Volatile Earth

I am just going to summarize the discussion above into one unified post for new visitors, etc.

It would appear that the consensus is that mining is by far the most effective method of farming Volatile Earth, particularly in Deepholm where they will drop from mining nodes as well as many of the mobs (killed by the player or by other players). The most effective mobs appear to be the Gyreworms in the NE quadrant of Deepholm, and the Deepstone Elementals in the South-Southwest area.

Other notable methods are to kill the various earth elementals in Mount Hyjal, particularly near the zone-in area due to the very high respawn rates of the mobs. Also at 64x58 in Hyjal are Molten Tormentors with a similar drop rate and high mob density. The downside here is the lower mob respawn rate.

Much discussion has been put into the tendency for drops to happen in some sort of pattern. As far as I know, there is no special way to maximize your V.E. drop rate through pattern farming. It would be similar to saying (if the drop rate is truly a random selection) that you could maximize your "heads versus tails" coin flip results by flipping the coin by switching from left handed versus right handed flipping. It is conceivable (although with diminishing probability) that you could flip a coin 1000 times and get heads each time using no special flipping technique (See Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead for a full philosophical discussion on this phenomenon).

Finally, it is also noted that you can get Volatile Earth from prospecting Pyrite ore, and with a fairly respectable drop rate. The argument against this, of course, is that the Pyrite may be worth substantially more within your server's economy and as such, you should investigate the profitability of selling the Pyrite Ore and purchasing the Volatiles.

I hope this helps!

Take a port to My Hyjal. side of where you arrive are loads of Scalding Rock Elemental that have an amazing respawn rate. I stood in one place and was killing about 3/minute (one at a time as a level 85 priest). In 20 mins I got 13 Volatile Earth. I tried Twilight Highlands because the chart had a much higer percentage, but in 15 mins I got nothing from much tougher kills (1/min), and they are spread out more with longer respawn rates. If you are grinding for mats and don't want to pay the AH prices, this is the way to go.

I think Blizzard just got rid off the "10" goes in 1 , like 10 mote of earth to primal earth 10 crystalized -> eternal,
just stack to 200 (20 big elements).

sweet idea.