The base gathering speed in The War Within is 3.2 seconds for Mining and 2 seconds for Herbalism. To gather faster, you will need to gain Deftness.
When you start out with these professions, there are a few easy ways to improve your gathering experience. Combining some of the below items, you can immediately reduce gathering time by more than 50% before gaining any skill points.
Profession Equipment
You can buy the green-quality profession equipment on the Auction House and these are definitely worth picking up before you start gathering. You will want to replace your green equipment with the blue version later on. Once you have enough Artisan's Acuity, you can use the Crafting Order system to get the blue accessories.
| Tool – buy or craft with Deftness if your priority is gathering speed | Accessory 1 – these have fixed stats and always provide a Deftness increase | Accessory 2 – these don’t come with a Deftness bonus, but they increase Finesse, helping you gather more materials | |
|---|---|---|---|
 Herbalism | Proficient Sickle Artisan Sickle | Weavercloth Gardening Hat Artisan Gardening Hat | Gardener's Basket Stonebound Herbalist's Pack |
 Mining | Proficient Pickaxe Artisan Pickaxe | Bismuth Miner's Headgear Aqirite Miner's Headgear | Miner's Bismuth Hoard Miner's Aqirite Hoard |
 Skinning | Proficient Skinning Knife Artisan Skinning Knife | Hideseeker's Hat Deep Tracker's Cap | Hideseeker's Pack Deep Tracker's Pack |
Other Deftness Sources
| Darkmoon Firewater | Consumable granting +15% Deftness for 1 hour. Note that the buff is removed on death. |
| Phial of Enhanced Ambidexterity | Increases crafting speed and deftness by 5-15% depending on the quality. |
| Enchant Tool - Algari Deftness | You can enchant your gathering profession tool with this, however it may be expensive at the start of the expansion so you may not want to use this on the green-quality tools. |
| Racial Deftness Bonuses | Tauren have 25% increased Deftness for Herbalism, Highmountain Tauren have a 25% increase for Mining, and Worgen have a 25% increase for Skinning. |
| Profession Tree Nodes | There are several nodes in the gathering profession trees which increase Deftness. These nodes are spread throughout the trees, and some only apply to a specific type of herb or ore. |
Gathering While Mounted
Once you reach 25 skill in your profession, you can choose your first specialization. The below table shows how you can invest your knowledge points to enable mounted gathering.
| Specialization which allows mounted gathering | Knowledge Point investment needed | Profession Tree Example | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Herbalism | Botany | 40 | Herbalism Profession Calculator – Botany |
| Mining | Mining Fundamentals | 60 | Mining Profession Calculator – Mining Fundamentals |
| Skinning | Mounted Skinning is not possible | n/a | n/a |
Skyriding Vigor Gathering Bonus
Just unlocking the Botany/Mining Fundamentals trees gives a bonus of +1 Skyriding Vigor every time you gather a herb/ore. It may be a good idea to unlock these trees first just for that bonus, even if you don’t plan to invest knowledge points in them. That bonus used to come from the Dragonriding talents in Dragonflight, but it has been changed for The War Within, so you might find yourself often waiting for Vigor if you don’t unlock this tree early.