Volatile Life

Gameplay Professions
1

So, I’m leveling an alt with mining and herbing. I have the biggest mining bag on him but only the vendor bag which has only 12 slots.

So, I have been checking the AH daily for herb bags or mats, specifically the 40 volatile life needed (the cloth is relatively easy to farm) for my tailor and there is never any for sale. Not even one.

So last night, after getting fed up with it, I decided to farm the volatiles. I did some research, all of which says these only come from herbing, checked out the best farming routes and headed out.

A half hour in? Not a single volatile. And I need 40 of them! I know it was 5 xpacs ago but these were so plentiful back in the day that half the time they’d come back from the AH. I just can’t believe how rare these things are.

Has the drop rate on this been severely reduced or is it a glitch? It also feels like there are very few herbs compared to before. I haven’t farmed in quite a while though so maybe it just feels that way.

2

Go to Uldum and farm Whiptail. They seem to give the best volatile life droprate. I have done this on my druid several times.

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3

Whiptail in Uldum is normally the best drop rate as Tyriaan suggests. But also make sure you have trained Catacylsm Herbalism, otherwise I am not sure you will get the bonus volatile life drops, just a single whiptail.

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4

Thanks, I read last night that Cinderbloom, which is/was plentiful in Hyjal is the best place to farm.

I found another site today that confirmed whiptail in Uldum was a good place. I’ll try tonight when I get home from work. Hopefully I’ll have better luck there :neutral_face:

5

I think Uldum is nice because you fly up the river from the portal to Uldum then back down again. It is a fairly simple path with a decent respawn rate.

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6

Have you learned Cata Herbing. Without Cata herbing, you can herb one plant per node but no Volatile life will drop.

With Cata herbing, the drop rate should be 35-40%.

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7

Oh, I never knew that it worked like that! My farmer on that realm is a fairly new toon so I may have skipped picking that up while leveling.

I bet that’s why I didn’t get any, and now that you mention it, I think I was only getting one herb per node.

Thanks so much, this is really helpful.

8

I’m just sensitive to the issue of missing expansion professions.

Spent part of yesterday evening raising classic herbing and alchemy to 75 on a 110 character when I realized my boosted toon couldn’t get the DMF herb/alchemy quests without being 75/300 classic.

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9

I haven’t farmed old mats for quite a long time and didn’t clue in that this was a thing :slight_smile:

10

There’s also the hive queen in Zul’Gurub. She 100% drops an item with 3/4 volaile life in it once a day.

You used to be able to run in, kill her, run out without killing a boss and reset the dungeon up to 10 times an hour but they changed her to only drop the thing once per day per player.

11

Yeah I read that this morning. Not really worth the travel time for me though for 3-4/day drop.