Earning gold in World of Warcraft can be a difficult task, especially if you are saving your hard-earned cash for that 5000 gold epic mount. Let these tips help you earn some major bucks.
1) Choose the right Professions. This is absolutely critical. From the moment you create your character, if you want to make money, you will take one or more gathering professions. Skinning, Mining and Herbalism can all make insane amounts of money for you in World of Warcraft, if you are dedicated to them. Mining and Herbalism definitely earn more than Skinning, but Skinning can be done during your normal leveling process, saving valuable time and making it seem like much less of a chore.
World of Warcraft’s other trade skills (Mining, Alchemy, Tailoring, Blacksmithing, Enchanting, Leatherworking, Engineering, Jewelcrafting) are all huge drains on your income. Any money gained from these trades is rare, and all will end up costing you a lot of money. If you’ve leveled one of these before, think about exactly how much metal, leather, cloth or herbs went into your skill gains. How much money could you have sold all those resources for? Lots. If you’re serious about making money, you will avoid devoting your energy to these, as they will hold you back for a very long time. These trades do offer unique bonuses at high levels (self-only enchants, bind-on-pickup weapons, etc), but if you are aiming for those, then your goal is not currently increasing your net worth.
2) Pick up everything! Many people don’t get in the habit of looting everything off of their kills in World of Warcraft. Some items have a low vendor value, but those trash drops are all worth something, even the gray ones. If your inventory is full, take the time to go back to town and sell it all. Fill your bags again and watch how much more cash you’ll be making than if you left that junk to rot.
Also, make note of “white” items that you find which may have some value on the auction house. Elemental Earths, Flasks of Mojo, and other odd items can actually fetch quite a bit of value on the auction house. Check prices on these before you vendor them.
“Green” items are usually trash. Some of them may have a bit more value than what the vendor will offer, but often the hassle of putting up a deposit to try to sell them isn’t worth it. Unless you are sure that it’s a good item that somebody would want, you can make enough money from them without putting it up for sale.
3) Choose the right quest rewards. This tip can easily earn you 500 gold by the time you hit 70. Whenever you complete a quest that has no rewards that you want, make sure you pick the reward with the highest vendor value. This is almost always going to be a weapon, if one is available. If multiple weapons are available, take the staff, or other 2-hander, over a 1-handed weapon. If all of the rewards are armor, take the highest armor-value item (plate, then mail, etc). If it’s all the same material, take the “larger” pieces first .. chest, then legs/helmet/shoulders, then the small stuff.
It doesn’t seem like it would matter much, but sometimes the difference is several gold, and with the amount of quests you do while leveling, this will turn into a huge amount of money earned.
4) Know what to farm. By the time you are level 70, you should have a good idea of what drops where in World of Warcraft, and what the average prices for general merchandise are. Use this knowledge to your advantage when farming, and find out how you can maximize your earnings per hour. Currently, on most servers, primals are the hot item for crafters to buy. Primal Fire, Air, Water and Mana are all big-ticket items, and if you are better at killing one of them than another, use that to your advantage. Find out where you can farm these without running into too much competition, and control the market on them.
Also, this is another place you can tie your trade skill into your farming. If you are mining, Adamantite is your ticket to huge earnings. Hit up Nagrand, Blade’s Edge and Netherstorm for massive amounts of ore, and sell the raw ore, rather than bars. Herbalists should hang out in Shadowmoon Valley and Netherstorm for the high-ticket herbs, which can sell for upwards of 50 gold per stack. Skinners will do well in Nagrand skinning the clefthoof buls for their thick clefthide leather. Other great places for skinning include the cobras at Coilskar in Shadowmoon Valley (their scales are very valuable), and the worms along the crusts in Netherstorm. These drop motes of mana and can also be skinned, giving you the most farming bang for your buck.
5) Stop spending! It sounds simple, but for some people, it’s easy to get addicted to purchasing small upgrades over and over. Stop! You don’t need to buy your upgrades on the AH. Go do some instance runs and you will find better, and it’s free! Also, instances are a great way to build up cash without even knowing that you are.
If you can limit your spending at the AH and instead get your upgrades from quests and instances, you’ll be far less tempted to spend hundreds of gold on a shiny new weapon. Chances are, you can find better, free alternatives with just a little bit of extra effort.