hello I am new to WoW would you suggest going skinning/mining or skinning/herbalism with my horde druid? I am planning on making my druid feral. I know there is a 15 point bonus in herb but not sure if I would make more gold at herb or mining. Any suggestions?

Thank You

You will make more gold leveling mining than you will leveling herbalism. The key for either is to make sure you gather (or mine) every time you see one that could give you a skill-up even if it requires you to kill 1-2 mobs. Doing so, you should have no problem leveling herbalism (I was at 375 by lvl62 with no effort).

There are a few skill ranges (pre-300) in mining that do require that you spend some time looking for ore. So, expect a couple times in which you need to spend 1-3 hours mining. I typically try to keep my mining skill up as I level until I reach mining skill 225(?). Then wait until I'm level 60+ and go back and finish mining up to 300 in one longer mining spree. Once you reach 300 in mining, the last 75 are quite easy.

Skinning is free zero-effort money while leveling. You'll have no trouble buying your lvl 40 mount if you take-up skinning. Not sure it is all that great of an end-game skill, but once you reach 70, switch to something else isn't all that bad.

Thanks for the advice

I'll take the corner of herbalism, then :>

In the end game, ie once you are level 70, herbalism is arguably one of the most important skills to have.
It allows you to get the materials required to make potions, elixirs and flasks, and these things are crucial for raiding.

Whilst mining is generally better money while levelling, there are some really valuable herbs you can pick even at low levels. Stranglekelp, for example, sells at a disproprortionally high price considering how early you can start picking it. Stranglekelp also grows underwater, which puts druids at a unique advantage since we can use Aquatic Form to pick lots of it efficiently, in very little time, without ever having to come to the surface for air.

Herbalism at high levels is also a good source of money, and it is easy and fun to fly around in bird form picking flowers. It also helps you a lot when you're raiding because you will always have a plentiful supply of needed consumables. Mining, by contrast, becomes rather less useful once you've been level 70 for a while.

One other thing to consider. You can pick herbs whilst in a form, such as bird form, or travel form - this makes it very easy to farm herbs. You cannot mine ore in forms.


-Annikk

i have to agree with annikk.

on your first lvl 70 char u want to have herbalism.
its not needed but helps alot when u are farming gold for your epic-flight-skill.
u would have to spent a **** load of money for the herbs u need for your raiding potions/elixiers/flasks.

mining can provide u with gems for socketing your gear but i need far more raid-buffs than gems for socketing.

i wish u could show herbs and mining on the minimap^^

I've made so much money from Herbalism / Alchemy that I can't even bring myself to allow my ALT's to be anything else. :wink:

yep herby vote here for making money :)

bought my epic flight skill only 2/3 weeks ago and then bought the CE War Hippogryph so was down a little on gold after that :rolleyes:

with some major herbing and the 10 daily's i've started making myself do i'm now back to the point where i will soon be able to afford another epic flight skill :D

once i get a few more nethers to make a couple of items i think i'm going to respec to alchy and see how much can be made from selling pots to raiders as well :flipbg:

I suggest you try pciking both herbalism and mining...
The tracking wont be a problem since you can use addons like gatherer or cartographer, which show all herb and mining nodes on the map.
This way you should end up having a lot of money.

yeah i find gatherer invaluable for targeting specific routes for picking herbs.

i tried mining on my mage alt for a while but found levelling it soo damn slow i gave up on it and took herby (he's a skinner to).

not sure if could be bothered to try to level mining on my main and have him do mining and herby but i guess if i did and got him maxed out i would able to make some serious money with the 2 profs and daily's.

i wish u could show herbs and mining on the minimap^^


There is an addon i have seen called Gatherer that will do this for you. it doesnt have them all i have found though but a good amount of them.

There is an addon i have seen called Gatherer that will do this for you. it doesnt have them all i have found though but a good amount of them.

i know. gatherer shows the positions where there could be a plant or mine.
but u can only have 1 tracking running and see the yellow dot on the minimap for either herbing OR mining.

i know. gatherer shows the positions where there could be a plant or mine.
but u can only have 1 tracking running and see the yellow dot on the minimap for either herbing OR mining.I have both mining and herbalism. Using the gatherer (and the pre-seeded database) you can see when you get close to spots that _may_ have herbs or veins. I just toggle between the two as I fly around looking for them.

Now if you expect to just accidentally run into nodes, having both professions is a bit difficult. But if you are actively searching it is a non-issue.

i know. gatherer shows the positions where there could be a plant or mine.
but u can only have 1 tracking running and see the yellow dot on the minimap for either herbing OR mining.


You can have them both on and showing on gatherer it just makes the map a bit cluttered. But you can also play around with the size of the icon that is shown on the map and it isnt that bad.

I had finished questing Outlands before I installed Gatherer - (better late than never, I guess).

Anyway, I flew around Outlands for about 2 weeks straight just picking herbs and filling my screen with beautiful little herb symbols, making tons of money and potions in the process. I was thrilled with Gatherer.

Then, about a month back, my game *glitched* and my I somehow lost all...my...add-ons. Everything outside of WoW itself had to be reloaded.

Not gonna lie....tears were shed.

Trust me when I tell you:

*violin softly plays in background*

You really don't know what you've got until it's gone. :rolleyes:

You can d/l a full database for the gatherer. It contains every node, flower, treasure, etc.

http://www.gathereraddon.com/dl/

Follow the instructions on how to "import" the data.

that sounds like a great import !

i thought they specifically said it does not support any form of data import !

will check it out later....thanks tlb.

i thought they specifically said it does not support any form of data import.You are correct. They use to say that. I'm not sure when it changed. One day I just happened to see it on the Gatherer site when I was out updating all of my addons.