Preparing for Mists, Part Three: A Preface to Part One

So, in all that talk and crude maths about the new feast in Mists, I neglected to let you in on just how difficult it will be, at least in the very beginning, to level one's cooking up to a point where one can even purchase the main feast, let alone cook it. Just to illustrate, here is the total count, excluding 525-535, as it is very easily done:


535-551(you go to 551 because the next set of recipes give you 2 points each):
16x Giant Mantis Shrimp
16x Jade Lungfish
32x Juicycrunch Carrot
16x Raw Tiger Steak
16x Wildfowl Breast
16x Ginseng

550-575:
12x Raw Turtle Meat + 60x Juicycrunch Carrot
12x Emperor Salmon + 60x Scallions
12x Reef Octopus + 12x Wildfowl Breast
12x Jade Lungfish + 60x Striped Melon
24x Karasang Paddlefish
50x Witchberries + 50x Jade Squash

575-600:
5x Soy Sauce + 50x Giant Mantis Shrimp + 50x Raw Crocolisk Belly + 250x Red Blossom Leek
5x Soy Sauce + 50x Emperor Salmon + 50x Wildfowl Breast + 250x Jade Squash
5x Soy Sauce + 50x Reef Octopus + 50x Mushan Ribs + 250x Juicycrunch Carrot
5x Soy Sauce + 50x Redbelly Mandarin + 50x Raw Crab Meat + 250x White Turnip
5x Soy Sauce + 50x Karasang Paddlefish + 50x Raw Turtle Meat + 250x Mogu Pumpkin
5x Soy Sauce + 250x Green Cabbage + 250x Witchberries

Final Quest:
1x Black Pepper + 50 Pink Turnip
1x Rice Flour + 5x Tiger Gourami + 5x Raw Turtle Meat + 25x Scallions
1x Rice Flour + 5x Jewel Danio + 5x Raw Crab meat + 25x White Turnip
1x Black Pepper + 5x Emperor Salmon + 5x Raw Crocolisk Belly + 25x Mogu Pumpkin
1x Black Pepper + 5x Giant Mantis Shrimp + 5x Mushan ribs + 25x Green Cabbage
1x Rice Flour + 5x Redbelly Mandarin + 5x Raw Tiger Steak + 25x Red Blossom Leek

There are a couple big things to pay attention to here. First, and most importantly, is that you will need a total of at least 36 Ironpaw Tokens, the new cooking tokens which are used to buy the 100 Year Soy Sauce, Black Pepper, and Rice Flour. You only get about 6-7 of them in the beginning, with the introductory cooking quests, and then either can get them through the one(as of right now) daily, and through Bundles of Groceries, which you can only do once you get at least one Way to 600. The Bundles of Groceries take either 100 of a single vegetable, or 20 of a meat or fish to make, and only give you one token in return. Let's just say that it will be very counter-productive to use the meats and veggies that you need to cook with to buy tokens.

Second, christ, have you looked at just how much you will need!? Almost 300 of many kinds of veggies, and hundreds of fish and meats. If you are looking to get the best feasts for your raiding group in the beginning of your progression, the numbers speak for themselves. Simply, you will not be able to level your cooking alone, quickly, and keep your sanity.

Working together, though, it should be quite doable. Here is the plan I propose:

• First, make sure everyone in the guild(or at least the raiding group) deposits all of the cooking materials they get through questing into the guild bank, or some other central deposit.
• Second, make sure everyone in the guild(or, again, at least in the raiding group) starts a farm as early as they can(at 86), and plants what Jogu says to plant(because you will get more), then deposit all harvested crops to the guild bank.
• Third, designate a person in the guild to be the cook. This person will be boosted to get the feasts quickly. I have not yet been able to find out if the feasts are soulbound, but if they are, MAKE SURE the person you choose is able to attend all raids. Just saying, no use wasting the mats.
• Fourth, when people get to 90(leveling to max level should be the priority, of course, and it should take no more than a week to get to 90, if that. I have done it twice and it's not long), schedule times throughout the week to go fishing or farming meats as a guild. I know it isn't the most glamorous thing to do, but you want to progress, right? Gotta do what you gotta do. If every member participates, in, say, fishing, then each person only has to catch about 36 fish each, easily done in about an hour. Additionally, all of the fish can be caught in pools, which can be fished at level 1 skill, so there is no skill barrier, and thus, no excuse.
• Fifth, people will also have to give up their tokens, initially, to back the cook. I suggest taking all the tokens in the beginning(which should be about 60?) and turning them into mostly Soy Sauces, and 3 of Black Pepper and Rice Flour. They shouldn't have to give up any more of the tokens for a while, at least until the good feasts will have to be made.

Anyway, let me know in the comments what you think!