Comments

Comment by 383977

There are no gas clouds anymore for Engineers, instead there is a new device called Electrostatic Condenser and here is the description:

"Allows a skilled engineer to occasionally collect Volatile Air while mining, skinning, or collecting herbs."

So either Engineers need to also be miners, herbalists or skinners ... or you need to kill mobs that drop this.

Comment by 281288

WIth the Electrostatic Condenser in tow, I spent about 3-4 hours mining Elementium and Pyrite. I got 51 airs and enough ore to make around 350 bars. Definitely have to schedule an evening off to farm these things.

At the moment though, Obsidium is even harder to find.

Comment by Arkke

After an hour of farming the Scions of Al'Akir in Uldum, I wound up with 43 of these Volatiles, 3 of which came from a Tiny Treasure Chest I got along the way. I thought that was a low number, but, judging by some of the other comments here, I guess I didn't do too bad.

As it stands, those Scions and a different mob in Twilight Highlands appear to be potentially the only non-instances mobs that can drop these items, though that may change as more data is uploaded. Either way, good luck farming; you may be at it for awhile.

Comment by 422931

As of last night I was able to get 32 of these from farming around 400 Elementium Ore and 140 Pyrite Ore with the Electrostatic Condenser. I also got 32 Volatile Water, 18 Earth and 16 Fire. It appears to have about the same drop rate as the Volatile Water.

Comment by Jazzism

The description does say skilled engineers, I'm thinking higher you have your Engineering skill or maxxed out you'll get a higher drop rates of the airs.

I'm not able to test the theory for a while, anyone able to test it?

** UPDATE Edit **

I maxxed my eng and mining and after mining a ton of Elementium I'm seeing a 10% drop for airs. This morning I picked up 544 ores and got 19 airs so almost 13% today.

Do others see similar results?
----------------------------------------
Why did this get down rated?

Comment by Zulfarion

The mobs in heroic Vortex Pinnacle seem to drop these pretty well, I got 23 in one run.

Comment by 691812

Engineers take note: electrified ether can be mined/salvaged by engineers off the diamond-blade shredders in twilight shores. Since killing the shredders is a quest, an engineer can go around and mine other players kills, or farm their own. I got 2 electrified ether, 3 handful of obsidium bolts, and misc junk that sells for 1.8 gold a pop, in about 5 minutes :) Much easier than farming volatile air!

Note: the shredders are level 84 and you can aggro them while salvaging, so you should be of a level to deal with a L84

edit: after another 10 minutes with no drops of ether I decided to do a timed test to determine drop rate. Here are the results:

15 minutes of farming - 16 kills and another 3 or so I found lying around and salvaged
drops: 16 three pronged blivet (100% drop from the shredders -1g 28s sell price)
salvaged: 17 dancing spinner (2g 55s sell price)
8 multistable perceiver (4g sell price)
2 electrified ether :)
6 handful of obsidium bolts

Edit 2: looks like this was nerfed. I salvaged over 50 shredders today and got nothing more than junk and a couple handfuls of obsidium bolts. Came back later and salvaged another 10 I found laying around and still nothing but junk. :*(

Comment by bowenbdf

Awful awful collection rate compared to every other element, needs to be addressed I think especially when Items need them as does the truegold transmute.

Comment by 235201

As an Engineer/Enchanter this change really sucks, I use to mine on an alts or my wife's character, and get gas clouds on my main, while it wasn't super ideal for time's sake it allowed me to effectively due both, now after two expansions with gas clouds they introduce this crap? Why not make it reward the ether from killing mobs, or generate additionals from gas clouds? This seems dualy-biased if you don't have a gathering prof.

Comment by JohnPombrio

k, here is some serious stats for engineering/mining and volatile air. 540 obsidian ore (I know a place!) in a couple of hours. 26 volatile air and 24 volatile earth, 11 gems of one sort or another. The math is 5% chance of air, 5% chance of earth, and 2% chance of gem. No wonder the air is going for 65-100 gold each and damn few of them in AH.

Comment by 734288

It seems after 12/14/2010 the drop rate on these has decreased substantially. After nearly 200 skinnings I have yet to receive one today. Before hand I had gotten enough in 1 night to combine for 6 ether on roughly 50 skinnings. Anyone have any idea as to why?

Comment by 248983

Did they ninja nerf the droprate of these off Enslaved Tempests? Last night I got 20 of em in about half an hour, now tonight I've killed about 50 of em and haven't gotten a single one.

Comment by 369277

droprate must have been nerfed,just spent around 25 min on these and only 1 air dropped,seriously blizz..fix this plz

Comment by 739760

This early in the expansion I did my research and looked around multiple different areas to find the best place to farm almost all of the new Volatile materials used in tradeskills. I've managed to find the best areas to farm every single one expect for Life, which im still in the process of finding the best area for. (The one in Hyjal was nerfed recently). Anyway, below you will find links to each locations youtube video.

Volatile Fire Vid - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDGMKS-DDIE

Volatile Water Vid - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ToiIIZ_a6E

Volatile Earth Vid - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7uLOtecDSQ

Volatile Air Vid - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TWuNUU7HEc

Humbolts Conflagaration Volatile Fire Farming Video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaKvxkQvo6c

Volatile Air Farming in Uldum Video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lASXxQ3Ckxo

Comment by 739084

I dunno about the nerf tbh.

Just farmed 8 Volatile Air from the Storm Vortex in Twilight Highlands in under 20 minutes.
That to me is a pretty decent droprate.

Comment by 77621

With the stealth nerf to the droprate Blizz should really allow the Electrostatic Condenser to be crafted by engineers but used by anyone. It basically forces you to pick up a gathering prof to make it at all useful which isn't an option for raiders optimizing stats.

Comment by Deathbang

The gathering rate for these is horrid. My advice is to farm minerals, hoping to get some volatile air, but with the real purpose of getting the money to buy these off the AH. Honestly, it's a more efficient plan!

Edit: An even better plan I've found, is that while looking for elementium I find pyrium. Since I don't yet have a use for it, I just tell trade I'll trade pyrium bars for volatile air. I almost always get a trade in under a minute, as people are eager to take advantage of the small amount of gold they gain from the trade. I'm just happy to get my volatile airs asap. It's a win win :)

Comment by Layuth

Christmas Morning 12/25/2010

130 kills of Scion of Al'Akir in Uldum resulted in 14 Volatile Air.

roughly 9.25% drop rate

Comment by 421626

Drop rate seems to have nerfed yet again.
Was collecting 30/PH in Uldum on the 23/24th and on the 25th I was getting about 23-25 in an Hour.

Comment by 744084

They have nerfed the drop rate again it seems, 150 mobs killed only 6 Volatile Air dropped.

Comment by 660414

For Non-engineers I recommend farming these off the Scions in Uldum. at 53k health they are fast to burn down. they are in a quest hub so you'll have competition, however they have a high spawn rate. i had two spawn on me while I was writing this post

Comment by 750395

that just makes you an outlier. from the data here, the general droprate for it is low. you just happened to get lucky

Comment by Banishy

Here is the best way to get your Volatile Air, Water, and Earth. You do Transmute Life to Air/Water/Earth.
its 475 alch I have 2 of them u can farm 100 herbs get like 30-50 life in a hr.

Transmute both = your 1 day cloth for Tailoring or what ever you are doing. Note 30 Volatile + 8 bolts Per Tailoring Dreamcloth
Transmute give 14-16 Volatile of your choice.
Note: Transmute spec has a cool down of midnight the next day
Ex. 8pm = 4 hr cool down left. 1pm= 11hr cool down
1 thing to tell u on the Cool down is that its on the same cool down as True gold transmute.

Note: Water = Vashj
Air = Uldum
Earth = Deepholm
Fire = Mt Hyjal (Note its better to fish in Twilight highlands u can get like 10 -18 in 10 mins. The timer of each pool is around 10 min cool down.( I trade these for water/life in trade)

Transmute spec Alch: If you are a transmute spec.
Still go to the zone u want, but you maybe get 15 of another element. Like I wanted water, I went to Vashj and my proc did water +earth + fire It doesn't do 15x2 of that Volatile. Instead its 15x1 + 15x1 of another element.

You can sell the herbs, or use the herbs for Inscription/Alch to level it w/o trying to level it up.
I use the herbs to level Jewel Crafting, and using Alch transmute (no cool down on gems) (starting at level 500) 3 Herbs + 3 of each Green color gem = a blue color gem. Cut the gem = your gear or money. (Great way to level JC and Alch w/o trying)

Mining isn't very good for getting Volatile. 100-150 ore = 5-8 earth or fire/and or water isnt very good compare to the transmute for where it is 1 day and not much work since herbing has a drop rate of 1:3 herbs drop a Volatile life compare to mining has 1:8 to 1:13 drop rate

3 toons i have are
Alch Tailor (my main)
JC Mining
Insription Herb
With 3 toons you can get all your Volatile elements to make gear you want for you char.
Replace Tailor for Blacksmith also works (or insript and tailor for LW skin.)

Comment by 741328

If you're trying to decide Uldum vs. Twilight Highlands for farming - the spawn rate of the Scion of Al'Akir is far better than the Storm Vortex, they're easier to kill, plus you don't have to deal with their pesky human handlers. And since both areas are quest areas where there is competition, spawn rate is an issue. I found in Twilight Highlands I either was flying around with nothing to kill or was suddenly swarmed, whereas in Uldum I pretty much always had something to kill and never felt overwhelmed. Both have horrendous drop rates, however. After about 20 mins. farming Storm Vortexes I got 2 volatile airs; I got 4 after about 35 mins. farming Scions.

Comment by 714767

Thought I'd mention, the transmute made by Alchemists: Transmute: Living Elements
(15 Volatile Life transformed into 14-16 other random Volatiles) is a great way to get multiple Airs.

- DOES share a cooldown with the Truegold xmute which can net your Alchmist 200g+...so do the math according to your server. Might be worth it.
- Perform xmute in Uldum zone to sway "random results" of the xmute. It's been 3 days of using my alts CD in Uldum and have gotten 14-16 Volatile Air each time.

Comment by Banishy

Here is the best way to get your Volatile Air, Water, and Earth. You do Transmute Life to Air/Water/Earth.
its 475 alch. You can farm 100 herbs and get like 30-50 life in a hr.

Transmute give 14-16 Volatile of your choice.
Note: Transmute spec has a cool down of midnight the next day
Ex. 8pm = 4 hr cool down left. 1pm= 11hr cool down
1 thing to tell u on the Cool down is that its on the same cool down as True gold transmute.

Note: Water = Vashj
Air = Uldum
Earth = Deepholm
Fire = Mt Hyjal (Note its better to fish in Twilight highlands u can get like 10 -18 in 10 mins. The timer of each pool is around 10 min cool down.( I trade these for water/life in trade)

Transmute spec Alch: If you are a transmute spec.
Still go to the zone u want, but you maybe get 15 of another element. Like I wanted water, I went to Vashj and my proc did water +earth + fire It doesn't do 15x2 of that Volatile. Instead its 15x1 + 15x1 of another element.

You can sell the herbs, or use the herbs for Inscription/Alch to level it w/o trying to level it up.
I use the herbs to level Jewel Crafting, and using Alch transmute (no cool down on gems) (starting at level 500) 3 Herbs + 3 of each Green color gem = a blue color gem. Cut the gem = your gear or money. (Great way to level JC and Alch w/o trying)

Mining isn't very good for getting Volatile. 100-150 ore = 5-8 earth or fire/and or water isnt very good compare to the transmute for where it is 1 day and not much work since herbing has a drop rate of 1:3 herbs drop a Volatile life compare to mining has 1:8 to 1:13 drop rate

Comment by HaddonEast

Didnt work for me, killed 50 and only got 3 bolts, I would say its better to Mine becouse although drop rate is as bad, at least you get the ore in compensation, pls pls Blizz give us back our gas Cloud collector....

Comment by 174898

I've just spent 1 hour farming the Scion of Al'Akir mobs in Uldum. I killed 179 mobs and got 29 Volatile air = 16.2%. I'd say thats pretty decent. The dropped in 1-2 and the respawn rate is fast so when you've finished one round, the first spawn is back.

Comment by 243011

Just for the kicks i started out with engineering and blacksmithing on my main, a warrior tank, around middle of the first expansion.

The changes in WotLK was ok, most professions were resonably balanced but mining was definitely a tank profession with the stamina boost. But my combo still worked.

The gas clouds have been good to engineers all the way, one of the few ways an engineer could level his/her profession affordably or even make some money.

Removing the gas clouds and then demand a gathering profession for an engineering perk is beyound insanely stupid.

PS! I noticed that I can track the red gas clouds in Deepholme, but that is one use for a single quest so not very useful.

Comment by 766576

For all geared 85 hunters with skills like mine (and possibly other classes):
I have found that the best place to farm volatile airs is in reg Vortex Pinnacle. If you have enough skills to use the right pet, CC the right adds, and kite when needed, you can farm the first several mob groups in VP for airs. Although you can only reset the instance 5 times a day, it should be said that this method is much better than farming mobs in Uldum. For the time you invest in farming VP, you save a LOT of time.

Couple tips to keep in mind: CC what you can, kiting is your friend, and don't be afraid to jump off the ledge to avoid a death. Also, I've noticed sometimes that mobs keep aggro on you when you fall off the ledge and start at the beginning. If thats the case, just run out and back in. Or better yet, use that to your advantage: Use the time that they're getting to you to bandage up, revive pet, prepare traps on their path, etc.

This is, of course, if you don't want to buy or find an alchemist for your airs. Hope this helps some and GL!

Comment by 624455

If this applied to fishing and archaeology, which it absolutely should, I'd have nothing against what blizz was going for. Then again, isn't blizz trying to promote guild involvement? not helping, blizz, not helping.

Comment by cleric670

I think there was a nerf on the drop rate of these things, right after patch till about two weeks ago i was getting these on every 3-4 nodes mined, now i'm lucky to get 1 out of 20 nodes mined

Comment by Akara

Transmute give 14-16 Volatile of your choice.

Not True. The outcome is random.

Transmute: Living Elements

Comment by 773989

26 jan 2011

1 hour of farming
135 mobs
33 volatile air

Scions @ Uldum

Almost no competitors

Comment by Qeter

I gave up. it is just way to slow and i dont know if it is just me? but everbody in the group can loot the airs in vortex (not sure about that).
but the best way is to ask a alchemist to create Transmute: Living Elements for you.
Volatile Life are really easy to get and muth cheaper then buying Volatile Air them self.

and remember if your gonna do that he/she/you have to create it in uldum, or it will randomly create one of the 4 volatiles

Comment by 757495

Does anyone know if the drop rates for volatile air on the scions have changed? I've killed like 20 mobs and haven't seen any volatile air, where earlier sunday I would have gotten at least a couple by now!

Comment by 248305

I made 60 in roughly 1 hour 45 mins of farming Scion of Al'Akir.

With a droprate of 12% to get 1-2, assuming the chance is equal to get either, that's 18% dropschance. So on average you should get 18 Volatile Airs from killing 100 Scions of Al'Akir. As a kill seem to trigger a spawn when most of them are dead, there's always some to kill, they are a bit spread over the area though, but it's not too hard to kill at least 2-3 per minute.

So on average you should at least make 120-180 kills / Hour = 22-32 Volatile of Air / Hour

Comment by reesew202

I dont know if its just me being unlucky but it definitely feels like the drop rate of the scions in uldum has decreased. can anyone else confirm or dispute? im off to try out the twilight highlands.

Comment by Joelmorgan1977

Ok Fresh run I farmed 125 scions for a total of 10 volatiles so as of 06/02/2011 the drop rate is around 7-9 % assuming a variance of a 1% for luck

Comment by 781061

Just did a 1 hour 5 min farm in Scion of Al'akir s..

I have killed like 170-180 mob and what I got is:

4 82 lvl Green Gear (for disenchanting ofc)

28 Volatile Air

that seems a good way to spend free times while waiting for random Heroic..

I am actually Enchanter and Miner... getting the pyrite bars by farming, volatile fires and waters from Mining too...

and ask 120 gold for an Alchemists Truegold cd and turning em to Truegold..And selling them for 900-1000 gold @AH

is it a bad way?

edit: Yes I think its really good for me :)..

img80.imageshack.us/img80/3949/trugold.jpg

Comment by 392424

Since the patch today, they added more targets outside of the ruins. Drop prate appears the same. But there's no need to fight with others over each kill.

They added wild camels too - so skinners like me can farm savage leather too and it cuts lots off the farming time.

Comment by 782748

Went to uldum thinking yeah 16-19% drop is great for airs.... UM NO i farmed 100 scions and got 5 freaking airs. Lame

Comment by sjeesen

Well, killing mobs isn't that bad at all. I farmed for like 50 minutes in Uldum killing Scion of Al'Akir. They got around a 12% drop chance of Volatile air if i watch their loot table. I used a Potion of Treasure Finding for additional drops. After the 50 minutes, i had 40 Volatile air. I think maybe 6 of them from the Tiny Treasure Chests. More things from those chests were:

Around 15 gold
3 Volatile Water
6 Embersilk Cloth

The mats are very easy to get as herbalist / alchemist, but if you aren't at least a herbalist, you have to buy the m a t s / potion. I would adivise to check the prices of the elements first and then the mats and the potion to see if you are going to make any profit.

If i did 10 minutes more farming to make it a full hour and i got another treasure chest i could have gotten some more gold, 1-3 more Volatiles and 4-11 more Embersilk

Another plus is that there is almost nobody here. Sometimes a wandering quester or somebody doing Archaeology

Comment by Furydeath

But at least the Eng's with a gathering professions can get some...all 3% of them.

Comment by 304203

Farmed air in Orsis off the Scions tonight on Skywall US, 13/2/11.

146 killed, 24 drops in 1 hour, using 85 mage. About a quarter of my drops came in the form of 2 Volatile Airs, the rest were singles. I also farmed about 15 of the adjacent Sweeping Winds and got one Volatile Air off them, but was mostly on the Scions.

Comment by Maiqua

I don't know whether it's my terrible luck but it seems like they have lowered the droprate in Orsis from the scion mobs. I didn't measure any time but last time I was there pre 4.0.6 I got more than I needed for truegold pretty quickly. Now I had to clean up the place at least three times and got only like three volatiles. On top of that I didn't get any tiny treasure chests even though Blizz said they had increased it's droprate slightly.. No greens either.

It's pretty weird since the water elementals in TwiHi still drop the volatile water at the same rate than before. Got a few of them while killing the 10 elementals for the daily JC goo -quest yesterday.

Comment by FourDeuce

"but the best way is to ask a alchemist to create Transmute: Living Elements for you."

The problem with doing that is the cooldown is shared between Living Elements transmute and Truegold transmute. Most alchemists probably would prefer using their CD for Truegold. ;)

Comment by Conceited

I solo normal Vortex Pinnacle for these as a Hunter.

Use a Turtle pet and Trap one of the elementals. Skip the first group(unless you're up for a challenge), kill the first group on the bridge then the 3 groups after.

After that I go out and reset. I'm sure others might be able to do more, but this is what I find to be the easiest.

A good tank with self heals(DK/Pally) can probably do this fairly easily as well.

Comment by 643772

The drop rate from the mobs in Orsis has definately dropped. I have killed countless Scions and Sweeping Winds and not one Volatile Air has dropped. IMO not worth the time unless you have a potion of treasure finding on and are getting chests as well.

Comment by Firebug

Just did 2 runs on my DK solo for Normal Vortex Pinnacle. Total of 48 mobs with a 35% ish chance (pre-patch) to drop 2-6 volatile air each. First run, I had 2 drops, a 2 and a 3. Second run, none. Did they adjust the drop rate with the patch?

Comment by 360722

idk. not much new to report here.

but after doing a couple solo VP normal clears up to cloud prince and resetting, netted me only 5 airs (4.1.0). so, great challenge and fun, but low reward. don't know what drop rate was before.

ran out and started killing scions and winds. very acceptable drop rate. got 16 in about 35 minutes or so. anyone who killed the heck out of twilight cultists in vanilla for lousy CC rep, would think this a very acceptable grind imo.

Comment by bayers

Farmed Scoins of Al'akir, killed 53 of 'em and got 4 Voilate air. . . so dont think you can make a fortune out of that.

Comment by 818789

Farming these on my Shaman for tailoring... I've found better luck with the Sweeping Winds, so I actually kept record of things today:

Scions killed: 50
Air drops: 6 (2x2)
Total Air collected: 8

Sweeping Winds killed: 50
Air drops: 10 (7x2)
Total Air collected: 17

Roughly the same amount of time spent farming each. I'd kill the Scions in Orsis, range out to the desert for Winds, and then back in to Orsis.

Comment by 616859

The drop rate for Volatile Air in Twilight Higlands (Storm Vortex, Enslaved Tempest) has dropped to ZERO since 4.1.. The price of Volatile Air has skyrocketed on my server, Darrowmere, as proof of this.

I dont understand why Blizzard would take an already rare drop and make it more rare... Alchemists, unlike other professions, have very few big ticket items to sell. Trugold is one of them. You need 10 volatile air to make 1 Truegold.. This is killing alchemists.

Comment by FuryWar

Whenever I've farmed Air for my Blacksmithing, I've always had reasonable success farming both the Scions of Al'Akir in Orsis and the Sweeping Winds that roam the dunes nearby. Granted, the Sweeping Winds don't drop air quite as often as the Scions, but they do drop it, so, if you see one while hunting Scions, there's no reason not to take it out!

Comment by 417839

I got 22 in 30 min switching between the 2 mobs in uldum today.

Comment by Peter4730

TWILIGHT HIGHLANDS IS A WASTE OF TIME. The Storm Vortexes and Enslaved Tempests have a really S&^T drop rate. Also they are L85, so they put up a fight, and next thing yer know, some other L85 mob is also on yer asre ........ Think I'll try the ULDUM option.

Comment by Fbmbikerdude3

I found that soloing the mobs in regular Vortex Pinnacle as a 372 IL fury warrior to be rather easy, and a great way to get these. Farm this way if your a hunter, Blood DK, Fury warrior with lots of goodies.

Comment by deathager

I farmed Volatile Air from Scion of Al'Akir.

> 45min, 54sec
> 176 kills
> 41 Volatile Air

Which gives an approx chance of : 23.4%

I had 492% flying speed and used macro /tar Scion of Al'Akir.

Comment by 266905

Seeing as how most of the posts giving drop rates for individuals are only time based, in versus to time and kill based which would be much more helpful for a comparison to one's individual farming speed and the way in which they might be able to expect the speed of drops for themselves for the rate at which they personally farm I decided to farm for a bit and post the number of kills over the amount of time and the amount of air that I got.

Over about an hour, hour and 30 minutes of farming in Uldum I killed 161 mobs, mixed between the two that spawn there, leaning heavily towards the Scion's. In that span of time I looted 14 Volatile air.

So that means, rounding and only estimating of course, that my personal drop rate for the volatile air in Uldum was 11.5%, which lines up nearly perfectly, if not lower, than what Wowhead states the drop rate is. The speed at which I killed the mobs was, since I'm estimating, between 1 mob ever 24 seconds and 1 mob every 35 seconds (since I didn't track the exact time that I farmed I devised a range based on the total number of kills that I had over the two possible time periods.).

I ran one vortex pinnacle heroic instance, with a full group that was kind enough to let me have (nearly) all of the air, which took about 25 minutes, and I got 20 Volatile air. The total number of mobs that I killed that could have dropped the air I didn't manage to get a count of, however I'm sure it's less than 40 but greater than 20, or in that range. No where near the number that I killed while farming out in the open.

It's obvious that farming in the instance is better, but as a time to effort ratio it's unbelievably better.

Also to be noted I got 5 greens in the time that I spent farming. All of the farming that I did was without the potion of treasure finding.

Comment by 861310

farmed the scion of al'akir for about 16 minutes to get the 9 i needed (already had one) i used the potion of treasure finding and killed about 63 (based upon the amount of crackling crystals and shimmering shards) for a ratio of 7- 1 for kills to volatile airs i got 2 greens and 2 chests in this time.

Comment by 863711

I killed 100 Scion of Al'Akir today and I found only 3 Volatile Air, two of the mobs dropped them. The droprate has been bad before, but not this bad.

Comment by Nekrotik

I count 25 Scions of Al'Akir in Orsis. After 1 full clear of all 25: 18 crackling crystals, 7 shimmering shards, 1 green, no volatiles. After 2 full clears: 36 crystals, 11 shards, 1 green, 4 volatiles. The volatiles dropped in pairs, so it took 50 mobs to get 2 drops. That's pretty typical. For some reason, each time I come out to farm these, it seems to take quite a few kills in the beginning before the drops start coming regularly. After 167 mobs I had 20 volatiles from 13 drops. From what I've seen during many hours of farming these, the actual drop rate is around 7 or 8 percent. About half those drops are pairs, so I'm guessing the 12% figure given here relates to the number of volatiles looted, not the number of drops.

By the way, the rate is almost identical from the Sweeping Winds elementals that surround Orsis (most are south and southwest of the ruins) and hardly anyone seems to farm them, so if there are too many people farming in Orsis, just move south and kill them instead.

Comment by ukkan

2 hours of farm on Scion of Al'Akir and i got 67 Volatile Air. No treasure fnding potions used.
5 random greens, Mindbender Bloom and getting killed by Deathwing were the bonus. I don't really see any better ways to get Volatile Airs.

Comment by XANTHiDE

60 mins farm of Scion of Al'Akir gave me these results :D
59x Volatile Air
43x Shimmering Shards
217x Crackling Crystals
8x Tiny Treasure Chest
1x Elementium Lockbox
1x Clammy Mail Circlet
1x Singed Shoulderpads
1x Perforated Plate Pants
1x Perforated Plate Shoulderpads
1x Perforated Plate Belt
1x Sooty Mail Boots
1x Nethander Amulet
2x Clammy Mail Pants
1x Bleached Plate Boots
1x Perforated Plate Bracers
1x Bramblescar Bracers

Comment by 851942

I farmed the Scions in Uldum with some occasional Sweeping mobs in the rotation as I flew around.(I'd clear the site, go a little south for Sweep mobs, then come back and reclear) I detoured for 1 vein but other than that, I was killing air mobs the entire time.

Farm Time: 30mins, timed down to the minute.(Subtract 1~min for the vein I detoured for if you prefer)
Total Air Elementals killed: 97, counted all the way down to the Shards/Crystals.(They are a 100% drop rate, there's no room for doubt)
Total Volatile Air collected: 20

That's more than 1 every 2 mins, or roughly a 1 in 4 drop rate. Seriously doubt other farm locations can beat this. I'm throwing them in the AH for 40g each.(No one else has any in there, so I jacked up). Doubt they will sell for that much(Some guy will likely undercut me quickly), but even at their normal rate, which is 25g each, that's still 25 x 20 = 500g/30 mins. Using this as a very high staple, how does it compare to other farms?

Well, I've tried farming almost everything in the game in cata. Farming any kind of leather doesn't even come close, nor does any heroic runs.(Unless you are extremely lucky with Crystal win rolls and get several per run. I usually get 0 a run or 1 at best. So at this point I no longer do heroics.) For example if I farm Savage Leather, the most valuable leather type, I might get a four or 5 stacks in 30mins(AT BEST), which run for around 90g each. 90x5=450 < 500. Any older leather is less. Cata ore is a joke, because it'd take around 30mins just to get 3 stacks of Obsidium AT BEST.(aka lucky), which is what... 80gx3 if Obsidium ore(Less as bars), even less from the flooded Elementium Ore or Bars. Elementium comes in maybe 3x faster than Obsidium, but it's worth half as much(40g/ore stack atm), so it isn't worth it either. It's better... but still doesn't compete.(TB ore is a good farm for no flying speed since you can't do the others as fast as you'd like.)

If you think questing or dailies net you good gold... Laugh. It isn't a bad idea if you want rep or tokens too... but if all you're after is gold... you're far better off just running around for Ore or sitting in 1 spot skinning leather off Crocs or spiders(See the TB mob pile up spots). Simply put questing is a waste of time for gold. It's so far down on the time->gold ratio you shouldn't bother. Simply put, questing is one of the worst ways to make quest unless the quest is in addition to something else you're already doing.

So what else is there? Surprisingly Adamanite from BC threatens this formula. Stacks of this bar type go for 300g each(or 150g/ore stack), and with a farmer toon at 492% flying(Pal or Dk), you might be able to get 2 stacks in 30mins. 300gx2Bar stacks=600g > 500g. But that's just a theory. I haven't tried speed farming this on my DK. This might actually be your best farm if you fly at max speed. If you don't fly at 492... I doubt it would be vs just killing elementals. But I also didn't take Khorium into account, which is a rare BC vein worth LOTS of gold. If you ever hit one of those on your farm flight, the BC ore run would win hands down as the best way to farm in the game atm.(Seriously, 1 khorium bar=175g by itself) My next tests will be BC ore flight time runs, with my results posted on the Adamanite Ore page.

Happy farming people.

Comment by Slinkhi

I don't know if it's bad luck or if blizz changed something or what but I just spent an hour farming Uldum > Orsis > Scions for volatile airs (also had potion of treasure finding on) and I got TWO volatile air drops. TWO. And ONE treasure chest that had nothing but gold in it. I know it's rng but wtf this seems too low to be bad luck :(

Comment by 855952

I farmed there (orsis/scions) 60 minutes straight:

16 total volatile air including what i got from the treasure chests.had treasure potion going
Good grief.......might be better to buy it.

Comment by Jolster

Out of all the volatiles, these are by far the hardest to get. With such a low drop rate from mining and mobs its no surprise that 1 of these is 2-3x the cost of volatile earth. best way to a quire these in my opinion is to get an alchemist to do Transmute: Living Elements It works out half the price of buying the Airs, and if you don't get Airs from the transmutation what you do get you can sell for enough to buy the required amounts of Volatile Life

Comment by 934260

I just did a 1 hour farm of Scion of Al'Akir in Uldum (Southern tip of Kalimdor for those that don't know where it is). I'm running a lvl 85 frost mage with just quest items and what I've made myself with tailoring. I found them really easy to farm. You could almost do it in your sleep.

There were two other people farming in the same area while I was farming. The respawn rate was high enough that it didn't seem to be a problem.

In one hour I killed 116 Scions, netting me 39 Volatile Air and 2 green items to disenchant.

Comment by 853704

Spent exactly an hour farming these at the suggested place in Uldum. I killed only the Scions.
I did the entire thing on my ungeared 85 rogue, at a leisurely pace (stopping to check things, moving on foot).

In that hour I received;
. 39 x Volatile Air
. 4 x Tiny Treasure Chests (Containing; 3 Volatile Fire, 12 Embersilk, 2 Volatile Water, 6 Pyrite Ore, 15 gold)
. 51g's worth of grey items
. 1 piece of green hunter gear

On an engineer, I then tried 10 minutes of mining in Uldum using the Electrostatic Condenser- This brought me;
. 5 x Volatile Air
. 3 x Volatile Water
. 1 x Volatile Earth
. 1 x Volatile Fire

Comment by 46820

Today I farmed Scion of Al'Akir in Uldum for 30-45 minutes, resulting in 20x Volatile Air. The drop rates is horrendously low, but, they do drop. Good luck!

Comment by bookworm13

Volatile. Air.

I know it needs to match the rest of the Cataclysm Volatile elements yet a perfect example of a tautology. :) Next up we have wet water.

Comment by flopper393

This is how i do for making gold.

One of the best way (My opinion) to get some of this is u have alch, is to buy some stacks of Volatile Life. Then go to uldum and transmute these everyday untill ur stacks run out...
The reson to buy alot of these at once is first of all, it is easier to keep track of what u get.
Second is that i found that sometimes the AH for volatile life is expensive... (sometimes Volatile Air is cheaper than Volatile Life, and if u just wait till they get cheap i can buy alot of Volatile Life and then sell Volatile Air when the are expensive.

Comment by 1007059

For me killing the Scion of Al'Akir was a waste of time, i understand that this one is a worse drop then the others, but an hour killing Scion of Al'Akir and NOT A SINGLE Volatile Air dropped, so i decided to kill the sweeping winds, after 10 minutes of killing them i got about 10 volatile air! I believe this is a better source then Scion of Al'Akir

Comment by sapristoire

Summary: I agree with others suggesting killing around in Uldum is kinda terrible choice. Only got 21 Volatile Air in 13 drops, out of 154 kills in one hour.

In my farming session, because there are not enough Sweeping Winds, I have to include Scion of Al'Akir as well -- actually the majority of kill is the latter one. The numbers spoke itself: quite likely the dropping rate is nerfed since 4.2 days, now what I get is only about 8% instead of ~13% listed in the "Dropped by" list. The whole run already has Potion of Treasure Finding effect on.

Another important observation: Scion of Al'Akir do drop Volatile Air. My unscientific estimation is, the drop rate is about the same for both kind of NPCs.

Comment by 912605

Blizzard really screwed the pooch on this one. Drop rate in Uldum is dismal at best. After killing 40 bad guys, I only have 8 Volatile Air.

I have plenty of Volatile Life that I could transmute, but the only problem is that I'm currently transmuting Truegold bars so I can craft Vial of the Sands and Transmute: Elemental and Transmute: Metal and Stone share the same cool-down period. So if I convert some Volatile Life to Volatile Air, then I can't make a Truegold bar and vice-versa. And since I need 10 Volatile Air for each Truegold bar, I'm forced to spend an hour each day farming these. It sucks! They should each have their own cool-down period in my opinion.

Comment by 284353

I used a Potion Of Treasure Finding and during that hour of grinding Scion of Al'Akir in Uldum trying to get Volatile Air. I looted...

40x Volatile Air

1x Formula: Enchant Bracer - Mighty Intellect
1x Highperch Legguards of the Bandit
1x Aboraz Bindings of the Monkey
1x Nethergarde Dagger of the Marksman
1x Safecracker's Gloves

7x Tiny Treasure Chest (which produced)
30g 93s 13c
8x Embersilk Cloth
14x Volatile Life
1x Volatile Earth
4x Volatile Fire
4x Volatile Water
1x Brightwood Cord of the Sorcerer

And then the Junk...
160x Crackling Crystals
32x Shimmering Shards
1x Dirt-Caked Boots

And sold the junk for a total of ... 49g 04s 85c

Comment by 999038

hardest volatile to farm!

Comment by 533861

Pretty easily obtained in MoP if you have a class that can solo things. Did the Vortex Pinnacle on my 90 paladin and didn't have much trouble soloing any of the mobs (ilvl 469 gear). Each run nets me ~ 20 Volatile Air, and I stop killing things at Altairus. Much faster than any other way I've found so far if you're not after ore.

Comment by fishstix

If your farming the Volatile Air for the Vial of the Sands mount, I would follow Elorivan recommendation below. For the exception of killing the Sweeping Winds. These are too far out of the way and skirt around the area in Uldum where you find the Scions of Al'Akir. These are closer together and the respawn rate is close to 30-45secs if not sooner. Good luck. Oh, and try to use the Potion of Treasure Finding if you have a buddy who's an alchemist.

-Fishstics/Fishtank
Velen
Alliance

Elorivan on 2011/04/23 (Patch 4.0.6)
If you're looking to farm Volitile air, I recommend killing Scions of Al'Akir, rather than Sweeping Winds. The scions are quite close together, and seem to have a pretty short respawn rate.

Comment by 1057631

I saw there was drop chance from a lvl. 5! Not even an elite? So now all can farm Volatile Air! =)

Comment by savvasferrari

I tried all the methods that many have described... The best solution is mining at Uldum....

Comment by 1117403

Best place by far is the Vortex Pinnacle trash. Normal mode - kill all the trash, zone out, reset, repeat.

Comment by Thiron

If you want just an average number of those, you can try killing Florawing Hive Queen for Hive Queen's Honeycomb
Just zone in, kill it, zone out and reset instance. For a level 90 character it takes just 1-2 minutes. Each Honeycomb contains 4-6 air.
Using this method, you can get 20-30 Volatile Air in just 5-10 minutes, and the loot is guaranteed too, no low drop chance and bad luck streaks.
Downside is that you can only join 5 instances per hour, so if you want more than 20-30 air, you should use other places.

Comment by romansamurai

Normal Vortex Pinnacle no question. Up to 2nd boss. I would get about 25-40 volatile air per run. Fast and easy. Takes all of 10 minutes per run probably. With 5.4 and even timeless isle gear you should have no trouble soloing this with any toon.

Comment by 1375990

It seems that they've nerfed drop rate of this from The Vortex Pinnacle mobs.

Comment by MappyT

You can farm these pretty efficiently by killing the trash before the first boss in Vortex Pinnacle and then resetting.

I did it on my druid with and Findle's Loot-A-Rang

Averaged about 15-20 per run.

Comment by Bowserkills7

One run of the Vortex Pinnacle heroic gave me 16 of these.

Comment by 758360

Confirmed! Vortex Pinnacle is the best place to farm air. 20-25 per run on heroic, 10-15 on normal. Any geared 90 can sweep it in 15 minutes!

Comment by Splatted

As a druid, you can run around in Stag (Travel Form) which helps kite things a lot quicker in The Vortex Pinnacle for Volatile Air, go all the way up to Altairus and can even farm him in normal for Reins of the Drake of the North Wind.

...which I got twice...in two runs one after another lol.

Comment by xScarlife

Hello friends,

If you are wondering where to farm for Volatile Air, I have made an in depth video about that which you can find by clicking here.

The best spot to farm for Volatile Air in my opinion is inside the Vortex Pinnacle dungeon located in Uldum.

There you have to kill the air elementals, loot them, go back to the entrance, reset the instance and repeat that process.

Note that you can only enter a dungeon 10 times in one hour. If you get locked out of the instance, you have to wait one hour to repeat or you can park a second alt at the instance and continue farming with your alt until your cooldown is gone.

Make sure before you enter and start your farm, that you set the dungeon difficulty on Heroic and don't kill any bosses.

Comment by 1373621

The best and most efficient way I've found to farm Volatile Air is to go to Zul'Gurub and kill Florawing Hive Queen. You can find her at the beginning of the instance... once you enter, go all the way down those stone steps and immediately turn LEFT. Keep going about 50 yards and you will see her hovering above a pond.

Now that you can do 10 instances in an hour, I go do this on my rogue and just park her outside the instance for an hour until the restriction has expired. From start to finish, it takes me less than 10 minutes to do all 10 kills/resets. What you want off the Hive Queen is Hive Queen's Honeycomb, which drops almost everytime (98% chance). I must have killed her at least 200+ times already, and only ONCE she didn't drop Hive Queen's Honeycomb. The bonus of farming Volatile Air this way is that you will also be getting other mats at the same time, all of which are contained in Hive Queen's Honeycomb! I usually get about 45-55 Volatile Air AND Volatile Life per 10 kills, so it will take you less than 30 min (not counting the 1 hr downtimes in between) to get enough to make Vial of the Sands, which I make fairly often for guild mount raffles... so if you are looking to make the same item, this is a great way to do it! You will also get Twilight Jasmine from the Honeycomb, and I ususally get about 45-55 of those every 10 kills as well.

P.S. It takes 120 Volatile Air to make Vial of the Sands, but you also need 128 Volatile Life for the flasks required in that recipe. But, you should get enough Volatile Life within those 30 kills because the Hive Queen's Honeycomb is supposed to drop about as much Life as Air (4-6 of each). If you are intending to farm the mats for this mount yourself, and are going to pick the herbs required (Azshara's Veil x64, Whiptail x128, and Cinderbloom x64), you also have a 39% per Wowhead to obtain Volatile Life from picking any of those 3 herbs... although I'm not sure how much each time... it's probably a range of 1-3 Life if it appears with any of those herbs while gathering (should have paid closer attention!). And remember... if you have an alchemist make the flasks required for this recipe (Flask of Titanic Strength x8 and Flask of the Winds x8) instead of buying them off the AH, you will likely get *at least* 1 proc per type of flask (since you are making 8 of each), and end up with even more flasks than needed... so if you are short a few herbs, don't worry!

****EDIT: Spent all day today testing the quantity of Volatile Life that can be picked when herbing cata herbs. Looks like when you find a herb node that does have Volatile Life in it, you will always get 2-3 per node.

Comment by ZephiraZ

Some numbers and comparisons:
Florawing Hive Queen: Ten kills yielded 50 Twilight Jasmine, 50 Volatile Air, and 47 Volatile Life. It took maybe five minutes to reach the 10-instance limit. This alone would take 3-4 hours to get enough Volatile Air and Volatile Life to craft the Vial of the Sands.

Scion of Al'Akir: While waiting for the instance limit to expire, I got another 42 Volatile Air in 30-40 minutes killing these guys in Orsis, Uldum.

The Vortex Pinnacle: Ten runs of killing all monsters - except for two of the Lurking Tempests - before the first boss yielded 142 Volatile Air. This took 20-30 minutes at 110% movement speed as a mage with various distractions.

If you're strapped for time, go for the ten kills in Zul'gurub. If you don't want to bother with instances, the Scion of Al'akir is decent. If you have time to kill and the patience for farming, the Vortex Pinnacle is the way to go.

Comment by johnnysebre

Zul'Gurub has a decent way of not only getting air, but also life and earth. There are two elites mini-bosses you can kill that drop volatiles every time, then reset instances, and do it over and over until you hit the hourly limit.

As other comments pointed out, the Florawing Hive Queen drops a honeycomb container which once opened, will drop about 4-6 air AND life (26 runs, my average of 4.9 air and 5.4 life). She is hovering over the water on your left right at the entrance of the dungeon; just hug the left wall as soon as you zone in.

Tor-Tun the turtle drops about 5-8 earths (24 runs, my average was 6.5), he is in the water just SW of High Priest Venoxis (first boss), not far from to the middle of the map.

Comment by 1881809

In Legion 7.3.5 I farmed 114 of Volatile Air in 18 minutes with my 900 ilvl warrior in Vortex Pinnacle. I pulled everything across the first bridge, down the spiral ramp and down the stairs. Then I took a left at the bottom of the stairs and hid behind the pillar till everything caught up then bladestorm it all. 10 run with 114 farmed is 11.4 per run. I had two runs where I looted none, and one run where Iooted 25. The rest were somewhere in the middle. I also looted some greens/blues of reasonable value (1-5k mkv) but I just vendored it all.

Comment by NeonDisease

As of 8.0, you can no longer farm the Florawing Hive Queen - you only get a honeycomb from your first kill of the day now.

Vortex Pinnacle trash to the 2nd bridge and then resetting is still a viable method.

Comment by Ssateneth

Does not come from mining as far as I can tell. Mined over a thousand elementium/pyrite nodes, and not a single air. Wowhead's data is either wrong or outdated.

Comment by dannyboytexas

After farming The Vortex Pinnacle until I got the lock out, i received 111 Volatile Air, Least amount gotten per pull 6, most 22.

Comment by ExlexEu

I am very curious about the reason of them being bought for 40g + per unit as of 8.3. can someone enlighten me? ^^

Comment by nanotubedemon

For completeness: I've been running normal Vortex Pinnacle to farm these, and I've been getting ~40 per run. That plus the gear for disenchanting or raw gold makes this worthwhile for me.

Comment by Fpiceail

This appears to no longer drop from Vortex Pinnacle in Shadowlands. I'm trying to level Cataclysm Engineering on the beta for a toy and I'm trying to get Volatile Air. I did 2 runs of Vortex Pinnacle and not a single Volatile Air dropped.

EDIT: Evidently not the case once 9.0 hit live servers. Happy farming!

Comment by Black7en

Can confirm 22.11.2020. Vortex Pinnacle (Normal) is still the best farming Spot. 1 Run = ~30 Air.

Happy Farming

Comment by ohatcheejack

I've been farming these from The Vortex Pinnacle while attempting to get the Altairus mount. They get a decent amount of gold from the AH.

Comment by ggregt

Getting my Loot-a-Rang back after dropping Engineering in DF, I had to grind back up to 70 to be able to use it. Saw the comments so ran Vortex Pinnacle heroic, and was dismayed that only 4 Volatile Air dropped. So I re-ran VP on normal and got 32 in about 6 minutes on my druid. So normal. Do it on normal. Der. (Also heroic is obviously not repeatable.)

Comment by SwedishChefBork

Ran Vortex 6-7 times to farm the Air. I was netting 13-28 per run (only got on average 15-20 most of the time).

Ran on normal as heroic still locks out daily. Heroic dropped a lot more, but I forgot about the daily resete.

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Volatile Air

Item Level 13

Crafting Reagent

Max Stack: 1000

Sell Price: 8 75

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This item can be fished in The Vortex Pinnacle .

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