Using GatherMate2 in conjunction with Routes to make gold

In my first real post I'd like to help you farm gathering materials (herbs and ores, specifically) more efficiently. For this I've found 3 (basically 2) addons to be highly helpful!

GatherMate 2 (Download here)
This addon will cause every node you've ever gathered while running it to be shown on your map and minimap, allowing you to quickly revisit places where you know of potential herb or ore spawns (also: archaeology spots, fishing spots, gas clouds and even treasure chests).

Now you'll probably sigh and think that this, while it might be cool in the future, will not help you right now, because making the addon remember enough nodes to be a real help will take ages. Well, fear not, you'll see how to solve that problem in a second!

GatherMate 2 Data (Download here)
This is more data than you'd ever collect yourself probably. This addon takes the data from Wowhead and brings it directly to your GatherMate2. Well, you'll have to do a few easy steps before your GatherMate2 addon will know about your new found wisdom, but setup is quick and painless!

A little explanation as to what we're doing here, the steps are separated by the arrows in the screenshot (duh! :)):

1. Press esc, go to Interface and select the tab that's shown
2. Open up the GatherMate2-Tab and select the Import option
3. Check each node type you want to import
4. Click the import button all the way down, you're done!

If you go to your world map now, you should have nodes shown all over it. You can change the display options (when nodes will be shown and when they wont) in the main configuration screen of the addon (the yellow GatherMate 2 button in the last screenshot).

Well, what now?

Now that we've got a good overview of the nodes we could potentially gather, all that's left for our efficient farming session is an efficient route to gather as much as possible in a given time frame, this is where the third addon I'll show you gets into play!

Routes (Download here)

Our last addon will tell you which way to go to gather as fast as possible. Once you've downloaded it you only need to follow a few easy (if you already know how to do it) steps to make the addon do what we wish.

"Sadly" this addon is very well localized and configuration spreads out over multiple screens, so screenshots won't help us here, but I'll explain the process as good as I can, and if you don't understand parts of it, you can always ask in the comments. It's mostly self-explanatory, though.

How to add a route in Routes:

1. Type /routes into your chat
2. In the opening window, select the Add option to the left
3. In the drop down to the upper right your current zone should be selected, if that's not the one you want to create a route for select the right one there
4. Give your route a name to the left of the drop down box and press OK (it is actually important that you do this before the other steps)
5. Check all node types you want to add to your route in the lower section
6. Click create route

Now, when you go to your world map, you'll see some similarly nonsensical route like I do here:

Obviously this is not most efficient route, we'd most likely be getting better results just riding around in wild circles and collecting what gets in our path. We can change this by optimizing our route.
To do this we'll need to:

1. Once again type /routes into our chat window
2. Navigate to the route we just created by clicking through Routes -> Zone name -> Route name
3. Choosing the Optimize Route tab
4. Choosing one of the options there (personally I do check the extra optimization and select the foreground option)

Going back to the same map as before, it should now look more like this: 

Well, this looks a lot better, doesn't it? You'll see the line on your minimap, too.

Once you have done this once or twice it takes less than a minute to create a new route, and this will save you a lot of farming time in the long run, be it for making gold or leveling your gathering professions!


In my next post...
I'll teach you the basic functionality of another addon to quickly find out which gathered items are best to farm at the moment and how to sell yours off as quickly and profitably as possible!