Monday, September 15, 2008

Cooking for free when your bags are full

I love campfires – in real life as well as in the game. If I’m early on spot and waiting for a raid to start it isn’t unlikely that I lit a cozy fire to enjoy for a while. I also always ensure I’ve got flint and tinder and enough of simple wood to be able to make a fire whenever I need to do some cocking or just want the pleasure of it.

But there are times when even the most self sufficient gnome doesn’t want to bring matches. Perhaps your bags are so full that you aren’t prepared to waste the two slots. Or you’re saving every single silver you can get hold on to treat yourself with something special. And that’s when you start to look for the Cooking-for-free alternatives.

Where to look
Until recently I only knew about one place to go to cook for free: at the pot beside the guy who gives you the daily cooking quest in Shattrath. After some research I’ve found a bunch of other places where hungry travelers get access to pots and fires. So I made a list.

Some of those places probably are well known to you – but some may be new. Personally I’ve been very frustrated in Stormwind, that the inn doesn’t have a cozy fire. (What is an inn without a fire? I’m just asking.) I’ve always made my own fires in the middle of the square. Now I’ve finally figured out that I’ve just been frequenting the wrong inn. There is a free fire if you just go a bit further away, to The Blue Recluse in the Mage Quarters.

During my investigations I also found that Ironforge on the other hand is a heaven for stingy chefs. You can cook everywhere for free using Dwarfen Braziers!

Sometimes it seems a bit random which fire works for cooking and which doesn’t. There are braziers in other places which look exactly as the ones in IF, but they won’t work at all for cooking. So spotting cooking facilities takes a bit of patience and a good memory.

About the list
Much of the information in this list comes from the Wowwiki list: Locations of fixed devices.

However I thought that it was a bit too long, since it included forges and mail boxes. I wanted a list that only dealt with cooking. I’ve reorganized it a bit to make it easier to read and made it alliance oriented, since I couldn’t verify the information about the horde fires. Finally I’ve added some fires I knew of that were missing in Wowwiki.
I’m pretty sure there are many more to add, so see it as a source of inspiration, rather than like the total list.

Major cities:

Shattrath
Fire - trade and professions area, Lower City behind Viggz Shinesparked, 64,70
Cooking pot beside Grizy Spicecrackle, 62,16
Bonfire Nicole Bartlett's boarding house, Lower City, 74,49
Bonfire - near the World's End Tavern, Lower City, 75,36

Ironforge
There are Dwarven Braziers all over the place – even inside the bank. They work as cooking fires. Just don’t get too close too them or you’ll burn yourself.
Stormwind
Warm Fire - Pig and Whistle Tavern, Old Town, 75,36
Warm Fire - The Blue Crcluse, Mage Quarter, 40,92
Warm Fire - unnamed building, Dwarven District, 68,19

Darnassus
Cooking Fire - Craftmen's Terrace, potbellied stove near cooking trainer, inside the house with a sign for cooking
Exodar
Cookpot - near Mumman, the cook, 55,27

Outlands:

Blades Edge
Bonfires outside Gruuls Lair 68.25
Hellfire
Campfire - Longbeard's Camp, 24,72
Nagrand
Campfire - Nesingwary Safari, 71,40
Cookpot Halaa 42,43
Ancestral grounds 26.59
Netherstorm
Stove - Cosmowrench
Stove - Stormspire cookpot, 44,35

Terokkar
Several fires by the rivers in the east:
Veil Shienor, 59,29
Stonebreaker camp, 63,42
Allerian post 70,44
Zangarmarsh
Campfire - Sporeggar, 19,49
Campfire - Cenarion Refuge, east end over the bridge, near Lauranna Thar'well, 80,63
Cookpot - Orebor Harborage, 42,27
Kalimdor:
Ashenvale
Cooking fire - Astranaar across from Inn
Azshara
Cooking Fire, 61,92

Azuremyst Isle
Cooking Fire - Odesyus' Landing, 47,71
The Barrens
Broken Keel Tavern, Ratchet, 62,39
Bloodmyst Isle Cookpot - Blood Watch, 55,58

Feralas
Campfire - Opposite Inn, Feathermoon Stronghold
Campfire - The Forgotten Coast, 44,43
Tanaris
Cauldron - Dunemaul Compound, 40,56
Cooking Stove - Mining vendor's shack, Gadgetzan, 51,28

Winterspring
Campfire - Frostfire Hot Springs, 33,36
Campfire - Gryphons by Everlook, 62,36
Cooking Stove - Mining Vendor's Shack, Everlook, 61,38
Eastern Kingdom:
Arathi Highlands
Cookfire - Refuge Point, 42,47
Duskwood
Campfire - The Hushed Bank, 7,33
Cozy Fire - Scarlet Raven Tavern, Darkshire, 73,43
Eastern Plaguelands
Campfire - Light's Hope Chapel, 80,57
Elwynn Forest
Cookfire - Inn basement, Goldshire
Ghostlands
Cauldron - Zeb'Tela, 77,42 - conflict area (Shadowpines)
Camp Fire - Hatchet Hills, 70,69
Redridge Mountains
Cozy fire - Lakeshire Inn, Lakeshire, 26,42
Silverpine Forest
Cooking Fire - North Tide's Run, 33,17
Stranglethorn Vale
Cooking Stove - Sea Wolf MacKinely's shack, Booty Bay
Western Plaguelands
Campfire - Chillwind Camp, 42,83
Westfall
Campfire - Sentinel Hill, 57,53

10 comments:

runycat said...

You can actually even cook on the glowing blue braziers in Shattrath (i.e. the ones lining the innermost circle where A'dal is).

Anonymous said...

I had no idea! How convenient. Thanks a lot. I'll really try that one out. This is what's so great about blogging, that you learn stuff from the readers.

One more reason not to carry wood and matches in your bags unless you're addicted to cosy fires as I am.

Gevlon said...

While I'm not a cook myself, I got and idea from this post, that I will check today: to set up a campfire in an instance or raid to get the spirit buff provided by it during bossfight. I have to admit, I'm far from being romantic.

SolidState said...

Check out this wowinsider article, according to this, not all blue Shattrath flames were created equal :)

http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/02/02/all-fires-are-not-the-same/

@Gevlon, since most boss-fights require the group to both spread-out and to move, I imagine few people would actually get to enjoy the buff during the entire fight (I think the buff duration once you get out of range of the fire is 30sec).

Still, at least one person who commented on wowhead (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=818#comments:id=327711) thought it worth using in Sunwell, so by all means, go for it :)

But my advice is - before you worry about a +4spi buff, worry first about pots, food, and oil/sharpening-stone/poison (depending on your class) weapon buffs. Those are *much* more useful and will probably serve you better in terms of bag space usage.

Even buying scrolls from AH or getting from drops, even lower level, will help you more. Sta and spi scrolls won't stack with priest buffs, but you don't always have a priest with spirit buff around... agi and str scrolls iirc can always be used.

MarcusMaximi said...

Excellent post. Very useful.

Another one that I found: Gadgetzan, Tanaris, I was laways frustarted that you have to do the cooking quest there but I could never actually find anywhere to cook. I didn't know about the miners hut but you can also use the bonfire in the north east corner of Gadgetzan next to the female NPC.

Anonymous said...

I've never bought the mats to make a cooking fire, and my cooking is at 375 and always being used! Most towns that are big enough to have a FP also have some fire/cooking pot somewhere.

I use the one the most by far is the big bonfire beside the Arakkoa that gives that quest with the birds that attack... it's like a 2 second flight from the Aldo bank, really easy to get to!

Also, the big fire right outside the Orgrimmar bank is handy for cooking.

krizzlybear said...

Mages and Warlocks should be able to cook without bonfires. It just makes sense that way.

Darraxus said...

There is also a big dutch oven near the cooking trainer in Lower City near the apple vendor etc.

Anonymous said...

@Gevlon: it's not a bad idea, but it lasts so extremly short. but why not enjoy the fire while you're waiting and get an ever so small buff from it?

@Solidstate: I had no idea until you wrote this! The blue fires in the shatt central hall works perfectly. Thanks!

@Holywarrior: thanks. The original list at wowwiki obviously isn't complete.

@Brajana: yes, it seems you can manage pretty well without making your own fires. I have no idea how much money I've spent on wood. It's not expensive but it adds up.

@Krizzlybear: I agree!

@Darraxus: thanks. Loads of fires in Shatt obviously.

Gevlon said...

The Dwarfen braziers helped me a lot now that I was leveling cooking. http://greedygoblin.blogspot.com/2008/09/leveling-cooking-and-fishing.html

Thanks for the tip, it would be funny if I'd try to set up campfire next to a brazier.