Does Herbalism +Skill do ANYTHING?

Been grinding strong on my herbalism pretty much since TWW has come out. Got all blue crafting gear for all the +skill and been pumping knowledge points into EVERYTHING that gives +skill and I also figured I needed more Lotus’s I went 40/40 into both Bountyful harvests and Fungal Forager, for the increased lotus drops. My skill rating for MyCobloom is at 245 now. 30.3% perception, 18.3% finesse.

And yet, I still get so often ONLY ONE SINGLE, ONE STAR Herb, from a herb pick. And it’s been A LOT OF Herb picks (many dozens) now with zero lotus drops. So many 1 star herbs and nothing else.

Am I bugged or did they just make +skill entirely meanginless, and if so, why make us spend knowledge points on stuff that does nothing?

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If I recall , the skill only affects the quality. Finesse affects the amount of herbs you get, but yea, I havve been herbalism since the expac started and sometimes I only get one herb from nodes (and this is while I have botany maxxed, the finesse section, as well as points into the specific herb I’m picking, mycobloom, as well.)

I agree with you; In my opinion, we shouldn’t be receviing one herb from nodes, ever - Especially when the recipes all require multiple herbs of multiple different types.

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Keep in mind that herb density and respawn rate have gotten higher and higher with each recent expansion, so even if an individual node sometimes feels a little stingy, overall we’re picking more herbs-per-hour than ever.

Also remember that if they waved a magic wand right now and doubled the number of herbs you got from every node, that would almost instantly translate into all of them being worth half as much (or less). Supply and demand is what’s really important - perception (not the stat, hah) not so much.

That’s fine, I’m not farming herbs for gold anyways, and they already arn’t worth that much. The only herbs taht are still selling decently is Arathor’s Spear and Luredrop.

I’m not asking they they double the rate at which you gather herbs, but like you said, it can seem stingy at times, which I don’t believe it should be with almost maxxed herbalism skill trees. It seems to me the loot table for herbs as gotten bigger on the top-end while allocating KP, but the bottom-end hasn’t gone up at all, which is why you still receive 1 herb sometimes while gathering.

For example, at the start of the expac I was receiving 1-6 herbs from nodes and now I am receiving 1-10.

That is half of my point here. “Base skill” for a herb in the window is 120. I am OVER double that in skill. It should be impossible for me to pick a 1 star herb with twice the skill needed. At 240 the quality should be 2 star minimum and working close to more then half of the picks always being 3 star. I do get more 3 star then I used to, but I would guess a like half of my picks are still 1 star.

Flying around and picking herbs and getting very low numbers of 1 star herbs feels extremly unfulfilling. Even if there is a rare chance of that pick of 10 x 3 star herbs I have seen a couple times. Still feels bad.

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The “base skill”, if you hover over it says the it allows you to find Max ranked items. Less than 120? No R3. Over 120? You can find rank 3. No matter how much skill you have you always have a chance to get R1. Skill shifts their “gaussian” towards the R3 side so you get more R3. The more skill the more chance for R3 and less chance of R1. Think of this as a system like this:
-below 120: 75% chance for R1, 25% R2, 0% R3
-at 120: 50% chance R1, 40% R2, 10% R3
-at 240: 30% chance R1, 50% R2, 20% R3
-at max skill: 25% R1, 50% R2, 25% R3
Note that these are not the correct probabilities, but they give you the idea.

This expac they intentionally made it so it wasn’t impossible. They wanted to make r2 and r3 slightly rarer this time around.

Side note: In DF, you had cases where you could no longer get a rank 1 mat on a gatherer, which led to some really interesting supply/demand scenarios.

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So generally speaking these skills are only useful at the very beginning of the expansion when R3 mats are high enough that refining them is economical. As more people are able to do it, profits go nearer to 0. Occasionally there are pops though that you can find in the AH. Especially with those trolls that post things at half price trying to trap others. Buy their traps and you get super cheap stuff and you prevent them from catching another gatherers unawares.

You must realize that 80% of accounts in a typical expansion have at least one profession maxed and the vast majority of these are gatherers. This is by far more players than any other activity. You are competing with almost the entire playerbase. Something you can do easily can be done easily by others.

But that said, the profits aren’t 0. You just need to be super careful about that AH cut. And deal in volumes.

Going to be mainly pointless for most players. Maybe AH goblins can do something with it. I think the main intent of refining is to keep the prices of r3 in check while also lifting up r1 prices.