World of Warcraft may have been around since 2004, but it’s as popular as ever. Blizzard has recently announced the next retail expansion, Dragonflight, and Wrath of the Lich King Classic is landing later this year. But one thing that’s remained consistent over the years is the need for gold. Gear upgrades and cool mounts cost money, not to mention those all-important raid consumables. Check out our guide to WoW gold farming for some quick and easy ways to get rich.
World of Warcraft Gold Farming Guide
Choose Your Server and Class Wisely
If you’re serious about gold farming in WoW, you need to start right at the very beginning. If you’re on an overpopulated server, you’ll probably struggle to make gold because the sheer number of players means lots of competition. You’ll be dealing with people who like to “stack it high, sell it cheap” on the auction house. Unless you’ve got the time and patience to grind for hundreds of resources, you’ll find yourself fighting an uphill battle towards making your fortune.
Similarly, playing on a low-population server won’t help you make gold, either. There’s no point spending your precious time farming if there’s no one to sell to.
Even the class you choose can make gold farming easier. Druids are still by far the best class to farm gold with, thanks to their self sufficiency. Their travel and flight abilities mean you never have to dismount and lose valuable farming time.
Think About Your Storage
You’ll definitely want to maximize the amount of space you have. Your bags will fill up very quickly, so make sure you purchase the largest ones you can afford on the auction house. It’s also a good idea to make a banker alt. This is a “spillover” character you can use to store all your hauls. If you’re really dedicated, you can create a personal guild for even more storage via a guild bank. You’d just need to ask a few people to sign your charter, explain what you’re doing and then remove them from your guild.
Not All Professions Are Equal
Gathering professions, such as herbalism, skinning, and mining are among easiest ways to farm gold. Crafting professions can be a bit of a money pit and so aren’t necessarily that profitable. Gathering, on the other hand, translates into pure gold, particularly at the higher levels.
It’s a pretty simple formula: Check your auction house to see what’s selling well, then go out and farm it. Certain materials, however, will always be popular. For example, herbs are a great money spinner due to the sheer amount needed by alchemists. Fishing is also extremely lucrative thanks to the raid buffs provided by fish.
There is one exception to the crafting profession rule, and that’s alchemy. If you’ve combined it with herbalism and so don’t have to spend money on the materials, it can make you a lot of gold. Everyone needs consumables for end-game content, so if you’re in a position to sell them, you’ll earn a considerable amount of gold.
BoE Gold Farming
BoE items (bind on equip) can also net you a decent amount of gold, especially because players always want cool looking outfit sets to transmogrify. You can run old dungeon content for rare drops like Gloves of the Fang (Wailing Caverns) or Shadowfang (Shadowfang Keep), as well as battle pets, patterns and formulas. Running old raids is another source of gold, especially because you can now solo some of them. Just be mindful of raid lockout times.
Certain zones are better than others when it comes to open world BoE gold farming. For example, head to Wetlands for the chance of a Tiny Crimson Whelpling, Stranglethorn Vale for the First Mate Hat, or Saltstone Mines in Thousand Needles for the Saltstone transmog set.
Play the Auction House
One of the most frustrating things about the WoW economy is that someone will pretty much always undercut you on the auction house. When this happens, don’t get mad — get even. You’ll need some gold to invest in doing this, but if you spot someone selling something for a stupidly low amount, simply buy it and resell it for a higher amount. Unless the market has been flooded by cheap items, someone will almost certainly eventually pay your higher price.
Another option is to attempt to control the economy and bring prices up to a level you’re happy with. You can do this by buying out all your competitors and either reselling the stock on the auction house or vendoring it, depending on what it is. Bear in mind that this is a risky move, and you’ll need to be prepared to potentially lose some gold.
Use Add-Ons
Add-ons will really help your gold farming efforts. Auctioneer is the quintessential add-on and has been around pretty much since WoW began. It scans the entire auction house so you can easily see how much everything costs and then come up with a strategy to beat your competition.
The Undermine Journal is another extremely useful tool for understanding the auction house. It gives you real time data for your server at the click of a button, helping you see straightaway where there are gaps and where there’s gold to be made.
This guide is really just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to WoW gold farming. You can spend a lot of time researching how to get rich in WoW, but ultimately, the best way is to try out a few strategies for yourself and see what works best for you. Happy farming!
