fishing-changes
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Fishing no longer requires poles
Notice anything, well, fishy about the paladin in the header image? No? Well, look again, more closely. Do you see how she's fishing, but also holding a shield? Impossible! Hackers! Cheating! No, my friends, it's not. Why not? Well, let me tell you. Since the arrival of patch 5.0.4, there's been a change to fishing. You no longer need to equip a fishing pole to use the Fishing skill. Did you notice how the tooltip has changed? How it now says "Equip a fishing pole?" Well, the skill now does that for you. It's rather a downrgade on the old basic fishing pole, as it looks like little more than a fairly straight tree-branch with a piece of string tied to one end. To use it, you'll need to find the spell in the professions section of your spellbook and drag it onto your bars, as for me at least, the old one didn't work. But once you've done that, you no longer need to worry about remembering to re-equip your sword and board, your staff, your two-hand axe. The fishing pole doesn't replace any of your usual weapons when it appears via the new spell, so they're never un-equipped in the first place! Gone are the days of my trying to tank Morchok by waving a fishing pole at him in a semi-threatening manner. I'm a little sad about that, actually. What's more, you don't even need to have a fishing pole in your inventory. That's right, with the new Fishing spell, you have a fishing rod mysteriously stored about your person somewhere other than your bags, which you can magically whip out whenever you want to fish. I'll let you make the jokes. However, if you are the proud owner of one of the many upgraded fishing rods available in the game, and want to use it for the skill bonus, you will still need to equip it. The new fishing skill isn't smart enough to equip an upgraded rod, and as a result those who use them will need to keep them in their inventory and equip them like they did before. It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
Patch 4.3 changes make leveling fishing a breeze
Do you loathe leveling the fishing profession? Can't stand spending hours casting in pools? According to El over at El's Professions, there was a change put through in patch 4.3 that nobody noticed, one that will make your plight a little easier. In patch 4.3, the number of catches required to level fishing from 1 to 525 has been roughly halved. In addition, the number of catches per skill point above 300 fishing and especially above 450 also seems to have had an adjustment -- one point of skill can take between one and 13 casts to gain. El has put together a new skill-up table over on El's Extreme Anglin', but be warned, the pattern may not be fully understood just yet. El is welcoming any observations over on the El's Extreme Anglin' forums for fishing enthusiasts. At any rate, if you've been putting off picking up your fishing pole and finishing off those skill points, now would be an excellent time to start fishing! Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Review the official patch notes, and then dig into what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!
Fish school tracking in patch 2.3
El's Extreme Anglin' Guide (which we've linked to before) has a nice wrapup on their site about all the fishing changes coming in 2.3. Lisa actually covered a lot of the fishing changes in 2.3 already, but El's has updated info from the PTR, including new fish added to the game, skill level changes around Azeroth, and lots of info on where to get the Weather-Beaten Journal, the item that adds the new "fish school tracking" ability.Apparently, there are a few different crates you'll be able to fish up, and each one of them will have a different chance to drop the journal. The earliest you can obtain the journal will be at about 55 fishing, while the easiest you can obtain it appears to be from pools in Outland, that require a much higher fishing skill. If you need to powerlevel your fishing, you might want to start now, as it seems Blizzard wants the school tracking ability to be a reward for mid- to high-level fishermen. Which makes sense-- since it doesn't matter where you fish, the school tracking ability only helps when you're looking for a certain type of fish, and wouldn't really be necessary when just starting out as an angler.Definitely sounds like a new bit of fun, and a fairly useful ability, for those who choose to level up fishing.[ via World of Raids ]
