World of Warcraft - Shortest Route to find Herbs & Ore

How would you like an addon that:
1. Put EVERY known spawn point of every type of ore/herb on your map? (not just ones you have gathered)2. Put a tiny ore/herb indicator on your minimap which showed what type of ore/herb it is?3. Had the minimap indicator turn into an empty circle when you are close enough to see if there's a spawn there or not?
AND
4. Drew a route on your map and minimap that most efficiently connected every spawn point?
A new addon plots the shortest route to check those points! While Gatherer Addon had been the gold-standard mod for capturing and recording spawn points for Herbs and Ore, Cartographer now does it, in addition to plotting your path.
Here's what to do:
1. Go to the Professions Tips forums at makewowgold.com and check the thread 'Map Route to find Ore/Herbs' to find out how to download the addon.2. Once in the game, you should see a small Screw icon on your minimap. Click that and choose the map addon from the list of addons (other addons will appear if you have them installed).3. Configure Herbalism/Mining to display how you want it. You'll know it is working correctly if you open your map and see a ton of ore/herb symbols all over the place. (Unless you're in a city, obviously....then just chose a zone that should.)4. Add and configure Routes from the Routes screen. I walk through that below. Before you do, I recommend you change the global setting of the Route size to the minimum (I think it's 10). The default is like 35 and puts quite a thick line on your map that can actually block you from seeing the spawn points.
Routes:1. From the configuration screen (which you get from clicking the Screw icon), choose Routes, Add.2. Give your route a name. Start with something like "Netherstorm Ore All".3. Choose the zone of the map the route applies to. (ie: Netherstorm for the example)4. Click the Data dropdown, and then check on all that you want to find. For now, start with all of them (Fel Iron, Adamantite, Rich Adamantite, Khorium). If you can see your map, you'll see that it basically draws a line from every spawn point to every other spawn point. Not very helpful. That's why the next step is so important.5. Optimize! I choose the 'Extra Optimized' option, and optimize in the fore-ground. (doing it in the background lets you keep playing WoW while it calculates the route...I just prefer to let it get the route done faster.)
TA-DA! You should have the most efficient (shortest) route that will circuit the map and hit every spawn point along the way!
Now you can just fly along this route (you do not have to stick exactly to it), and you will fly over every point on a given zone.
The other thing you can do is create shorter routes based on fewer spawn points. Don't choose EVERY type of data, but instead choose just one, such as Adamantite. Let the route be built on Adamantite only. Maybe you are only interested in Adamantite because it sells better on your server than Fel Iron. You can shorten your route a bit...and you can still see Fel Iron if you happen to fly over it. You just won't go out of your way to check a single Fel Iron spawn point.
For example, a friend recently plotted a route in Shadowmoon Valley where only the Nightmare Vine were on the route. He told me he has managed to fly the entire circuit in about 15-20 minutes and collect 40-50 Nightmare Vine. You can figure out from there how much gold that will make you, and how fast!
Obviously this addon does not work outside of Outland, as a straight line between spawn points is only practical with a flying mount. But still, it is the best way to shorten the amount of time needed to harvest herbs or ore.
George is an avid World of Warcraft player, and is collecting resources on how to better play the game, including http://www.makewowgold.com and http://mage.best-free-information.com By George Halt