wow 10 Tips How to Efficiently Farm Island Expeditions

[Stan 5,021]

Island Expeditions are a resource race and there's little time for tomfoolery. Be ahead of the curve with our handy tips that will hopefully make farming Azerite for the weekly quest easier.

1. Get Ready & Purchase Consumables

At the end of almost every expedition, you're going to receive a bag that contains Seafarer's Dubloons. The currency can be used to purchase powerful consumables that will make your Island Expeditions easier. The quartermaster can be found on the boat, so you can either stock up on items at the beginning of an Island Expedition or when you die and respawn. Three new consumables become available each week and they offer various buffs. You can find a full list of them here.

2. Learn to Read the Map

The red X on the map indicates the most lucrative source of Azerite that hasn't been discovered yet (Scouted Azerite). The skull icon indicates presence of rare mobs. Over time, more Azerite sources will be unveiled on your map, but you can't go wrong with prioritizing X over anything else. If there's no X, go kill rare mobs!

If you happen to come across these mobs and nodes, chances are you're doing it right.

Over time, various elites will spawn and guard chests full of Azerite.

3. Be Aware of Your Surroundings

Mine up all Azerite nodes and satchels on your way to X, preferably without pulling unnecessary mobs. Make use of shrine effects to gain various buffs and don't forget to run through orbs that spawn from rares to get the effect of Azerite Energy for 30 seconds.

4. Avoid Unnecessary Damage

Creatures oftentimes have abilities that can be easily avoided by simply moving out of the effect's area. Vicejaw Crocolisks have a frontal cone attack, most giants come with an AoE forcing you to leave their melee range etc.

If you pull too many mobs as a tank, it's probably best to kite them and be constantly on the move.

5. Interrupt, interrupt, interrupt! Seriously...

You can't outgear Island Expeditions. Creatures deal a flat amount of % as damage that's why it's essential to interrupt and stun everything you can.

6. Move as Group

It's not really worth splitting up. You're going to collect more Azerite as a group of three. If a member of you group dies, try to regroup as soon as possible.

7. Don't Constantly Engage in PvP with Advanced AI NPCs

Over time, players and enemies accumulate Azerite Residue and are worth more Azerite the longer they stay alive. It's good to engage the opposing team once in a while, but it's not worth chasing them or engage in PvP shortly after they respawn, because they're worth too little Azerite and Island Expeditions are a resource race, remember?

8. Absolutely Do NOT Camp Near the Opposing Faction's Ship

Here's probably the most irritating thing that happens way too often. Players stay close to the enemy ship for excessively long periods of time, but don't realize that the enemy team will not only be worth almost no Azerite upon respawn, but will constantly engage them in combat, hindering further progress.

9. Mob Tagging

If the enemy team tagged a mob, you won't get Azerite from it, unless you eliminate all members of the opposing team forcing them to drop combat. The target's health bar will be greyed out when a mob has been tagged by the other faction.

10. Weekly Quests

For Azerite for the Alliance & Azerite for the Horde you must collect 40,000 Azerite from Island Expeditions. Completing the weekly quest rewards 2,500 Azerite and 1,500 reputation with Honorbound/7th Legion (War Campaign factions). If you don't manage to collect 40,000 Azerite before reset, don't worry! Progress will be carried over to the following week.

For more details check out our Island Expeditions guide.

Check out our ten tips for more efficient Island Expeditions farming!

[Prophet001 545]

This is a cool guide.

 

Thanks ?

[shanghaied 55]

Very helpful, much appreciated!

[Kuarinofu 78]

Thanks, but this is the stuff you know after 2-3 expeditions.

[Evincare 39]

17 minutes ago, Kuarinofu said:

Thanks, but this is the stuff you know after 2-3 expeditions.

While maybe true, still nice to have it summed up.

While not overly difficult the problems I encountered with expeditions is when grouped with randoms, ppl tend to wander off to do whatever the hell they think is good like trying to 1v3 the enemy team or running off in different directions to try and do stuff alone (and mostly fail miserably doing that). If you get ppl knowing what they are doing - which basically comes down to following these tips - it is smooth sailing and over in less than 10 minutes. But that's a problem we already know of in LFR and Dungeons. Remedy: Go do it with Guild/Friends.

[Kurosu 58]

1 hour ago, Kuarinofu said:

Thanks, but this is the stuff you know after 2-3 expeditions.

False saddly, due to expeditions being so "free" without a linear path people tend to go leeroy jenkins and insist only their personal belief or tactic is the right one. Rarely do i end the expedition with the same 2 people I start it with.

[Hypersonic 113]

Awesome guide! Hopefully this helps a lot of people to understand this new mode : ) 

[tkioz 229]

Didn't see anything about the health balls, but here is something I found out by accident, they aren't just health, they are also a battle res. If you haven't released and a team mate walks over them they will instantly res you at half health. I don't know what the range is, since it appears to be spotty, but keep it in mind if an elite is almost dead.

[jinsu2301 273]

Another tip I wanna put out there:

Once you get close to cap, it's best to just go for something like a big elemental, have one player distract it while the rest mines the azerite, and if you see a big chest, just grab it (<giggity>). There's no point spending another 2 or 3 extra minutes killing stuff if you can just end it then and there.

[krapmyself 60]

Cheese it: get one guy, a veng DH preferably to pick up lots of things, Veng DH are great for this because of their mobility, sustainability, and aoe. while the DH has their attention, the other two guys loot all the things. additionally, the DH can drag the mobs into the enemy faction and since you've tagged them, the dumb AI will begin to attack the mobs, killing them for you. Been doing Mythics this way. over in 5-6 minutes.

I expect a hotfix for this though, as it becomes more popular.

[Badadada 184]

One more: Eat all you can. Don't sit down to slurp Conjured Mana Buns, because the floor is full of nutritious food that instantly regenerates a good portion of your HP. A healerless setup can smoothly romp through an island just by eating those things which in the end saves you a lot of time (and can mean the difference between a loss and a victroy).
Yet one more: While the Seafarer's Doubloon vendor changes every week, you can still use every item you bought from the previous vendor. So in the last expedition of the week, always stock up with the maximum available quantitity from the most useful consumables. At the moment there is no other use of doubloons anyways.
Last but not least: Learn to kite. Seriously - mythic elites and AI can crit a cloth wearer for 90K damage. Also - the ettin is immune to slow effects, so avoid it, if you have no tank.

By the way, this gamemode really came as a big suprise to me, even though the rewards are just cosmetics, the mythic AI is challenging and it's totally enjoyable. Hope they will maintain it throughout the expansion.

[Raelyn 17]

IE's are pretty cool and a decent alternative to dungeons, however, I'm sitting at 35+ mythic wins and have yet to receive any items except dubloons and a couple of 250 rep tokens. I know it's "RNG" as to whether you get a mount/pet/transmog item etc. but still, this seems a little excessive. 

 

[dsc 18]

this should be a mandatory read when queing for the first time.

I'll add, communicate which "X" simply follow a tank or call out NW X, Center X, ect.

]

 

interrupt, interrupt and stay in range of your healer ( if you were lucky to get one.  )

 

A geared out tank should announce himself, "hey guys I'm a 350 Prot Pally.. I'll collect mobs to NW X, stay mounted and follow.

;) that alone would make these smoother, unless you do premade. (IMO anything besides premade in this scenario hell is like cramming broken glass in your anus. 

[Evincare 39]

12 hours ago, Raelyn said:

IE's are pretty cool and a decent alternative to dungeons, however, I'm sitting at 35+ mythic wins and have yet to receive any items except dubloons and a couple of 250 rep tokens. I know it's "RNG" as to whether you get a mount/pet/transmog item etc. but still, this seems a little excessive. 

 

Agreed. I don't see much point in doing Expeditions as soon as weekly quest ist done, even if they are fun and a nice change of pace. There is just no incentive. Pets and toys are nice and such. But a) the Droprates seem really low and b) not everyone cares about those things in the first place. The Mounts are awesome but again, droprates seem low. I know there is plundered Gear, which would be a nice way to gear up, especially weapons (325) - even alts, as the gear seems to be BoE - but i have yet to see anything drop for any of my chars. The gear should be nice for transmog aswell.

I don't know if the droprates increase for Mythic difficulty. In my opinion that should be the case. If not, the only advantage for doing Expeditions on Mythic difficulty would be a faster completion on the weekly quest. I'm leaving out personal prestige and the increased challenge, that keeps some of us going ?

Edited September 3, 2018 by Evincare

[Galahfray 0]

There has been some new information. Unless you are leveling, or purely after Azerite only, gathering Azerite is actually counterproductive in Island Expeditions.

The reason why is because anything worth anything that drops from there will drop from killing rares, events, bosses, and specific mobs. 

The faster you go in gathering Azerite, the less chances you have at getting the drops.
 

(Drops being: Mounts, pets, toys, mogs, etc...)