Here is one of the fastest ways to make gold in Wrath of the Lich King (WotLK)
This method is not for everyone, since there are some requirements, but if you can do it then you will earn insane amounts of gold in no time. The requirements are:
- You need to be a miner, preferably 450 skill
- You need to be an engineer, at least 350 skill
- You should ideally have an epic flying mount
This method involves farming ore and crystallized elements with mining and engineering, using your epic flying mount to move rapidly between locations.
In case you don’t know, engineers can make a device called Zapthrottle Mote Extractor which is used to extract motes in Outland and crystallized elements in Northrend from gas clouds. With certain engineering items you will be able to see the clouds on your minimap. Tracking clouds does not interfere with tracking mining nodes, so you can do both at the same time. Here are the items that allow you to see the clouds (use one of these only):
- Ultra-Spectropic Detection Goggles
- Any epic engineering goggles that say “Shows the location of all nearby clouds on the minimap.”
- Belt-Clipped Spynoculars
Combining gas cloud farming and mining will bring in extraordinary profits. Here’s a map of a good route in Sholazar Basin:
Gas clouds farming in Sholazar Basin.
I tried it for 60 minutes (timed) in Sholazar Basin at around 5 p.m. realm time — i.e. with lots of competition — and will say I was very pleased with the results:
| Item | Value each | Value total |
| 197 saronite ore | 1g 43s | 281 g 71s |
| Grey items | – | 86s |
| 1 eternal air | 19g | 19g |
| 5 eternal shadow | 8g 55s | 42g 75s |
| 7 eternal earth | 9g | 63 g |
| 7 eternal fire | 25g 50s | 178g 50s |
| 3 eternal water | 15g 84s | 47g 52s |
| 7 crystallized fire | 2g 55s | 17g 85s |
| 2 crystallized water | 1g 84s | 3g 68s |
| 6 crystallized shadow | 85s | 5g 10s |
| 6 crystallized earth | 90s | 5g 40s |
| 6 crystallized air | 1g 90s | 11g 40s |
| 15 titanium ore | 9g 74s | 146g 10s |
| 1 chilled meat | – | – |
| 24 frostweave cloth | – | 8g |
| 2 huge citrine | 2g | 4g |
| 2 chalcedony | 2g | 4g |
| 2 shadow crystal | 2g | 4g |
| 1 bloodstone | 2g | 2g |
| 2 sun crystal | 2g | 4g |
| 2 dark jade | 2g | 4g |
| King’s Eyesocket of the Sorcerer (blue ring) | 125g | – |
| Grand total: | 852 g 87s | |
I’m still SHOCKED what that comes out to! 850g in one hour!!!
I took most of the prices from http://wow.allakhazam.com ; they are averages across all realm. However, some of them seem a little high, like titanium ore selling for almost 10g each. But even if 850g is on the high side, it is evident that you can comfortably make 500-600 gold per hour.
After doing this test run, though, I realized that Cobalt ore is actually higher priced on many realms than saronite ore. So you might earn more by farming in a lower level zone, with less competition! And that may in turn bump your true earnings upwards of 800g per hour.
To increase your earnings you can even use engineering or smelting to craft some items worth more than the raw materials. Examples might include smelting ore into bars, smelting titansteel bars, crafting scopes and ammunition. Just be aware that crafting actually takes time, and time = money. So it may be more profitable to dump the raw materials on the auction house so you can spend more time farming.
This is a great way to farm for Holy paladins, Holy priests, resto druids, protection warriors and all other specs that can’t farm mobs fast. There are no repair costs either.
Don’t be afraid to try this even if you don’t have an epic flying mount. You’ll earn a lot on an epic ground mount or normal flying mount as well.
The addon I use to import the location of mining nodes and record the location of gas clouds is called Gathermate and Gathermate_data.
Can you imagine how lucrative this was in the first month after WotLK’s release, when prices were triple what they are now?