Yep, this page is a wee bit out of date.
Go here for the newer Herbalism page.

Updated for Cataclysm

Contents

1. Intro & Herbalism levels
2. Suggested Addons
3. Lifeblood
4. Herb Picking 101
5. Herbalism 1 to 350
6. Herbalism for Inscription
7. Herbalism in Northrend
8. Herbalism in Cataclysm
9. The Ultimate Professions Guide

In the Wrath of the Lich King expansion Herbalism become a pretty nice gold making profession, since the herbs were (and are) very much in demand for Inscription.

In Cataclysm they became even more valuable, since more glyphs were available and making each glyph required more ink and therefore more herbs. Also, most of the herb farmers moved into the new zones which made lower level herbs a little more rare and so a little more expensive.

In Mists of Pandaria things will be much the same. People will move into the new zones, farm the new herbs, and neglect those of the earlier areas. At launch the new herbs will be very expensive, but will eventually come down in price.

Herbalism Levels:

Addons

For all of your gathering we highly recommend that you grab the Gatherer Addon. It remembers where you have founds nodes of gathereable materials and remembers the location. Eventually you will have complete maps of those nodes.

Lifeblood

Lifeblood is a nice heal over time (HoT) that comes with Herbalism and it also comes with Haste. It's easily the best of the abilities that come with the gathering skills. The heal is usable in combat, while stealthed, or while invisible. It doesn't require reagents, casting time, or anything special. All heals are over a 20 second period and have a three minute cooldown.

Note that this means your level 19 PvP twink can have a 720 point HoT every three minutes.

• Level 1 heals 300, requires level 1 and herbalism 75
• Level 2 heals 480, requires level 1 and hebalism 150
• Level 3 heals 720, requires level 10 and herbalism 225
• Level 4 heals 900, requires level 25 and herbalism 300
• Level 5 heals 1200, requires level 40 and hebalism 375
• Level 6 heals 3600, requires level 55 and herbalism 450

Herb Picking 101

Stay in one area and get your skill as high as possible before moving to the next area. If you don’t do that you will find many herbs in the new area that you just won’t have the skill to pick. When you’re in any particular zone set your mini-map to show herbs and do loops around the area. The herbs will show as yellow dots on the map.

Once you have your apprentice Herbalism skill go to your favorite starting area and start gathering Peacebloom and Silverleaf. I went to Eversong woods, but these herbs are all over the place in all of the Horde and Alliance starting areas.

Once the herbs in your area aren’t given you any skill improvements you’ll want to go to the next higher zone. I went to the Ghostlands, but the Barrens. Westfall, and Loch Modan are good areas, too. As I mentioned above, if you move on too soon you won’t have the skill to pick anything.

Most of the herbs on this list are the ones you will need for Inscription, so you can level this skill and build your herb stash at the same time. Or sell it all and make quite a bit of gold.

Herbalism from 1 to 350+

1 - 50 Silverleaf and Peacebloom

These two herbs are all over all of the starting areas for both sides.

Horde can run a path through Mulgore, it's easy enough to just make circuits round the base of Thunderbluff grabbing all the Silverleaf and Peacebloom in sight. The same is also true for Durotar, but Mulgore is better. Eversong Woods may be the best of the Horde areas, even better than Mulgore.

Alliance will want to hit up either Dolanaar going down south east or so around the lake before heading back to complete the loop. An alternative is just making complete runs of Elwynn Forest or any of the Ally starting area. .

Undead will want to target Solliden Farmstead first, running north through the mills and looping around back south towards Stillwater and onto Cold Heart Manor + Nightmare Vale and finally back to Solliden for a complete circuit.


51 - 70 Mageroyal and Earthroot

Horde will start in the crossroads, heading immediately west and then north right before the entrance to Stonetalon, browse around the Harpies zone a bit before running back east to the Gold Road and south once again to the Crossroads.

Alliance can start in northern Westfall, following the coast down south towards Deadmines before turning to run over in the direction of Sentinel Hill, to complete the circuit run back up north again.

Another spot is Gol'Bolar Quarry in Dun Morogh, just make full circuits.

Alternate areas are: The Ghostlands, Silverpine Forest, Westfall, and and any are for levels 10-20.

71 - 100 Briarthorn

This'll be running the same path as the above Horde Route, this time however you'll extend it east to the Sludge Fen and should you so desire it possibly the entirety of the Barrens, allowing you to grab everything you need for this skill level..

Undead will be doing Southern Silverpine Forest, Pyrewood on down to the Hillsbrad Foothills entrance and all the way back for a complete circuit.

Alliance can either maintain the same route as previous or expand into doing circuits throughout Twilight Grove located in Duskwood. Another few possible paths are both circuits of Lakeshire - Redridge, Darkshore, and Eastern Loch Modan.

101 - 115 Bruiseweed

Horde will start at the Ashenvale Ramparts and head north-east towards Splintertree Post, make sure to run a wild path rather than follow distinct roads and such, alot of the herbs are out there in the forest and not so easily located as before. Once you hit Splintertree head west towards the bridge and south around the moonwell, turn here for the final part down to the Ramparts and you've completed a circuit.

The Stonetalon Mountains are viable, hit up Camp Aparaje, head west from there towards Grimtotem Post, south to Malaka'jin, and finally east to the Greatwood Vale before returning to home point. Another path is The Field of Giants, southern barrens inbetween the razorfen dungeons. Windshear Crag contains various herbs should you desire to go there as well.

Alliance can go North of Mystral Lake or West of Astranaar for various herbs in Ashenvale. Other spots are making circuits round' the Stonewatch Keep in Redridge Mountains and the Eastern Coast of Loch Modan for dwarves.

116 - 125 Wild Steelbloom

Horde can head for Stonetalon Peak once more and run circuits round the Druid Grove and Talon Den, another would be running back and forth between the Field of Giants and the Razorfen Dungeons again. Also down there is a few paths through Thousands Needles, start at the great lift and head for Highperch before returning.

Alliance & Horde can both try out Arathi Highlands should they wish to, it has a generally more active PvP population than previous zones however, additonally Stranglethorn Vale is very similar and you can hit up the various trolls ruins and other such areas around there for herbs.

Wetlands is another viable zone for Alliance, it's rather large but contains a generally high amount of herb spots for those willing to travel more off-road than on.

126 - 160 Kingsblood

FAshenvale circuits heading specifically for Kingsblood, Horde can do The Charred Vale as well located in Stonetalon Mountains.

Full circuits of both Hillsbrad Foothills, Wetlands, and running through various parts of The Swamp of Sorrows should you so desire/be of high enough level.

161 - 185 Fadeleaf

This'll be the time to start fully utilizing The Swamp of Sorrows, it not only seems to lack in general player population but also has the highly popular/valuable rogue required item, Fadeleaf.

186 - 205 Khadgar's Whisker

You'll want to start running both full circuits of The Hinterlands, Swamp of Sorrows, and hitting up various high level spots within Arathi Highlands for the maximum herb output.

190 - 225 Dragon's Teeth in the Badlands, all arouind Scar of the Worldbreaker

206 - 230 Firebloom

New areas are both full circuits of The Searing Gorge and The Blasted Lands, both are quite large and rich, another extremely large zone, even in comparison to the other two, is Tanaris. This has so many different "sections" that you can neatly divide it in four and take out each part one at a time.

231 - 250 Sungrass

Full circuits of both Felwood, Feralas, and Azshara as well as should you so wish it The Hinterlands again. Feralas follows a stranger pattern than most due to it's generally annoying terrain, also some of the quests such as Cleansing Felwood can be factored into your herbalism for a greater output of cash/value overtime.

Feralas is generally rich in Sungrass, one circuit for this specifically is The Ruins of Ravenwind at the north west and runs down south into The High Wilderness, the other hits up the Grimtotem Compound, Woodpaw Hills, and pretty much all zones nearby Camp Mojache.

251 - 270 Collecting Gromsblood

Still running full circles/circuits of Felwood, you should be used to it by now. Another place is Mannoroc Coven in Desolace for Gromsblood, Blasted Lands is as good as ever, and finally the Demon Fall Canyon in Ashenvale for more Gromsblood.

271 - 285 Collecting Dreamfoil

Now we start running both Un'Goro and more heavly into Azshara, The Forlorn Ridge down to the Ravencrest Monument is a good run for Azshara as well as The Ruins of Eldareth, heading north from there to the Jagged Reaches and back in a loop.

285 - 300

Finally we head on to both Eastern and Western Plaguelands as well as more Felwood fun, as long as you don't see to many other players you can also hit up Winterspring for Icecaps and sell those to get a bit more cash in the long run.

300-330 - Felwood

Now that you've hit 300 you will need to hit the Outlands for your Master training. Bothe Honor Hold and Thrallmar have Master Herbalism training available. The you can either run off to Outland should you desire a change of scenery or repeat Felwood, farming the heck out of it for whipper roots, etc. This time start at the alliance outpost up north and simply head south all the way to the bottom before returning.

Almost everything you encounter should at the very least be green, alot of them such as Dreamfoil, Plaguebloom, etc. continue giving skill gain until 330 or so whilst the more mass produced/spawned types like Sungrass, Arthas's Tears, and so on also rarely give a skill gain or two.

330 - 350+ - Zangarmarsh

Finally we hit up Outland, previously it might not have been worth it due to the large playerbase, but now Zangamarsh is simply packed to the brim with herbs, it's hard to even try avoiding it. Generally I'll run circuits around the corner areas before slowly circling in towards the center, reverse this process to complete the circuit, also should you run into a bit of opposition try going up north into the Blades Edge Mountains and check that out as well.

350+ You can pretty much go where you will, I expect you possess enough in the way of skills, personally not character wise, to pick and choose where and what to grab for these last skill levels. Scroll down the page for higher level herbalism.

Herbalism for Inscription

The herbs needed for Inscription are divided into tiers. Unlike Alchemy, which requires specific herbs for any given potion, Inscription allows the scribe to use any herb from the appropriate tier. Here are the herbs you will want to focus on:

See our Inscrption page for more info.

Wrath of the Lich King - Herbalism 350 to 450:

350 - 450

Once you arrive in Northrend do circuits around the starting areas for Goldclover and around the hot springs in Borean Tundra for Fireleaf. (Fireleaf drops leaves and seeds which provide interesting buffs.)

Once your skill hits 400 you can pick Tiger Lily around the edges of lakes and streams. With half an effort your skill will be 450 before you hit the higher level areas for Talandra's Rose, Frozen Herbs, Icethorn, Lichbloom, etc.

Cataclysm Herbalism

451-525

Ok, now you know the drill. Gather up everything you can, then move on. You can start in either Mt. Hyjal of in Vash'jir. Hyjal is a great place for Cinderbloom, while Vash'jir has Azshara's Veil. Both of these starting Cata herbs will get you well into this tier of your progression.

When you hit 475 skill you can head to Deephold and look for Heartblossom. It's available pretty much all over the place.

Whiptail, at 500, can be found in Uldum (and Tol Barad, if you like some excitement with your flower picking.) Pick it until you hit 525.

Now you're ready for Mists of Pandaria.

The Ultimate Professions Guide, for All WoW Professions

Leveling, Professions, events, and more.
Click Here to check it out.