Wowpedia

We have moved to Warcraft Wiki. Click here for information and the new URL.

READ MORE

Wowpedia
Advertisement
For the enchant, see Spell holy greaterheal [Herbalism].
Herbalism Icon WoW Icon update Herbalism (Profession)
List of herbs  •  Mob herbalism  •  Herbalism quests  •  Techniques  •  Trainers  •  Equipment

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. Herbalism also called botanical medicine or phytomedicine, refers to using a plant's seeds, berries, roots, leaves, bark, or flowers for medicinal purposes, but the game does not stricly adhere to that definition.

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

Herbalism pointers:

Pointer herb on 32x32 in range of gatherable herb
Pointer herb off 32x32 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.[1]

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:

Expansion Proficiency Skill Herb Location(s)
Icon-time This section contains information that is out-of-date.
Required Level (pre-SL)
Icon-time This section contains information that is out-of-date.
Required Skill Level (pre-BfA)
WoW Icon update


Apprentice

Journeyman

Expert

Artisan

1 - 300

1 - 75

50 - 150

125 - 225

200 - 300

Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor


5

10

20

35

1 - 300
Bc icon Master 1 - 75 Outland 50 275 - 375
Wrath-Logo-Small Grand Master 1 - 75 Northrend 65 350 - 450
Cataclysm Illustrious Grand Master 1 - 75 Cataclysm 75 425 - 525
Mists of Pandaria Zen Master 1 - 75 Pandaria 85 500 - 600
Warlords of Draenor Draenor Master 1 - 150 Draenor 90 600 - 750
Legion Legion Master 1 - 150 Broken Isles 98 750 - 900
Battle for Azeroth Alliance Kul Tiran Master
Horde Zandalari Master
1 - 175 Kul Tiras, Nazjatar, Zandalar 108
Shadowlands Shadowlands Master 1 - 150 Shadowlands
Dragonflight ? 1 - ??? Dragon Isles

Leveling herbalism[]

See also: Profession#Increasing professional skill level

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:

  • Red: Insufficient skill to harvest.
  • Orange: 100% chance of increasing skill level.
  • Yellow: Pretty good chance of increasing skill level.
  • Green: Small chance of increasing skill level.
  • Gray: 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 N [1-70] Herbs for Healing at the Darkmoon Faire.

Herbalism skills[]

Skill bonuses[]

See also: Profession#Bonus to profession skill

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 Inv misc flower 01 [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[]

From enchantments[]

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:

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:

These herbs simply have nodes that don't spawn often:

Experience[]

Gathering herbs can grant experience, providing herbalists a small boost while they level. Experience gained from herb-gathering is increased by rest and other experience gain buffs.

Herbalism-related items[]

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.

Elemental ingredients[]

Herb gathering is an excellent source for elemental ingredients connected with life:

Buffs & consumables[]

Certain herbs give the herbalist a temporary buff when gathered:

Notes and trivia[]

Patch changes[]

  • Battle for Azeroth Patch 8.0.1 (2018-07-17): Each expansion now has a separate profession skill bar, with smaller caps for each expansion, instead of one gigantic profession skill bar for all expansions put together
  • Legion Hotfix (2016-07-26): In Draenor, mining and herbalism nodes are no longer able to be looted by multiple people at once. (This hotfix requires server restarts.)
  • Warlords of Draenor Patch 6.0.2 (2014-10-14): Herbalists can now harvest herbs throughout the game world without hard skill requirements. The yield an herbalist will be able to harvest from each node is now determined by skill level.
  • Mists of Pandaria Patch 5.3.0 (2013-05-21): Herbalists of low skill can now mine mineral deposits in Pandaria for a small amount of usable material. The yield a herbalist will be able to harvest from each node is determined by skill level.
  • Cataclysm Patch 4.0.3a (2010-11-23): XP from gathering increased.
  • Cataclysm Patch 4.0.1 (2010-10-12): Gathering herbs now gives XP.[2] The higher level the character is, the less XP it will get.
  • Test-inline Patch 0.6 (2004-04-13):
    • The names of some herbs have been changed to make them less confusing.
    • Underground herbs show up as gray on the minimap so you can tell them apart from above ground herbs.
    • When underground, above ground herb nodes will not be visible.
    • You no longer need to face the herb node to gather the herbs.

References[]

External links[]

Advertisement