Herbalism in The War Within (Khaz Algar Herbalism) is very similar to Dragonflight herbalism, as are the layouts of the Specializations. In this guide, we comment on what is new in The War Within and provide some suggestions as well as a farming route to level your herbalism.
New to Herbalism in The War Within
As with every expansion, there are new types of herbs to collect:
- Mycobloom
- Arathor’s Spear
- Orbinid
- Luredrop
- Blessing Blossom
Mycobloom is a common herb. Arathor’s Spear, Orbinid, Luredrop and Blessing Blossom are all uncommon in quality.
There are four zones in Khaz Algar, and all available flowers can be found in every zone.
New Herb Modifiers
In Dragonflight there was an introduction of modified nodes (Frigid, Windswept, Decayed and Titan-Touched). In The War Within, there will now be five new special node modifiers: Altered, Crystallized, Irradiated, Sporefused and Camouflaged.
Altered
Altered is the rarest node. When you gather this herb you will be inflicted with Horrific Poison for 1 minute, which will deal damage over time, as well as slow you and reduce your Primary stat and Stamina. This effect will be removed early or not applied if you have the buff granted by a Crystallized node; otherwise you will need to wait out the debuff duration.
Additional Drop: Writhing Sample
Crystallized
Gives a 2 minute buff, increasing your secondary stats by 3%. You are also protected from the negative effects of Weeping Ore and Altered Herbs.
Additional Drop: Crystalline Powder
Irradiated
Shortly after you collect these herbs, you will receive a small backwards knockback (smaller than Windswept herbs of Dragonflight), so just be wary of ledges when you collect them.
Additional Drop: Leyline Residue
Sporefused
Gives a debuff, which causes your perception of the world to be altered and makes small green circles spawn around you. These detonate if you are caught in them, dealing significant damage.
Additional Drop: Viridescent Spores
Lush
These nodes just contain extra materials.
Camouflaged
Camouflaged nodes can only be seen while you are under the effects of a Phial of Truesight. This Phial is crafted by Alchemists and lasts for 30 minutes, they are also tradeable on the auction house, but could be relatively expensive early on.
Knowledge Points from Gathering
Just like in Dragonflight, you earn 1 Knowledge Point every time you gather a modified version of a flower that you haven’t gathered before. Considering there are 5 types of Herbs and 6 types of modifiers, there should be 35 knowledge points obtainable just from gathering every type of herb, including the normal version.
Location of the Herbalism Trainer in The War Within
The Herbalism trainer is Akdan, who is located in the south of Dornogal near the southern entrance.
You will be sent to Dornogal within the 10 first quests, so there is no specific reason to go here ahead of time just for the training. But when you are here, make sure you learn Khaz Algar Mining.
Before Starting Herbing
If you start herbing right at launch, there is not a big opportunity to buy anything on the auction house before you begin. However, if you start at any point later, there might be a couple of things you want to get ready before you start to level your herbalism.
Equipment
Firstly, if you are able to grab some herbalism profession equipment from the auction house, the extra skill will let you start gathering higher rank materials much earlier. The uncommon Gardener’s Basket, Proficient Sickle and Weavercloth Gardening Hat should be relatively cheap and a nice start.
Phials
If you have a Dragonflight Alchemist, who has left over Artisan's Mettle you can craft yourself some Steaming Phials of Finesse. The 30-50 Finesse they grant works on Khaz Algar nodes and is a nice little bonus. These are Bind on Pickup, so would have to be ordered through the work order system.
You can also get yourself some Phial of Truesight to see camouflaged herbs, either through an Alchemist or through the auction house. Beware, the materials to craft this phial are expensive and you may not get good returns; though you should probably expect the price to be lower than the 1 million gold I paid on the Beta.
There is also the Phial of Bountiful Seasons, which unfortunately I was unable to test on the Beta, it grants a large increase of Finesse (chance to increase the amount of resources you gather) during the summer. However, the resourcefulness is not really used by mining. It's currently unclear how this phial works, but it's likely to be the go-to Phial for Finesse.
Sky Golem
A big thing for Herbalism is the ability to use the Sky Golem Mount to be able to gather herbs while mounted. This saves you 40 knowledge points that would otherwise have to be invested in the Botany Specialization. The mount is sold on the auction house or crafted by engineers but is usually very expensive.
Note: It’s possible that this is unintended, so be careful before buying the mount if you are only interested in using it for the purpose of Herbalism in The War Within, as it may be changed to no longer work for Kaz Algar herbs.
Herbalism Profession Knowledge
While actual profession knowledge choices will be down to what you want to obtain, usually specializing in the herb you want to collect more of, we do recommend unlocking the specializations in a specific order:
- Botany - Just unlocking this tree will cause any herb you pick to restore a Vigor (this effect was previously on the Skyriding talents and has been moved). Further specialization into this will allow you to gather while mounted, but it will cost 40 Knowledge points to get there, and if you have the Sky Golem this is worth very little.
- Overloading the Underground - By unlocking this specialization you will learn the Overload Node ability, this is a long cooldown you use on nodes to gain additional resources. The cooldown gets reduced by herbing and can be further improved by spending knowledge points in the specialization.
- Bountiful Harvest - This specialization just grants a flat 5 skill when you unlock it. Although we think spending points in this specialization early could be a great money maker, we think the other two specializations' base-unlocks are a lot more powerful.
Leveling The War Within Herbalism
To level Herbalism you simply need to herb, however some nodes stop giving skill ups much earlier than others. This table breaks down at what herbalism level each node will go yellow, green and finally gray.
| Herb | Yellow | Green | Grey |
| Mycobloom | 20 | 25 | 30 |
| Arathor’s Spear, Orbinid, Luredrop, Blessing Blossom | 40 | 45 | 50 |
| Named Mycobloom | 80 | 85 | 90 |
| Named Arathor’s Spear, Orbinid, Luredrop, Blessing Blossom | 100 | 100 | 100 |
While you may want to prioritize nodes that give skill up, you should not ignore nodes that are gray. If you see two nodes on your map, collect the skill-up node first to reduce the probability of it despawning before you get to herb it. However, unless you see another new better node, don’t forget to gather the common node. Never stop herbing!
Herbalism Farming Route
We recommend farming in the Ringing Deeps as it seems to have the best density of nodes. The route we have marked in the image below loops from north to south, where the southern part of the map is particularly good.
On Beta, it was needed to make a bigger loop, but it is possible that on launch the respawn of flowers will be fast enough to purely stay in the south.
Darkmoon Faire
When Darkmoon Faire is active you can gain 2 skill points and 3 knowledge points by doing a short quest from Chronos, called Herbs for Healing.
We recommend leaving this as late as possible to get the most value out of the increased skill points.
