My herbalism trainer is so disappointed
by Mike Schramm 
Apr 4th 2007 at 2:32PM
Ok, I'll admit it. I'm a slacker.My resto shaman is definitely my main, and he's very, very helpful-- he can heal like a priest, DPS close to a mage (or at least a well geared moonkin), and he's even got Mana Tide totem and that always useful Earth Shield. But one thing he doesn't have... is a 375 profession.
He's an herb/alch, and therein lies the rub: I can't collect anything. Skinning, I'm great at-- I've gotten multiple toons to 375 skinning, just because it's so easy to take a second after a kill to skin. First aid, I rock, because there's so much cloth around-- my 63 rogue is already at 375. But mining and herbalism, I just can't seem to get done. By the time I level out of a zone, I haven't picked up enough herbs to get my skill up, and eventually I'm leveling near herbs that are red to me. Now I'm leveling a blood elf mage, and she's having the same problem with jewelcrafting-- I'm not finding the mine nodes on my normal journey, and as a result I'm falling behind.
A high end guild would probably have kicked me out by now for not bringing potions to raids (fortunately, my guild is very forgiving). But it is wrong of me to show up to a raid empty-handed just because I've been lazy. So what's the problem here? Am I missing some secret method of collecting as I level up? I do forget to turn on my tracking sometimes, although I know there are addons out there that will help with that. Unfortunately, since I've already hit 70, it looks like I'm just going to have to go back and grind it out, but maybe that's the best way to do it. Did you level your collecting profession while you were leveling or did you do it all in one big run? And what tips do you have for me to keep me from slacking off in the future?
Filed under: Herbalism, Mining, Tips, Economy, Making money
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Justgiz Apr 4th 2007 2:49PM
I know what you mean. My blood elf just made 70, and my mining and engineering is still low, around mithril low.
I guess the best way to keep the gathering professions up is when you ding, take a break and farm your plants or ore. because once you get to the zone where all the stuff is red to you, and you keep leveling. those skills get behind real fast.
Megilion Apr 4th 2007 3:13PM
I'm in a very similar boat, though I've yet to hit 70 (or 60, for that matter). At 54, my herb is hovering somewhere in the 180s while my alch is languishing just above 100; I just had more important things to do than stop to pick at a random bush, only to leave myself open to an unexpected ganking or mob add.
At this point, as I'm saving up $$ for the run to 60 and getting my epic land mount, I'm seeing more promise in going back to level up herb so I can AH the stuff, but then herb isn't the best for that nowadays after BC came out.
I'm just as unsure as you, I guess. :-)
Pingmeister Apr 4th 2007 3:18PM
I suppose I am in a different situation. I am an explorer and love tooling around the countryside getting into trouble so I tend to spend a LOT of time in each zone.
So my tradeskills are topped out way ahead of schedule. My Miner was 300 by level 48 and my Herbalist was 300 soon after.
By the time I leave a zone the materials are normally green or grey.
Tornik Apr 4th 2007 3:45PM
My new main is only level 64, not even out of Zangarmarsh yet, and he's already at 375 Herbalism, so I can't really see why you haven't managed it yet.
There's no trick to it, you just need to make a point of grabbing every damn herb you see, even if you've already filled up on them and had to ship stacks of to a bank alt - it only takes a few seconds to run off course and gather, you just need to stick with it.
Thijz Apr 4th 2007 3:02PM
I have the same problem. Up till lvl 15/20 everything is fine, all the herbs I see are yellow or even green. But the more I lvl up the more often I began to see yellows or even oranges and around lvl 30/35 I'm so far behind all I see is red! Same goes for mining, and often that is even worse!
Tibbsy Apr 4th 2007 4:49PM
Skinning is one of the few gathering professions where it's convenient enough to level the profession as you level yourself. For the other professions, you have to actively think about leveling them. Fishing is easily the best example of that.
There are two good ways (imo) of leveling your professions: power-grind at a high level, or level the profs as you level. The first is fast and economical because it means you can run around on your epic mount, ignoring lowbie-mobs and just focusing on the profession. But you feel every second of it and I know how much it sucks (once I saw the weapons in blacksmithing in TBC I took mining and blacksmithing from 0 to 360-375 in a couple weeks - hell).
The second, and I always think that I should be doing this in the "next time, I'll do it this way" way. You know that for each level, your skills increase by 5. At level 60, you have 300 skill. And while weapon skills and defenses and whatnot will level as you level since you're hitting stuff, try taking the time to just satisfy your 5 skill points each level. You ding 63, and the first thing you want to think of is "I'm gonna get 5 skill for fishing, make 5 more bandaids, pick 5-10 more plants, and make 5-10 more pots." Thinking about it this way lessens the pain, if you ask me. And fighting your way to your plants will give you xp so it's not all bad.
I dunno, just my two cents.
Argent Apr 4th 2007 3:06PM
i kinda annoyed a few people by leveling my 60 hunters engineering to 375 the other day -- and doing so by spending about 20g or so.
reloading the goblin mortar over and over = win.
Saidar Apr 4th 2007 3:10PM
When I went to Outlands my mining was too low for fel iron so I just went back and spent x number of hours grinding till I could at least mine something in Outlands.
My blacksmithing, on the other hand, is so lacking that the stuff I am mining now is out of my blacksmithing range. So if I want to level blacksmithing (without going back to zones 8 levels below me) I have to buy it all off the AH which is way too expensive. But I don't want to waste the time grinding up blacksmithing since I'm trying to hit 70. Oh the conundrum.
Ghen Apr 4th 2007 3:25PM
Wise man once said, the path of herbalism is serpentine.
With herbing your basic goal is to cover the entire map looking for herbs. If you see a yellow dot, run towards it ignoring quest mobs along the way. That herb must be picked for the good of civilization!
Mike Apr 4th 2007 5:19PM
I just pretty much stopped caring about gathering/tradeskills all together. It's worked out well for me so far.
rogue Apr 4th 2007 3:16PM
I've never had a problem with that. If anything, the problem I always run into is that by the time I'm leaving a zone all the nodes (mining and herbs) are green to me. My rogue hit 375 herbalism around level 63.
I always have tracking up, and I pretty much grab everything possible, even if I have to fight my way to it, unless it's green to me. I started a BE and copper is green to me at level 12. I'm not really sure what pointers to give, it seems too easy.
Ragbar Apr 4th 2007 3:17PM
My guild never ever requires bringing flasks/potions to a raid, and we've never had any problems because of it. Sure, our first Karazhan run a few of us took a few hours to farm and craft potions to help, but the 2nd time we went, no one really had anything that didn't take an hour to make/farm and we cleared the entire instance.
I leveled a Jewelcrafter as soon as BC came out. I even farmed and stockpiled the materials before the expansion came out and it was STILL a pain in the butt to skillup. So good luck!
Goeben Apr 4th 2007 3:28PM
Hunters have an excuse for missing out on collecting professions - they will rarely give up mob tracking to track herbs or ore. But other classes shouldn't have a problem. My 61 resto shammy has been herb/alch since the beginning. I just made sure to keep herb tracking up and pick everything I saw. He was 315 herbalism by level 50 because some herbs in the Swamp of Sorrows and Hinterlands still give skill ups that high. Alchemy was much more frustrating because I would often learn cool new recipes using herbs that could only be found in the next higher level zones. Herb skill wasn't the problem, it was fending off the mobs while picking flowers.
Once you are high level, however, raising herbalism or mining is a breeze as you can run through most zones with no problems. Just find a list of herbs or ore with the minimum level you can pick or mine them and keep moving to higher level herbs as soon as you have the skill. You can easily pick/mine only orange herbs/ores and get a skill up every time. With mining, you also have smelting skill ups to help you along.
MadCow Apr 4th 2007 3:31PM
At level 70, I took 375 skinning/365 leatherworking to 0 Jewelcrafting/0 mining.
I spent 4 days of doing nothing but "respeccing" my professions ... after 4 days, I stood 350 JC/375 mining. Man that sucked =/ ... but, 0g went to the AH =D
someone Apr 4th 2007 3:26PM
"He[shaman] can heal like a priest, DPS close to a mage"
Theres your problem right there, your a complete noob. A resto shaman can DPS no where close to a mage, your guild is probably so forgiving because if your mages are not DPSing beyond a resto shaman you must be raiding RFC.
Jim Apr 4th 2007 3:34PM
Oh, I loves me some skill-ups. My mage has been Level 70 since the first week in February and has had 375 Tailoring since soon after, but I just got his Enchanting up to 375 the other day. In both cases, I didn't do it organically. Rather, I bought the materials I needed and used recipes that were yellow or orange to me (where possible). I figure that I've spent close to 3000 gold on those professions.
(I also trained up Fishing, First Aid and Cooking to 375. Go figure.)
ErsatzPotato Apr 4th 2007 3:39PM
Mining/whatever is considerably more difficult to level than herbalism/alch. Ore is more likely to be off in odd corners (cruise mountain edges) and more likely to be regularly harvested. Herbs are friggin' everywhere. :)
To grind herb BC go to Zangarmarsh. I'd recommend either the SE corner/southern edge (west has too many glowcap false positives) or grind some Spore rep killing the bog giants & lords. They drop herbs and can be "skinned" with herbalism for more. Only way to get ancient lichen outside an instance. The entrance to the little elevated cave with bog lord quests, near the entrance to Terokkar, has several plant spawns plus piles of fungus mobs to "skin".
Alch gets tougher around 330-340, with very few recipes green or better and those making junk, using rare mats, or both. Might want to hold onto lichen for the push to the very end. For terocone pick in the forest around Shat. Save up dreaming glory if possible for use in nice healing pots--it's not available in all the zones.
If you're really low herbalism/don't have a flying mount, might want to run around Winterspring or even Felwood for a bit, can go to 330ish that way.
Sleepy Apr 12th 2007 4:09PM
I've done both and its definitely much less annoying to just take a lap or so around a zone collecting stuff every few levels to keep your skill up.
That being said, at 70 I dropped engineering (sucktastic prof now) and skilled up herbalism from scratch. I highly recommend getting the Herbalist's Gloves (+5herb) with the advanced herbalism enchant(+5herb) on them. The extra +10 is basically an extra 10 orange points to get you through the levels and both of those are really cheap... definitely gives you more options on skilling it up.
Mining doesn't have it quite as easy there... an eng helmet (if you're eng) and a glove enchant (2 pieces to carry around rather than 1).
James Apr 4th 2007 4:30PM
At level 63 my mining is at 375, and my jewelcrafting is stuck at 205. While there may be money to be made at jewelcrafting at level 375, its a pretty thankless craft at 200 when I can take that stack of mithril ore and sell it for 10-11g on my server, or thorium which goes for 20-25g, and so on. I'd rather be rich than have my jewelcrafting leveled up.
FireStar Apr 4th 2007 5:03PM
Just make sure your tracking is always up and pay attention. i've NEVER gone out of my way for mining and it's been capped at 375 since lvl 65.