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WoW, Casually: Thanksgiving edition

Robin Torres
Updated ·5 min read


Each week, Robin Torres writes WoW, Casually for the player who has 2 hours or less to play at a time.

I hope everyone had a drama-free Thanksgiving (void where prohibited). And for those of you in retail, it's been nice knowing you. We'll see you at Christmas.

This weekend, the Call to Arms is for Alterac Valley. I expect AV to be packed with people because of the holiday weekend. Those of you who have some extra playtime this weekend should take advantage of the lower queues for AV in order to save up more honor for the Season 1 gear that will be available for honor purchase on Tuesday. Those purplez will be the best gear available for the playtime challenged, so if you are at all PvP inclined, go forth and play in the snows of Alterac Valley this weekend.


Another thing to consider is the Arena gear. Arena play can be very casual friendly, if you have teammates with schedules that are similar to yours. Arena games are usually extremely quick and you can get a lot of them done in a couple hours. I like to stand back and heal, so BG PvP is more my cup of tea, but if coordinated team PvP is something that you think is fun, see what you can do about getting a team together and practicing this weekend. Arena Season 3 begins Tuesday, and the gear is totally droolworthy.

And now, I promised some casual content that is not PvP related (not that anyone complained). In honor of the U.S. holiday yesterday, we will talk about something that is related to Thanksgiving dinner. That's right, we're going to talk about fish. What? It's not very likely that the first Thanksgiving dinner had any turkey. And it definitely didn't happen at the end of November. Have you ever been in Plymouth, Massachusetts at the end of November? It's not exactly harvest time. My Great x14 Grandpa, William Bradford, presided over the feast of thanks around the end of July, beginning of August. But I digress. Let's talk fishing.

Every Sunday, from 2 to 4pm, the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza occurs in STV. That is not always a convenient time for those of us with families, but if you can arrange the playtime, it's a fun way to make some cash and get some cool gear. My husband competes every weekend and our daughter often sits on his lap and "helps". Because it is only fishing, it isn't fully engrossing.

At 2pm every Sunday, pools of Tastyfish (that now showup on your minimap) (Update: It shows up on your minimap if you have an appropriate mod.) begin to appear around Stranglethorn Vale. They remain in force until 4pm. You turn them into Riggle Bassbait and his cronies in Booty Bay until 5pm for cash and prizes. If you are the first to turn in 40 Tastyfish to Riggle Bassbait, you win the tournament. This normally happens within the first 20 to 35 minutes of the tourney, so if you can't start fishing right at 2pm, don't bother trying to win. Winning the tourney isn't the only reason to play, however. You get 1 gold for every 5 Tastyfish you turn in. And there are rare fish that give some fun goodies. Here are all the details:

Winning the Tournament: You will receive either the Arcanite Fishing Pole or the Hook of the Master Angler for being the first to turn in 40 Tastyfish.

Rare fish: Turning in rare fish gives you Bind on Pickup items.

Tips for making the most of your Fishing Tournament time:

  • I recommend level 40 or a high level escort to participate in the tourney, if only so that you aren't constantly dying to surrounding mobs -- or in the case of PvP realms, surrounding gankers. Also, a mount really helps you move from node to node quickly.

  • Because you need to fish as quickly as possible, a fishing skill of at least 240 is recommended to minimize misses.

  • Set your hearthstone to Booty Bay, so that you can hearth back as necessary in case you have a chance to win.

  • You don't need to pick up a quest in order to be eligible for the tournament, so set yourself up near some water that is in STV but not in Booty Bay at 2pm.

  • You have until 5pm to turn in your fish, so keep fishing until the Tastyfish pools disappear at 4pm.

  • Avoid nodes that overlap land or other odd textures. You'll waste too much time getting fishing errors.

  • Skip nodes that have more than one other person fishing in it.

  • Don't try to save your Tastyfish until next week, as they only last 4 hours.

This tournament really improved in Patch 2.3 because the Tastyfish pools now show up on your minimap (Update: The spousal unit is running Cartographer) and turning in 5 Tastyfish went from 23 silver to 1 gold (Update: It is actually 22 silver per turn in -- but still decent cash.) If you have the time on Sunday, it's a great alternative for grinding mobs for cash.

See ya next week for some more casual fun.

Robin Torres will be avoiding the Black Friday crowds by spending some time in Alterac Valley.