This guide provides an overview over the possible farming routes for Winter's Kiss 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
Winter's Kiss 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.
Winter's Kiss 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 Winter's Kiss more efficiently: Winter's Kiss. It has three ranks that you should obtain immediately!
The Winter's Kiss skill
Increasing your Winter's Kiss 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 short quest chain starting with Meet Sweetflower (both Horde and Alliance) that can be accepted at your factions Herbalism trainer upon reaching a skill level of 50 in BfA Herbalism. The quest requires you to find Xun Xun Sweetflower living in the outskirts of Anyport (approximately located at 20, 45) in Drustvar. She offers the follow-up quest Can't Teach on an Empty Stomach that requires you to bring her 7 Lane Snapper that can either be fished up around Anyport or bought directly from the auction house. Now, as of 8.2.5, Meet Sunflower is not a prerequisite anymore to accept the follow-up quest Can't Teach on an Empty Stomach, so you can travel directly to Anyport and complete her quest when having the appropriate Herbalism level.
Rank 3 comes from a rare drop that you will receive eventually while farming Winter's Kiss. The item is called The Frigid Boon and starts the same-named quest The Frigid Boon. To complete it you must gather 10 Winter's Kiss without taking any cold damage. If you are lucky, you can get the quest item early on (very unlikely, as many people reported horrible drop rates), but you must hit a BfA Herbalism skill of 145 to 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 Winter's Kiss
Winter's Kiss can usually be found in any snow-covered area on Kul Tiras but only Drustvar and Tiragarde Sound are worthwhile zones to farm in. Drustvar is the superior zone to farm in as it has double the amount of possible spawn nodes for Winter's Kiss as Tiragarde Sound has.
Farm Winter's Kiss in Drustvar
Drustvar is the best zone to farm Winter's Kiss in as it is mostly covered by snow. It has 456 possible node spawns that are ripe for your gathering. In the following sections, I will show you a few viable routes to follow while farming!
Route 1: The complete one (suitable for flying and longer farming sessions)
This route is suitable for longer farming sessions as it covers the most ground in Drustvar. On this route you will not only find Winter's Kiss but most other herbs too, including Riverbud, Siren's Pollen, Sea Stalk, Star Moss and their rare spawn Anchor Weed. If you are only interested in Winter's Kiss check out the routes 2-6.
Route 2: The best route to farm Winter's Kiss
On this route you will most likely only come across Winter's Kiss and its rare spawn Anchor Weed. It is THE definitive route to farm Winter's Kiss as it covers most of the snowy areas of Drustvar – and since you should be able to fly now on Kul Tiras, it is the one I advise the most.
Route 3
This route covers a small part of route 2 and should only be used when you have little to no time as it does not cover enough ground to be worthwhile. But if you are around the area anyway to do some world quests then check it out to get at least some herbs. Horde beware, as it goes straight through the Alliance base of operations.
Route 4
This route covers the lower portion of route 2 and functions as a nice alternative for it if you do not have unlocked flying yet. It is a nice alternative for Horde players too, who struggle with route 3 as this route do not go through the Alliance's base.
Route 5
This route is not particularly good to farm Winter's Kiss, as it has way too few snowy areas, but is certainly nice to follow while waiting for your m+ group to arrive to best Waycrest Manor.
Route 6
The last route is in here just for completions sake. You will only find Winter's Kiss around Gol Koval, but certainly will obtain a few different herbs along your path. It is not the route I advise you to follow to specifically farm Winter's Kiss.
Farm Winter's Kiss in Tiragarde Sound
Tiragarde Sound must be considered as an alternative to the routes in Drustvar when overfarmed by bots or other players. If you have not unlocked flying yet, you will certainly run into some mob packs that will slow down your herb yield – especially the local yetis.
Farm Winter's Kiss 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.