Herbalism

Herbalism is a gathering profession that allows players to find and harvest herbs from plant resource nodes scattered around the world. While some herbs can be used in other trade skills, the vast majority are used for Alchemy and Inscription.

As with most types of gathering, interacting with an herb will dismount the herbalist. This can be overcome by being a druid, using a Sky Golem, or (for herb-gathering only) building the Garrison Stables.

Herbalism pointers:
 * [[File:Pointer herb on 32x32.png]] in range of gatherable herb
 * [[File:Pointer herb off 32x32.png]] out of range of gatherable herb

Official overview
''Herbalists carefully harvest the helpful and potent herbs found throughout the world. As they travel, herbalists use their keen senses to seek out the rarest and most precious flora, which can be transformed by other professions' mystic recipes. Herbalists can supply themselves (or their guilds or groups) with an abundant quantity of reagents to aid in their crafting, or they can sell or trade bundles of herbs for a profit.

''Herbalists can locate herbs on their map via a keen sense for the growth and placement of flora, and they can harvest them even more easily (by simply right-clicking on an herb). No special tools are required to gather herbs. As you gather a greater number of increasingly obscure herbs, your Herbalism skill will grow. High skill values are required to harvest the choicest herbs.

''Herbs grow nearly everywhere in Azeroth, though some areas are more fecund than others. Certain rare herbs appear infrequently, are difficult to find, or both - these will often command high prices and power potent crafting.''

Training in herbalism
Herbalism can be learned from herbalism trainers found throughout the world. Initial training grants the Apprentice level with a potential skill of 75 and allows a few low-level herbs to be gathered. More herbs can be gathered as the herbalist raises their skill level.

The following are the required levels and potential skill of each stage of the profession: † Kul Tiran and Zandalari proficiency is only available after purchasing the expansion Shadowlands.

Leveling herbalism
Herbalism is primarily leveled up by gathering herb nodes. Mousing over an herb node will show a tooltip with the words "Requires Herbalism," color-coded based on whether you can harvest it and how likely you are to get a skill up from it:
 * DD2222: Insufficient skill to harvest.
 * FF8040: 100% chance of increasing skill level.
 * Herb nodes harvested at this difficulty level will often drop fragments rather than an entire plant, e.g. Wild Steelbloom Petal instead of Wild Steelbloom.
 * EEEE00: Pretty good chance of increasing skill level.
 * 40BF40: Small chance of increasing skill level.
 * 808080: Never increases skill level.

Note that skill bonuses can make the skill-up colors behave a little oddly. While the chance to gain a skill point from an herb depends on your base skill and does not change, the color coding goes by total skill, which causes herbs to appear to "gray out" faster than normal. Thus, with skill bonuses, it's possible to gain a skill point from an herb that seems to be gray.

Skill points can also be gained by completing Herbs for Healing at the Darkmoon Faire.

Herbalism skills

 * Find Herbs is automatically learned alongside Apprentice Herbalism, and allows herbs to be tracked on the minimap.
 * Legion introduced Herbalism techniques which are learned from quests started by gathering herbs native to the Broken Isles and Argus and allow for greater yields, chance for rare materials and other effects. Battle for Azeroth techniques give increased yields.

Skill bonuses
Skill bonuses can be used to temporarily increase herbalism skill, which allows an herbalist to gather herbs at a lower skill level than required.

From racial abilities

 * Tauren gain a 15-point bonus to their herbalism skill from the Cultivation racial trait. However, this does not allow a Tauren to harvest herbs without training the herbalism skill. This racial trait also provides a faster gathering time.

From items

 * Herbalist's Gloves gives a +5 bonus to herbalism.
 * Herbalist's Spade gives a +10 bonus to herbalism. Doesn't need to be equipped.
 * Mist-Piercing Goggles allows you to see additional herbs while in Pandaria. Does not need to be equipped.
 * Forager's Gloves allows faster gathering of resources in Pandaria. Does not stack with the gathering speed effect of Cultivation.

From enchantments

 * Herbalism (enchant) gives a +2 bonus to herbalism.
 * Advanced Herbalism gives a +5 bonus to herbalism.
 * Gatherer gives a +5 bonus to all gathering professions, including herbalism.

Herbalism uses & perks
Herbs are the primary materials for Alchemy and Inscription. Though inscription's Patch 7.0.3 changes put a dent in herb demand, alchemy still manages to keep herbalism useful; because raiding guilds need flasks every week, max level herbs are generally very expensive.

Certain herbs have additional uses:
 * Swiftthistle can be used by rogues to make Thistle Tea.
 * Wildvine is used by other professions to make high-quality items in the level 40–50 range, such as Wildthorn Mail, Wolfshead Helm, and Dreamweave Vest.
 * Nightmare Vine can be used by enchanters to make Superior Wizard Oil.
 * Netherbloom can be used by enchanters to make Superior Mana Oil.

Rare herbs
Since certain herbs cannot be easily farmed, their prices and availability on the auction house tend to be highly unpredictable. This makes herbalism a valuable skill when looking to obtain them.

These herbs can only be found inside of other herbs' nodes:
 * Swiftthistle is occasionally found in and.
 * Wildvine is found occasionally in.
 * Fel Blossom is occasionally found in.
 * Fel Lotus is occasionally found in  The Burning Crusade herb nodes.
 * Frost Lotus is occasionally found in  Wrath of the Lich King herb nodes.

These herbs simply have nodes that don't spawn often:
 * Black Lotus very rarely spawns in high-level old world zones (mostly Silithus and Blasted Lands).
 * Golden Lotus (herb) sometimes spawns in place of other herb nodes in Pandaria.

Experience
Gathering herbs can grant experience, providing herbalists a small boost while they level. * N/A - can't reach skill level required to harvest the herb

Experience gained from herb-gathering is increased by rest and other experience gain buffs.

Herb bags
An herb bag is a special type of bag that can carry only herbs (as well as a handful of other related items), but is usually much larger than the average similar-level bag.
 * Herb Pouch
 * "Carriage - Going Green" Herb Tote Bag
 * Cenarion Herb Bag
 * Satchel of Cenarius
 * Mycah's Botanical Bag
 * Emerald Bag
 * Hyjal Expedition Bag

Elemental ingredients
Herb gathering is an excellent source for elemental ingredients connected with life:
 * Mote of Life (used to create Primal Life) - found inside herb nodes in  The Burning Crusade zones.
 * Crystallized Life (used to create Eternal Life) - found inside herb nodes in  Wrath of the Lich King zones.
 * Volatile Life - found inside herb nodes in  Cataclysm zones.

Buffs & consumables

 * Bloodthistle - only spawns in Eversong Woods.
 * Fel Blossom - occasionally found in Felweed nodes.
 * Flame Cap - rarely spawns in Zangarmarsh.
 * Lifegiving Seed - occasionally found inside herb nodes in  Cataclysm zones.
 * Life Spirit - occasionally found inside herb nodes in  Mists of Pandaria zones.
 * Water Spirit - occasionally found inside herb nodes in  Mists of Pandaria zones.

Certain herbs give the herbalist a temporary buff when gathered:
 * Dreaming Glory gives a regeneration buff (30 HP5) for 15 minutes.
 * Golden Lotus (herb) gives the Luck of the Lotus buff, which gives the herbalist a chance to find additional treasure on creatures killed for 15 min.

Notes and trivia

 * Only one quest (outside of Darkmoon Faire) is known that requires Herbalism to complete: Root Samples.
 * Some herbs were used for class quests, such as Liferoot for Warriors and Earthroot for Druids; but they were removed in patch 4.0.3a.
 * Bloodvine was an herb that could only be found in herb bushes in Zul'Gurub, and even then you needed a Blood Scythe in your inventory to gather it.
 * If the tooltip text is grey when hovering over an herb blip on the minimap, the node is underground.
 * Phytoblade (now unobtainable) required the player to have a skill of 100 or more in Herbalism in order to be equipped.
 * Prior to patch 6.0.1, herbalism granted a unique spell, Lifeblood (herbalism ability).