Cooking/Fishing: worthwhile?Follow

I have never played a character with the Fishing or Cooking skill because I have never had a shortage of food. This character is Undead (cannibalism) and my other favorite character is a Mage (conjure food). Soon I will be starting a new character and am considering trying Fishing/Cooking. So, I have some basic questions:

1. Is it worth my time/money to level Cooking? Can't I just get food from other sources?
2. I've heard Fishing is time-consuming and slow. Would I be making more money if I were running around mining, picking herbs, or just grinding mobs?

Thanks in advance for the advice.

fishing will make you lotsa money even at low levels when you can fish oily blackmouth, firefin snappers, deviate fish and so on. There are some cooking recipes that you can use while you level your fishing up, which makes life that much easier XD. Also, cooking is primarily used to replenish your health/mana and give you buffs, later on, raiding guilds will probably give you DKP if you supply some mana regen foods/spell dmg foods and such.

It's not time consuming at all, just fish a couple times a day or something, like if you're waiting for the zep in STV (provided ur horde) or when you see floating wreckage, you should definitely fish that up. That's how i got a rare 2h weapon XD

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

let me say that again

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Blizzard really stepped up to the plate with cooking in outlands. As a primary healing I know that having a +healing buff just from fishing/cooking to compliment my other pots and flasks is priceless. I'm leveling it up just for that. There are equivalent foods for every character class in the game. Cooking @300 fishing @235 and rising.

1. You can get food from other sources. Some mobs drop ready-made food and/or potions, so these can be used. However there's not enough to rely on them solely. Another source of food is vendors, mostly in towns but some dotted around the zones. The problem with these is the costs soon mount up.

For cooking you will initially pay for some recipes, some will come through quests. There's a small capital outlay here but over time, compared with purchasing food from vendors, you'll make a saving. Another bonus is that some foods you'll make will give small bonuses to your stats, for up to 15 minutes. Small they are but they're worth having.

Overall, I'd say cooking's definitely worth pursuing.

2. Fishing is time-consuming and slow. Up to 100 skill, you only need 1 fish per increase. From then on, increases get slower and slower. For 1-300 skill, I've heard 11 hours touted as a fair length of time you can expect it to take. If you're doing this in Stormwind, you'll not be making much cash out of it but you can take this skill to higher level areas and make a few gold.

Is it slower than any other skill? Certainly blacksmithing, finding the materials for that is taking an age. I'm not going to buy the ore myself because the costs are extortionate on my server so it'll probably take more than 11 hours game-time. Maybe fishing isn't so slow after all.

Is fishing worth it? My jury's still out on that question.

Nah. Don't waste your time. All you get from fishing and cooking is easy money, crafting materials and free buffs. Skip first aid, too, because that's only healing and poison cures.

If you play alot drunk like me, befriending fishing buddies is more fun than pvping!