Herbalism Path: Why we all hate it

Herbalism has to be the most time consuming skill to acquire in game today. Alongside with animal lore it is equally as frustrating. With almost 77 different herbs in the game and only a small number of recipes to make that glorified flux, you would think twice about being the herbalist of a clan/guild.

But why do we all choose the path of a carpenter, a smithy or even a builder over the herbalist position?

Here's my answer: Herbalism is the most time consuming skill to master in Life is Feudal. First off, in reality you need to max out natures lore, this will allow you to spot pristine herbs and high quality herbs on tiles surrounding you. Now, imagine grinding to get level 90 or 100 in natures lore: Gathering wild plant fibers until your eyes are sore or stare at the ground and search for herbs until you manage to even reach 80.

It is recommended that you level up to level 90-100 natures lore because the more you level up the more herbs are visible on surrounding tiles. The next step is to then max out gathering. That's right, you need to either gather herbs which 60% of the time will be a failed attempt due to you not having level 30+ in gathering OR you run around the forest soil and gather mushrooms and berries. however there is good news here: Once you hit level 30 you can start collecting herbs properly with very little failures. Now start collecting as much herbs as your sanity can handle. In about 3-4 hours you should have an inventory absolutely littered in all kinds of herbs.

Now comes the best part (sarcasm), you need to get a mortar and pestle to grind them herbs up now. Since you have an inventory full of herbs now, find doubles and start stacking them and if you find say 5 of each and mix them you can now just keep mixing to cancel them out: This will level you quickly to at least 30 if you do it with 2-3 different pairs of herbs. So, you've hit level 60 herbalism? Cool, keep leveling it up, the higher level you are the most flux recipes you can gather.

So look where you are now, at least 5-6 hours into the game depending on skill multipliers obviously: You are sitting with a boat load of mixtures that aren't of any use, you have a lot of herbs left just from the grind. you are level 90 herbalism with no flux, maybe some naptha or food flavor, but no flux yet. Here comes the really fun part: Find all the herbs that have at least 2 unknown outcomes or herbs that have not been used for grinding. Start matching them up and as soon as you find your first flux record the name of the herbs used.  Now do that when you find other flux recipes.

See how annoying and time consuming it is?

However, if you manage to find a better way to find flux and manage to output more than is suggested here then please; share it here and prove that herbalism isn't annoying. There are people who enjoy finding flux, I'm not saying you'r doing it wrong or anything but you are going be one of the most valuable players in this game.