Gathering is more than a validate way to level up.

[Tinuviel]

EDIT : As of 9/12/2010, this no longer works very well, as Blizzard erased many, many nodes.

So, after some rest, and because i saw almost nothing about that, i decided to share my experience.
My character is a tauren druid.
Yesterday, after cata launched, the only quests i turned in were daily quest in icecrown and stormpeaks, which i did just after getting Realm First Herbing.
From that point, i headed directly to Twilight Highlands, and started herbing like mad to make inscription first and offer alchemy first to a guildmate.

I had already conjectured that it could take me anywere between ten and twenty hours to reach level 85 that way, but i didn't had access to the beta and couldn't try for myself. I had to rely on the very few occurences of herbs xp charts, that were regularly modified, but not regularly updated by players, so i couldn't really know what live numbers would be.

Well, it appeared that i got 81 really late (as you know i logged at almost 1AM, and needed 30 minutes for the Realm First Herbing, most of which is only traveling in/to Uldum), but still ahead of many of guildmates (who were doing it wrong, but that's not the point, they couldn't be that wrong as to be beated by a REALLY ineficient way of leveling). 82 i was a little bit less late (twentieth or so to level 82). At this point i had enough herbs to try inscription first, but i decided to see at 83 were i would be, since i had really shitloads of time to complete inscription on my server (or so it seemed, was the only one gathering herbs at TH).

At 83 i was fourth, continued to 84 where is was first by ten minutes, and finally 85, 40 minutes ahead of the second. It took me 12 hours of non-stop herbing to get my realm first 85. After that i didn't got inscription first, not because it was too late, but that's an other story.

So, back to stats. I herbed around 800 stacks of plants. I had conjectured that i needed much less, since the few numbers on the beta were projecting between 10 and 12K xp for twilight jasmine. But i also didn't know that there were SO MANY GODDAMN plants in the area. In the end, i got betwen 2k2 and 5k5 xp for twilight jasmine, depending on my level. The thing is, xp increase over each level, makes it more and more competitive against other means of leveling. For example, between 83 and 84, i had around a 20% xp/hour increase, while xp needed was multiplied by 2.25. I don't think other ways of leveling scale that well, of course it would have been more efficient in the early levels to make one run of each instance with a group that trounce those, and with every quests, but in the late levels, that becomes much less valuable. I had competition for the plants during half of level 84, but there really is enough herbs for two people, maybe not for three though.

Obviously, it can only be made in such a short period of time with a druid, but there is nothing wrong about leveling gathering alts that way, even if they are not druids

TL;DR : 12H15 minutes to get to 85, and 3H50 minutes for 84-85, while only herbing

[Eliot123]

I completely agree. I've mined my way to 81.5 atm with mining-exclusively and I'm kinda shocked at how much xp it gives, even when not rested. Thanks Blizz, now my char with 2x gathering can level by doing what he does best^^ \o

[Harryette]

I am heading for the same thing, going to level to 85 with just gathering.
I logged on yesterday after work (17 hours after Launch), did a 6 hour grind with my DK that has Herbing and Mining. I was pretty late to log on, so going to Mt. Hyjal was a pain (lot of competition on nodes). But got 475 in an hour or so, and flew straight to Twilight Highlands. Spent the next 4 hours there both herbing and Mining. Got only 1 level, but put everything i gathered on AH, and woke up this morning with 18k gold in the mailbox...

I am definately going to keep going this way, slow leveling with a shitload of gold on the side.

[Deleted]

Yah, well, I think personally, a most apt way to stick a middle finger up at Blizzard's completely idiotic decision to cut ninety percent of the experience point gain for killing a level 78 elite mob in Sholazar Basin is to just level through gathering.

My miner rogue and alchemist paladin will be levelled exclusively up to at least 82 by gathering stuff in Northrend. If this winds the haters up then it is just a bonus imho.

[UnknownSoldier]

Haha, wow. This is actually pretty much exactly what happened to me yesterday.

I started out with Realm First Herb (like you XD) and then just kept going. By 83 I decided that I was making so much gold (haven't logged in today after sleeping, so more expected) that I would simply continue to 85. It took me far longer than you though, and this was probably because I also had Mining. Took me 25 hours of straight grindind ore and herbs. Twilight Jasmine doesn't seem to sell on my server (as of yet), but the Elementium and associated products made me a ton o' gold.

I think what finally decided me on leveling to 85 this way, was I'm on a PvP server. So now, I can start in on Cata questing at 85, killing all those Horde who have been camping my faction, all the while making more gold because I'm level capped doing quests.

Just some numbers as far as gold-wise. I made 60k yesterday, and still have so much up on the AH that I can't be bothered to deal with undercutters.

[Tinuviel]

I almost didn't bother making gold out of it, only sold like 20k worth of plants/volatiles life, as i already have so much gold. Now making darkmoon trinkets out of my herbs, which are not as good as greatness was during Wotlk, but since herb prices already plummeted on my server, its the right time to do it (that is to say, not a huge profit to make by selling now and rebuying in the next few days) and offer at least a dozen trinkets to my guild before they start raiding (yes i'm a retired raider. Well for now at least^^).

[Plasmon]

I see with the recently announced Dec 8 hotfixes that they decreased the node density for both ore and herbs in Twilight Highlands and ore in one part of Uldum. With this change, do you think this is still viable?

I have a tauren druid herbalist with 310 speed, and I was planning on doing 84-85 or 83-85 entirely with herbalism. I figured that since I'll need all the herbs eventually for my alchemy and to supply raid flasks, I might as well get XP for them all instead of having to farm at 85 and get no XP for all that work.

[Tinuviel]

the nerf is absolutely massive. So massive that it is actually silly. If you were going to farm for countless hours anyway, than go ahead and do it, but it will take you at least thrice the time it took me :/

And now volatile life price will skyrocket so high that nobody will ever buy flasks or darkmoon cards... That is just silly, Darkmoon trinkets are already worth more than 15K in mats, one of them is utter trash and will never sell at that price, and of course, mats price are already starting to increase...

[Plasmon]

Thanks for the info. What about Uldum for herbalism? They didn't seem to nerf it there. Where do you think would be best for 83-85 leveling via herbing now?
(I ask because I can't check myself, I won't be playing until I'm done my thesis...)

[ChildeRoland]

How come this doesn't work anymore? Did they remove exp from nodes or what? I liked the 15k exp from Archeology.

[Tinuviel]

It still gives xp, but there are so few nodes now in TH, that it would take ages.
Uldum is not really great honestly, not much to gather there. I haven't tried Hyjal/Vashir, but there is no high level herbs there, so you need at least twice as much herbs as in TH to make up for it...