How much time did it take you (or someone else) to replant and harvest those herbs? I can guarantee that it didn't take 3 minutes to get that many herbs (unless you're a Divine).

An hour or two. Or three . Why?

In all honesty, once you get to a certain point (read level) in the game, no tradeskills is usefull for getting gold. As it has been said before, you bash to get it. What the tradeskills do however, is offer a pretty nice buffs when you trans them. Fullplate, immunity to a poison, lvl1 herb balance, splendours and so on.

Herbs would still be viable at higher levels and it's not really impossible to make almost as much as you can with bashing. The problem is that you have to make choice wether to bash and get exp+gold or harvest and get just the gold.

I'll just disagree and tell you that all the sparkleberry I could harvest in an hour will net me an income higher than any amount you could bash in that hour.

At which point there's no sparkleberry left for anyone for quite some time, which is a pretty big limiter on income. It also depends on it not really being all that harvested.

Here's the issue as I see it. Herbs is -only- good for making money! It doesn't give you a particularly useful skill or item compared to any other trade. It doesn't give the opportunity to make cool designs or join cartels or base any roleplay around it other than 'I'm an herbalist.' It doesn't really give you access to commodities that you couldn't otherwise find, because herbs are everywhere in the stores (and you can make the money to buy them in half the time it takes to harvest them). Also, you're required to go into dangerous places (astral, enemy forests) to even get the full potential of the skill. Thus, for it to be a viable tradeskill it needs to have a better gold output, as it really doesn't have anything else going for it.

And, on a different note, it's time for an herbalist strike! No more sales until the prices go up! (Which of course won't work. Free market systems can't be sustained when the products are equally obtainable simply by the effort of anyone in the Basin. Bah!)

That's what the old nature curse was good for. I've been convincing people to reraise their sparkleberry prices even after they lowered them. Mostly by showing them that I'm still completely selling out my stock at my so called 'absurd' price. and trying to convince them that they're ripping themselves off of extra gold.

Anyways, your presumption just isn't true anymore. Before we got level 1 herb balance. Decent, nothing special. Half the time people wouldn't waste another 50 credits to get it. Nowaday, we have that plus increased healing from sparkleberry. It was added a bit ago, but not to the AB file. I typoed it a few days ago. But it's actually very worthwile in that regards. People take alchemy for the level 1 sip bonus with the alchemy stone. Now they can go alchemy, and then take herbs for the increased healing there. Plus city people/warriors/bards/monks now have access to a trade skill which will increase their healing capabilities.

Huh. Didn't know about the sparkleberry thing. In fact, that's freakin awesome. The lack of customizable descriptions for herbs is still lamentable, though.

Re-raise prices! Herbalist revolt! Go go go!

There is also the issue I brought up about the effort and money that herbs will save you. Finding herbs as a fighter is annoying; you're always low on something. It's not so bad if you happen to have a friend who's an herbalist, but it can be a real pain. I've considered switching to herbs just so I have the herbs on-hand all the time and never have to go buy them.

For the sparkleberry thing...Krellan, you're not fooling anyone! You may make some money from sparkles, but I seriously doubt that makes up the majority of your income. You're right, sparkles are definitely worth harvesting and selling, but that one skill isn't worth switching to herbs over.

Just because my name was mentioned, and I find this discussion amusing... I'd like to point out that I've been an herbalist since day one of the game's inception, and I've managed to earn roughly 5,000 credits from herb sales alone, even with my slower Igasho balance.

My current goal is to become an "herb lord" and start buying certain herbs from the younger Seren herbalists to stock in my shop. It saves me time and gives the up and coming herbalists a good boost.

You have a shop! You don't count.

Where does he get his gold, then? I've not seen Krellan hunt in a while, and all our aetherspace gold is going into the pirate ship. Unless he's grown a money-making tree in the Havens, he must get it from his sparkleberries.

if someone lower the price, why not threaten him/her with a kill? just kidding, wishful thought. that sound bad.

last time i check i sell galingale ordinary at 10 gp per... but i hear it's 8 gp or under now. pfft.

If I could afford Harvesting Gloves, and a Changeling Cameo, I'd go herbalist in an instant. Faeling + Gloves is a 1s harvest, I've been told. In a minute, that's 60x40=2400 gold. Say 2000 gold because you need time to move around the rooms or something.

2000 gold in a minute. *drool*

That said, alchemy's awesome for making gold as long as you have a reliable herbalist. Minimal work (herbs in, amalgamate, potion out) and minimal investment (Health potion is like Capable) required, too.

He doesn't carry all that much gold anymore. He gets a little bit from selling sparklies, but if he's actually going to save for something he always goes hunting/questing for it instead. Right now, he harvests his own herbs, doesn't really use enchantments, and has friends who can give him whatever else he needs.

In the old days, he made tons of money from sparklies with the old nature guard - that was always fun. Now, they're pretty good, but not as good as they sound because of hibernation and overharvesting.

I don't agree with how you say herbs saves effort and gold, mitbulls. At least not for high levels. If I spend the amount of time I'd need to harvest enough herbs for me, I'd end up with a lot less gold than if I were hunting for that time and buying it from someone else.

That is not to say, however, that herbs is not good gold. At higher levels, the gold is comparatively lower, because of easier hunting. But at lower levels, it is brilliant gold. Also, I could probably fit some harvesting in between the times it takes for certain denizens to respawn. If I ever reach demigod, I'd probably think on taking herbs again (but I'd have to give up highmagic. Maybe they should give non-mage/guardian highmagic a trade to itself )



You didn't know about it?

Just no Oakstone. It ruined Achaea. That, along with autoclass

Achaea's in sort of a recovery period now... it's not as bad as it used to be, but it's not all that great yet either. At least they're trying.

Achaea, yeah... Eleusis vs Mhaldor, and Shallam just surrendered to Ashtan. Good NEVER wins...