Herbalism questions

[Telal Rabishu]

can anyone please tell me if harvesting the herbs will break stealth? and is it true that for higher end poisons the herbalism skill is required, or at least useful. thanks

[Senn]

Yes it breaks stealth. Not sure about the higher end poisons, I'm only level 24 so far :p

[maedie]

as of oct 29 (when they closed open beta servers) there were only two rogue specific recipes in the game that required herbalism gathered materials.

Neither were poisons.

One was a cooking recipe for Thistle Tea, which, when you drink in the middle of battle, gives you a 100% energy refill. There is a "recast" time on it like of 2 minutes, so it can be used once per fight.

Thistle Tea requires one Swift Thistle, and cooking skill of 60. So, it is a very good idea to get your cooking skill up to 60 by level 20 or so. You'll get the Tea recipe from your rogue training hall when you complete your poisons quest. Cooking is one of the secondary professions (like fishing and First Aid) so you can learn that starting at level 1 and you don't need to worry how many primary professions you have. You can train fishing, first aid, and cooking all at level one. They don't count to your 2 profession limit.

The other Rogue specific thing is Blinding Powder, for the Blind ability. You can make Blinding Powder rather early, but you can't use it until you get the Blind ability at level 34.

1 Fadeleaf can make 3 blinding powders. Fadeleaf is gathered using herbalism. It's usually found in zones you'd have to be level 30 and above to fight in.

By the way, as i keep telling people:
You do NOT need to be an herbalist to be a rogue. You do NOT need to bankrupt yourself in Auction Hall paying for herbs to make these things.

WoW is a multi-player game. There are TONS of herbalist players out there. When you group with people, or even when you just click on someone to select them, you see what buffs they are wearing. (in non-pvp at least.) Herbalism-sight has a buff icon of a little white flower. So, make friends with a few herbalists, and when they get to a level to pick up these herbs, trade with them. Trade services, trade materials or end products from the tradeskills that you found more fun to pick up. Heck, trade food, since you need to skill up making food anyways to make thistle tea.

Swiftthistle is usually found on the same herbs that drop Briarthorn. I think its also found on Mageroyal plants? Both of those are found in level 15 and up hunting grounds.

Fadeleaf in particular is EVERYWHERE at level 30 and up, but Alchemists barely need all the fadeleaf that herbalists could collect. It's everywhere because Blizzard knew rogues needed it too. So ask a friend to collect you a stack in trade for something . A stack of 10 will make you 30 Blinding Powders, which will take you a while to get through. (unless you are PvP, i heard its great there. :) )[/b]

[Aiden]

any interaction with any kind of item normally breaks stealth.

if you try to open an chest you will lose stealth,gathering resources breaks stealth.

i think if you stealth and loot a corpse,you lose stealth,but i cant remember. played warrior mostly the last month or so.

That said,i would say that herbalism associated with alchemy is probably one of the single most valueable skills any charecter can have.

if you plan on doing tradeskills,then your not going to take alchemy, if you plan on just playing the game,then alchemy is a valueable skill for any class. think of it as a pocket buff-bot,along with utility spells that you can use as you see fit.

[Elaethan Dae'lasse]

Is there a limited amount of time between quaffing one potion and then downing another? Or is the duration only set for potions of the same type?

[Incognitogamer]

different potions have different down times.

I played a 60 rogue in the beta and never took alchemy/herbalism, and never really regretted not taking it.

I found plenty of fade leaf in chests/on mobs, or in the AH if I really needed it, but I've rarely used Blind once I got it, there's only a few certain situations that it's usefull anyway.

[maedie]

Different lines of potions have different downtimes.

I leveled a rogue from 1 to 40. I could load myself up with one Agility potion, one strength potion, and one armor increaser potion all within a few seconds of each other. Each potion buff would last 1 hour (though they'd disappear if i died.)

All health and mana potions are on the same timer as every other health and mana pot. So, if you quaff a health pot, you have to wait 2 minutes to drink the next health OR mana pot.

This is why it is important to work up First Aid and Cooking as you level up, so you have those other ways of healing yourself available to you. (though cooking isn't as important... you will get foods as loot, too. I just found it very nice to be able to make lots of high quality food that gave me 1636 hp health at a time when I only had 1000 hp in my little gnome body. It ended up being a very fast heal.)

You won't be able to gain health benefit from food as you fight, but you can bandage yourself mid-fight. If you are tanking a mob, the usual rogue tactic is to Gouge the mob to stun it for four seconds while you apply your bandage, allowing the bandage to heal you for a few ticks. Or, if you are in a group and not tanking, just apply the bandage anytime during the fight. If you are applying it to yourself, it's insta-cast. (There is a 10? second cast time if you are bandaging someone else. ) As your First Aid improves you can make better bandages for yourself using higher quality materials. (progression is linen, wool, silk, mageweave, runecloth. all are dropped materials.) Bandages have a 1 minute recast timer and is on a different timer then potions.

here are the alchemy recipes that were in game as of oct 29.
http://www.thottbot.com/index.cgi?t=Alchemy

Hover over the graphics to see the cool down times.

[Incognitogamer]

Bandages have a 1 minute recast timer and is on a different timer then potions.

They dont have a 1 minute recast timer, you can recast them instantly, but when someone is bandaged it puts a buff on them called "Recently Bandaged" and it lasts for 60 seconds, so you can't re-bandage the same person within 60 seconds, but you can bandage a different person immediately after bandaging yourself, or someone else.

[Northerner]

It also good to know that harvesting a herb doesn't break stealth, finishing harvesting does. (Caveat, or at least that's how I remember it although my rogue lost herb/alc some time ago.) So one can harvest in a nasty area and pop sprint once you loot the stuff without having to kill all the trash.

Hrm, now I'm going to need to reconfirm this later on but I'm 90% sure it used to work this way at least.

[Janky Rogue]

Northerner, I didn't play in beta, but I'm almost positive that simply starting to harvest herbs will break stealth as it is now.

[Bengel Tyger]

Once you get the loot window you break stealth is how it works i think.

[Xantium]

No once you start to gather it, you break, or if not I'm bugged because I get very dead many times trying to get that damn wintersbite.

[Jhani Vandolay]

I don't have herbalism on any chars with stealth so I don't have first hand certainty, but with all of my experiences with mining, opening lootable items, and interecting with quest items that require "opening" of some sort, every process I have done that starts with a time-till-open bar and ends with a loot window has broken stealth as soon as I initiated the process at all, not waited to drop until the loot window opened.

[Janky Rogue]

Jhani:

That's been my experience with gathering herbs while in stealth. There is always a bit of delay between the time you start gathering (when they see you) and the time they start going for you. But the same is true when you run up to a mob without stealth on...maybe this is just lag.

For example, if I'm in stealth and I start gathering herbs with a mob facing away from me but right in front of me, I usually get about 1/3 of the way done with the gathering before I get attacked.