Table of Contents
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Some Considerations Before We Begin
- 3. Playing the Auction House: Turning a Lot of Gold into Even More
- 4. Farming: Turning Blood, Sweat, and Tears into Sweet, Sweet Cash
- 5. Or, You Can Just Play the Damn Game
Introduction
In this guide, I’m going to be guiding you through how to make gold in WoW. Since the changes in Battle for Azeroth, it has become significantly harder to make gold. If you are on a high population server like I am, it is even more difficult. However, there are still some decent ways to make gold. One thing to note is that this is by no means an exhaustive list, there are several ways I am not mentioning that could net you better results depending on the circumstances. These are simply some ways that I have used over the years and continue to use now to make money.
Things to consider when making gold
You will want to consider whether your main characters are on a High, Medium, or Low Population server.
Auction Houses are generally more prone to manipulation if you are on a medium or low pop server, and high population servers are generally regarded as the worst places to make money due to the economy being flooded with so many suppliers.
You should also consider how many alts you have running on the servers you want to make money on. If you have a lot of max level alts, there are more options open to you than if you just had one main character.
Certain classes, like Monks, are also more highly desired by farming groups, so that might be a good option if you have one of those you like to play.
Playing the Auction House: Turning a Lot of Gold into Even More
Most of the popular gold-gaining strategies are going to be centered around the auction house. In Battle for Azeroth, I separate this into 3 different categories: sniping, flipping, and crafting.
Sniping (Risk: High) is when you use AddOns to tell you when a certain item has been posted on the auction house for much lower than it normally is posted. You then buy the item, then repost it for closer to the normal amount. Some things you should consider are:
- – How in demand is this item? Will it be sitting up on the auction house for days or weeks before it sells? Will it even sell?
- – Is the normal price inflated due to the fact no one really sells this item?
- – Is this an item people can get from other sources (e.g. a vendor) and that’s why it is showing up?
Generally, sniping is a knowledge game. It’s about knowing what really is a good steal and what is just a number being thrown at you by an AddOn.
Flipping (Risk: Medium) is when you take an entire stock of inventory of an auction house, buy it all, then repost it for higher, essentially setting a new price for that item. Obviously, this takes a lot of starting gold to pull off. You should also make some considerations before doing a flip:
- – How many items am I going to have to buy to flip?
- – How in demand are these items? Will I have to re-post them multiple times?
- – How much supply is there for this item? Will I flip this only for the price to go back down within a few hours?
Again, flipping is a lot about knowing when and where to strike. Generally, if you see a small amount of in-demand items going for below the average price, that is a good time to buy them up and put them back up for higher than average. I put flipping under Medium Risk, but really it is more about the fact that you need decent starting capital to pull it off. Really, the risk is rather low, because as long as you are buying for the average price or lower, you are going to make your money back.
Lastly comes probably the biggest part of the Auction House – crafting (Risk: Medium). You see tons of mods and guides about what to craft and how to make money by buying materials for an item, crafting it, then posting on the auction house for a hefty profit. If you are on a high population server – forget about it. There is a good chance that the actual crafted item sells for less than the materials because so many people have had the same idea.
In Battle for Azeroth, there are several Bind on Pickup materials, including Expulsom, Hydrocore, and Sanguicell that are also materials for many professions. These are a decent way to make gold if you happen to have a stock of them. Expulsom and Hydrocore are used in a lot of professions for crafting BoE epics as of 8.1, and Sanguicells are used for crafting high level food that will surely be used by raiders and Mythic+ goers.
Farming: Turning Blood, Sweat, and Tears into Sweet, Sweet Cash
Probably one of the most reliable but mind numbing ways to make some gold is farming. There are several farms that you can partake in, some being for previous expansion content, some for current expansion materials and cosmetics.
The 2×4 farm (Effort: High) is something that a lot of people are getting used to seeing by now.
How it works is that 2 groups of 4 form in an area with a high respawn rate of mobs, typically with a rare drop (like a mount). 4 people in the first group can tag the mob, and one person from the 2nd can tag it and both groups can safely get loot from that mob.
This bypasses the 5 person limit that normally exists for tagging mobs, and is a good way to get 8 people all tagging and killing mobs at a much higher rate.
These farms are a good source of BoE items, which can usually be sold to a vendor, disenchanted, or sold to people in trade chat. They are also usually a good source of cloth, and if you are on a tailor with cloth scavenging, even more so.
The hope is that a BoE epic or a BoE mount will drop during your farm, netting you a significant source of gold when you sell it. Brewmaster Monks are usually in high demand for these due to Ox Statue being very good for grouping mobs together, and good tagging classes like Druids, Hunters, and casters are also useful.
Herb/Ore farming (Effort: High) is the same as it always has been. Running around clicking herbs and ore nodes on the map and selling or crafting things to sell with them.
Pretty self explanatory, though I will say that the ratio of time spent to gold earned has gone significantly down since the start of the expansion.
With the new changes to Anchor Weed being much more readily available, it is no longer a cash cow to farm. It still gives a respectable amount of gold if you can stand running around clicking for hours.
One thing that has changed is that gathering gives a decent chunk (about 1/10th of a quest) of XP per gather, which is affected by rested experience. Good way to get more bang for your buck!
Transmog farming (Effort: Medium) (Risk: Medium) is one of my new favorite ways to farm.
There are two ways to approach transmog farming: you can go specifically for high value BoE items people use for transmog and list them on the auction house, or you can blitz through more recent content that is still soloable and vendor all of the items you get.
While transmog is certainly valuable, you need a large (very, very large) stock of items to really feel like you are making any progress. Many items will be posted multiple times before they are actually sold. That is why I particularly enjoy the second route.
Running raids from Cataclysm, Mists of Pandaria, Warlords of Draenor, and (possibly) Legion are relatively short, and net a decent chunk (usually 1.5-2.5k gold/run) of gold.
While the runs can be lengthy on classes without mobility, doing it with a Demon Hunter or Monk can drastically cut down the time it takes to get between each boss.
Or, You Can Just Play the Damn Game
Currently, gold World Quests rewards anywhere from 120-400 gold. Gold Emissaries reward 2000 for completing 4 world quests.
Bonus caches (the ones you receive when you go 10,000 rep past exalted) give 4000 gold. The average BoP item vendors for over 50 gold, and sometimes scraps into materials that sell for more.
Getting out there and just playing the game is bound to net you a decent chunk of cash, especially when you do these activities on multiple characters.
I know it sounds kind of hokey and one of the last things you want to hear on a ‘gold guide’, but you will be surprised how much gold you make if you stop worrying about how you’re going to make gold and just…play the game.
So, there you have it. It’s not the best time in WoW to make gold by the truckload, and people are still struggling to find good ways to build up their gold reserves or buy the elusive Longboi Auction House mount.
Blizzard have shown that they aren’t really interested in giving us the free pass that was the Legion Order Hall gold missions again, so unless you’re ready to put in some serious time or make some serious Auction House plays, you’re going to have to settle for slow and steady.
Are there gold making strategies you’ve found that work better than any of the ones I listed?
