WoW: Forever
Fishing
Slow and peaceful, and in Forever it is no longer optional if you want Cooking — five of Cooking's seven levelling steps are fish.
Is Fishing worth it?
Yes, if you intend to cook — and you should, because Cooking gives +5% experience from kills. Fishing costs no primary slot and it feeds that route directly.
On its own terms it is the slowest thing in the game, and that has not changed. What has changed is that it now has a reason beyond itself: the fish, a camp object worth having, and its own Legacy perk.
Getting started
- Learn Fishing from a trainer. There is now one by the pond in Valanaar, the Skyborne city
- You also get Find Fish — nearby fishing nodes appear on the minimap — and Bait and Tackle, which lets you place Fishing camp objects
- Fish in the lowest-level zone you can find until your skill climbs; 57 zones are tabulated by the skill they require
Camp objects
This is the part worth knowing even if you do not care about fish.
| Skill | Object | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| 20 | Fish Bowl | 8% to all stats for everyone sitting nearby — the same effect as Blessing of Kings. Needs a Raw Brilliant Smallfish and an Empty Vial |
| 140 | Fishing Rack | Blueprint. Produces uncommon fish on a 1-hour cycle, and keeps the Fish Bowl's 8% |
| 300 | Fishing Hut | Blueprint. Produces rare fish, and keeps the 8% |
A Fish Bowl at skill 20 gives a party Blessing of Kings without a Paladin. That is the single best argument for Fishing in Forever. It does not stack with the real thing — camp buffs never stack with the class buff they copy, so you keep one or the other.
Ranks
| Rank | Skill |
|---|---|
| Apprentice | 75 |
| Journeyman | 150 |
| Expert | 225 — from the book Expert Fishing – The Bass and You, needs level 20 and Fishing 125 |
| Artisan | 300 — from Nat Pagle, needs Fishing 225 |
These are Classic's thresholds and the acquisition methods are described as Classic's. Forever has not confirmed them unchanged, though Fishing is the only profession with any published rank data.
What Forever changed
- Camp objects, above — the Fish Bowl is the notable one.
- Find Fish and Bait and Tackle come with learning the skill.
Luremaster, a Legacy perk: while a lure is active you have a 25% or 50% chance to catch an extra fish across two ranks.- A trainer in Valanaar, the Skyborne city, which did not exist in Classic.
- Cooking's levelling route is mostly fish, which makes Fishing more load-bearing than it was in vanilla.
What is not known
Whether the Classic rank thresholds and their acquisition — the book, Nat Pagle — survived into Forever unchanged. Node density and respawn behaviour are unpublished, as they are for every gathering activity.