This guide provides an overview over the possible farming routes for Akunda's Bite and showcases how to farm it more effectively. It contains maps displaying optimal and alternative routes as well as talking about useful items that will increase your herb yield.
Table of Contents
General information and preparations
Akunda's Bite is one of the seven herb types that were introduced with the release of Battle for Azeroth. It functions as one of the base ingredients for many useful potions that are crafted quite frequently by the many alchemists supplying the current expansions raiding and mythic+ scene, making it always in demand. Since it is always in demand farming it can be quite lucrative and you should think about optimizing your strategies to obtain more of it during your sessions.
Akunda's Bite ranks
The first strategy to optimize your herb gathering sessions is to rank-up your herbalism skills. These are quite handy since they allow you to become more efficient in gathering herbs, therefore allowing you to pluck more herbs from one plant, which will yield a higher return in the long run. Notice, that you can always pluck, and for that matter gather, everything from the get-go in Battle for Azeroth, but Rank 2 and 3 will always be preferable.
There is one skill that is important to farm Akunda's Bite more efficiently: Akunda's Bite. It has three ranks that you should obtain immediately!
The Akunda's Bite skill
Increasing your Akunda's Bite skill will increase your herb yield after plucking the herb.
Rank 1 is learned from either Declan Senal (Alliance Herbalism trainer located in Boralus) or Jahden Fla (Horde Herbalism trainer located in Dazar'lor). It requires a BfA Herbalism level of 1.
Rank 2 is awarded to you by completing a quest chain starting with An Unusual Mentor (both Horde and Alliance) that can be accepted at your factions Herbalism trainer upon hitting a skill level of 50 in BfA Herbalism and having a character level of 120. The quest requires you to find Patu, an eccentric Tortollan, living in the dessert of Vol'dun (approximately located at 62, 25). This, however, can be bypassed by directly traveling to Patu, without having a character level of 120 – but the appropriate Herbalism skill. Doing so allows you to accept the quest Foul Harvest – and here is where it becomes tricky (at least for Alliance players). To complete the quest, you must acquire 12 Digested Akunda's Bite Seeds from the mobs around the quest giver. Only problem is, that those monsters are always at a level of 120 (at least for Alliance players, as certain monsters of the opposing faction's continent do not scale to the players level) making this quest quite hard to complete while being under leveled (this does not apply to Horde players). The follow-up quest Giving Back to Nature asks of you to plant and defend a newly planted Akunda's Bite herb. Alliance player will struggle with this quest too, since the monsters that spawn in waves are also at a level of 120. After successfully defending the herb, you will get your rank 2 technique.
Rank 3 comes from a rare drop that you will receive eventually while being out and about gathering Akunda's Bite. The item is called Fully Charged Lighting Pod and starts the quest What Happens Next (and will certainly shook you, quite literally – pun intended). All the quest asks for is to harvest 10 Akunda's Bite without being shocked while plucking it. If you are lucky, you can get the quest item early on, but you must hit a BfA Herbalism skill level of 145 to properly start the quest.
How to speed up farming
Maximizing your herb yield by increasing your Herbalism skills rank is a good start, but we can optimize our farming methods even further. Like every expansion Battle for Azeroth introduced a handful of nifty items and tools that will speed up your farming considerably. One of the following three items is advised to be bought from the auction house or, if possible, to be crafted for personal need:
- Monel-Hardened Stirrups are crafted by blacksmiths and allow you to gather herbs while being mounted (most useful as explained later).
- Monel-Hardened Hoofplates are crafted by blacksmiths and increase your mount speed by 20%.
- A Coarse Leather Barding is crafted by leatherworkers and prevent you from getting dazed by incoming attacks.
So, why do I advise using Monel-Hardened Stirrups in most cases? Well, one of the best-case scenarios is you using either a Paladin or Death Knight in their tank specialization. Why? Simply because they have an inherent 20% speed buff while being mounted making the Monel-Hardened Hoofplates obsolete as well as being not dazeable making the Coarse Leather Barding obsolete, too. Therefore, you can simply enjoy harvesting herbs while not having to dismount and giddy-up again saving you a lot of time during your farming sessions. This becomes even more powerful when combined with the ability to fly on Kul Tiras and Zandalar as you can harvest on the fly.
But there are two notable exceptions to this setup that should be discussed. These exceptions are either that you are playing a Druid or owning a Sky Golem. In these cases, I would advise you to use the Monel-Hardened Hoofplates as you already can harvest herbs while being mounted. And the only benefit you could apply to your setup would be to be faster while you farm, to cover more ground and therefore, potentially, end up with more herbs.
Another worthwhile addition to your herbalism setup is an enchanted pair of gloves. Depending on your faction you should either get Enchanted Gloves – Zandalari Herbalism or Enchanted Gloves – Kul Tiran Herbalism to speed up your herb plucking considerably. This speed-up results in lowering your gathering cast from 1.5 seconds down to 0.5 seconds – quite the decrease wouldn't you agree?
Farming Akunda's Bite in Vol'dun
Farming Akunda's Bite is a bit different than farming other herbs in Battle for Azeroth since it only grows in the dessert of Vol'dun.
One thing to remember while farming Akunda's Bite is to harvest every Anchor Weed you come across as it is the rare spawn of every herb in Battle for Azeroth.
The (once) best route
This route was considered the best route to farm Akunda's Bite. But due to its popularity you are very likely to run into some competition making it less profitable. Additionally, since flying was introduced with patch 8.2 the route might have become too short to really be viable as the herbs do not have enough time to properly respawn. Therefore, switching to another route while farming seems mandatory.
The alternative route
This route can and should be used to mix things up while farming Akunda's Bite. It serves as an alternation to allow other spots to respawn its herbs so you can continue gathering without wasting time.
The long route
This route is not very well known and covers the most ground as it encloses almost the complete dessert of Vol'dun. It takes longer to complete a lap but should allow you to gather more herbs in comparison to the other two routes.
Farm Akunda's Bite passively
Yes, you have read that right. You can farm herbs passively! How? Well, you just need to equip your followers with a Potion of Herb Tracking which is crafted by alchemists. It is quite pricey but rewards herbs on a regular basis upon completing a mission. Most of the time you will get around thirty to forty regular BfA herbs, but it is certainly possible to receive Anchor Weed infrequently.