Difficulty: Beginner – Intermediate (depending on character level and class).
Approximate Earnings: 2000 gold + materials to sell on the auction house, and Skyshards. Gold estimates are per hour.
Time Spent: Hourly
How To: In order to make major gold doing this, you will need to prepare by clearing as much bag space as possible and bringing one Potion of Luck for every 20 minutes or Greater Potion of Luck for every hour you plan to spend farming.
Shao-Tien mob locations in Vale of Eternal Blossoms.
Head to the Vale of Eternal Blossoms in Pandaria (easily accessible if your Hearthstone is set to either the Shrine of Two Moons, or the Shrine of Seven Stars). You will want to kill as many Shao-Tien mobs as possible during your potion up time. Some great spots for this are: The Golden Stair, the Ruins of Guo-Lai, and the Guo-Lai Halls. Once your potion buff timer runs out, take your Ancient Guo-Lai Cache Keys (you should have about 30 after an hour of farming) and head into the Guo-Lai Halls. Follow the path until you hit the first large room, make a left and continue on this path until you reach a large room at the end. Activate the blue orb on the left and follow a safe path to the stage area where you will see several large golden chests. Use all of your keys here for more items and gold. This farm will also give you a chance at Skyshards; once you collect 10 of these you can kill Alani (also in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms) for the Thundering Ruby Cloud Serpent mount. If you’re not interested in collecting the mount for your own collection, you can sell the Alani kill for tens of thousands of gold for those on your realm who do want it.
Expect competition on occasion, scout the area before you use your potion. If these areas are being farmed, use the Looking for Group tool to join another party since it will phase you to another realm – which will hopefully not be as busy as your native realm. Keep realm hoping until you find one that will allow you to farm without much hassle.
The great part about this method is that a vast majority of the gold made is from vendoring the items you acquire. That means no dealing with the auction house, and it’s instant gold in your pocket hour after hour. The items you will want to hold on to are the Exotic Leather, Windwool Cloth, Ghost Iron Ore, Black Trillium Ore, White Trillium Ore, and Spirits/Motes of Harmony. Price check these materials before posting on the auction house. If you don’t want to deal with auctions, just vendor these to boost your instant gold earnings.