Guide to Farming for Your Epic Flying Mount

[Alkhara Majere]

I read this post with great interest:

Strapped for cash? need to buy epic flying mount? Want to make 1000g in 2 hours?

Nagrand - Elemental Plateau (67,23)

Wind Elementals = Drop 1-2 motes of air, 10x combines to 1 Primal Air = ~20g per
Fire Elementals = Drop 1-2 motes of fire, 10x combines to 1 Primal Fire = ~25g per
Water Elementals = Drop 1-2 motes of water, 10x combines to 1 Primal Water = ~20g per

2 hours of farming yielded 978g

Nagrand - Lake South of Throne of Elements (58,26) under the water

Water Elementals = Drop 1-2 motes of water, 10x combines to 1 Primal Water = ~20g per

Netherstorm - Ruins of Enkaat (34,57) north of area 52

Mana Wraiths = Drop 1-2 motes of mana, 10x combines to 1 Primal Mana = ~15g per
Rock Elementals = drop 1-2 motes of earth, 10x combines to 1 Primal Earth = ~10g per

1 hour of farming yeilded 500g

Shadowmoon Valley - The Hand of Gul'dan (47,45)

Fire Elementals = Drop 1-2 motes of fire, 10x combines to 1 Primal Fire = ~25g per
Rock Elementals = drop 1-2 motes of earth, 10x combines to 1 Primal Earth = ~10g per

2 hours of farming yeilded 840g

Not so much because I think you could actually make the absurd numbers quoted by this guy, but the areas he mentioned are indeed very good for farming. So when I looked at my accounts and saw I had 3200g as a lvl 70 (already with regular flying mount) I decided I'd just farm farm farm until I had the gold for the epic flying mount. I tried to keep track of what I got per hour so here's my experience.

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Nagrand - Elemental Plateau (67,23)
Yes, you need a flying mount to get here. There are basically four "zones", one for each type of elemental; earth, fire, water and air. On my server Primal Air was going for 26-32g per during my week of non-stop farming. Fire was 23-27g and Earth and Water far below those. So I only concentrated on Air and Fire. On the plateau the Fire and Air zones are right next to each other.

First, there's is almost always competition here. 2-3 other guys in a given elemental "zone" at least. So for the most part these fields are picked clean and everyone is waiting on respawns and then it's a race to see who taps it first. As a hunter, I excel at this with tracking and range, so I was the one probably pissing off the others. With competition I could net about 3-3.5 motes/hr. WIthout competition, maybe you can pull 5, hard to say since I don't think I ever had a full hour competition free. So say a range of 75-125g/hr.

I would say about 10-15% of the time I was alone and it was a farmer's paradise. About 50% of the time I was there with other Horde or Horde & Ally that weren't messing with each other. The rest of the time there was open war between factions or just too many Ally to bother. All it takes is one enemy to mess up your hourly rate, regardless of whether you can pwn him or not. Also, the mobs here aren't pushovers, either, being all 70-71. It's not a problem taking them down, but they did beat on my pet quite a bit and so I had to do a lot of pet healing and drinking to restore mana.

Despite all of these issues, this was my default place to go to farm. The market for Primals is extremely liquid and if you undercut the competition at the AH, you can expect to have them sell off briskly. When it wasn't feasible to farm here I tried some of the other areas.

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Nagrand - Lake South of Throne of Elements (58,26) under the water
I didn't spend any time on these. Primal Water simply isn't that profitable. But if I specifically needed Primal Water, this is definately the place to go.

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Netherstorm - Ruins of Enkaat (34,57) north of area 52
The mana wraiths are pretty easy to down despite the fact they're immune to Hunter's Mark, Arcane Shot and my stings. Mana was only going for 20-22g on my server and I wouldn't say the drop rate and utter lack of compeititon made up what I could get farming Primal Air on the Elemental Plateau. I didn't spend a lot of time farming these. There are rock elementals here, too, but Primal Earth is dime/dozen on my server compared to the other Primals and not worth the effort, IMHO.

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Shadowmoon Valley - The Hand of Gul'dan (47,45)
When the Plateau was being picked clean or too many Ally, I would head here as 2nd choice. There's plenty of farming going on here, too, but the area the fire elementals roam in is sufficiently spread out that overcrowding isn't really an issue. The elementals are fairly easy to take down, but the drop rate didn't seem as good as the ones on the Plateau, and on my server Fire is not as in demand as Air. I would say maybe 3-3.5 Primal Fires an hour, so around 70-95g/hr. Again, highly dependent on what the Primals are going for on your server.

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Terokkar Forest - Netherweb Ridge
I was looking at the mats for the 18 slot bags and Netherweb Spider Silk is on the requirements. I looked on AH to buy it and it was 7.5g per! Needless to say, I didn't buy, I went and farmed them. I believe the spiders around the Bone Wastes are the lowest level ones that drop it. I spent a couple hours on these and got around 15-18/hr. At 7.5g I made a nice 100+g/hr. These mobs are extremely easy and zero competition the times I farmed them. However, after awhile, prices dropped to 4.5g per and so they weren't as profitable to farm at that point. That, and the market for these is not quite as liquid as the Primals. I had auctions expire as prices came down and I got undercut.

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Shadowmoon Valley - Coilskar
Cobra Scales go for 17-20g on my server. You have to be a skinner to get these off of the Coilskar Cobras. I didn't spend much time on these as according to Thottbot, the drop rate is very bad. There's also other mobs to navigate around to even get to them. Anyone with experience farming these?

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Arcane Tombs/Fel Armaments/Signets/Marks
I understand these can be very profitable. I've sold plenty on AH as I've come across them, but never explicitly farmed for them. What kind of hourly rate can be had on these and where is the best place to go. Both for Aldor and Scryer.

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Farming Strategy
As you can see, just in one week on one server, prices moved quite a bit. Before setting off to do any farming, I always check the AH. I always log on my bank alt (you have a bank alt, right?) and do my AH admin before logging on my main. Always have your hand on the pulse of the market. So when Netherweb Silk was going for 7.5g I'd concentrate on that since the rate at that point was comparable to the Plateau with much easier mobs and lesser gankage risk. But when prices came down I'd move back to the Primals. So always check current prices before settling on a farming spot.

Final Results
My goal was 2000g and I was able to get that in about a week of playing 3-4 hours a day. I would say my final hourly rate was around 100g, give or take 10g. I should have kept more precise numbers, but again your mileage WILL vary anyways.

Market Speculation
I think Primals are probably at peak prices around this time. Purely speculation on my part, but it seems we're just now getting into that sweet spot where we have a lot of newly minted 70s who are both leveling the professions that can make stuff with the primals and demanding the stuff made by those professions. I expect prices to drop at some point as the market gets more saturated. So I wanted to get this done while the market for these was still very good. I certainly could be wrong on this, however.

Is It Worth It?
I am the first in my small guild with the epic and this is the most frequently asked question I get from them and others. The anwser so far is YES. Man, this thing is fast. Say goodbye to flight paths forever as I will beat you in any race between all but the shortest, most trivial of connections. Be sure to save some of your primals for a Primal Might (1 of each fire, water, earth, air & mana) as this is the main ingredient in the Riding Crop to add another 10% speed on your mount.

Of course, there's the whole status symbol aspect of it as well. The thing just looks so bad ass. I figure, here we are just two months into the expansion and I already have one of the crowning jewels of the XPac. Now I'll have it for all the months to come of end game content. I still have tons of quests to do that are earning me 10-20g per and I'll have my account back up and ready to buy gear, enchants and whatever else I need now that the grind for the epic is over.

I think Blizz priced the epic about right. You can't just blow through the quest content and expect to have one handed to you. They're supposed to be rare, but I hope this post has shown with several hours of dedicated (albiet mindlessly boring) work, you can get the epic flying mount for yourself.


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[raspberry]

North-east on the cliff of shadowmoon valley, is a better place to farm airs, less people, more mobs, and in my experience, better droprates.
Nice guide btw ! +rep

[vamnon]

Thanks for sharing Ill probably get to farming these for a bit as well. + rep
Edit: lol need to "Spread some reputation around" Will rep when I can

[krlhnz]

Thanks a lot +rep

[osiris-0320]

Great guide! really appreciate it. Im going to follow it to the T till i get my epic flying mount (if i could stop buying BoE blues for my damn lowbie Be's lol) +Rep man. i know this will be very useful to the community.

[Elt-]

very nice... high five! (y)

[Yano]

I love you...

I'll definitely give these zones a heavy day of farming to see what I can get. I've been doing skald, but I'm gonna have to try elemental plateau.

Thanks Maj! +rep

[SjoeyK]

Some more advise would to invest into alchemy:
Guessing you picked Master of Transmutation, you could farm each primal.
Make a primal might, and just cross your fingers to make more than 1.

One time i made 3 with one primal might, it was a good day, but you have to know that this dosnt happen every time, but its always worth a shot. Primal Might goes for about what the mats of them cost (1xfire, 1xwater, 1xair, 1xearth, and 1xmana) so making 2 would boost you up about 100g. Witch is always a nice thing for me! .

[Papasmurf]

omfg i love u. honestly. i mean srsly. +rep indeed

[wickermanz]

this is great +rep indeed

[Ced]

Thaaaanks for this man I am in desperate need for money +rep

[Alkhara Majere]

welcome all. Apparently this is better than I thought, plenty of views.

[Berelore]

Yea these are some of the places I have been ginding for a long time. Personally I avoid elemental plateau for all the reasons you listed.

I have found that the bar none best place to grind primal waters is in skettis in souther terokkar (yes you need a flying mount to get there).

Part of the problem your having acheiving his rather zealous rates is your a hunter. As a decently geared Affliction warlock I grind 4-6 mobs at a time with 0 down time and i achieve 9-13 primals per hour + those lovely gray crystals that sell for 2.3-2.65g per stack i tend to stick with air fire water as well depending on market selling each for 25-30g which (using the average of each) gives me about 316g per hr + about 20 in grays per hr. All in all makes me plenty of G to sell for beer money ect.

really nice guide though.

[Dajoker]

good guide now ill have to do this wen i get home

[Alareon]

Imba guide imo. Very nice research.