FISHING

Deviate Fish from the oases

The Barrens, three oases / level 14 to 20 / the dearest small fish / alone

The Barrens are a long walk between drinks. I've crossed them from the Crossroads to Ratchet more often than I like, and on the way there are three pools of green water with a strange fish in them. The first time I saw one I put it down to the heat. The second time I caught a stack, carried it to Ratchet and was offered more for it than for anything else I'd pulled out of the water that year. I spent the money in the inn at Ratchet the same night.

Why it pays

Deviate Fish is a trade good with two uses: Savory Deviate Delight at Cooking 85 and Elixir of Giant Growth at Alchemy 90, which also takes an Earthroot and an Empty Vial. Both recipes are drops. Recipe: Savory Deviate Delight falls one time in a thousand from a long list of Barrens creatures, and the elixir's recipe isn't much easier. Few cooks and alchemists own them, and the ones who do have to buy the fish. The vendor pays 4c. The auction house pays price unknown, which is often as much as the finished dish fetches. The schools also give a Tightly Sealed Trunk, a Rumsey Rum Dark or a Stranglekelp, each one cast in twenty, and the rum sells for price unknown.

What you need

Level 14 or so, because the creatures at the pools are 15 and 16. A Fishing Pole and lures, which Zizzek sells in Ratchet. Our data doesn't say which fishing skill the oases want. To cook or brew the fish yourself you need Cooking 85 or Alchemy 90 and a recipe from the auction house.

Where

Our data has twelve schools of School of Deviate Fish at three waters around the Crossroads, one north-west of it, one south-west and one south-east. The Deviate beasts live next to the south-west pool. The Horde flies to the Crossroads. Ratchet's flight point takes both factions and leaves you a walk west.

How

1. Start at the north-western pool, the quietest of the three, and fish the school until it's empty.
2. Walk south to the pool by the Deviate beasts, then east to the third, then back north to the first.
3. Don't bother with open water here. In our loot tables the fish comes only from its school.
4. Keep the trunks and open them. Keep the rum.
5. Sell the fish on the auction house in small stacks.

What can go wrong

The Deviate beasts are level 15 and 16 and there are a lot of them, and both southern pools have Oasis Snapjaw in them, level 15. The Barrens are Horde country, so an Alliance fisher is a long way from help. Other people know about the fish too. One evening I found every school taken and sat in the grass for an hour until somebody left.

BASTIAN'S VERDICT The best small fish I know, and it needs no recipe to sell. I fish it whenever I have to cross the Barrens anyway.