This topic explains how to fish pools of Pure Water in Nagrand for Mote of Water, which combine to make Primal Water. ((This is based on The Burning Crusade beta, so may differ in live retail versions. These pools can only be fished with The Burning Crusade expansion.)) On this page:

Introduction

Ten Mote of Water combine to make one Primal Water. Primals are essential for almost all high-level manufacturing professions: Directly to make and enchant all types of equipment, and indirectly in the creation of materials such as Primal Might and Primal Mooncloth. Primal Water should be worth 15-20 gold at the auction house.

There are seven types of motes found in Outland. In general motes come from three sources:

  1. "Drops" from killing certain monsters in Outland. Drop rates are typically low (about 25%) for mid-60s level monsters, and higher (about 50%) for those monsters found in level 70 "flight-only" areas (areas requiring a flying mount to reach).
  2. Alchemists' transmutes, which change primal type. One transmute of each type can be carried out each day.
  3. Gathering professions. For example, dwarves can mine Mote of Earth along with their ore, while herbalists can sometimes gather Mote of Life along with their plants.

Mote of Water can be farmed from water-like elemental creatures. Commonly found in Nagrand, there are also some around Skettis in Terrokar Forest, and on the northern side of Shadowmoon Valley. Primal Water can also be created using alchemists' transmutes. And, of course, Mote of Water can be gained from fishing.

Mote of Water is very rarely be caught while fishing in the open water of Outland - less than 0.5% of catches. All Outland pool types may yield one or two Mote of Water: But only 5% of the catch from these pools will be Mote of Water, with an equal chance of getting one or two motes. Read the The Burning Crusade topic for a full explanation of those percentages.

Pure Water Pools

Fortunately Nagrand contains pools called Pure Water. These look the same as the Patches of Elemental Water in Azshara: a glowing patch of blue light on the water's surface.

Each pool of Pure Water contains 2-4 catches. Based on a sample of 154 Pure Water pools ((with beta 2.0.2)), the average number of catches is 3.1 per pool. 90% of the catch will be Mote of Water (1 or 2). The remaining 10% includes items occasionally found in all Outland pool types, such as Curious Crate, Enormous Barbed Gil Trout, Goldenscale Vendorfish, Huge Spotted Feltail, and Inscribed Scrollcase (see the The Burning Crusade topic for further detail).

Each Mote of Water catch has an equal chance of being either one mote or two. So the total volume of Mote of Water per pool fished averages 4.2. 4.2 motes in under two minutes of fishing compares favourably to any "mob grind", although as discussed below, sustained Pure Water fishing is a problem.

There are two groups of Pure Water pools in Nagrand:

For an introduction to fishing pools in general, please read the Pools and Wreckage chapter.

Nagrand Ground Level

The majority of pools in Nagrand are found in areas that do not require a flying mount to reach: in and around Skysong Lake (in the north) and Lake Sunspring (in the west), and water between Garadar and Halaa.

Most of the area requires at least 380 fishing skill to cast a line - and so an affective skill of 475 to stop fish getting away (see the The Role of Skill topic for further explanation). Lake Sunspring requires at least 430 fishing skill (and 525 to stop fish getting away). Even with 375 fishing skill and the best fishing gear, you will need to use lures.

Three types of pools appear in the area:

Both Icefin Bluefish and Figluster's Mudfish can be cooked to create fantastic buff-food, so are well worth fishing (see the The Burning Crusade topic). Which is a good thing, because you'll have to if you want to continually fish Pure Water pools.

Early tests suggest that all pools at "ground level" in Nagrand are in the same linked set. This is important for two reasons:

  1. In order to continually fish Pure Water pools, you will need to fish all three pool-types found in the set. As explained in the Pool Appearance topic, "cherry picking" by fishing one pool type only, will gradually reduce the proportion of that pool type that can be found, until that pool type cannot be found at all.
  2. To continually fish pools in the set, you will eventually need to fish in all areas:
    • Lake Sunspring is a problem because of the high skill requirement and the need to fight enemy in the village on the northern side of the lake before most pools can be fished.
    • Skysong Lake is a problem for Alliance because some of the pools are close the Horde town of Garadar. ((Gnomes had an additional problem in beta, because many pools were too far from the land to be able to fish - gnomes' little legs would end up swimming in shallow water sooner than other races.))
    • Although there are no pools in Halaa itself, there are plenty close to it. Where the factions are at war ((PvP realms)), you are likely to find yourself fishing in a battleground.

"Cherry picking" these pools is common, as is fishing "the easy waters". For these reasons you will tend to find that initially almost all the visible pools are on the northern side of Lake Sunspring - surrounded by enemy, and requiring more fishing skill than a lot of people can muster.

There are about 30 possible pool spawning locations in total. Normally once one pool has been fished, another will appear elsewhere in the set. In practice, it isn't possible for one person to fish more than about 20 pools per hour, so unless the area is being heavily fished, you should always be able to find fresh pools.

If every third pool you fish is a Pure Water pool, you should manage almost 7 Pure Water pools an hour, giving just under 30 Mote of Water - 3 Primal Water. That's equivalent to killing over a hundred water elemental-like monsters prior to level 70.

((In theory epic flying mounts should reduce travel/search times, but in practice these mounts seem to travel far faster than the server can transfer local area data for monsters and resources. When using an epic flying mount to gather resources it is remarkably easy to miss "nodes", including pools. The main advantage of flying mounts is not "aggro-ing" monsters as you search - and that doesn't apply to pets, which remain on the ground chasing their flying masters unless un-summoned prior to flight.))

Elemental Plateau

The Elemental Plateau is an elevated area on the northern side of Nagrand, above the Throne of the Elements. The area requires a flying mount (or druid flight ability) to reach. The water on the Elemental Plateau requires 380 fishing skill to cast a line and an effective skill of 475 to stop fish getting away.

The area contains a completely separate set of six pool spawning locations which only contain Pure Water. The pools are patrolled by Crashing Wave-Spirits - you will need to kill most of them before you can fish, but there is a good chance they will drop Mote of Water on death. If the area has not been fished recently, three pools of Pure Water will be visible. Once you fish one, a replacement pool might appear elsewhere in the set. As with some (possibly all) other Outland pools, each pool spawning location will not contain a fresh pool until about an hour after it was last fished - although actual delays vary between about 40 and 90 minutes.

In simple terms this means that if nobody has been fishing the area in the last 60-90 minutes, you will be able to fish all six Pure Water pools on the Elemental Plateau in quick succession: About 10 minutes of fishing should yield more than 2 Primal Water (more than 20 Mote of Water). However, you won't be able to repeat that for another 60-90 minutes.

The Elemental Plateau is therefore an excellent place to fish occasionally for Mote of Water, or as part of fishing elsewhere in Nagrand. But don't expect to be able to fish Pure Water there continually.

Further Reading