Free Mounts | Grand Black War Mammoth

Like always, when an expansion is released, previous raids become at least partially soloable at some point. This means most of WOTLK raids are now soloable. Personally I do my soloing mostly as a hunter, death knight or paladin and so far have been able to solo Sartharion, Malygos, Archavon, Koralon, Onyxia and some bosses in Naxxramas, Ulduar and ICC. These are not only fun to solo, but they can also be very profitable. A boss often drops 180-300g and epics that can be disenchanted and then shattered into essences.

Some bosses have unique loot though, such as mounts. While mounts are not directly related to gold making, I will still create a list of rare mounts (that are soloable). These are found in the Free Epic Mount category for now. After all, who does not like those shiny mounts that are not seen every day!

I will start the list with the Archavon mount.

Image source: wowhead.com

Vault of Archavon, Wintergrasp - SOLO
Personally I start my weekly WOTLK mount runs by clearing Vault of Archavon. While the mount is not pretty and is quite useless as it can't fly, I've been mainly after the Grand Black War Mammoth because the kill is trivial and requires no more than a few minutes. It's a small 1% ish drop, but at least he drops a few hundred gold coins and a few epics everytime which are valuable when DE'd and shattered, and eventually the mount too.

Archavon
Enrage timer: 5 minutes
Notable Loot: Grand Black War Mammoth

Koralon
Enrage timer: Soft enrage
Notable Loot: Grand Black War Mammoth

Koralon has a soft enrage timer which can become a problem if your dps is not high enough.

If you want to have 2 additional attempts per week or feel lucky, you need a few more people to kill the 2 other bosses.

If you are interested in soloing a raid, but are not sure how to do it, check if someone else has done it.

For example, go to youtube and search for: class solo archavon 85

Is my gear enough?
Most of the time you need a lot of health. Dps does not matter if you can't keep yourself alive. PVP gear is highly recommended for soloing raids. It offers a lot of health and also great dps. The pieces have one less useful secondary stat and usually crap socket bonuses, but does not impact your DPS unless you don't have anything but PVP gear on. So if you have Zandalari epics or quest greenies on, spend some time PVPing to get you geared up for solo raids.

What classes are the best for soloing?
So far I've seen all classes soloing raids equally, but it mainly depends on your skill, gear and how much heals you have available. Magi are the only class I haven't seen soloing much, mainly because of the lack of heals.

How to make gold for your epic mounts in minutes

Surprisingly many players have trouble getting gold for their mount, epic mount, flying mount or epic flying mount. Hopefully this post will be of use if you're one of them! :)

Image source: mmosite.com

Professions vs. Farming vs. Hunting

There are multiple ways you can get the needed gold, and how to get it largely depends on your level and starting money. In my opinion the fastest route would be by utilizing professions. If you don't have the time or will to level them to the necessary levels, hunting and farming are both good second choices.

If you are a goblin or have guild perks, the costs are a bit lower.

Level 20 - Ground mount
Apprentice Riding total cost: 5g

This one is super fast to obtain, even if you have 0 copper to start with. You'll earn so much gold from the following tricks that you'll have enough for your second riding training aswell as flying training on top of the initial level 20 mount, especially if you perform them all.

You often have to wait a bit if you use only auction house to sell your stuff. But if you sell them in trade chat instead, you don't have to wait for long and auction house won't steal part your golds.

Farming/Gathering
Low level trade goods are very popular, so they not only sell fast, but often also for a nice chunk of gold aswell. What to farm depends mostly on what is expensive in the auction house. Search the trade goods category and filter the higher level goodies from the list.

It's usually a good idea to farm herbs, ores or cloth at any given level. If copper ore sells for 1g each, you only need to mine 5 ores and you have enough gold for your first riding training and mount aswell.

Skinning: Is a very good low level gold maker also. Most low level leathers sell for 1-5g each!

Fishing: You may also want to give fishing a go if certain fishes are expensive. It's often enough to find a larger pool of water and run along the shore until you find a shcool of fish. No matter what kind of fish it is, you're bound to make a few gold pieces every minute.

If you don't know where to farm a certain item, do a search in Wowhead.

Crafting
Inscription & Alchemy: A scribe can make glyphs that sell for 10-500g each, even the low level ones. Vanishing powders also sell fast. You do need to obtain some herbs first though, so herbalism is highly recommended as a second profession. Same goes with Alchemy, except low level potions don't sell that good so it's not a good choice often.

Hunting
Treasure chests: Almost all level 10+ treasure chests contain blue quality items. These can be sold for 20-150g each, more if it's exceptionally good for twinks. Treasure chests will appear on your map if you use Gathermate 2 addon, so it's easy to see where they are to be found.

Raptor nests: Certain zones have raptor nests that once looted, give you a raptor companion pet. This can be sold in the auction house for 70-1000g, price depending on if anyone else is selling it. To see where they are located, check the map found here.

Reselling pets/recipes: The above map also contains other pets that can be sold in the auction house. You might also want to buy cheap recipes from vendors and resell them in the auction house for even 20-500g more.

Reselling vendor items: If you have a few silvers already, you don't even need to leave a city if you follow the tricks found in this post.

Level 40 - Epic ground mount
Journeyman Riding total cost: 60g

The above methods should make you 60g in no time.

Level 60 - Flying mount
Expert Riding total cost: 300g

There are no level 60 specific methods of making gold, except jewelcrafting starts to shine at these levels and you have access to few valuable trade goods.

Farming/Gathering
Fel Iron ore is extremely valuable, and so is Felweed. These can be both found in Hellfire Peninsula, Outland. Though it would be more wise to farm these only after obtaining your flying mount.

Crafting
Jewelcrafters can invest some gold at these levels by buying thorium, mithril, fel iron, adamantite or iron ore. Or if you have mining, get the ores yourself instead. Often a stack of above ores can get you 50-100g when prospected. Check the gem prices on your realm first though. If you're not sure what gems can be obtained from a certain ore, do a wowhead search again.

Level 70 - Epic / Cold weather / Master / Old weather flying
Level 70 epic flying total cost: 5100g
Cold weather flying total cost: 500g
Master Riding total cost: 5000g
Flight Master's Licence total cost:  250g

These ones give many players trouble, but it's in fact extremely easy to get them all. 5000g can be achieved in a hour easily. But how to obtain it depends on largely what is valuable on your realm.

At level 70 you have access to almost every method found on this blog, and they all should make you even 50000g in a day if you try even half of them.

If you don't want to waste much time, there's also this new automated gold making addon that claims to make you 999999 gold in 30 ish days, also known as hitting the gold cap! :)

Did I miss your favourite way to make gold for a mount? Let me know!