I loaded up on fish when it was selling for a few silver. Dorado I paid 50s for sold for 95g each.
Point is it’s never a bad time to stock up on cheap mats.
Prices at the end of the xpac tend to tank.
So there might be a bump early on, but I wouldn't expect it to last. The turnins may help curb that a little, but I doubt by much when the demand dies down.
This muat be a very recent Hotfix, because I was still getting 3x the gold earlier today.
EDIT: Can confirm, they fixed the buff to match its description. Was good to earn 3x the gold while it lasted.
EDIT 2: The hotfix seems wildly inconsistent. I did all the quests on my paladin, got 2x the gold and came here to make my first edit, but then repeated them on my evoker and shaman and got 3x the gold.
Hi all, I'd like to share some of the best spots I've found for making gold via grinding pre-60. There's plenty of guides out there for making gold at max level. With HC making gold pre-60 becomes a bit more important for those wanting to grab extra gear from AH, level engineering or get their mount at 40. Nearly all the farms are intended to be grinds you can do while you level. A few of them will also benefit from having skinning but not strictly necessary.
BackgroundAs a bit more background, I've made all my gold almost exclusively while leveling a priest to 49 via the farming spots outlined below. All the gold was made without playing the AH or selling crafting profession items (my professions are skinning + engineering, secondary - fishing + cooking). By level 49 I've accumulated 210g, 30 golden pearls (bought from AH), 60% mount, insignia of the alliance, few bags of mats worth another ~ 60g, and bought myself crafted gear such as dreamweave as well as a 45 rare wand worth 15 ~ 30g. I'm sharing my "secret" spots because I've already made more than enough gold pre-60 and even if I die on my main I'm unlikely to make use of these farms while leveling another character.
Farming spotsNote that all farms and listed AH prices here are based on my experience playing Alliance on Defias Pillager. For highly contested spots consider farming during off hours and layer swapping to avoid others.
(24+) Wetland Whelps (skinnable) - several different whelp types in north-west Wetlands that drop small flame sac. They're a little spread apart but usually completely uncontested which can make this a good spot for a hunter with aspect of the cheetah. Note that the "Lost" and "Crimson" whelp are immune to shadow damage (casters, check your wand). Some of the whelp types can also drop Tiny Crimson Whelpling pet which sells for 10g+ but due to an extremely poor drop rate (1 in 200+) it doesn't really factor in
- Mobs: Red Whelp (23-24), Lost Whelp (24-25), Crimson Whelp (25-26), Flamesnorting Whelp (26-27)
- Farm: Small Flame Sac (9 ~ 23% drop, higher for the higher level whelps, sells for 6 ~ 8s)
- (29+) Ashenvale Infernals - this is an extremely lucrative farm for its level due to a high drop rate of heavy stones that are heavily overpriced due to the constant demand to level engineering. But BEWARE, the farming spot is not easy to get as alliance without pulling Splinter Tree guard aggro. I'd recommend scouting out the path on softcore toon first. The infernals are immune to fire. Also there are other mobs in the area which cannot be fully avoided (ex. Felguard, possibly resistant to magic)
Mobs: Searing Infernal - Farm: Heavy Stone (27% drop for 1-2 stones, sells for 7 ~ 9s each)
- (32+) Stranglethorn Tigers (skinnable) - decent density and not too contested if you go to the spot below the Kurzen base. Beware of ZG elites posted near the ramp to ZG (you won't aggro them by farming tigers but might run into them if you're not paying attention)
Mobs: Stranglethorn Tiger (32-33) - Farm: Tiger Meat (40% drop, sells for 3 ~ 6s, makes Jungle Stew, +8 stam, +8 spirit food)
- (35+) Dustallow Marsh Spiders - the lowest level mob that drops a +12stam/spirit food ingredient, these have a decent density and usually not too crowded. The spiders also drop Shadow Silk and Thick Spider Silk which vendor for decent amount of silver but typically won't sell above vendor price on AH
Mobs: Darkmist Spider (35-36), Darkfang Spider (35-36) - Farm: White Spider Meat (29 ~ 34% drop, sells for 4 ~ 10s, makes White Spider Sausage, +12 stam, +12 spirit food)
- (35+) Swamp of Sorrows Whelps (skinnable) - another whelp farm for small flame sac, these are higher level then the Wetlands whelp and have a better drop rate. The spot tends to be a bit contested but you can also venture around to kill spiders for white spider meat. As alliance, be careful with Stonard Scout patroling the road and guarding the tower. The guards will aggro and flag you for pvp when you get too close even if you didn't attack them. Similarly to the Wetland Whelps, the higher level whelp can drop a pet (Tiny Emerald Whelpling) that will send handsomely but doesn't really factor into the farm due to the low drop rate
Mobs: Adolescent Whelp (34-35), Dreaming Whelp (35-36) - Farm: Small Flame Sac (22 ~ 25% drop, sells for 6 ~ 8s)
- (38+) Arathi Elementals - there are 4 arathi elemental types, 3 of which drop charms that are required for a level 30 warrior quest. The quest awards a BiS weapon for the next 10 levels and obviously the elementals cannot be solod at 30, so the charms sell extremely well to warriors trying to get their upgrade asap. This farm tends to be fairly contested but it's also very lucrative and great place to farm your mount gold. The fire elementals are kinda isolated from the rest so I recommend avoiding those and focusing on air + water, hopping from one to the other. Note that the water elementals can be annoying to farm as melee as they have frost armor and occasionally cast frost nova. I also recommend focusing on clearing the path to the center of the Circle of Elements if you see another player approaching; most of the time others will be only working on a quest and won't interfere with your grind if they have a safe path to the center.
Mobs: Cresting Exile (38-39), Thundering Exile (38-39), Burning Exile (38-39) - Farm: Cresting Charm (33% drop, sells for 25 ~ 40s), Thundering Charm (41% drop, sells for 25 ~ 35s), Burning Charm (10 ~ 25s)
- (48+) Feralas Coastline Fishing - a bit different from the rest, this is a great spot for fishing valuable pools such as floating wreckage and stonescale eel. You can combine pool fishing with grinding out 2 types of mobs which also have a repeatable quest, and unlike Tanaris coastline, this is a much less popular spot for some reason. Make sure you pick the repeatable quests which will allow you to zap the elite giants, turning them into regular mobs
Mobs: Sea Spray (47-48), Sea Elemental, Wave Strider (47-48), Deep Strider (47-49), Shore Strider (48-49) - Farm: Mithril Bound Trunk, Stranglekelp, Stonescale Eel
- (min 48+, recommended 49/50+) Blasted Lands Beasts (skinnable) - the blasted land beasts drop several items used for several repeatable quests that provide world buff, and are always sought out by raiders. This farm tends to be contested and mob density is only medium so the experience gain will suffer but the money can be quite good to compensate. Make sure to WATCH OUT for Teremus the Devourer and never afk in the area. He's a max level boss that patrols the area and can appear unexpectedly behind the mountains. Also note that some of the materials tend to sell much higher than others so prioritize accordingly.
Mobs: Various mobs ranging from level 45 to 53 (see farm items) - Farm: Basilisk Brain (38% drop, sells for 50 ~ 80s), Scorpok Pincer (38% drop, sells for 20 ~ 35s), Vulture Gizzard (34% drop, sells for 30 ~ 40s), Blasted Boar Lung (40% drop, sells for 5 ~ 10s), Snickerfang Jowl (36% drop, sells for 1 ~ 2s). Also Imperfect Draenethyst Fragment for any mob in the zone (0.5 ~ 2% drop, sells for 1 ~ 2.5g)
Honorable mention(s):(26+) Wetlands Raptor Skinning (skinnable) - this is an extremely popular area with couple of quests that give good rewards. Due to large number of people in the area, the raptors will hyperspawn and there's never a shortage of mobs to farm. The raptors themselves are not too lucrative to farm. However, many non-skinners will be questing around and leaving corpses you can skin
Mobs:
Mottled Scytheclaw (25-26),
Mottled Razormaw (26-27)
Farm: Skins, Raptor Egg (45-49% drop, sells for 80c-1s, makes Curiously Tasty Omelet, +6 stam, +6 spirit food)MethodologyFor those curious how I discovered the particular farms outlined here, I'm willing to share more details.
I basically scraped wowhead for the loot table of every mob in the game, and combined it with AH data on item prices. I then computed the expected average silver per mob kill for every mob in the game, taking the best price between vendoring each item vs selling it on AH. I also filtered out elites, rares and bosses and manually filtered out a few outliers such as mobs spawned by a quest which you can't reliably farm.
It's worth mentioning I haven't added any special handling for container items which don't have a vendor price and can't be sold on AH (they count as 0 copper) so the data is slightly imperfect. However, I did manually adjust the "expected" silver specifically for
Big-mouth Clam which turns out to be valued just around 5s based on the pearls + clam meat - decent but nothing amazing.
I then tested out farming many of the mobs with high silver / kill throughout my leveling journey. I ended up scrapping most of the ones where mob density is too low, or there's too much competition. For example,
Gusting Vortex (43-45) in Tanaris is by far the most lucrative mob per kill at its level, with a 35% chance to drop
Breath of Wind selling for a whopping 50s ~ 1.2g on AH. However, the elemental is extremely sparse and spread out through Tanaris so not actually something you can focus on grinding out.
EDIT: Added note on watching out for Teremus in Blasted Lands.
