Has anyone heard/seen anything on PTR about what changes they might be doing to herbalism? I know they have made both [Fire Seed] and [Fire Leaf] grey items without a "Use:". So right now the only benefit you get from herbalism is Lifeblood - Spell - World of Warcraft, which is pretty terrible compared to the other profession perks out there.

Fire Leafs are still white, because they will still be used in [Flask of Endless Rage] I believe. Seeds are becoming grey. But to answer the main gist of your question, I haven't heard anything regarding a new bonus for being a Herbalist.

I think it's just the convenience factor.

When enchants require anywhere between 10-20 dusts, people just don't want to have to click item -> click buyout -> click confirm a million times, and then repeat the cycle when opening the mailbox. I'll admit I sometimes even pay a little extra to get the 20 stack rather than go for the 1 stacks. People go to the AH for fast and quick buys. Patience is not in the average buyer's dictionary.

That's what it was in TBC, though. Late in TBC, I had a rule of thumb on my enchanter where I would disenchant armor that was worth below 3g and vendor the ones above it. Weapons were a bit higher since they become essences more often than not. Right now, Blizzard reduced the average number of dusts you get from enchanting while making dusts more common from weapons compared to TBC. Right now, I'd disenchant everything. Even weapons that vendor 10g+ are worth it, since I roughly get even even during the very unlucky times I get 2 dusts.

Add the reduced amount to enchanting mats and the absence of cheap skill-ups like the oils and enchant gloves - major strength and enchanting becomes very expensive to skill-up. On my server, some enchanters are paying 100g for people to come to them with mats for an enchant.

Dusts and essences also got a lot cheaper during the sunwell period because of all the items being disenchanted from sunwell supply packs. Something like that would be very useful at this point enchanting economic climate.

Can any blacksmiths on PTR confirm if the new 2H tanking weapons are still bind on pickup? Hoping to use up some titansteel on them but obviously don't want them personally!

Do you have any source beyond anecdotal experience for this? I've DEed a few 10 thousand gold's worth of stuff and I've not noticed a signficiant difference from the commonly known DE result patterns (i.e. weapons 75% chance of 1-2 GCE, 22% of 2-5 dust, 3% a Dream shard; armor 75% 2-5 dust, 22% 1-2 GCE, 3% a Dream Shard, with even distribution among the possible amounts).

Edit:Included Dream Shards
Edit the second: Because that applies to weapons, too.

Can anyone confirm this? On my server greater cosmic essence is selling between 30/35g, costing 3x a shard, and according to the patch notes, they will lower demand from essences and shift to shards, so i've been dumping the essences high while i can, and buying shards below 10g.
This would go against the fix they have planned, keeping essence prices very high (most enchanters buy green weps from ah to get their essences), and still keeping dusts relatively high priced according to what they should be. I already find out that dust drops a bit too much, but its just empirical, and probably based on me being annoyed with 2 dust drops from high level weapons...


That was the main problem in my opinion. While i grinded up every quest i could get my hands on, + occasional instance, i got 120 dream shards i couldnt use in anything till i reached 330 skill and start buying the formulae. Fortunately i have an inscriptioner alt, and got myself mass amounts of vellum, but i could barely get one third of the cost back. Of course, dusts and cosmic essences quickly vanished, and people who dinged 80 right at start abused the enchanters on my server, getting 50g for them to get an enchant. Even now, with some 15 enchanters fully skilled, people still refuse to pay up fee's for most enchants, because they can get them for free. Hence my money comes from speculating with mats (screwing the enchanters trying to level their skills by raising mats's prices) and not from fee's.

Took me 2/3 weeks at 80 to get it maxed, with my guild bringing me mats to enchant them (main enchanter of my guild). My tailoring fed up enchanting with greens, in detriment of skilling it (no real point in it, considering how crap it is at the moment), and my gold stockpile was depleted in aprox. 3000G during the process. Not reasonable, in my humble opinion.

I'm lost on what professions to take. I have 2 characters that I play. A rogue with alch/herbs and a priest with ench. The priest has 150ish inscription, but I'm not seeing any long term profit there. I don't really care about the shoulder enchants, so the perk isn't exciting for me. I play casually and haven't been a min/max raider in a few years. I don't have any miners so JC is off the table. I'm debating between mining for the AH gold, and tailoring for the cheap bags, carpet, and special weaves. My goal is a fairly stead income without too much grinding. Ive spent hours flying around picking herbs, so mining seems natural, but I was wondering about the tailoring/disenchanting combo. Anyone have any suggestions?

Buy yourself up JC. It should be no more then ~3000 gold to get it to 400 which is all you need, really.

Even if your server doesn't allow for gem-speculating or if you don't have the time to abuse the prices difference of certain cuts in the weekends vs the prices on weekdays it's a very steady source of gold.

Prospecting will always make you some money and the daily quest token you can turn in for dragon eyes, which sell pretty well, as the caster ring made with them is the best non-raiding ring you can get. And it's BoE.

Having a character than can mine+herb is a great option. If you don't raid, need bonuses or profession perks and don't mind flying around farming - you can go to any zone and get a considerable amount of raw mats. It's somewhat easy to level and future proof: There will always be herbs/mines in WoW (now and in future expansions) which will have a value to others.

I recently leveled JC without having any toons with mining and it wasn't that bad. If you buy the mats you need from AH gradually, when they're cheap (or at least not overpriced) it shouldn't be that bad, but you still need around 2k if you want to powerlevel. That being said, all of your gold won't be wasted as you can sell, or disenchant and sell nearly everything you make. After you get to 330 and get a few decent cuts, its possible to make A LOT of gold with JC without much time investment.

Actually if you can manage to get your JC skill to 300, it is dirt cheap to get it all the way up to 430. You can do uncommon TBC cuts upto 350, then start doing the uncommon WOTLK cuts upto 390, finally do stoneguard bands from 390-430.

Stoneguard bands pay for themselves if you hav an enchanter. Costs about 10g (2x Eternal earth for 5g/apiece) for me to make and on average I can sell the dusts/essences for about a 100% profit consistently.

Add to that the JC daily quest for a dragonseye (~250g ea. on my server) and you're talking a ton of cashflow.

where would be the best place to go to farm frostweave cloth?

This is the hard part. Mostly because even if you have the cash there generally isnt a large enough volume of the vanilla gems on the AH at any time to power level yourself straight up. Over a few days your going to need to stock up on any lower gems you see on the AH so that you'll have enough.

Or you can just prospect thorium...

run instances.... many many times its the best place to get cloth, and yeah thats only if you have cloth gathering

In IceCrown, Northeast of Grimkor the wicked, there is a choke point where yellow lvl 80 humanoid spirits are charmed and sent south to join the armies of the lich king.

If you have a frost mage and the northrend cloth gathering skill, you can farm a ton of frostweave here. You will also get enough greens to disenchant for dust for the imbued portion of your leveling requirements. I spent almost half of my level 79-80 there and farmed enough cloth to get to 430, make myself 3 bags, and have someone else make me a spellweave robe and gloves.

The drop rate is much faster than heroics because you can grab as many of the yellow mobs as you want, they come on a very predictable basis, and they all come to, or through, your farming area.

I'm guessing here, but I think the location is around 44,46 in icecrown. You will definately know it once you see the yellow mobs run by. In fact if you see some just follow them. It will take you right to the spot.

If this post helps you and you know anything about how to get one of the 'missing' JC recipes, please pm me.

Since you don't mind min/maxing, your Rogue with herb/alch can do well. I have Alc and every time it is up I transmute Water to Fire for an easy 40g. However, you randomly learn transmutes, so it may take a while to learn that one. Herbalism will be good if you keep herbing, since Alch and Inscription need a lot of herbs.


I don't like mining/herb because you have to swap between the trackers.

Swapping the trackers will typically be a hassle that stops a lot of people. I have actually realized, and recommended to people in guild as well, that if you want to be serious but find yourself short on money often, then go for herb/alch. It is basically free to level up, and you can farm on your main char as you don't have to buy your alts the epic flyer. Alch is particularly nice for raiding because a flask will last for 4 hours, and with only a a minor effort of farming you will have a flask for every single raid night. Herbalism gives you a dps bonus as well if you herb the Fireleaves. If you do this right you will save and make a significant amount of gold, as well as not losing out on dps. Myself, I prefer flying around herbing while gchatting or talking on ts compared to doing dailies. For serious minded people with a limited amount of time, I think herb/alch is an excellent alternative as they are.

Fire leaf will be a grey item after patch 3.0.8.

I believe it'll be white, as it's still used to make Flask of Endless Rage. It will lose the Use ability, though.