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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.
One tip is that if you have a set of gloves with either +2 or +5 enchant on them, only use them if you can pick herbs you otherwise wouldn’t be able to. By not wearing them, you can eek out more skill ups than otherwise (eg, if you have a skill of 195 and Herb goes grey at 200, wearing a set of +5 gloves will mean there’s no chance of a skill up, not wearing them gives you 5 potential skill ups and a stack or so of herbs).
Also, Druids and Shaman have a distinct advantage over other classes as both have a travel form. In Ghost Wolf form, you can actually pick herbs (no need to come out of it), and Druids can flick into Travel Form and back again, with no time issues. If you are using a mount between each spawn of herbs, then you have the extra 3 second cast time to summon your mount after each pick.
If you’re getting into Herbalism late, it’s fairly simple to grind out a gathering skill from 1 to 300 for a level 60. Very few mobs will give you real trouble and most won’t even aggro you. For Herbalism, a 4 or 5 hour solid grind would be enough to reach 300 (excluding travel time).
Following is a rough list of where I would recommend to pick herbs in WoW and at what skill levels.
Remember, grey herbs won’t ever give you a skill up, so unless you want or need them to craft or sell, leave them alone. Don’t go into a new zone until you can pick at least 50% of the herbs available as you’ll waste a lot of time searching for those you can pick.
Also, download and install the gatherer and gatherbook WoW Add Ons as this will allow you to make educated guesses as to what areas to go to when you’re looking to find specific herbs.
1-100 - Durotar
This is an easy one - just go the length of Durotar and collect anything you can. Herbs are close together and gathering them poses no real difficulties. You can leave Durotar at Herbalism skill level 75 and go onto The Barrens if you want to but, with the very high concentration of herbs, I have actually found it quicker to carry on until 100 (where almost everything goes grey).
100-150 - The Barrens
Begin in the Northern Barrens and then head south. Although there are lots of spawn points, I found that most herbs seemed to appear in clumps of two or three and then a big gap between them. Using a mount isn’t a bad idea if you have one.
150-200 - Alterac Mountains and Arathi Highlands
These two options aren’t too different - Arathi has more spawn points, but is slightly larger so it balances out with Alterac. However, I tend to prefer Arathi Highlands as it allows me to do Arathi Basin Battleground runs and flick back to picking herbs with no downtime.
200-240 - Stranglethorn Vale or Dustwallow Marsh
This is a difficult stretch but Stranglethorn Vale and Dustwallow Marsh offer a good concentration of herbs to pick. I prefer Stranglethorn unless you’re on a PVP server in which case it might be more trouble than it’s worth.
240 - 280 - Feralas and Swamp of Sorrows
Feralas has an abundance of Sungrass and the Swamp of Sorrows an abundance of Blindweed. By now you’re picking herbs that sell for good gold and I typically stick to a single zone and try to get stacks of the same herb as this tends to bring in more gold (whole stacks rather than partial stacks).
280 - 300 - Varies
Post 280 there isn’t a single area that is better than another for the last 20 levels of WoW Herbalism skill. Winterspring is nice once you hit 290, as there are only three different herbs there that sell for good gold. The Eastern Plaguelands has an OK amount of Plaguebloom.
(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 for just a few minute's work because I know what and when to buy and sell at the auction house for maximum profits.
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