Guide to WoW Food Buffs Continued - Non Stamina Buffs

Food buffs in WoW can do one of two things - boost your stamina or boost your damage. Tanks will generally choose the stamina buff over any other kind. For a guide to these foods, check out my article on Stamina Food Buffs. This article will give an overview of other types of food buffs, what food can be cooked to give these buffs, and areas where it is suggested to farm for this food.

There are a number of different buffs, including +23 Spell Damage, +44 Healing, +40 Attack Power, +20 Agility, and +20 Strength. Each buff also gives you +20 Spirit, although this is of little consequence except for healers.

The +23 Spell Damage buff is the normal choice for casting classes. You can obtain this buff from three different foods.

I chew through a lot of this stuff as a mage, and I find the Blackened Basilisk to be the easiest to farm by far. Any Basilisks in Outland have a chance to drop this meat, but I always farm the ones in Terokkar Forest. The green Basilisks are densely populated along the river banks, so I travel up and down the river killing them. Since they are level 63 or so, they die in a couple hits. They have a fairly good drop rate, and I can gather a stack in 10-15 minutes. If you like to fish, you can catch the Icefin Bluefish in Nagrand and cook it into the Poached Bluefish. Crunchy Serpent is made from Serpent Flesh, which you can get from the flying serpents in eastern Blade’s Edge Mountain.

The +44 Healing buff can only be obtained from one food and it is one of the best reasons to learn how to fish. Golden Fishsticks, made from Golden Dartar, is the only way to get a + Healing buff from food. Once you have a fairly high fishing skill (400+), you can find Golden Dartar in Terokkar Forest. The simplest way is to fish any open water in Terokkar Forest. You’ll get about 20% Golden Dartar, according to El’s Extreme Anglin’ Guide, so you can expect to catch a stack or two in an hour. You could also fish in schools of Dartar, but the time spent looking for them will make it less efficient then fishing open water. Finally, you can get some of these out of Mixed Highland Schools. It is not an efficient way to get Golden Dartar (at most 1 Golden Dartar per school), but if you are looking for Spicy Crawdad then you can expect to get some Golden Dartar as well. There’s no way to do this without fishing… so go back to Elwynn and learn to fish if you haven’t already.

+40 Attack Power is suitable for most melee classes. Warriors, Feral Druids, and Retribution Paladins won’t see much of a difference between this and the +20 Strength, so they can be used interchangeably. This is most suited for Rogues, though, who are looking to maximize their Attack Power and are willing to give up a bit of crit to do so. The buff is available from one type of food - Ravager Dog. You’ll need to gather up some Ravager Flesh to cook it. The meat is most plentiful among the Ravagers in south and southwestern Hellfire, but you’ll also find some in the desert around Toshley’s Station.

Similar to the +40 Attack Power is the +20 Strength buff. This is most suited for Warriors, Feral Druids, and Retribution Paladins. This buff is obtained from Roasted Clefthoof, which is made from Clefthoof Meat. You can find Clefthoofs in several places, but the best place to farm is around Nagrand. There’s no significant difference in drop rate between the three types of Clefthoofs in Nagrand, so kill whatever is around. You’ll probably find Talbuk’s in the area, so you might as well kill them as well if you overfarm the Clefthoofs and get some Stamina food while you’re at it.

Finally, you can get a +20 Agility buff. This is well suited for Rogues concerned with their crit strike chance. They sacrifice 20 Attack Power (vs. the Ravager Dog) in exchange for a bit more crit, so it’s up to you to decide. It is definitely the food of choice for Hunters, though. They’ll get an equal amount of RAP as with the Ravager Dog and they will also get some crit strike chance. A tank may also wish to use this food (especially a Druid, but also a Paladin) if they want to maximize their avoidance. A druid will get about 1.33% Dodge and a Paladin will get about .80% Dodge.

You’ll find the Agility Buff on two foods - Grilled Mudfish and Warp Burgers. The Grilled Mudfish can be cooked up from Figluster’s Mudfish. This fish is found in Nagrand, and like the Golden Dartar you have about a 20% chance of catching a fish while fishing in open water. This is a fairly straightforward way to farm, but I prefer to go after the Warp Burgers. Warp Burgers are cooked up from Warp Flesh, which can now be found in abundance around Skettis. Since I spend a lot of time in Skettis doing daily quests and killing the Treesworn Forest-Ragers (check out this article on Herbalism Farming around Skettis), I make sure to clear out some Warp Stalkers while I’m there. They drop the meat fairly well - about a 50% drop rate - and they are very densely packed. Farming a stack of food shouldn’t take more than about 15 to 20 minutes.

Figure out what food buff is best for you, and happy hunting! Never show up to a raid hungry again…

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