The year was 2014, six years ago today that I dipped my toes into making gold in the popular MMO World of Warcraft, for years I played the game with the desire to get all the cool things, but I could never quite afford some of them. I would try to run old dungeon and sell clothing that other players could wear called “transmog,” and after they didn’t sell id throw them to the vendor in a fit of rage, saying that gold-making was impossible. I was a bit naive, and impatient.
Flash forward to today, I’ve bought not only myself a brutosaur, but I also helped my girlfriend buy hers as well. I’ve given away millions of gold in giveaways for over three different guilds I’ve been in, I’ve bought my friends plenty of blizzard games, paid for their subs, and not once have I ever felt like I didn’t have what I needed. I make more then enough.
It’s taken years of patience and understanding of the markets, but not everyone has time for that, so I’ve come here with a simple guide to making gold for someone who might be new to the game, or just looking to get their sub for free with the WoW Token.
I recently took on Octoberly’s #1WeekWoWToken gold making challenge and it helped open my eyes a bit on what it takes to get started making gold on a server. For me, i’ve always started by selling pets, but this challenge I had to take a different approach. With a fresh 120, I had to accumulate enough gold in a week to buy a token, without outside help from other toons. You can find the rules on her twitter here.
Challenge 1: Dabigboom, 120 Troll Druid on Thrall-US
This first challenge was relatively easy because I had lucky drops, but I’ll go ahead and touch base with what I did, that anyone can pick up and do regardless of skill or gear! I farmed a lot of leather, and a lot of cloth.
A few simple farms I found that worked really well with this, were Karazhan, Firelands, and Ruby Sanctum. Each one of these zones offers a wonderous amount of loot in trade goods. While I had always learned that transmog was a good market, trade goods is where the REAL gold is at. Often times these crafting mats will move at a much faster rate then you can expect the fashion pieces to sell. In Karazhan, you simply break off to the right at the entrance, ignore the spiders and go back to the hounds and bats. You pull them together, pop a darkmoon firewater, and spam skin all of the mobs.
In Karazhan, you will recieve knothide leather by the bucket loads! You also have a small chance at some transmog, and some of the most sought for recipes for Burning Crusade crafting, such as the Felsteel Reaper & Longblade. After you’ve hit instance cap, you can either sell the knothide leather outright, or have it crafted into Heavy Knothide Leather which was more lucrative on my server.
After Karazhan, I hopped on over to Ruby Sanctum. Here you pull all the trash, except the mini bosses, skin and reset. Here there is transmog, recipes for shirts, artic fur, and borean leather that can be crafted into Heavy Borean Leather.
Finally, in Firelands, you can use the Treasure Finding Potion, from which I purchased off the Auction House, to get extra trade goods from what you’re killing. My path here was pulling the entire front area first, then pulling the beasts on the right of the entrance. After I skinned the mobs, I’d pop out and reset.
The final farm i’d recommend, and that may still exist going into Shadowlands, is the current content 2x4 hyperspawn farms. You see them all the time under the LFG Custom channel. It is a great source for Tidespray, so make sure you are a tailor. One of the perks of being a tailor is you get extra cloth drops from humanoids, so it makes doing the farm that much more lucrative. The current ones also have a chance at mount drops, which is how I completed my first #1WeekWoWToken Challenge!
Challenge 2: Dezzorae, 1 Blood Elf Monk on Wryrmest Accord-US
This time, I did the challenge starting at level 1. I put in an excessive amount of time the first few days leveling, but in the end, I exceeded my goal with flying colors! I learned a few things along the way that I think are important to new gold makers.
- Just because the price is lower, doesn’t mean you should undercut. After just 1–2 days of watching the market values and the price change, I knew what people would pay for certain materials. I would buy some that I thought were priced to low, or just outright ignore some prices all together. The big thing here is, patience. Everything sold, eventually, for the price I thought was reasonable!
- Raw Gold Farming is a great way to start out on a new server. Getting yourself some liquid to invest, and to just have in your bags is GREAT for motivation. The 2x4 farms did a great job for this selling greys/greens, but so did Normal Skyreach farming. These are both farms you can do mindlessly while watching netflix.
- Do not start with transmog farming. One thing that I wish I knew early on gold making: For every 1000 transmog auctions you post, 10 will sell. That is the average, and it is very poor, underwhelming, and discouraging for someone trying to get into gold making. Instead, focus on something else that can get you gold quickly, and transmog can come along the way when you want to fluff up what you’re posting.
- Professions matter! Skinning/Mining/Herbalism are all great ways to make gold. Tailoring is incredibly helpful for picking up additional cloth, and any other crafting profession will create gear that can be sold even now, at the end of a drought. People are lazy, and will buy gear. Just craft away!
- Don’t rely on the big drops, instead, find that niche market that works for you, that you don’t get sick of doing. I found the 2x4s and the Silithus Transmog farms to be very relaxing, but in those, I’m going for Tidespray and Runecloth instead of the mounts and transmogs, because they are reliable!
- Do something you find fun. When you get bored, you tend to lose focus, and give up on the idea all together. I’ve had instances where I get to a farm, and I left within a minute because I just found it dull. Everyone has their likes and dislikes, identify them, and do what you enjoy! For me, I love spots that I can mindlessly farm without being too engaged. As I’ve written this, I’ve been farming runecloth in Silithus!
It took me six days to achieve 140,000 gold on Wyrmrest Accord, after hitting 120 in only three days. I used the tips above, as well as the methods from my first challenge to achieve this goal. I’d say, if you really want a toon for gold making, a Boomkin or a Brewmaster Monk are your best bets as well, due to the incredible utility they bring to farming groups. Additionally, Demon Hunters are great for raids due to their speed.
Gold Making isn’t something that happens overnight. Becoming a millionaire doesn’t happen in a day in real life either! You have to find those little niches, markets, farm spots and grinds that maintain your confidence and spirits, and I have found that it’s a lot easier to really dig in if you focus on what you find exciting. If you’re doing something you don’t like, you get bored easily, and you give up. If at a point, farming feels like a job and not something you do for fun, maybe hang up your cape for the night, and don’t burn yourself out! For more guides in the future, you can follow me on twitter! @LucariotheRogue
