Farming and loot restrictions on F2P/Vet accounts? Essence of Water/Fire

[Reverie]

Hi, everyone! Is anyone here aware of any undocumented restrictions on certain types of loot with an unsubbed account? I have been trying to farm Essence of Water and Essence of Fire (and eventually, Essence of Undeath), but it seems like those particular mats will not drop from world mobs anywhere.

I've killed several hundred Purespring Elementals in Swamp of Sorrows, about 80 Ice Avatars in Winterspring, and maybe a dozen of the water elementals in Eastern Plaguelands, and have not seen a single Essence of Water. I have looted a lot of the lower level Elemental Waters and Globes of Water. I'm currently trying to farm the fire elementals on the volcano in Un'Goro, and I'm seeing similar results.

I've searched far and wide online, and nobody else is mentioning any issues with getting these drops, so I'm thinking maybe it's a farming restriction for trial accounts.

Dungeon drops of the Essences appear to be working fine, so I've got some options, at least. It just sucks to farm that way while having to deal with the instance rate limiter.

 

[Nutsmite]

I've definitely looted essence of undeath few times in plaguelands, not sure about other stuff (maybe essence of fire in brd)

 

[Conzil]

It’s not a f2p restriction but a level one, different levels have different loottables, for example at lower level you are going to loot more globe if water instead of essence of water, but like you said dungeons drop them.

For water I recommend the water element boss in Dire Maul.

Undeath there is the town in Eastern Plaguelands next to the lake.

Fire I don’t remember but I assume it’s BRD fire elements.

 

[Katmandu]

Essence of Fire - BRD
Essence of Earth - Mauradon
Essence of Water - Dire Maul
Essence of Undeath - Stratholme
Essence of Air - Elemental Plateau in Nagrand, BC (to get there, need a Darkmoon Cannon. A warlock can also get there using burning rush in the right spot so you can res at the spirit healer)

With the exception of Essence of Undeath, I never found essences on world creatures in classic zones.

 

[Reverie]

It’s not a f2p restriction but a level one, different levels have different loottables, for example at lower level you are going to loot more globe if water instead of essence of water, but like you said dungeons drop them.

I had heard about not being able to loot mobs 10 levels above you, but wasn't aware of this additional bit. That's really good to know, thanks!

Is there any type of database where this information can be looked up so people can avoid wasting farm time on unavailable loot? Essence of Fire/Water/etc has the same item level (ilvl 10) as the lesser elemental mats, so that's not a way to rule it out, unfortunately. Either way, just knowing that this is a thing will help my sanity in the future.

I was able to farm up the rest of my mats in dungeons and finish my Tome of Illusions: Azeroth. Essence of Water was the biggest pain thanks to the instance limit. The other mats just took a couple of clears of Strat and BRD.

 

[sector3600]

Some elementals in 'classic' world still do drop the essences but it's a rarer drop than via dungeons as mentioned. Similar to the recipes for Potion of Swiftness and other ones, like the Mechanical Toad schematic. For example, Silithus (pre-Legion time) I still find air, earth and wind essences but mostly the white mats or the defunct now grey ones. Better dropping of essences from various mobs there during the "anniversary" event.

But as F2P/Vet you need classic alchemy @ 300 for the flask, you can learn the transmute essences if you gain the reputation for example with Argent Dawn (honored) for Recipe: Transmute Air to Fire

Others straight purchase --
Recipe: Transmute Water to Air via Magnus Frostwake
Recipe: Transmute Fire to Earth via Plugger Spazzring

The rest are world drops.

Alchemy itself limits using these to create items that require having another profession to use the right essences to craft an item.