Stay well-fed in The War Within (even through death!) with Hearty Meals

In recent builds of The War Within alpha, Cooking changes have finally started filtering into people’s profession windows. While several of the recipes are clearly in a very alpha state — I doubt the intention is for you to produce a Sushi Special using a single piece of Portioned Steak, for example, unless the Arathi have a version different idea of sushi than we do — there are still some neat ideas here, such as turning raw ingredients into processed ingredients first (what’s a meal without a little prep?) or foods that are just plain weird. Still, when the developers are done experimenting, one thing that’s popped up on the alpha that I sincerely hope makes it to the final version of the expansion is the concept of Hearty Meals — food that lasts through death.

Current Dragonflight players will know that currently in order to make your food buff last through death, you need to have an item crafted that uses the Alchemical Flavor Pocket as an embellishment, an item that — despite its name — does not come from the Alchemy profession, but as a random low drop chance from the weekly reward for the Tuskarr community soup event (with a second source, the rare Luttrok, added in patch 10.0.7). This has been convenient at times, but every time a new patch rolls around and it’s time to upgrade gear, there’s the pain point of also hoping you can spare the materials to upgrade your flavor pocket item — or remembering to eat all the time if you can’t.

Hearty Meals solve this by making food last through death inherently. Simply combine five of any food item with a single Artisan’s Acuity — The War Within‘s equivalent of Dragonflight‘s Artisan’s Mettle — to create a hearty version of it that is Warband-bound and lasts through death. And I do mean any food; even feasts have datamined Hearty versions, such as the Hearty Feast of the Midnight Masquerade. With most recipes promising to create two or more servings based on your Cooking skill, even the need for five servings to make a single Hearty serving isn’t an high hurdle to clear. This is a fantastic change, taking something that currently requires either luck or a fairly large gold expenditure every single patch and turning it into something that players can get 100% of the time with a little elbow grease, and will definitely be well-received by anyone who’s had terrible luck getting their Alchemical Flavor Pocket, or had to leave it behind in favor of better gear in the same slot.

Please support us on Patreon by subscribing or increasing your Patreon tier. Donate by May 31 so we can keep creating the quality content you enjoy.