WoW Herbalism is a gathering skill that allows you to find and pick herbs throughout World of Warcraft. Herbalism is a necessary skill for Alchemy and also a good moneymaker in conjunction with WoW Auctioneer as many crafting recipes across all professions require herbs as ingredients.
Herbs are found by activating a tracking skill called “Find Herbs”. Whenever you get close to a herb with this skill active, a small yellow dot will show on your minimap to indicate all herb locations.
To get started pick up Herbalism profession at level 5 then simply pay attention to your minimap while you’re adventuring and pick Herbs where you’re currently leveling. Your skill in Herbalism will naturally increase as you pick more and higher level herbs.
There are a few things that you can do to speed up leveling Herbalism.
First, Tauren receive +15 Herbalism as a racial skill so if you’re starting a new World of Warcraft character with Herbalism or Alchemy in mind roll a Tauren.
Next, there are two glove enchants that provide a small bonus to Herbalism (+2 and +5). These bonuses don’t make much difference, but will mean that you can go from one area to another just that little bit quicker.
If you’re running your first character through World of Warcraft you’re probably short of gold. I know when I got started in WoW I knew nothing about add-ons, nothing about what items sold well at auction, and nothing about how to earn gold beyond lucking into a rare drop from a mob and selling it to a vendor.
So, in the interest of saving you from having to decide which spells or skills you should buy when you level up because you can’t afford them all here are a few tips for making gold in WoW at low levels.
5. Sell Your Cloth or Make Bandages
Especially at low levels, you can typically make more by selling bandages made from cloth to a vendor than by selling the cloth itself. I don’t recommend you sell the cloth to a vendor at all (auction it off instead) but selling the bandages to a vendor is a good way to recoup a little gold as you’re leveling your First Aid skill.
4. Don’t Pick a Crafting Profession Before Level 30
Crafting at low levels (below level 30 or so) is a gold sink. You don’t have the skill to make anything anyone wants to buy and all those materials you put into your crafting could easily be sold at auction. Instead of choosing Herbalism and Alchemy for example, choose Herbalism and Skinning or Mining and Skinning (I recommend either of these combos and not Herbalism and Mining because you can only show one type of resource (either herbs or ore nodes) on your mini-map at a time).
Then, instead of wasting the stacks of low level herbs, ore, or leather that you gather, put them up at auction. You can easily get 20 to 50 silver per stack of even the lowest level resources as many high level players buy these materials to level crafting in their alts.
If you’ve read my article on WoW Auctioneer, you’re probably wondering about the most profitable items you can buy and relist at the auction house. Here are some items I buy and sell that help me make me over 1,500 gold a week.
Herbs
Especially herbs needed in potions used by raiding guilds and lower level herbs used by players leveling up alchemy skill for their alts. Farming and selling low level herbs (especially Briarthorn) is a very good way to use WoW Auctioneer to earn gold if you’re a lower level player.
Enchanting Components
The great thing about enchanting supplies (Strange Dust, Mystic Essence, etc.) is that there’s no listing fee associated with them so auctioning them off is free. Enchanters always need more components and typically have plenty of gold to spend on them. In fact, one of the best advanced strategies I use involves buying low demand magic items (like swords with bonuses to Spirit) for very low prices, disenchanting, then selling the resulting components for big profits.
Quest Items
Another set of items with no listing fees and high profit potential are quest items. One of my favorite gold making strategies and World of Warcraft mining tips is to farm Bloodstone Ore (needed for a 30s level quest) and sell it at auction for 20 to 30 silver each. Considering the quest rewards over 3000 experience, most players are willing to spend a gold to just buy the materials (four ore are need for the quest) instead of going through the hassle of gettting the quest items themselves.
Mithril mining is one of the best mid-level gold makers in World of Warcraft. Mithril bars are needed for many crafting recipes and can be sold at auction for around 25 to 30 silver per bar. Considering that you can mine from 1 to 4 mithril ore from each mithril node, that means each and every node you find is worth almost 1 gold.
First on the list of best mithril mining spots is the cave at Drywhisker Gorge in the Arathi Highlands. It’s just east of Hammerfell at 82,36 (head up the hill to the right just off the main road into Hammerfell). This is my top choice because there are several mithiril nodes in close proximity along with iron nodes, three spawn points for chests, and mining nodes for Bloodstone Ore (see tip 5 in my WoW mining guide for how to make gold from Bloodstone Ore) .
In addition, the kobolds that inhabit this cave are relatively easy to kill even for someone in the low-thirties. I spent all my spare time mining this cave from 34 to 39 and, with the help of WoW Auctioneer, made a ton of gold in the process.
With the Burning Crusade expansion, mining has become the most important gathering profession in World of Warcraft. Mining was the most useful profession before the expansion because it was the basis for two crafting professions (engineering and blacksmithing) but, with the addition of Jewelcrafting in BC, mining has become even more important.
For this reason, World of Warcraft mining is the best way to earn gold compared to the other gathering professions. Herbs are useful but only to Herbalists while ores and gems are useful to Blacksmiths, Engineers, and Jewelcrafters.
Discover how I make over 1500 gold a week
even with low level characters using easy and completely legal gold making strategies.
(Notice that this screenshot was taken before I auctioned off the Mature Blue Dragon Sinew (worth 85 gold) and the stacks of Primal Water (worth 430 gold per stack) you can see there in my backpack.)
Here's another screenshot showing a few of my other auctions. I bought that Schematic: Healing Potion Injector for only 20 gold earlier in the day. When the auction clears I'll make at least 75 gold (it ended up getting bought out so I made 105 gold) for just a few minute's work because I know what and when to buy and sell at the auction house for maximum profits.
If you're tired of struggling through WoW and not being able to afford the gear you want you need to get this guide!