Oh sure, it all started innocently enough. I dropped Mining on my Druid to get Herbalism up to 375 for some high speed, low drag herb farming. Cassieann has some Flasks to make, and her itch for herbs ain’t gonna be satisfied with any measly old 100% speed griffon. Hypersonic Herbing FTW!

So boom, I drop my Mining, and pick up Herbalism. One afternoon later, 375 Herbalism and a bank alt full of low level junk herbs.

For those interested in my preferred leveling areas that I’ve used for both Windstar and Windshadow, see me at the end of the post.

So. I go off herbing… gathering, sorting, shipping ‘em off to Cassie and the bank alt. And all is right with the world. Fel Lotus, which is needed for Cassies’ Flasks, is pretty rare, but I still grab 10 or 11 of ‘em off random herbs in a couple days. Not bad.

But then it happens. I get asked to come help finish off Zuluhed the Whacked so some guildies can get Neutral with Netherwing.

I’m exalted already, which used to mean you couldn’t help with the quest. But these days, you open up your reputation tab, flag yourself as ‘At War’ with Netherwing, and you are good to go. And no, you don’t lose rep if you do it. At least not as of this writing.

As we gather for the beat down, Whirlish happens to mention, being an Herbalist himself, that he does the herb farming, but since he doesn’t have an epic mount, he likes to go on his Hunter to Skettis, and solo taking down the big tree dude elites. He tells me that they drop mad herbs.

“How mad are these herbs we’re talking about?”

“Oh, mad. Crazed herbs.”

“Hmmm” I muse… “I wonder if I can solo them on my Druid… 71 Elites tend to be wonky. On the other hand, if a Hunter can solo one… how bad can they be?”

Just kidding. You know I love tha Huntahs.

So after Zuluhed, I dutifully head on over to Skettis to see what’s what with this tree dude thang going around.

So I find one, I gear up bear style, I pop my butt in front of him in a clearing with no adds around, and I pop a Moonfire in his leaves. Quick shift to bear and we’re off to the races!

Okay… these guys are just plain silly.

I’m Mangling, and just slapping it around… and my Improved Leader of the Pack is popping the self-heals… and I haven’t hit my trinkets. I notice that my health drops a bit, and then returns to full. Over and over.

I’ve got the tree to about 15% health left, and I’m still at full.

“That can’t be right” I mutter grumpily to myself.

So I pull up my info tabs, I’m looking things over… nope, that’s right. My Improved Leader of the Pack is equal to his damage output when you compensate for my gear.

So if I go into a fight with an elite tree-dude, I should get out with the same health I went in with. Unless there are adds. Lesson? Take down adds first.

The first tree-dude drops… and when I herb him I find… 3 Mana Thistle, 4 Felweed and 4 Motes of Life.

“What the f…?”

That had to be a fluke. Right?

So I go after another. This time… 3 Ancient Lichen and 3 Felweed and 4 Motes of Life.

Okaaaaaayyy……

“Just one more”

Four hours later…..

“Cassie?”

“Yes?”

“Please help. I’m killing trees, and I can’t make myself stop.”

“Go do something else.”

“Okay…”

An hour later….

Cassie walks in on BBB… “What are you doing?”

On screen, a tree dies, falling as silently as… well… as only a lonely tree can die.

“Ummm…. nothing.”

“You’re still killing the trees, aren’t you?”

“I can’t help it! You just can’t stop with one! They’re the Doritos of the herbing world, farm a bunch, they just spawn more!!!!”

“That’s nice dear… I think it’s time you went and played Guitar Hero, there’s a good bear….”

“But the trees! Who’ll kill the trees?”

“There there, it’s for your own good. There! See? that lovely Blood Elf Warlock is killing the trees now.”

“A Hordie?!? Killing MY trees? NEVAH!”

As she reaches for the bat, I turn my attention back to the screen… and then the world goes black….

Did the server crash? Oh! Look at the pretty birdforms dancing around my head!

Okay, for those of you interested in knowing how I leveled my Herbing… quick and dirty.

I start in Darnassus. I go to the level 4-10 area and farm the heck out of it. It is a very under-visited area, and with a mount you can cover a lot of ground fast. In fact, there tend to be so many herbs there, that I just stay in Cheetah form. You do know you can farm herbs in cat form, right? Run, run farm, run, run farm.

Darnassus takes us to 75… but after that it’s time to move on. So let’s go… right to the Barrens.

Barrens is another place that has tons of herbs of varying levels. I tend to farm the herbs continuously until I reach the level where I can gather Stranglekelp. Guess what? If you’re not actually looking for Stranglekelp, you don’t stop along the way to grab it. It’s all along the coast of the Barrens, and along the coast of Wetlands, and in swimming form you can gather the Stranglekelp all day long.

About the time you’re getting Stranglekelp maxed out is a good time to hit Wetlands. A larger concentration of higher level herbs gets your level up even higher nice and fast. Soon, you are finding it hard to get more points… well don’t stick it out, move on. Where? To Swamp of Sorrows.

Swamp of Sorrows has a good amount of Fadeleaf, Goldthorn and Khadgars’ Whisker, but it truly is wallowing in Blindweed. But it is a hell of a jump from the lower levels to Blindweed at 235. So what you do is farm your Fadeleaf, Goldthorn and Khadgars’ until you hit 205, and then pop on down to Blasted Lands and hit up the Firebloom. Run that one until 235 and back up to Swamp of Sorrows for the Blindweed.

Ride the Blindweed train until you reach 250, and then it’s back on down to Blasted Lands for Sungrass and Gromsblood. This should easily take you to 280… and from there, you can move to Felwood to top you off to 300.

And at 300… well, at 300 ladies and gentlemen, the world (of warcraft) is your oyster. Head to Hellfire Peninsula where the Felweed is under-farmed, and old school herbs still give you points, and start traveling. It is only a matter of time until you hit 375 now, because everything you grab is likely to give you points.

Ta-daaa!

“Now, where are those trees…. Druids harvest trees, it’s part of the natural order. So stop fighting it and line on up. I gots me my pruning shears all sharpened up. Who’s first?”

EDIT: Oh, and yeah, I’ve seen too many herbs lately. Cassie called me to let me know I’d screwed up and wrote Strangleweed isntead of Stranglekelp in the post. Funny thing is, originally I’d written a mix of Strangleweed and Stranglethorn. So maybe this time I got it right.

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