New Additions to The War Within - Hallowfall Farm Minigame: Refreshing Herbalism with Seeds and Mulch

Herbalism is the first Profession to undergo tweaking in The War Within, introducing a new farm-based minigame as well as changing how some pre-existing mechanics like Seeds work. While generally following the same framework as it did in Dragonflight, Herbalists will see some new bonuses and effects in their Specialization trees, as well as have the chance to find all-new Herb Nodes out in the wild!

Herbalism Profession Specialization Changes

Overall, Herbalists have an almost identical Specialization tree design to Dragonflight. Keeping both the Bountiful Harvests and Botany trees as a whole, the Mastering the Elements Specialization has been renamed to Overloading the Underground, but functions in much the same way. Many individual nodes have had their specifics tweaked, but the overall archetype is the same. For instance, the Bountiful Harvest Specialization focuses on providing bonuses to specific Herbs found in The War Within (Mycobloom, Arathor's Spear, Blessing Blossom, Luredrop, and Orbinid), while Overloading the Underground provides a new version of the Overload Elemental Herbability and helps remove harmful effects from special Herbs such as Irradiated and Sporefused variants.

• Botany Bountiful Harvest and Overloading the Underground

The Botany Specialization, however, has undergone some changes. In Dragonflight, this Specialization purely provided Finesse, Deftness, and Perception, which, while useful, wasn't very fun in the long run. Some of the secondary perks were the ability to gather seeds such as Agitated Roused Seedling, but overall, many Herbalists chose the other two Specializations first, leaving Botany to collect the last of the needed Knowledge Points.

In The War Within, however, the two secondary nodes in Botany have been slightly reworked. One now focuses on various Seeds found throughout the new zones (Verdant Seed, Sporefused Verdant Seed, Irradiated Verdant Seed, and Crystallized Verdant Seed), while the other focuses on Mulch, a new item Herbalists can utilize in order to increase the yield of their Herbing adventures (Magical Mulch, Imbued Mulch, and Empowered Mulch). Players may note that these Seeds in particular reference very specific ways of planting - which leads us to the Hallowfall Farm.

The Hallowfall Farm

An entirely new mechanic to Herbalism, the Hallowfall Farm is a new Herbing mini-game that allows players to plant the various seeds they find while Herbing in The War Within. Gone are the days of searching for a patch of Rich Soil with your bags full of seeds - now you can find all the dirt you'll need in one place!

While Hallowfall as a zone is currently unavailable for testing, there are several things we've found during datamining that seem to be linked to this new mechanic. Many of them are reminiscent of Sunsong Ranch, the fondly remembered farm in Pandaria where players could raise their reputation with The Tillers, a multi-pronged reputation involving Best Friend status with many farmers around the Valley of the Four Winds.

Besides the Seeds and Mulch, here are some other datamined bits and pieces that may be related to this new upcoming minigame:

• Camouflaged Herbs

One of the most interesting changes to Herbalism, however, is the introduction of a new Herb type called Camouflaged Herbs. Similar to other herb variants such as Infurious Hochenblume, the Camouflaged versions of Herbs in The War Within will have conditions to find them. In Dragonflight, Infurious Herbs were the closest to this as they required War Mode to be seen - but now, Camouflaged Herbs are invisible.

Thankfully, there seems to be a rather quick fix: for players looking to simply spend Gold to finance their Herbing woes away, Alchemists can create a Phial of Truesight, allowing players to see these pesky Herbs without issue. For those looking to save their hard-earned money, however, you'll need to spend Knowledge Points - researching Specialization Skills in the Overloading the Underground tree will allow players to eventually see these Camouflaged variants naturally, no Phials required.

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