I’ve been leveling an herbalist through nonviolent means which has led me to become very familiar with how much experience you get from herbs. Here are three things I have noticed.
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Cataclysm herbs require level 80 to gather, but you can learn Cataclysm Herbalism at level 78. I did not try gathering any herbs pre-80 while I had Cata Herbaism, so this may just be a bug that happens when you click a Cata herb without the required skill.
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Cataclysm herbs give the same amount of experience as level 1-60 herbs (“classic”). This means getting 1/10 of the expected experience. Since expansion herbs tend to sell worse than regular ones, there is very little reason for someone leveling to bother with Cataclysm herbaism (unless they want the herbs for Inscription or Alchemy).
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The herb Bloodthistle, which requires 1 skill to gather, gives full experience. This ironically means if I want to keep leveling via herbalism, I’ll need to be in Quel’Thalas a LOT. Good thing I’m not Alliance or those poor lowbie elves would be so sad.
I have not yet gathered Pandaria herbs, but I might suggest checking on that too while you are at it.
EDIT
I’ve checked out herbalism in Pandaria and WOW is it weird. So looks like Green Tea Leaf is giving me 294 exp while Desecrated Herb is giving me my full value (~3k). Yikes!
EDIT
Silkweed is good!