Herbalism...Feels Absolutely Horrible

Gameplay Professions
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I’m a casual sort of farmer. I don’t play the AH, really; I just farm what I need and things for my guild. I tell you this because I want you know that I like picking herbs for an hour or so, sometimes. I like putting on some music, setting some goals, and going out to fish or pick herbs or mine or whatever to get the things/mats/stuff I want.

Dragonflight Herbalism, which looked SO GREAT to me at the start…feels horrible. It’s frustrating. I’ve spent months, now, pouring knowledge into these trees thinking when I got to the end, it would get better and my efforts to invest in herbalism would be rewarded.

It’s clear now that’s not going to be the case. Here are the ways Dragonflight Herbalism has failed in my opinion:

1.) Frustratingly Low Quantity Per Node & Poor Return for Knowledge Investment

I started with the Bountiful Harvest wheel, to maximize baseline Skill in picking herbs. I took it to 40.

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I then switched to the Botany wheel and filled out all three specs in the tree for baseline Finesse, baseline Perception, and the ability to harvest plant creatures.

At this point, I was disappointed because I seemed like my herbalism should feel much better than it had at the start, but it didn’t. I still routinely got only one or two herbs per node (getting four was rare and more than that pretty much didn’t happen), and even lush nodes gave me erratic amounts that were often less than I had just gotten from a regular node. If I ever got as high as 7 from a lush node, it was super rare. I still routinely get nothing but grey items from plant creatures and, on the rare occasion they give me a usable herb, it is still a single quantity or 2 at most, and all are still 1-star/bronze quality, even at 40/40 Cultivation. So much for creature farming.

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At 100/100 Herbalism with 160 knowledge points invested, my herbing felt only slightly more rewarding than it had at 1/100 Herbalism with no knowledge points. This…feels super gross to the player. It’s disappointing and frustrating, but I remembered back in BfA how when you finally got all the herbs to 3-star, things got better, so I asked around.

People assured me that if I went back to Bountiful harvests and invested in the individual herb spec wheels, things would improve. So I did that.

I leveled Aboriculture (Writhebark) to 40/40. I leveled Fungiculture (Bubble Poppy) to 20/40. I activated the other two, but as you can see, I invested no points.

I’m a scribe, so I never sneeze at Hochenblume. I need that Shimmering Pigment, so I’m not complaining about the abundance of Hochenblume. I get it. We have common herbs and rare herbs in every expansion, but the disparity here takes the cake.

After 40/40 in Aboriculture and a completely filled Bountiful Harvest wheel and the entire Botany spec tree maxed out…I should NEVER get fewer than 7 when I pick a writhebark node of any kind. But I do. I typically get between 1 and 4 from a regular node while getting between 3 and 8 on a lush node.

At 0/40 Horticulture, I get between 5 and 10 Hochenblume on normal nodes and between 10 and 16 on lush nodes.

This is ridiculous. It’s frustrating. It feels terribad, and it should not be this way. You need to adjust the yield rates on this stuff. The spec tree feels like an absolute lie. Finesse is an absolute lie. I feel…lied to. You gave me busy work with these spec trees that, in the end, have earned me nothing.

2.) Lack of Node Diversity / Horrible Spawn Rate Disparity

The second issue with it, as far as I can see, is the decision to make Hochenblume not only more abundant per node, but also giving it such a high proc rate per node spawn. Again, I must emphasize that I am not unhappy with Hochenblume sharing node spawns. It’s the common herb, and I understand that from both a design and market standpoint for the expansion. That said, the chance to spawn Hochenblume instead of the zone/biome specialty herb is too high.

On my server group’s Auction House, 3-star Hochenblume currently sells for 4g per item. 3-star Writhebark sells for 88g per item. Two days ago, Writhebark was selling for 110g per item while Hochenblume was steady at the 4g price point.

This would indicate that I should be getting roughly one writhebark for every 20 hochenblume I pick, and that’s roughly what I found to be true in the Azure Span. The other night, I spent 3 hours farming herbs just in that zone to get some numbers for my own information. I picked every node I came across. At the end, I had 900+ Hochenblume, 150+ Bubble Poppy, and 55 Writhebark.

I had to pick 20 hochenblume to get one writhebark, which is reflected in these herbs’ identical valuation on the AH. This is both reassuring (it’s not just happening to me alone) and demoralizing (5% drop rate is heinous). Maybe that’s working as intended, but it feels like hot garbage.

Not only is the yield per node out of order…the number of nodes available is completely out of balance.

I had to pick Hochenblume and almost nothing but Hochenblume for more than an hour before any Writhebark began to spawn. There can be any number of reasons for this, and I accept that lots of players do not pick Hochenblume anymore and just leave it there until, slowly but surely, there is nothing but Hochenblume remaining in the zone.

I go into each farm knowing that I will have to force spawn Writhebark by picking the entire zone clear of Hochenblume before I get any of what I came for.

THAT IS WRETCHED. There is nothing fun or rewarding about it. It’s bitter, guys. It feels awful. Please reassess the spawn chances on shared nodes.

3.) Herbing Profession Tools & Accessories are Expensive and Feel Pretty Weak

In a last gasp to make herbalism feel like I’d actually leveled it and put in the work, I got down to the business of having my blue profession equipment crafted. Given the extortionate amount of Artisan’s Mettle these pieces require, when we upgrade them, we should feel the difference they make when we’re out and about picking the herbs. I haven’t felt a difference.

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These should matter more than they do. We should FEEL the addition of 175 Finesse on the Scythe and Basket. We should FEEL it when we have a Perception upgrade, too. In fishing, for example, when I upgraded to the blue quality fishing tool/pole with extra Perception, I immediately saw a difference in the items I would catch. I caught noticeably more coins and noticeably more Islefin Dorado, for example. The player could immediately sense that this new tool was indeed superior to the green one.

That has not been my experience with the Herbalism equipment. Again…I need hundreds of Writhebark for Inscription. Hundreds. With all that I’ve invested into herbalism for Dragonflight, I should be able to get on my dragon and ride to the places Writhebark spawns, and come out of an hour of concerted farming with more to show for my trouble than a mountain of Hochenblume and a handful of Writhebark.

Please reassess these things.

I thank you for reading all this (if you made it this far).

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I dont normally post on the forums, but i felt i had to on this topic. I agree with every point and feel the same. I dont farm herbs for profit, i do it for myself, spouse, and potion cauldrons for the guild. its hard enough to farm enough to make phials/potions for myself, let alone the rest. i just wanted to add my experience with herb density/ratio and herb quality.

herb density/ratio is absolutely terrible, but i suspect it’s further amplified by the consequence of dragon riding. Writhebark is the worst offender for me. i can start herbing for this and after a few hours end up with 1000 Hochenblume and 50 Writhebark. I have to pick 20-30 Hochenblume nodes before i see a single Writhebark, and hopefully i get to it before it disappears. Lush Writhebark? hah, if you call a yield of 2 Writhebark “lush” then i dont think we share the same definition. that is what i commonly get out of the lush Writhebark even with a finesse phial and knowledge points put into the herb type.

i suspect that dragon riding is also amplifying problems because of the density and ratio of Hochenblume vs other herbs; ill use Writhebark for my examples, because it’s the worst. You would run out of vigor if you picked every Hochenblume (i do all the time), so everyone skips those and only focus on Writhebark so it’s not a problem (maybe some skip it because they have 1000s of Hochenblume already). the consequence of this is that there are eventually no open node slots for Writhebark to spawn. as time goes on, the ratio only gets worse. those of us who do pick the Hochenblume, to open up herb slots for Writhebark, are missing out because the nodes that do end up spawning a Writhebark are being actively hunted by those that dont pick Hochenblume. the recent update to the dragon riding talent cultivation has definitely helped a lot. it still doesnt fix the issue though, you still run out of vigor if you pick all the Hochenblume due to the additional demands on navigating the terrain where these nodes spawns. i have to skip Hochenblume myself when this happens just to recharge vigor so i can get to the Writhebark before others despawn it. an adjustment to density, ratio, and probably the vigor talent would likely fix all of this. maybe a quota for minimum slot occupancy of a non-hochenblume herb would also help, but care taken in the algorithm to prevent exploitation of this behavior.

herb quality is another issue. The tooltip says the minimum skill to gather the maximum quality of an herb is X skill (i dont remember what it was exactly). Well, i think i was at 217 last i checked which i think was at 100 points above for max quality, yet it still only yields around 5% max quality of that herb during a session. combine that with terrible density/ratio and herb yield per node, i dont even bother trying to get max quality herbs for anything. forget converting lower quality to higher quality as well, with how few herbs i get even at lower quality, i cannot afford to convert them at all or i wouldnt even be able to support my own phial/potion needs. i’m not sure what the fix is for this, but we arent even given any information on what skill is required to guarantee, or at least mostly guarantee, max quality; unlike crafting professions. im almost 100% over the skill it says needed to get max quality, yet my yield is only 5%? what will it take to get max quality consistently? 500% over? 1000% over? what is the point of telling us that stat value if the skill required is not even somewhat predictable? honestly, i’m not even sure yielding mostly max quality will ever be achievable at this rate.

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The name should be changed to salad mats farming I agree.

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Another thing. If perception procs on mining, you get a chance at Khaz’ Ore.

If perception procs on herbs? Lava beetle?

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I agree with a lot of what you say OP. My rogue is mining/herbing and I make 4x as much with the mining. It’s mainly because Perception is so money with it. It has a chance to proc Khaz ore from every node and the elemental nodes just give more in mining than they do with herbing.

I see you went the Finesse route with herbing. Along with Perception it has to proc to do anything though. So what is your Finesse at say herbing Writherbark? You can also enchant your sickle with +40 finesse and that might help a bit. Or put in an order for a potion of Finesse from an alchemist. Bump it high enough and you might start seeing more finesse procs.

I’m not positive if Perception or Finesse is the way to go with herbing, but after seeing your tree filled out and you not getting results I’m leaning towards going full elemental tree and going Perception.

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“I’m not positive if Perception or Finesse is the way to go with herbing, but after seeing your tree filled out and you not getting results I’m leaning towards going full elemental tree and going Perception.”

With mining there are a lot of different elemental nodes - so perception really pays off. With herbalism, theres a lot of “frozen” nodes, theres a lot of “air” nodes on the planes but not much else (there are others but I rarely see them).

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This is good information, and I forgot to mention the stones that smiths make for finesse (the husband makes those for me), and I didn’t know there was a potion. That’s good information and I appreciate it.

But…

I mean, this is exactly what I’ve been running into the whole time.

“When you max Bountiful Harvests, you’ll see a difference.”
“When you max the Finesse in Botany, you’ll see a difference.”
“When you max out Aboriculture, you’ll see a difference.”
“When you get the blue profession equipment, you’ll see a difference.”
“When you use the profession consumes, you’ll see a difference.”

When the truth is: Herbalism is badly tuned and nothing we do will make a qualitative difference big enough to make it feel reliable or rewarding in proportion to the effort invested.

Finesse/Multicraft/Perception/Inspiration should not be proc-based. They are given as stats, so either they are stats or they are trinket embellishments with a chance to proc.

This is likely the core design flaw, and I think you put your finger right on it.

They should not have presented it as a stat if it’s simply a chance to proc. It feels really, really terrible. Like, I don’t want to pick herbs anymore…and I’ve been picking herbs in this game since 2005 quite happily.

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I’ve been mulling this over, trying to understand what the intention was here from a design perspective, and I started thinking of the Lotus, which was our rare herb in all of the Classic expansions. I thought also of “harder to farm” semi-rare herbs like the Thistles (Swift and Mana) and Deadnettle. Then I thought about Anchor Weed in BfA, which to me is the most analogous to the issue we have in Dragonflight Herbalism.

In Shadowlands, we had the shared node phenomenon with every herb node having chance to spawn the Death Blossom, and that’s clearly the facsimile to Hochenblume in Dragonflight. Every herb node in SL could be either Death Blossom or (zone specific herb). Every herb node in Dragonflight can be either Hochenblume or (biome specific herb).

But none of those rare herb farming systems felt oppressive and frustrating. Sure, we got sick of the Death Blossom, but you never farmed in a grid over Revendreth for a solid hour without seeing Widowbloom spawns. You never picked herbs in Northrend for an hour without getting any Lotus drops. If you wanted Nightshade in Shadowlands, you just had to go to the Maw to find them and pick in less favorable farming conditions.

If you put in the effort, you came out with what you went in for. It never felt terrible.

The difference (and the reason Writhebark as a rare herb doesn’t feel as good or rewarding) is twofold:

1.) Quantity Required is Equal to Common Herbs
In previous expansions, the rare herb was either required in small quantities, usually only one per recipe OR it was available to farm in larger quantities by going to a particular place or during a particular time, etc. Less was required OR the hassle of farming was location/conditions, not lack of availability.

Writhebark is always rare, always hard to get, and even after pouring months into specializing in writhebark harvesting, the node yields do not reward you with a consistent increase. Your effort is not rewarded and Writhebark is required in large quantities for even basic recipes.

Example: In order to make a single Runed Writhebark (which is a staple reagent in almost all inscription recipes), you need no fewer than 10 writhebark per item for the pigment and flat herb components. To get 12 Runed Writhebark for a crafted item (like the Chef’s Splendid Rolling Pin), you need between 110 and 120 Writhebark.

At the rates I have experienced pretty continually, that means to make a single item for a single point of skill-up in Inscription, you will need to farm writhebark between 6 and 8 hours to obtain the quantity you need for one skill-up in Inscription or to make this one item. To purchase the Writhebark required means spending 11,000 - 12,000 gold because someone had to go spend those hours clearing mountains of Hochenblume to make it spawn in nodes that give between 1 and 4 yield.

We’ve never been punished this way with rare herbs before.

2.) There was no “Aboriculture” for Anchor Weed to Raise False Hopes
In previous expansions, the rare herb started rare and stayed rare, and the game never waved a cake in front of us like aboriculture spec trees. Since November, we’ve had these knowledge trees that promised us, if we just put in the time and effort, writhebark would get less rare. It would be less punishing.

But the cake was a lie. Aboriculture does NOT give us enough writhebark to make it feel good or rewarding compared to the drop rates we had before leveling everything.

Getting the 3-star for Anchor Weed didn’t make you see Anchor Weed more often, but it DID mean that when you finally saw one, you were going to get 5-7 off of that node while the folks with one-star got 1-3 and the folks with 2-star got 3-5. It was consistent, it was a palpable difference, and you felt the reward of having done the work. You don’t feel a reward for the effort with Writhebark.

In addition, Writhebark was not presented as a rare herb to us. Anchor Weed never pretended to be equal to River Bud or Star Moss. It started as an obvious rare spawn and remained an obvious rare spawn. You needed less of it and you saw it less often.

Again, this is about how it FEELS to level and spec out herbalism.

Maybe they WANT Writhebark to be the new Lotus/Anchor Weed. Maybe the 1/20 ratio is what they designed, and maybe they did that for a reason.

The problem isn’t that Writhebark is rare. The problem is that players are left to feel tricked/betrayed/lied to at the end of the specialization process. That’s where Ay-Ay-Ron messed up, and it feels awful.

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I feel like one of the problems is with Inscription. I think on the PTR Runed Writhebark took 1 Writhebark to make. Now it takes 5. That one change has made the whole profession a nightmare, since everything you can level off of past 65 takes tens of thousands of gold worth of writhebark. If everything took 1/5th as much writhebark, the current rates would feel a lot more reasonable.

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Or they could just…you know…make writhebark yields scale with skill and finesse like all the other ones. That’s really the key issue. If I go hunting saxifrage or bubble poppy, I can reliably gather 100-200 in a farming session. In that same amount of time, I’ll get around 50 writhebark.

But I 100% agree with what you’re saying. That would’ve been better, and perhaps that’s why they throttled writhebark so hard.

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dang looks like several people feel the same way. im in the same boat with yall. herbing dosent feel like its paying off to much. i cant tell any difference no matter how many points i put into it.

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I really have nothing to add, you guys have express the problem perfectly, just wanted to add my agreement that I’m at the point I’d rather go play solitaire then farm for writhebark anymore.

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@Meriweather - Nice write up! I think you really covered it. I’m running double gather mostly. Since I’m not really trying to push my single Alchemist I’m not really too bummed out about the rates. If I was doing Inscription or actively trying to make Potions/Phials for gold or my guild I’d be kinda bummed.

@Sel - I never considered all of the other people flying around the zones having an impact on the spawn rates with how fast Dragon riding is. I have gathered both during Prime Time and, because I sometimes have insomnia, I have gathered in the early morning. It feels like zones turn over quicker at 2:00AM, but I never thought about why that happened. Until I read your post. :slight_smile:

Plus since I double gather I think my frustration is diluted a bit. herbalism has the problems you mentioned, but because I am mining too, maybe the dopamine hit from getting Khaz and hitting Elemental nodes makes some of the irritation go away… :slight_smile:

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I also agree with this: adding skill points doesn’t seem to benefit Writhebark, although adding them to hochenblume does.

If hochenblume could be dialled back slightly and writhebark dialled forward that might be enough

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Don’t forget that writhebark is also needed for some leatherworking and enchanting recipes. So they didn’t just lock 2 professions behind it, they locked 4.

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Half of the nodes on the Writhebark wheel are herbs in general instead of Writhebark specifically. That would contribute to making the gains seem proportionately less than other herb specs since everything goes up.

nvm, just looked at the wheels on my herb alt and it seems they all have a couple of generic all-herbs buffs, albeit in different order. In mining, half of the Primal wheel applies to everything else, unlike the other special types’ wheels that are all specific to themselves.

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I know I’m being super casual but I haven’t seen an actual Writhebark node yet. The only writhebark I’ve gathered has been from overloading frozen herb nodes, and of course, the AH.

Also thanks for the heads up that the talent tree really doesn’t make a difference, I’ve been in decision paralysis as to whether I should go down elemental cooldown or herbing monsters. - Which has also confused me because I’ve been able to herb Dragonflight mobs (only greys as well) without having the talent? Makes me wonder if it just isn’t working correctly.

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They are the rarest type. When I do my weekly dreamblooms on my herbalist alts, I come across maybe five of those each, mostly in the Azure zone. I’ve even seen the decayed version once and died to it.

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Writhebark can happen in all zones - but Azure > the plains > the other 2.

I can usually get 7-8 spawns in a cycle around azure. If you want respawns you need to pick all herbs though… some herbalists now just cycle for writhebark - and this severely diminshes the chances of both spawns and it seems respawns.

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I’ve put 225 points into herbalism. The only real increase I’ve felt is when it comes to the elemental herbs.

I’m thinking of changing herbalism for something else, something that is both a gathering and crafting profession that meshes well thematically with being a cloth caster (so Tailoring or Enchanting).

I’m currently inscription + herbalism now.

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