Introduction:
Since gathering herbs and ores is new to Maplestory (introduced on July 11th, 2011) I am going to do my best to get everybody up to speed with the basics. Please note that plants are what you harvest herbs from, and veins are what you harvest ores from.
There are 5 professions you can pick from, and they are split into 2 separate types:
Collecting and
Creating. In the harvesting section, you can pick between harvesting herbs (which give you flowers and seeds), or harvesting veins (which give you ores and jewels).
Collections:
-Mining is the professional term for ore and jewel collecting.
-Herbalism is the term used to describe those who collect herbs.
Creations:
-Alchemists can create many different types of potions.
-Smithing is used to create new and powerful weapons.
-Jewel Crafting is great for creating all kinds of accessories, from rings and belts to facial pieces and more.
After mining and crafting enough times, your herbalism and alchemy skill levels will be able to be raised. You can also level up the creation professions (alchemy, smithing, jewel crafting) through enough practice. In order to level a profession up, you will need to go back to Ardentmill and talk to the master of the profession you are ready to upgrade. Each time you level up a skill, it will cost more mesos. Here is a breakdown of the cost of leveling up professions:
Level 1-2: 1000 mesos
Level 2-3: 5000 mesos
Level 3-4: 25,000 mesos
Some random tips:
It seems to take around 5 minutes for plants to come back after you collect them. The type of plant doesn't seem to be bound to one area (in other words, new plants will appear in the same place). Sometimes when you collect herbs, you will get Herb Roots in your etc item tab. If you collect 100, you can bring them to Ardentmill (Crafting Town) to trade in for a pouch that goes into your use tab. You can then open your pouch to receive a certain amount of flowers/seeds (and I assume if you bring broken ore pieces you would get some random ores). I just tested this by bringing in 100 roots of my own, and I receieved 7 Saffron flowers. You get a different kind of pouch when you pick your mining profession, and this pouch can be used to store 4 ores or 4 herbs, depending which profession you picked.
Some more helpful tips:
You can only mine/extract herbs for a certain amount of time at once. After too much, your character will get too fatigued to do any more. To cure this, it seems all you have to do is stand still and rest. You can check your current level of fatigue (and your mastery - the amount of points you need to level up your skill) by pressing the B button, by default. If you have a skill currently on your B button, you can find the professions button in your key settings and put it on whatever key you want.
You can harvest once every 3-5 seconds, and your fatigue level is 100. That means you can mine 100 times before you get too tired to mine for anything else. By my own estimate, it seems to take about an hour to restore 10 points of fatigue, so if you are hunting for something in specific, check the guide below so you don't end up wasting all your energy. I have also heard rumour of being able to spend 1,000,000 mesos to restore your fatigue level to 0 instantly, but I haven't personally verified this. I assume if this is possible, it would be available in Ardentmill, the crafting town, which has portal access through most towns.
Locations:
Pretty much everywhere. Find any map that isn't in a town and it's basically bound to have a variety of herbs (and veins) for you to harvest. As stated above, when herbs come back after being harvest, the type of herb will generally change.
Aquamarine Herb - Tea Tree Seed
Black Herb - Patchouli
Emerald - Lemon Balm, Peppermint
Gold Herb - Jasmine Flower & Jasmine Seed
Magenta Herb - Lavender
Purple Herb - Juniper Berry Seed & Rose Clipping (non-stackable)
Silver Herb - Marjoram Flower & Marjoram Seed (Common use: Healing potions)
Ore Harvest List:
Aquamarine Ore, Diamond Ore - Aquamarine Vein
Dark Crystal Ore, Black Crystal Ore - Black Vein
Dex Crystal Ore, Emerald Ore - Emerald Vein
Gold Ore, Topaz Ore - Gold Vein
Orihalcon Ore, Amethyst Ore - Magenta Vein
Wisdom Crystal Ore, Luk Crystal Ore - Purple Vein
Power Crystal Ore, Garnet Ore - Red Vein
Silver Ore, Opal Ore - Silver Vein
Update: I found two more veins to the right side of New Leaf City in "Masteria - Krakian Jungle Basin". Maybe locations do play a role in this after all.
Bronze, Adamantium - Brown Vein
Steel, Sapphire - Blue Vein
