Upon World of Warcraft: Dragonflight's launch, one of the main selling points of the new expansion was the complete overhaul of professions and their systems. And Blizzard certainly delivered, revamping every profession in the game to include brand-new specializations and talents.
Herbalism is one of the classic gathering professions, providing much-needed herbs for Alchemy and Inscription, and it's also been completely reworked, allowing you to specialize in gathering speed or the chance to find rare reagents. The herbs themselves have also undergone a few changes, mixing up the normal grind with gameplay quirks. Here's everything you need to know about Herbalism in Dragonflight.
Overview
Herbalism is one of the most valued professions in World of Warcraft due to its nature as a gathering trade. You'll find yourself flying around the world and swooping down to pick ingredients that can be used by other professions.
Once you've gathered a good bulk of crafting plants, you can either sell them on the Auction House for quick cash or pick up Alchemy or Inscription as your second profession to refine them into potions and flasks or staves and glyphs. Alternatively, you can also choose Mining to gather ores at the same time and then trade off all the materials to another character.
If you'd like to pick up an easier trade that serves as the foundation of World of Warcraft's economy, then you can find several Herbalism trainers around the Dragon Isles, with the most prominent being Agrikus in Valdrakken.
While it's not strictly required, it's also a good idea to pick up Herbalism equipment. These are made through other professions, but if you don't have the ability to make them yourself, you can just as easily buy them from the Auction House. You can equip one tool and two accessories at any one time.
|
Name |
Type |
Boosts |
Profession Source |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Herbalism Tool |
Random Stat |
Blacksmithing |
|
|
Herbalism Tool |
Random Stat |
Blacksmithing |
|
|
Herbalism Accessory |
Finesse |
Leatherworking |
|
|
Herbalism Accessory |
Finesse |
Leatherworking |
|
|
Herbalism Accessory |
Deftness, Perception |
Tailoring |
|
|
Herbalism Accessory |
Deftness, Perception |
Tailoring |
Basic Herbs
Once you've acquired the Herbalism skill, it's time to get to work. You can use your dragonriding mount to get around each of the different zones to scour the earth for herbalism nodes, which can be tracked through your minimap. You'll be looking for four different plants to collect, all of which grow in different climates.
|
Name |
Description |
Best Zone |
Rarity |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Hochenblume |
Grows wherever it can, leading to it being the most common. |
All |
Common |
|
Bubble Poppy |
Grows wherever there's a lot of moisture, and is commonly found on riverbanks, caves, and coasts. |
Ohn'ahran Plains |
Uncommon |
|
Writhebark |
Grows wherever there's a strong concentration of other flora, and is commonly found within forests. |
The Azure Span |
Uncommon |
|
Saxifrage |
Grows in hardier climates, and is commonly found on cliffsides or mountaintops. |
The Waking Shores Thaldraszus |
Uncommon |
At level one, you'll be able to gain steady progress and level up from picking any herb that you come across. However, as you gain more experience, certain herbs will begin to lose their effectiveness in providing a rank up.
- Hochenblume guarantees a rank up until level 15, then it decays further at level 25, then finally stops providing experience at level 30.
- Bubble Poppy, Writhebark, and Saxifrage all provide a guaranteed rank up until level 35, then they decay further at level 50, then finally stop providing experience at level 60.
Once you reach level 60, you can no longer rank up from collecting basic herbs, and you'll have to turn your attention to modified herbs to reach the upper echelons of the profession.
Herb Modifiers
Modifiers are a new addition with Dragonflight, and they serve to spice up the gameplay by providing anything from small nuisances to real threats that can kill you if you're not careful. Just like how the basic herbs prefer one climate over another, so too do modifiers, and the plant's location will determine what effect it can receive.
However, modifiers aren't always an obstacle. With the new specializations, you can choose to conquer a certain modifier, reducing their negative effect and allowing you to gain a unique temporary bonus.
|
Name |
Negative Effect |
Beneficial Effect |
Best Zone |
Reward |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Lush |
N / A |
Lush herbs can be harvested for a chance at additional materials. |
All |
More herbs from one node. |
|
Titan Touched |
N / A |
Titan Touched herbs can give a specialized herbalist a temporary boost to speed and secondary stats. |
The Waking Shore Thaldraszus |
Rousing Order |
|
Windswept |
Windswept herbs afflict herbalists with a random chance to blow them off from cliffs and mountains. |
Windswept herbs can give a specialized herbalist a temporary immunity to fall damage when falling more than 40 yards. |
Ohn'ahran Plains |
Rousing Air |
|
Frigid |
Frigid herbs form a patch of ice beneath herbalists when collected, stunning them for a short period of time if they attempt to move. |
Frigid herbs can give a specialized herbalist a chance to freeze enemies that venture too close. |
The Azure Span |
Rousing Frost |
|
Decayed |
Decayed herbs will inflict a sickness upon herbalists that attempt to gather it, slowly killing them if they don't repeatedly jump to expel it. |
Decayed herbs can offer a significant cooldown to herbalist-specific abilities to a specialized herbalist. |
The Azure Span |
Rousing Decay |
Because of the risk that they carry and how rare they can be to find, modified herbs will provide the rest of the ranks necessary to reach level 100. However, they also decay in effectiveness as you gain more skill in Herbalism.
- Modified Hochenblume will provide a guaranteed rank up until level 65, then they decay further at level 80, but they will always provide a chance for experience until level 100.
- Modified Bubble Poppy, Writhebark, and Saxifrage will always provide a guaranteed rank up until level 100.
Specializations
The biggest change that Dragonflight introduced to professions is a brand-new talent tree system called specializations. By using Dragon Isles Herbalism Knowledge, which can be gained through gathering new herbs or studying Dreambloom reagents, you can choose to pour points into a certain skill.
Bountiful Harvests
The first specialization is called Bountiful Harvests, which involves gathering as much as you can from a single node. These talents involve finding higher quality reagents while gathering and dictate just how many reagents you can pick up with every harvest, allowing you to be a jack-of-all-trades with a general tree or sub-specialize further in one of the four flowers.
Botany
Botany is all about the speed at which you can harvest herbs, allowing you to gather while mounted on your dragon. Botany also allows you to sub-specialize to gain a better understanding of lush herbs or gives you the ability to reliably gather seeds from the herbs you collect, where you can grow your own flourishing plants within plots of Rich Soil.
Mastering The Elements
The final specialization, Mastering the Elements, is what allows you to gain beneficial effects from modified herbs. The generalized tree applies a small bonus when gathering any kind of modified herb, but you can sub-specialize within the Frigid, Decayed, Titan Touched, or Windswept modifiers to receive their specific bonuses and negate their downsides.
Gathering Knowledge
As mentioned previously, you can gain more Dragon Isles Herbalism Knowledge through finding a new herb you haven't encountered before, or by finding Dreambloom. This rare reagent and its petals can be found randomly whenever you pick up a herb, giving you anywhere from one to three points of Knowledge.
However, the bulk of your Knowledge will likely come in the form of quests from your trainer and from the Artisan's Consortium. These reward Dragon Shards of Knowledge, and you can trade these items into Khadin, the Master Artisan, for huge returns in Herbalism Knowledge.
Khadin can be found within Khadin's Cave, just west of Maruukai in the Ohn'ahran Plains, first being introduced through a quest given to you by Agrikus. Once you've gained her trust, Khadin gives you the ability to occasionally find Dragon Shards of Knowledge when gathering herbs.