Time is money, friend!
Greetings, travelers! We continue to talk about different WoW: Classic aspects. Today we will talk about one of the essential elements of Vanilla WoW – Gold Making and how it might work in the upcoming Classic. In this article, we will go through the basics of gold farming, talk about different approaches and discover some tips and tricks to make your gold farming efficient.
Classic WoW is all about efficiency, especially in the matter of money making. While in Battle for Azeroth and the previous expansions we got used to the gold as a fast moving currency that comes and goes easily, gold in WoW Classic actually matters. It is often earned through manual labor at a low rate, around 20 to 30 gold per hour at best. Looking at that rate, you will be spending a minimum of 30 hours of farming to reach a 900 gold milestone for an epic mount. Let alone learning all spells and abilities, riding training, buying consumables, repairs, etc. Buying a mount is one of the best things you can do for efficiency as it decreases your travel time.
Useful Addons
Many quite useful for gold making addons rely upon the game API, and knowing what sort of API functionality we will get from Classic is a quite important question. On the retail version of the game, players are long used to addons such as TradeSkillMaster, Auctionator, Auctioneer. Back in the days of Vanilla WoW, Auctioneer was actually the only auction house addon, and this raises questions in the community – should other add-ons even be present on Classic WoW, or would that work against the purpose of recreating the original game experience. There is no official position on this matter yet, so we’ll just have to wait and see how this plays out.
The Beginning – Create A Bank Alt
As many of you know the amount of bag space in Classic game is quite limited, and depending on your class, you may have to carry around some extra gear, arrows, and resistance gear, etc. Let alone having to carry various consumables, reagents and other stuff you need. Bags were much smaller than we used to have them nowadays, and every bag space counts. With no guild banks in play and much, much smaller storage space having a bank alt is going to be essential in WoW Classic.
Having bank alt was a common practice, players sent their stuff on them for a keeping or to sell on Auction House right away. For a bank alt pick a race/class combo that you would like to play sometime later. It takes around 1-2 hours for the mail to get from your main character to your alt, but if you don’t take the item on your alt, you can use the RETURN button to send the mail back to the main character instantly, without any delay. This along gives you additional repository for your items. Mail cap is 100, after which you can’t send mail to that character.
Another advantage of having a bank alt – learning crafting professions. For example, you take the gathering skills, such as Skinning and Mining on your main character and then you pick Leatherworking and Blacksmithing on your alt. We do not recommend to pick Mining and Herbalism at the same time for the simple reason – each of these gives a detection skill on the minimap, and switching between them might drive you crazy, or you will just miss nodes. It is better to handle one detection at a time, but if you think you can do both – nothing will stop you there. Since mailboxes are all over the place, you will be able to just send your gathered reagents to alt, freeing valuable bag space on main and having two crafting skills instead of one, all at once. The only disadvantage, in that case, is profession skill level – to get past 225 skill your character has to be at least level 35, which is why we suggest choosing a race/class wisely, so you may level up that character later on.
ALWAYS keep your alt character logged off in the Inn, as you gain rest XP at a faster rate there, the same tip goes for the main character. There is no cap on rested XP, so you can get multiple levels worth of Rested XP if your character stays logged off for a while, and that will come in handy once you decide to level your alt to advance in crafting professions.
Now let’s get to the gold making part, adventurers!
The Ways of Classic
These are four basic ways (and special bonus one) of money making in the World of Warcraft that will help you understand the process and get you started:
- Gathering and Farming – gather ore, herbs, leather, fish; loot items and gear;
- Crafting;
- Reselling – buy low, sell high;
- Controlling the Market;
- Buying gold from Overgear sellers.
Gathering and Farming
There are so many things to be gathered in the game – ore, leather, herbs, fish, linen, mageweave, gems, stones, etc. There is much gold to be made from all these reagents.
Gathering is a good way to begin money making. Just find resources to gather or to mine while leveling your character, especially if you are trained in skinning. Note to yourself – you cannot pass 225 skill mark in your professions until you are at least level 35.
A major tip here – you should always sell gathered items at the auction house and use your bank alts to make this process optimized. You should also try to find constant buyers for the mats, they are out there – just ask in the chat and keep your eyes open on the trade chat. That will keep your sales consistent and will save you some time needed to put mats on the AH.
Farming is more suitable for higher level characters (level 40-50+). Farming works around instance runs, killing named bosses multiple times, running dungeons again and again for the chance of getting a desired drop and farming mobs in different areas and spots.
That approach to making gold takes more time than a road of gathering, and the payoff might be higher, depending on the cost of different items at the auction. That means you can make a 20 gold in a day, or 100g, depending on what drops you get (which is random).
If you got something nice but you don’t know what it is worth, try to compare it with similar items and price accordingly. If you’re still not sure about it, we suggest putting the price you want as the base one and a much higher amount for the buyout 24-hour bid window. You should do this on the weekend, because during this time there are more people online and you will have a better chance to sell your items, otherwise you may just lose your money if your auction does not sell. Putting items for a bid costs quite a bit, so you should always keep your items in the bank until Friday/Saturday/Sunday. It is best to put them on the auction at the primetime, around 7 p.m. on a Friday evening with a 24-hour bid and repeat that on the next day. Advertising item in the trade chat might work as well. Good luck with your trades!
These are just a few things that you can farm in WoW Classic:
Spider Silk – from Spiders in Arathi Highlands (at level 35) or Stonetalon Mountains.
Arcane Crystals – needed for making Arcanite, these come from Thorium Veins and the best place is along the sides of the zone in southern Silithus. Alternatively, Un’goro Crater.
Disgusting Oozeling – drop from the green oozes in Felwood at Bloodvenom falls, just a little further south. Very low drop rate, very high gold. Second farming spot – cave north of the road, the very far east of Western Plaguelands.
Crusader Enchant – drop from Scarlet Mages at Tyr’s Hand (they also drop nice greens and cloth). It’s better doing this at level 60 or with a friend because the incoming damage can be quite big.
Righteous Orbs from Stratholme Cathedral or Scarlet side.
Chimaerok Tenderloin from level 60 chimeras in Isle of Dread, south of Feathermoon Island. Needed to cook the best tank food in Classic WoW.
Meat and Fish for hunters pets who require feeding.
Felcloth, from the Jadefire Satyrs (Jadefire Hellcaller, Jadefire Betrayer, Jadefire Trickster) who can be farmed for some other noteworthy drops as well: Demonic Rune, Corrupted Soul Shard, Runecloth, Major Healing Potion. Location – north-western Felwood. Another place to farm Satyrs is Azshara – Similar to Felwood, you will find another group of Satyrs known as the Legashi (Legashi Hellcaller, Legashi Satyr, Legashi Rogue). These enemies will drop the same items as their Jadefire brethren.
Raw Gold Farming
Early on after server launch, at the time when server economy is not yet developed to the point of being able to make effective trades on the auction house, it is a common practice to farm mobs and for items with somewhat high vendor values. The bats in Eastern Plaguelands (Plaguebat, Noxious Plaguebat, or Monstrous Plaguebat) are a good example.
Farming bats in this area will provide you these items:
Evil Bat Eye: These stack up to 10 in a bag slot and a max stack will vendor for 2 gold and 8 copper;
Large Bat Fang: These stack up to 10 in a bag slot and a max stack will vendor for 1 gold and 59 silver;
Sleek Bat Pelt: These stack up to 10 in a bag slot and a max stack will vendor for 1 gold and 21 silver;
Bat Ear: These stack up to 10 in a bag slot and a max stack will vendor for 83 silver.
Crafting
To start your gold making way in crafting you better have at least 10-20 gold ready to spend as start-up capital. For a while, around 150 skill points into crafting professions, you will lose money – items are not worth much or demand is not enough to make good cash. Higher level crafts, on the other hand, are the main source of income. There is money to be made – craft armor, potions, bags, shirts.
Tip for crafting professions – in need of supplies try to establish contacts with a constant supplier, just as we suggested for gatherers to find constant buyers. It is a very important part of a reliable income. It is also very attractive to the crafters as they can normally negotiate for materials to be cheaper than AH and so they have a constant supply to make their items.
The downside of crafting gold making is that at level 60 many crafted items will become obsolete.
Buying Low and Selling High
On this approach, we are getting into a more complex way of gold making. To follow this path you will need start-up capital, at least 10 gold.
The main idea is quite simple – you buy an item at a lower price than it is worth, and then you sell it for that higher price. Of course, getting an item at a lower price is the tricky part. To do this you will have to watch trade chat and filter WTS messages. Usually, these people want to sell their stuff right away, without waiting on AH. This is where you start negotiating, trying to get the item as low as it is possible, just make sure to always buy lower than you can sell it for. And thus comes the second part – watching the auction house to understand what is worth what, how quick you can sell it and get an idea of demands. If you see an item, and by watching the market you know it is up for less than it should be, buy it without second thoughts or someone will do it for you.
Once you got the item, just as we mentioned before, it is better to sell it at the AH on the weekend.
Controlling the Market
All prices here are reasonable
And this one is the most involving approach for gold making in WoW. You will need a good initial investment to start off and the case will revolve around having a monopoly on the market.
To make an example, let’s pick a Large Glimmering Shard that comes mainly from disenchanting blue items. Let’s say a stack of those is selling for one gold. To control the market of these shards you will have to buy out all of the large glimmering shards – every last one of them, and then go back and sell them for any price you decide to, as you are now the only supplier of this reagent. Let’s put them for the price of 2 gold per stack.
People may not accept the new price right away, and if someone puts them up for less, just buy them out. Sometime soon, people will start to accept that your price for a glimmering shard is now the main price on the market and will put them for that amount as well. All you have to do now is to sell off all of your shards for the price of 2 gold. You just made twice of what you invested in this operation.
Make sure not to go for more than double, do not be greedy. Control more than one market – whatever it is: fish, herbs, items. With the right mindset, you can control the market for the chosen level bracket, 40-50, for example. Buyout every item in the chosen level range, double the price. With items on demand, people will have no other choice but to accept the realities and buy from you.
Notes on the market control approach:
- Seeing the rise in price for some items people will decide to start selling this item as well – this always happens, and if there are too many people doing this, just abandon the market. Sell what is left, make profits and get it done.
- People will not like you for this approach. Monopolizing a market and taking a choice from people can get you a negative reputation, consider this and decide for yourself if this is the business you want to deal with.
- And finally, this approach takes a lot of time, as you have to manually check the auction house at least twice a day to control the prices and you may even prioritize it over leveling. You should also keep in mind that you cannot expect the worth to change right away, you must have patience and be prepared for at least a week of monitoring.
Other Gold Farming Tips
Now that you know the basics of the gold making, let’s take a look at tips that will help you save some gold, and get extra profit.
- Faction discounts apply to the flyers and trainers as well, so don’t be so quick to throw away newbie quests that you forget to complete – they help out to get reputation and save you some gold in the long run.
- Go Swimming – there are often chests at the bottom of lakes as well as mineral nodes that won’t show up on radar until you are submerged.
- Minimize Class and Profession training. You should only train what you actually use and need, don’t waste your money on other skills. This logic goes both for class skills and for profession training – if you can get away with some recipes that increase your profession skill, just do it.
- Save your money. Be smart and think twice before buying items from the Auction House. It is better to get upgrades from quests or from dungeons. Dungeons, at the same time, are source for gathering BoE items, recipes and BoP items that you will sell to a vendor for a good amount of money, or disenchant them.
Low-level Fishing Opportunities
Gathering up the fish that are needed by others to level their crafting professions, such as Oily Blackmouth, Firefin Snapper, and Stonescale Eel can provide a lot of gold.
The best way is to combine fishing with cooking and selling the cooked foods with stat increases rather than sell raw fish in the Auction House.
Vendor Purchased Recipes – Limited Supplies
“I have one of a kind items”
There is a large number of crafting recipes that are purchased from vendors throughout the world. Many players have no idea where these recipes come from and just purchase them off the auction house. Same goes for other limited supply items, so every time you see one – purchase it and list it on the AH for an increased price. Parking an Alt at some of these vendors will make gathering these recipes a lot easier.
Here is a list of some recipes (all of them are limited supplies):
Tailoring Patterns
Pattern: Mooncloth, Formula: Enchant Chest – Major Health and Pattern: Runecloth Bag are sold from Qia at Everlook in Winterspring (61,37). Enchanting formula and runecloth bag pattern are limited supplies and can be quite helpful to those leveling in that level range, as it requires easier materials compared to other crafts.
Pattern: Admiral’s Hat is sold by Cowardly Crosby found in the center of a Bloodsail camp on the southern shore of Stranglethorn Vale (26,82). Limited supply and you will have to kill the pirates in the camp.
Pattern: Pink Mageweave Shirt, Pattern: Lavender Mageweave Shirt and Pattern: Blue Overalls are sold from Borya near the Tailoring trainer in Orgrimmar and Outfitter Eric near the tailoring trainer in Ironforge. Limited supplies, the mageweave shirts are best sellers, so tailors will be looking for them.
Pattern: Tuxedo Shirt, Jacket, and Pants are sold by Millie Gregorian, near the tailoring trainer in Undercity or by Outfitter Eric from Ironforge.
Alchemy Recipes
Recipe: Elixir of Demonslaying is sold by Nina Lightbrew, Nethergarde Keep, the Watchtower (66,18) or Rartar, Swamp of Sorrows, you will find him in the Inn, on the second floor.
Recipe: Frost Oil – Bro’kin, Ruins of Alterac (38.39), on a wall at the north end of the ogre village.
Recipe: Frost Protection Potion is sold by Drovnar Strongbrew, Arathi Highlands or Glyx Brewright, Booty Bay (28,78), shop is called Boucher’s Cauldron.
Recipe: Great Rage Potion, Recipe: Superior Mana Potion and Recipe: Free Action Potion are all sold by Ulthir on the Alliance side or from Hagrus, Algernon and Kor’geld respectively for the Horde.
Recipe: Major Healing Potion and Recipe: Superior Healing Potion can be bought from Evie Whirlbrew at 60,37 in Winterspring.
Recipe: Nature Protection Potion and Recipe: Transmute Mithril to Truesilver are sold by Alchemist Pestlezugg, Gadgetzan.
Recipe: Shadow Oil is sold by Bliztik, in the Duskwood, or from Montarr, in Thousand Needles.
Leatherworking Patterns
Pattern: Green Leather Armor is sold by George Candarte or Wenna Silkbeard.
Pattern: Red Whelp Gloves is sold by Wenna Silkbea. Only Alliance players can buy this pattern, but then they can head over to Booty Bay neutral auction house and sell it there for a higher price to horde players.
Pattern: Heavy Scorpid Bracers, Pattern: Heavy Scorpid Helm are sold by Zannok Hidepiercer.
Pattern: Shadowskin Gloves , Pattern: Gem-studded Leather Belt are sold by Rikqiz.
Pattern: Raptor Hide Belt is sold by Androd Fadran for the Alliance and Pattern: Raptor Hide Harness is sold by Tunkk for the Horde.
Blacksmithing Plans
Plans: Golden Scale Coif are sold by Krinkle Goodsteel.
Plans: Mithril Scale Bracers are sold by Gharash, or Harggan.
Plans: Moonsteel Broadsword are sold by Zarena Cromwind.
Enchanting Formulas
Formula: Enchant Bracer – Deflection
Vendor: Banalash, Mythrin’dir.
Formula: Enchant Bracer – Lesser Strength
Formula: Enchant Chest – Lesser Mana
Formula: Enchant Shield – Greater Stamina
Vendor: Daniel Bartlett, Mythrin’dir.
Formula: Runed Arcanite Rod is sold by Lorelae Wintersong at Nighthaven in Moonglade (48,40). Limited supply, needed by enchanters in order to level up. This pattern can sell for quite a bit on the AH, so it is recommended to park an alt at this vendor.
Engineering Schematics
Schematic: Delicate Arcanite Converter is sold by Xizzer Fizzbolt at Everlook in Winterspring (60,38).
Schematic: Gnomish Cloaking Device
Vendor: Zan Shivsproket – NPC – World of Warcraft.
Schematic: Gnomish Universal Remote
Vendor: Gearcutter Cogspinner, Jinky Twizzlefixxit.
Conclusion
As you can see, farming gold in WoW classic has proven to be a hard and tedious task, and the last thing you want to do is burn yourself out trying to max out your gold per hour. Make sure to take breaks, go outside, stretch, eat, Netflix and chill, or just go do something fun in the game not associated with farming. Value your time, because it can not be bought with gold.
Overgear will save you a bunch of time that you would can rather spend on yourself than on hours upon hours of gold grinding even for a first mount, let alone for an epic one. With the release of WoW Classic, you will be able to safely buy gold directly from the players with no additional fees using Overgear platform. Stay tuned for more news, and remember, we are always here to help you out with any task. See you in Azeroth!
If you find leveling to tedious, you can always find a help at Overgear.
