Tobold's Blog: Best places to farm gold

Thursday, February 23, 2006

Best places to farm gold

I used to farm gold in World of Warcraft with Raslebol some months ago in the graveyard of the Scarlet Monastery, following the advice of one reader. Now I went there with Kyroc, to see if I could do the same with my priest, and found that the drop rates there have been nerfed. Even with disenchanting the magic items from there, I couldn't even make half the money that I used to. So now I'm looking for better places to make money.

One good way to make money is to kill Toxic Horrors in Felwood for Essence of Water, or Dust Stormers in Silithus for Essence of Air. Unfortunately the Toxic Horrors are horribly overcamped. The Dust Stormers are harder to kill, at least with my warrior, due to their lightning shields. I'll have to see if that is easier with the ranged attacks of my priest. Essence of Fire can be gathered from the fire elemental in the middle of Un'Goro, where I could also get Hearts of Fire, which can be transmuted into Elemental Fire, which then makes greater fire protection potions, which sell well. The disadvantage of all these methods is that you farm items which are only valuable to other players, not to NPC vendors. So if you or others overdo it, you saturate the market and the prices for the essences on the AH drop.

Many people recommend Hearthglen in the western plaguelands for farming gold. The Scarlet Spellbinders there not only drop runecloth, but you also have a small chance to "win the lottery" and find a formula to enchant weapon: crusader, which sells for several hundred gold pieces. I haven't tried it yet, as I never win in lotteries anyway, and I've heard the place is overcamped as well. I also never camped Tyr's Hand in the eastern plaguelands, but I heard the place was so popular that it already got nerfed by Blizzard in patch 1.8.

Killing high level humanoids for runecloth is still a good way to make money, even if the prices for Runecloth dropped again after all the bandages for the war effort had been collected. The bloodelves in Azshara have a decent drop rate. Another possibility would be the Legashi satyrs in the same zone, which drop both runecloth and felcloth. Although the felcloth only really pays if you transform it into mooncloth, and you can only do that once every 4 days.

Everybodies favorite humanoids to kill are ogres, because they are too dumb to run away or call their mates. The highest level ogres are found in Deadwind Pass, between Duskwood and the Swamp of Sorrows. They don't drop anything real special, but the usual mix of runecloth, grey garbage, with the occasional magic item thrown in.

Of course there are other ways to make money than farming. Raslebol has a steady income from buying Essence of Undeath for 3 to 5 gold, transmuting them first to Essence of Water, then to Essence of Air, and selling those for 13 to 15 gold. That is 5 gold per day, but only requires a minute every day.

With a lot more time and knowledge needed, you can play the auction house, buying underpriced items and selling them for more. But that obviously works well only if you are the only one doing it. There is a considerable risk nowadays that the prices have already been driven up so high that you only lose money on the AH fees. Unless of course you trade only in items that are free to put up for auction, like enchanting supplies. But the prices for those are pretty much stable, and it is hard to find underpriced shards to buy.

So farming gold is still the main source of income for most people. What is your favorite place to earn money in World of Warcraft?
- posted by Tobold @ 7:53 AM Permanent Link

Comments:

Before my break from WoW (well needed indeed!), I used to "farm" the legashi satyrs on early Saturday and Sunday mornings (from 8am to 10am). That would net me felcloth and runecloth, I was also looking for demonic runes though for my Dreadstead quest. So I had more that gold to be there.

But that place was camped. I only hunted there in the mornings as most serious WoW players hadnt yet awoken, probably as they only stopped playing a few hours ago ;). From 10am onwards people turned up in their droves to campe for felcloth.

Now I'm back, and looking at my small pile of gold I'm also wondering how best to expand it. I'm so out of touch with the game now I have no clue where to go anymore :P

So if you get some good tips, pass some my way mate. :)

# posted by

Wivelrod : 23/2/06 13:21

Ironically, and I know it's rather ineffecient and inconsistent, my favorite place/way to earn money is by running/doing instances. A fast run, say a decent Strat Raid - Baron or Scarlet, has a good chance at netting you some items and coin. I ran a fast Baron Raid last weekend (ran as in put it together and was ML for) that net me Plaguebat Fur Gloves (I had the highest roll for those without a blue), a pair of green bop +20 shadow res cloth gloves, 2-3 large brilliant shards, and a 5.7g green 2h weapon I vendored. That's not including gray drops I sold, coin I made, Argent Dawn reputation I earned, some runecloth, and scourgestones I got. For only 1.5-2 hours work, that was a good haul.

One trick is to be greedy and stick around for all of the loot distribution. A lot of people leave after they win their first item. By sticking around, especially if there's a lot of loot, you tend to get a lot of items, sometimes as many as 3-4 things from a single raid. You can DE greens or sell them on the AH. You can pick up enchanting and crafting supplies. In a 10-man, you usually end up with at least 2 items if you're patient.

Again, I know this is rather ineffecient overall and inconsistent too. Still, it gives me a chance at blues and tends to line my pockets without requiring me to farm the same pack of enemies for hours on end. I hate farming. With a passion.

# posted by

Anonymous : 23/2/06 13:35

A priest (D/H talents, mixture of T1/T2 equipment) in my guild farmed for his epic mount by entering Uldaman through the back door, killing the boss and disenchanting the drops (in order to sell them in the AH later). Afterwards he would invite someone from the guild in order to reset the instance and do the same thing again. He said he made 20 G per hour (which of course depends on the market price for the shards on your server).

Thanks for the tip with the "essence transmutation chain". I will try out whether that works on my server too. Currently I'm making money by transmuting Arcanite Bars, but with this I only gain 3-5 G each second day.

# posted by

Anonymous : 23/2/06 18:32

Just a mild warning that there are rules in place governing the number of same instances you can create/go in per hour. I don't know the exact rule, I just know that it can be prohibitive on repeatedly farming the same instance in a relatively short time frame.

Also, a friend of mine (60 Warlock in T1/epic gear) used to farm the Stone Guardians in Un'Goro (~58 elites) for guardian stones to sell on the AH (~5g ea). I don't necessarily recommend this though because the enemies are rather tough to kill and the drop rate isn't the best, especially as compared with the time it takes to kill one of these mobs.

# posted by

Anonymous : 23/2/06 18:59

You can't beat the twilight cultists in Silithus imo. They go down fast, don't hit that hard and drop plenty of silver and other stuff like runecloth and major healing potions, with there being 4 camps and a relatively high respawn rate there is little to no competition either. Also if you get a duoing partner you can do some summonings which always drop a green item and sometimes a blue.

If you can get more than 5 you could try to summon a few dukes which drops much better items, if you can get your hands on a leather or mail "of striking" leg piece you are looking at 100g there.

Not to mention you get rep with Cenarion Circle which is gonna be handy for AQ. Also I find the area fun. The only thing it is missing is the occasional treasure chest.

If you aren't playing Rasebol anymore you may as well go MS or Fury spec and tool him up for farming properly, if you go with the 31/5/15 build you can still tank without much/any problems. Most of the Warriors in my guild have this spec and we are up to Nefarion.

I have tricks with the AH that work but am reluctant to make them public, your site is getting too popular for that lately and I could end up shooting myself in the foot ;)

# posted by

Anonymous : 23/2/06 20:54

Regardind AH tricks, the problem is that they rely on nobody else having the same idea. For example I *did* think of buying nature resist gear and selling it later, but so had a couple of other people, and I got outbid on everything. On the older servers like mine, there are few people left that are clueless enough to offer things way below price on the AH, and if they do, there are lots of people wanting to buy cheap and resell at a profit.

Transmuting essences works relatively reliably, because you need two alchemy recipes that not everybody has. The undeath to water recipe is a rare drop, while the water to air recipe is sold by a caer darrow ghost, which is only visible after doing a Scholomance quest series in 5-man mode. But still any repeated trade in essences or other rare goods risks to flood the market and ruin the prices.

Killing mobs that drop silver, runecloth, and the occasional green item is a more reliable way to earn money. If the mob you farm also gains you reputation with some faction, its an added bonus.

# posted by

Tobold : 24/2/06 09:23

One of the easiest ways to make a couple extra gold a day is to be a rogue and lvl up your lockpicking. Took me an hour and ahalf to get from 125 lp to 300. Most high level lock boxes require 275 lp and the doors to strat, back door scholo, and the locked doors in DM all require 300 lp. I've had people pay me for opening doors for them, and can make a couple gold an hour opening boxes in IF. And once in a while there is that one really rich guy who gives you 50g for 2 seconds of lockpicking :)

# posted by

Anonymous : 17/5/06 19:22

As Johnny said, you can't beat the Twilight Cultists in Silithus. I mean, how can you? I think they're all 58-60 elites but they go down fast. Each one has about a 10% chance to drop an Encrypted Twilight Text, which goes for 1g-2g on my server. If you don't want to sell them, 10 gets you big rep with Cenarion Circle. Also, each mob drops 3-5 runecloth, and stacks up fast. Good for getting bandages and gold. They also drop the Twilight Cultist set. You can sell these for 50s apiece (they drop from like every 4th mob) or you can summon dukes etc. and earn 100g+ from blues that drop and 10g+ for the greens that drop. They drop a decent amount of silver per kill as well. As for me, I farmed that place on my friends mage for 2 hours and came up with 250 gold. I would highly recommend farming it.

# posted by

Anonymous : 11/7/06 21:39

250gold is bullshit, lol, come on don't lie. I don't know what server you play on but thats just insane. Oh, and 10+g for greens, I don't think so, and 100+g for blues? No freakin' way from what I have found there. Stop kidding yourself, you are those players that sell lvl20 Blue BoE's for 75+g, get over yourself.

P.S. I dont know anything that will get you 200g in 2hrs.

# posted by

Anonymous : 6/9/06 21:02

It is possible, very possible.

The Lords you can summon in Silithus, drop some insane equipment that sell for a very high price on the AH, try it one day.

# posted by

Anonymous : 6/10/06 05:33

The Twilights drop on average 12 silver each. They have around 3.8-4k health (depending if you kill the Cultists or Avengers). Runecloth is 1-3 with a fairly low drop rate. The texts is what you're after - I'm on a old server and they go for 80s each. 2 Hours at one of the bases, solid grinding will get you atleast 40-50 texts. GL guys farming!

# posted by

Anonymous : 8/10/06 12:41

There's no reason you couldn't make 250g in a couple of hours off of green/blue drops plus the texts. I've made over 100g from rugged armor kits alone farming rugged leather from Winterspring. A single rugged armor kit on Llane server goes for 1-1.5g EACH. My level 60 feral druid can get enough rugged leather in Winterspring for an armor kit in less than 2 minutes.

Throw in random green/blue drops (which seem to drop more at level 60, I've observed), and 2-3 good ones can easily net you 80-120g on top of the texts.

With my level 60 druid, I was easily able to make the 80g in one evening (3 hours) that my level 40 warrior needed for a mount.

# posted by

Anonymous : 26/10/06 07:46

Hearthglen is where its at. An al frost mage can clean house.

100's of gold worth of runecloth, 2 epics, many blues and the greens vendor for hella lotta cash. Get my endorsement anyday.

-Tehdude (Khazgoroth)

# posted by

Anonymous : 7/11/06 09:08

try farmin the hives in silithus i did some q's there in the hive zora and scarlet kris dropped 2 times in about an hour and each kris goes from 135-170g on my server and thats easy money after my opinion and i usually farm silithus for runecloth and the encrypted twilight texts in about 5 day i farmed about 3-4 hours a day for the texts and got about 700-800 texts that i sold in stacks of 50 for 55g made me a lot of money. most i have farmed in 2 weeks is like 2.5k g all from playing the ah from selling rare items and some epics that drops in UBRS

# posted by

Anonymous : 27/11/06 13:50

Alright, but with BC released, what is the new best place to farm as a 70lvl player??

# posted by

Anonymous : 2/7/07 15:33

The *Horribly* overcamped 'elemental plateau' in Nagrand (North East of zone) (need flying mount to get there) Has most of the elemental types there (Fire, Earth, Air, Water) that drop motes of X.
10 motes = 1 Primal.
Primal Fire = 30g
Primal Water = 20g
Primal Earth = 7g
Its a pretty nasty place to farm tho. loads of, erm, how-can-i-say-it?? Loads of non-English speaking farmers there, who seem to be there 24-7 and dont seem to care about tagging a mob from under you nose.

With BC out now - Its all about the gold (6000g for epic mount) people are farming gold as fast as they can. Pretty much every farming location is totally camped. Anywhere with any 65+ mobs that drop motes, and anywhere where they drop motes of fire.

# posted by

Anonymous : 11/7/07 01:51

Try the daily quests of Netherwing, Skyguard and Ogri'la. You can do 10 per day and each gives you 11g90s. Some of Netherwing give you 18g and if you are really fast you can make lots of money and get some good rep for your next mount (Netherdrake rocks)

# posted by

Anonymous : 24/9/07 20:13

As far as i'm concerned, Doing a quick instance and hitting The AH is the way to go. The Deadmines only takes 35 min to run on my 54 rogue, and you get some decent greens to AH, and plenty of cloth. But the Real MONEY MAKE is the Stockades. Not very much good green stuff there, but you can still get maybe 5-10G worth of greens to sell in the AH, as well as at least 3 stacks of wool that go for anywhere from 1-5 gold a stack on my server, depending on the day of the week. What is best about the stocks is that it is in SW, so the venders and AH are right there for you to unload, and go right back in. A full stock run shouldn't take more than about 20 min on any decently geared lvl 50. So, 3 runs an hour, say 10 gold from the greens each run, another 10 from the wool for each run, that's 20G a run X3 per hour... That's as much as 60 G an hour! Results may vary...

# posted by

Anonymous : 3/7/08 19:36

I have had a lot of luck at Fenris Isle. I am only a lvl 30, and I can make about 35 gold in about an hour farming wool. Can get about 4 ish stacks in an hour and they sell for about 9 gold each. The guys there are only lvl 18, and most decent lvl people can one or two shot them, I tke about 4, but for someone around my level its great easy money

# posted by

Anonymous : 12/11/08 05:21

These seem great but in Wrath Of The Lich King Blizz have nerfed all of these my friend, (lvl 66 paladin) farms
SM alot as a paly he dont get smacked around, Also i think farming titanium and making titansteel is easy, to get it just ring around Wintergrasp, Sholazer and Icecrown, And for the lower lvl's farm the mobs outside Deadmines they drop alot of linen that sells alot on ah (mainly Mains buying for an alt to get it up) :) they get me around 200g per week, well it did, i have no need for it since epic mount... :D

# posted by

Anonymous : 2/1/09 20:22

As horde, since wool is pretty scarce(nobody in their right mind's will farm WC for it) Just run north of stranglethorn, go in the deadmines 5 times, get about 3-5 stacks of wool ???? Profit

# posted by

Unknown : 4/7/09 19:07

well i went to outlands for the first time today im levl 56 now i levle from 55 to 56 there but i made about 40g yestarday in hinterlands killing all the trolls there and raiding there altarse then getting the giant mace at the end when u get one part then make it at the final altar pluse the tons and tons and tons of trolls with alot of wool drops and for a warlock like me i can pull about 6 trolls at once even thou there about 6 or 5 levl lower then me its still a great place to farm and grind

# posted by

Anonymous : 7/8/09 22:11