I'd also like to point out, the upper level of bashers on Astral don't sip. That's right, they don't sip at all. Ok maybe once or twice when teamed by multiple creatures, but that is all. I have over 5k health, and I'll take on two lobstrosities, two mitrans, two fesix's, two obesefessors, whatever, and I won't sip at all, then when they are dead, I'll just use waxing (or puella, or whatever you have), back to full, link again, repeat. No refills used.

*sigh* I sip after every hit. *Whimper*

So do I.

I'm just saying anyone who is ranked 50 and below and is a tanky race, or in the top 10 and pretty much any race.

Yeah. Still annoying that people can totally tank two, without health sipping atall, when I have to sip constantly, against just one creature.

Summer's avatar makes me hungry.

-end hijack, but since it's my thread, I can hijack all I want, so Hah!-

I'm going to take a wild stab at a guess here.

What with the Divine telling us the plants take care of themselves, yada and so forth - is it safe to harvest to nothing entirely? I keep getting the nagging feeling that it doesn't matter, and that the herbs will spring forth regardless, unless we manage to take the last of an herb at the right time of the wrong month.

IE, plants wax and wane in growth cycles. I've seen an herb (marjoram, I think) pop up out of bare ground at the turn of midnight.

This suggests to me that plants are present even when they can't be seen. Thus, harvesting to 0 still leaves herbs present that cannot be seen, such plants being there to refresh the herb supply.

Am I way off here, o Gods?

I get this strangely humorous idea that all the people screaming for minimum herbs per room are off base, and the Gods are laughing at us over it.

Yep, there's spontaneous growth for plants. I.e, they appear from nowhere, albeit in small numbers.

These spontaneous outgrowths are random events. If someones harvests 30 rooms down to zero the chances that a regrowth will happen is small. Maybe a room every 2 months. Harvest those 30 rooms clean and 6 months later maybe 5 rooms will have this growth, at the most. Those thirty rooms need to be replanted. Relying on these outgrowths is pointless. (These outgrowths mean plants do not go extinct)

You need at least 1 herb per room if you want a reasonable supply of herbs. But if you leave just one, certain people are going to get way annoyed and pull them all up too.

Can you imagine the effect if a herb went extinct? Technically that would mean no more could grow. Although if they sprout randomly from time to time they probably would.

That was actually the worry a couple of times back in open beta. Flax went extinct, as did... was it cactus weed?

I'm fairly sure sparkleberry was extinct at one point, thanks to Koan's demesne?

Hehe weed went extinct

Just for our mind's sakes let's say all the galingale unharvested in the world was 1000. Many herbalists won't harvest it until it goes down to 0 a room. So you can attribute a lot of that to people not over harvesting. Then you have those protected (sealed I believe it is called) rooms where moondancers (maybe hartstones too) made it to where you couldn't harvest. I'm also willing to wager another huge chunk of this 1000 galingale are those that appear when the plant regrows or randomly comes back. So right before it resets we may take a huge drop, then booom, back up. Checking the numbers doesn't seem very accurate unless you did it once a minute for an entire day and average it or something equally obnoxious.

Guarded, it's called, and Moondancers and Hartstone can do it, but both Hartstone and Moondancers can actually harvest from those rooms, it's only the warriors w/lowmagic that lose the ability.

Actually, I blame this one indirectly on the Divine.
Notice how there has been a massive shortage of many herbs in the years since Rowena began to produce potions on a large basis. Perhaps she's not very economically friendly (and dead from time to time), but I know of many who would rather spend a couple of extra gold and overharvest a couple rooms with an alt, than bring buisness to Seren alchemists.

EDIT: And no, I'm not discounting the fact that there still are alchemists aiding commune enemies. We know you are out there...

There is two types of regrowth, one where just one of a herb will appear in a empty room. The other is after hibernation when the herbs pop back up to 60 in a room. After hibernation a plant like galingale may have 10 to 13 rooms of 60 galingale in the whole of Northern Serenwilde.