It’s hard to get to a point in the majestic world of Azeroth where you don’t need at least a little more gold. Whether it’s new gear, a new mount, or just daily grinding supplies, everything you do depends on your gold bank. Basically, your gold determines your entire gaming experience and can make the game very fun or very tedious. WotLK gold farming is particularly difficult because, as the game has grown in popularity, more and more Chinese gold farmers are flocking to major gold farming locations in hopes of making some real money.
First of all, whether you love them or hate them, it’s probably good to realize that you probably won’t be able to compete with professional gold producers. They’re doing this for their bread and butter, and they’ll be right there taking up most of the space in just about any WotLK gold farming area.
I’m sure you’re wondering by now.”Well, what am I supposed to do then? Buying gold from these players because the game is getting too crowded?”
Buying gold is also a bad idea: Blizzard will hit you pretty quickly, no matter how discreet you think you are. All of these gold farmers are on their radar and they are watching the gold to see where it goes.
If WotLK’s gold farming points are dead and you can’t buy gold, the only solution left is to use lesser known gold farming methods. Here are some ideas to get started:
Air Farming Essence
This is one of the best gold farming methods as you can easily make over 500g quickly. The mobs you are looking for are in North West Silithus. They will also drop Breath of Wind and Elemental Air, which are common rugs that you can sell at the auction house or use yourself. Be careful not to kill the Elemental Boss though, because it will halve your mobs and be much harder to farm!
Iceweb Spider Silk and Boreal Leather
Another great farming spot can be found in Zul’Drak, where the Trapdor Crawlers spawn (a bit north of the Argent Stand to be specific). These mobs drop ice web spider silk and boreal leather, both of which sell very well on the auction house. You can average around two or three Iceweb Spider Silk per minute, which works out to be a good amount of gold per hour.
Wool
Granted, this isn’t exactly the most exotic mat, but it’s really cost-effective. Not many popular instances have wool drops and not many humanoids drop it either. Still, wool is extremely popular with tailors trying to improve their profession, and its scarcity makes it one of my favorite mats to grow.
The best place to grow wool is Stockades (only applicable to the Horde, unfortunately). If this doesn’t work for you, I’d suggest looking in the Southern Wetlands, where there are quite a few Gnolls who would be more than willing to lend you their Wool (they also respawn quickly).
Mining for profit (finally!)
Mining has been quite difficult lately and many players have just switched professions in frustration. Ore has been very difficult to sell due to the large number of mining bots (automatic player characters that are created to perform a specific task) that have been flooding Azeroth.
However, Blizzard has finally put the ban hammer down on these malicious economic disasters, and mining and herbalism are once again a profitable profession (Adder’s tongue costs around 18g per stack again).
This is pretty server specific, so I’ll just suggest looking at your local auction house to see what ores and herbs are available at what price. Find one you like, and get out there and get your hands dirty to make some serious gold.
Dominating the auction house
Sometimes it’s more profitable to know what’s valuable on your server and resell it rather than taking the time to farm everything yourself, especially if it’s out of the level range for certain mobs. Get a good Auction House guide (I could write a book just about the Auction House, so I won’t cover it here) and you’ll be living the rich life no matter what server you’re on.