I watched more “Wednesday” on Netflix than actually paying attention to WoW).
In the holes, there is only one type of fish, namely the “Frosted Rimefin Tuna.”
The “Frosted Rimefin Tunas” are of blue quality and have several peculiarities. On the one hand, you never need them in their original state, as they are frozen and cannot thus be used. On the other hand, you can peel off this “ice layer” and expose the fish beneath, making them usable for recipes.
The downside: The fish obtained from this has a shelf life of only 60 minutes before it rots. Worse yet, the fish is no longer stackable. Unfortunately, I only noticed this after I had already freed 10 fish from the ice, and they now occupied 10 slots in my inventory.
As I had no recipe for these tunas, I rolled my eyes in frustration over my own impatience and continued fishing. After all, I was primarily interested in the upgrade items for Iskaara.
After about another hour, it was time for the freed fish to rot. Instead of being deleted from the inventory – which I firmly assumed – they transformed into “Spoiled Rimefin Tuna” and received a new “Use” effect. You can extract as much material from the spoiled fish as possible.
The first 8 fish gave me just a few “Maybe Meat.” But from the 9th fish, I pulled a “Soggy Clump of Darkmoon Cards.” You can use that to obtain 2-3 random Darkmoon cards.
Did I just get lucky, and is this a super-rare drop? I wasn’t sure, but I wanted to get to the bottom of it. So I sent my around 1,000 fish I had caught so far to a bank twink with a lot of space in the bags. He diligently freed all the fish from the ice and then waited for them to rot. The inventory then looked like this:
After an hour of waiting, I then knew: No, this is not a “super rare” drop. On average, I found such a clump with Darkmoon cards in every 10th fish. This meant that I had about 100 of these clumps, which made around 250 cards!
Darkmoon cards are collectible items in almost every expansion of WoW, belonging to various sets. When you combine all 8 cards of a set, you can craft a trinket. There are various trinkets and always one for each role – whether tank, healer, physical, or magical DPS character. The trinkets are typically “Bind on Equip,” meaning they can be sold.
Apparently, all current Darkmoon cards can be contained, as I received all of them without exception, many multiple times. I got really lucky and even drew the rare ace from all four sets from the clumps.
The complete sets (air, water, earth, and fire) can then be combined into a trinket with item level 372. And exactly these trinkets I was able to put up for sale in the auction house at prices between 100,000 and 250,000 gold coins – especially the tank trinket (earth) was particularly profitable.
All 4 trinkets were sold within the following day, earning me 600,000 gold (minus the auction house fees).
It’s clear that the value of these trinkets will drastically decrease in the coming weeks, as better loot becomes more easily available. I’m also aware that the prices for these trinkets can vary on different realms – both upwards and downwards.
But considering that I just wanted to relax and “grind reputation through fishing” while watching series, this was quite a hefty yield that my shadow priest can benefit from for a long time. By the way, the next round of card sets is already in the auction house …
Such experiences also make the appeal of a new expansion of World of Warcraft for me. It’s the small things that you discover “on the side” that might uncover a niche that no one or very few other players have noticed yet.
In the current WoW week, by the way, you can farm ice fish significantly worse, as the “weekly fishing event” is this time not at the ice lake, but in a lava pool.
Have you also had similarly pleasant experiences in Dragonflight and been surprised by a gold blessing? How do you currently make money in the new WoW expansion?
Right now, you can meet some quirky player types in WoW that only show up during the addon launch…
