Sometime soon, the latest 5.3 patch will bring a change to all profession gathers of the rock and flower variety.
From MMO-Champion:
- Miners can now level mining from a low skill level completely in Pandaria. Nodes will yield
Ghost Iron Nuggets with the amount being determined by your skill level. You can combine ten nuggets to make one ore.
- Herbalists can now level herbalism from a low skill level completely in Pandaria. Nodes will yield a partial herb with the amount being determined by your skill level. You can combine 10 of the partial herbs to form a complete herb.
- Currently on the PTR, you will sometimes get fragments and the actual herb or ore when gathering near the minimum level for that node type.
This is one change I’m looking forward to. I have all the professions covered and maxed across my alts on Drak, so any new characters I make, I usually make them Miners/Herbalists. This also goes for new toons I make on new servers.
My little gobby Warrior, Dizzee, is at level 85, waiting for her turn to experience Pandaria. She is one of my dual gatherers, with her Herbalism skill at 40 and Mining at 46. Because I’m spoiled with tank insta-queues, I leveled her as Prot mainly through LFD, so her professions suffered as a result.
The same goes for my pandaren Monk, Siopao. She’s at 53 Herbalism and 42 Mining and is only level 50, but with full Heirlooms, the Enlightenment buff and the insta-queues as a Brewmaster tank, she’ll be in Outland and Northrend before I know it, not being able to farm at the appropriate level without having to go back to Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms.
The only downside I see to this change is the supply of the lower level ore and herbs and the Auction House economy. My toons off Drak that have Mining and Herbalism rely on selling these low-level materials on the AH to provide them cash flow for riding, flying, etc. The lack of these mats will hurt those leveling Alchemy, Engineering, Blacksmithing, Inscription and Jewelcrafting, especially if they can’t farm for themselves.
We’ll see what happens when the patch comes out. But for now, I’m excited to catch up on my gathering professions for my alts on Pandaria.