Respec to Frost to Farm Primal Fires??Follow

Bah... farm water/air/earth/mana and sell them. Then buy your fires. It'll save you the gold to respec twice.

My main is a holy pally. Not the best farmer.

Besides frost and fire there may be another spec tree, I think.

I respecced frost for it, then started pvping too, now im usually frost spec and spec fire for raids, try it :P.

I don't know about respec'ing purely to farm a few primals, but I go frost 90% of the time anyways then do a quick respec to fire for raids. I love farming as frost, I love PVP'ing as frost, so if I'm not raiding I'm 17/0/44. I do all my questing, primal farming, battlegrounds and even dungeons + heroics in my arena spec. Only thing I don't do is raid frost.

The simple answer is probably NO. The complex answer is, well, complex. This is a matter of economics. Before you consider a respec, you need to know a few things.

1)How much gold would this require for me to buy the primals off of the AH?
2)How much time would it take me to farm the primals if I respec?
3)How much time would it take me to farm the gold needed to buy them if I don't respec?

And that's where the real math begins. Because now you have to calculate whether the cost of the respec is worth it or not. Calculate out whether you can farm the primals faster enough to make up for the monetary cost of the respec. If it takes, for instance, you 1 hour less to farm the primals than to buy them, then is that one hour worth the gold you spent to farm? Can you make enough gold in an hour extra time to pay off the respecs?

And you need to know if it would just be faster in the long run to farm something else and not respec.

You see, in this game, many people get into the farming mindset. They feel that farming what they need is the way to go as it "doesn't cost them money". But if you could farm something else that has a greater value per hour spent farming than the primal fire does, then it actually DOES cost you money to farm the primals. You've lost the extra money you could have pocketed from farming the other thing(s).

Let's take me, for example. I can farm a specific item(Large Brilliant Shards and other old world mats) at a rate that nets me about 120g in 45 minutes(including travel time). On the other hand, I can farm primal waters at a rate of about 75-80g in 45 minutes or so.

Obviously, the one is much better than the other, as I would be able to pocket the extra 35 gold. Or I could just spend less time farming for the same amount and have more free time to do what I want.

The situation gets murkier when you're farming and one choice requires a respec. You have to divide the amount the respec costs and divide it by the time you'll be farming with the respec.

Let's consider:

I can farm primal waters for 100g an hour. Let's assume I can farm primal fires for 110g an hour if I respec. Looks good, right? But now consider that the respec is gonna cost me a total of 45g(20 to; 25 back). And consider that I know I need to farm for 3 hours to get what I need. So let's math that out. 45g cost over 3 hours, and I have 15g per hour cost. That means that comparatively, primal fires actually work out to 95g an hour compared to the 100g an hour for primal waters. In the end, I actually lose out about 15g from the process that I could have made with the waters.

See what I mean?

So please don't lose yourself in that farming mindset and choose the path that will actually get you what you need the fastest. You pocketbook will thank you for it.

If you are frost use arcane for water elementals, if you are fire use arcane for fire elementals, no need to respec at all. Also consider maxing your fishing skills and catch many motes of water which will finance buying the other primals you need.

I tend to agree, don't respec just to farm and then respec back when you are done.

My 1st question would be, are you currently raiding with your mage? Or are you only raiding when there is enough healers on and not enough dps (since you said Holy Pally main)?

If you have a set raiding schedule for your mage, and you want to farm all your own primals, figure out which days are best to switch. Then set goals per respec then do something else with the rest of the time you would spend on your mage. PvP and arena as frost to augment waiting for drops, farm the cloth for tailoring. Farm rep for whatever.

But general respecing for a few hours is never going to be worth the time. Esp with riseing respec costs. At some point, it really isn't going to be logical to respec for 3 hours of farming.. at 33g/hour.

Also depending on your mage's gear, might I suggest a 44/17/0 build (or variation of heavy arcane build?) It does good damage for starting in raiding, and it gives you the ability to farm all the primals you would want w/o worrying about respec costs.

I still question whether it's worth it. Is farming that primal actually the fastest way to get the number of them you need? Honestly?

Perhaps not. I mean, I'd have to crunch the numbers as to how much money I'd make in an hour, say, flying around Nagrand/BEM/SMV mining and herbing on my Pally vs. farming the fires from elementals.

Which you obviously laid out very well in your above post.