Loot Hunters: Gold Farming inside The Eye

This instance is a gold mine when compared to most other raids. The bosses are easy to solo and they drop lots of nice loot. A boss kill is usually worth 300g and there's 4 bosses here. But let's not forget the main source of gold, the trash!

Location: Netherstorm - Tempest Keep

It's all fun and games
Like most of the time, also here the trash is usually more valuable than the bosses. So there's no point skipping them.

Trash drops mainly the following things:

• Gold
• Netherweave Cloth
• Patterns and Recipes
• Marks of Illidari
• Greenies

And bosses drop the following:

• 250 gold
• Epics

Overall it may not sound much, but when you put the loot into use by professions, it will generate a nice bit of gold. There's lots of different recipes dropping in the instance, and these sell for 500-3000g most of the time. I can usually find 2-4 recipes per run. They do not sell fast, but there's always collectors who want to learn every recipe there is. Also with the upcoming transmogrification feature, epic recipes offer unique looking gear most of the time.

Solo farming Ashes of Al'ar
All 4 bosses can be soloed by every class that has plenty of self heals. That is all except Magi. Last boss might be problematic for some classes, but there's tactics for everyone that makes the fight easy as pie. Mastering the encounter may require a couple of wipes though, but the effort is well worth it imo, as the last boss can drop the unique phoenix mount and no one will be rolling against you should it drop.

For tactics, visit:
- Wowhead
- Google

Making the loot more worthwhile!
Like always, you should never sell the trade goods/greenies you obtain if you want to make more gold. Instead turn them into something more valuable.

• Netherweave cloth = Bags
• Epic armor = Disenchant & Shatter. 
• Epic weapons = Vendor
• Greenies = Disenchant

This time I will not give any gold averages per run since they vary a lot between realms.

How to enter a raid instance without outside help!
It's a raid instance, so you need to form a raid group in order to enter.

While it would be faster to invite some random nubcake, I prefer this method as you don't need to rely on anybody else. If you play during odd hours, it might be impossible to find someone you could abuse or you might even get kicked out of the instance if for some reason the other user leaves the group and you get a dc.

It's quite simple:

1. Enter Battle.net account management
2. Create a new trial account under the same Battle.net account
3. When you login, you get to choose which WoW account you log into
4. Log into your new account (wow2), create a toon and level it to 10 so you are eligible for raid groups. It's extremely fast even without heirlooms. Just do a couple of quests (*And check nearby treasure chest and rare monster spawn points. Each will give about 1000 exp at these levels, granting you easy level ups!)
5. Open a new WoW window and login onto your main account (wow1) and reduce the other window's size a bit so it won't be so laggy
6. Invite your slave character into a group and convert into a raid!
7. Close the other window and start raiding!

Protip: Trial accounts do not expire anylonger so you can still login onto your slave toon at any point you wish, even after 14 days.

*: I will release a Treasure Hunting guide at some point that focuses on hunting chests and rare monsters for some yummy exp and gold, instead of your regular questing guide!

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 Chinese Gold Farmers Make Gold - Part 1 - Karazhan

If you've ever farmed Karazhan actively, you've most likely noticed multiple suspicious characters coming out of the instance and getting back in (usually through solid objects, shame on you gold sellers) in a quite repetitive manner. Ever wondered what they were up to?

Image source: nextnature.net

No hacks allowed!
Because I'm not a Chinese gold seller, I'm can't say my assumptions are 100% right. Hacks are included in what they do, but I'll give the approved by Blizzard way instead. Usually gold sellers use hacked accounts for this and automate the process with 3rd party programs. If you attempt this method and see this filth, you should report them right away!

Since I assume no hack can reset boss kills in a raid instance in the time they take to re-enter the instance, they have to focus on things that do not make you saved. There are no containers in the instance that would make you rich, so they must focus on NPCs. The first mobs that come to mind would be the non-elites in the ballroom and in Moroes' room. I would have guessed Philanthrophists near the opera area first if only they weren't nerfed in the past.

Killing these takes no longer than 7 minutes. Less if you're decently geared, more if your gear is crap. Looting takes longer than the killing though, as there's a LOT of them.

Ni hao
I gave it a try and cleared the first 2 rooms in Karazhan (Ballroom and Moroes' room) and left Moroes standing naturally so I won't get saved. It took about 16 minutes to do it two times on my tank toon that does not have epics.

Note that pro gold farmers sell their loot as it is and do not utilize professions like I do. They want the gold fast, even if it's ten times less than they would get with a small time investment.

Here's the loot I received! Prices are from my realm, not yours most likely!

• 79 gold from silver drops


• 29 gold from junk items like grays, potions and food


• 8½ stacks of Netherweave Cloth, which I will turn into Netherweave Bags - 35g x 8 = 280g


• 1 x Khorium Lockbox - Roughly worth 15g


• 33 x Arcane Dust from greenies - Sells for 61g


• 10 x Greater Planar Essence - Sells for 144g


• 1 x Large Prismatic Shard - Sells for 4g


• 38 x Soul Essence - Sells for 38g. These are rarely needed so it's safe to vendor them for a bit less.


• 1 x Epic Plans (BOE) - Sells for 4000g - Because these rely purely on RNG, I shouldn't even mention this. But the fact remains, the more mobs you kill, the bigger chances you have of finding such items.


• 1 x Darkmoon Card - Sells for 90g

As you can see, even without hacks you can still make as much gold as gold sellers. Mainly because they sell their loot "raw" and do not make their items more valuabe with a profession in most cases.

Nab farmer? Here be protips
- Loot faster! Turn on autolooting to make your gold making 3x faster
- Bags full? There's a vendor outside the instance and another one in the stables next to Midnight

Some of these bots had loot 25000g achievements and they haven't been level 80-85 for more than a week. After checking out what they have been up to, most of them had a crapload of Warp Splinter kills in Botanica for example, so I guess I'll have to take a look at that place next.

Getting rich in Firelands - Solo

NERFBAT
This method has been nerfed. It's no longer possible to kite most of the mobs. I can see why though! Some of the more active farmers made millions from the epics. Some sources claim turtles are still slowable though but I haven't had the chance to confirm. If you know more, leave a comment!


Many of you may have heard of people solo farming Firelands, or even done it yourself. If not, time to give it ago! This is extremely profitable, especially if you're feeling lucky!

My record is 2 epics found in 20 minutes of farming, giving me about 45k quick gold! Total gold I've made from these is at around 200k. Some hardcore farmers have even tripled that amount!

Better to not piss this one off!

Taking the trash out! I can has epix?
Solo farming Firelands consist of only one thing: Running! The goal is to kite trash, mainly Scorpions, Turtles, Hell Hounds and Pyrelords. If your talent spec does not have kiting capabilities, you need to respec or switch classes. Thankfully most classes can do this!

The drop rates for epics were nerfed to the ground, but you should still see an epic or two every few runs. RNG plays a big part here too though. Some players haven't seen even one drop in a week, while others have obtained 3 epics from one run!

But at least every mob drops 1-12 gold usually and you can get reputation with Avengers of Hyjal, all the way to 11999/12000.

Some of the classes that can solo farm here:

• Death Knight


• Hunter


• Shaman


• Mage


• Warlock

Not every spec can solo! You need to check your talents before attempting this. For example, a warlock should be affliction and hunter should have concussive barrage from MM tree. If you're unsure what spec or talents you should use, leave a comment below or youtube the following : <class> solo firelands

Note that you don't need über gear to do this. Even a newly dinged 85 with quest greenies can solo here. You do need to be in a raid group though! Click here to see how you can make a raid group alone!

Hit and run like hell!
There are lots of different spots where you can kite things. Where to go often depends on how many bosses are down. If it's a fresh run with 0 bosses down, it's wise to pull things back to the entrance and kite them around the entrance portal. Just watch your step or you might fall!

You should start by pulling one scorpion pack. Just be careful to not damage some scorpions too fast because they will slow down and become a problem when rest of the mobs run 40% faster. Switch targets constantly and focus on AOE abilities. Once you're getting the hang of it, try 2 packs of scorpions next, or if you're feeling crazy enough, why not try 3!

Once scorpions are ezmode for you, try something else.. But not the Molten Lords! See some youtube videos of what others have been soloing.

But there's a huge giant blocking the way!

Image source: hubpages.com

You don't need to worry. It's aggro radius is ridiculously low. It's safe to pass it, just don't run between it's legs!

Oh, and time your pulls so the mobs won't run into the giant if pulling things back to the entrance. Hug one side and hope the timing was good enough!

10 vs 25
Many people ask if you can see more epics in a 25-man trash run. 25-man offers slightly more loot from trash. But in the time it takes to kill a trash mob, you can kill 2½ in a 10-man run. It's often more wise to farm in 10 mode instead as not even the instance cap will get in your way.

Farming Hellfire Citadel: Ramparts

Most of the soon-to-be level 60 players like to wear the best equipment available to them, mainly the level 57 outland greenies to considerably boost their dps. Farming these items can make lots of gold on some realms, but finding the right suffix on a level 57 greenie is not as easy as it might sound!

Aggroing the whole instance with one pull!
Pre-4.2 you could aggro almost all mobs with one pull while in some instances, including Ramparts by using a well-aimed Saronite Bomb or a Death & Decay for example, next to the entrance portal (See video below). But as of now, mobs have lost their ability to find the player in most cases, often causing them to evade if the pull was made from too far away or the player is not standing on the floor itself. I haven't seen this mentioned in patch notes so it might just be a bug that will get fixed at one point.

Or not...
For now, you have to stick to farming it the old style.. Or new in this case! Nonetheless, it's still easy pie for a level 80+ toon and can be done in just a few pulls, taking often less than 10 minutes per run. Also there is no need to run back to the entrance as you can jump off the platform once done.

You'll quickly run into the instance cap/hour so that's often a good point to hearth and clean your bags. You'll find plenty of runecloth on top of the greenies. If you have a tailor, it's extremely profitable to create Bolts of Runecloth and turn them into Runecloth Headbands, which in turn Disenchant into GEEs and Illusion Dust, which both are VERY valuable on almost every realm.

The bosses don't offer anything worth mentioning, except some of the blues vendor for even 10g. If disechanted, they are worthless.

One run usually gives 2-7 greenies, depending if Lady RNG likes you or not. I've been selling level 57 greenies with good stats, such as agi, str or int for 100-300g for a long while now and they still sell surprisingly fast. I've found "of the Bandit" items to sell the fastest, even with a high price! You may give level 58 and 59 items a go aswell if they have useful stats.

If your item ends in whale, it would be wise to disenchant it instead!

Blood of The Mountain Makes You Rich

If you have mining and/or like to farm "harder" monsters, you should farm some Blood of the Mountain! Especially people that are after Ragnaros' Legendary Hammer are ready to pay for these. Making 4000g in 20 minutes is not unheard of, but your gold income rely entirely on RNG.

Dark Iron Deposits & Molten Destroyers
You have two paths, but they can be combined for even greater profit. You have a small chance of obtaining a Blood of Mountain when mining a Dark Iron Deposit. Molten Destroyers on the other hand have a decent drop rate for these, 7% ish.

Requires 175 mining!

Multiple reports say their drop rate has been stealth boosted in 4.2, but this is not the case. RNG does the magic here! You can obtain one from every Destroyer you kill or alternatively you won't see even one drop. Their new shiny model does not equal higher drop rates.

Dark Iron Deposits and Molten Destroyers are both found inside Molten Core, but nodes can also be found in the zones surrounding Blackrock Mountain and in Blackrock Depths aswell.

In order to enter Molten Core (Blackrock Mountain, Searing Gorge) you must be in a raid group. It's a level 60 raid instance, so a level 70+ should have no problems solo farming there.

Farming Molten Core Trash Efficiently
Since Molten Destroyers are trash mobs, no boss should be killed or you can't force reset the instance after destroying them all. With a stealthy 85 character one run takes no more than 7 minutes, but more if you have mining. The point is to sneak your way to Molten Destroyers, kill them all, run out of the instance and reset it. To reset a instance, right click on your portrait and choose "Reset all instances".

Shiny new models!

To save some time, when you see the first 2 Molten Giants, you can jump into the lava below and swim the lava river down until you can jump out of it. Or alternatively don't fall into the lava, but hug the right wall instead until you can jump off.

One Blood of the Mountain usually sells for about 1000g, but I've seen people buy these for even 3000g each if they are desperate. They usually need 10 of these, so if you see someone selling a few for 300g, don't get your hopes down. Yours will get a buyer aswell, even if you don't undercut!

Protip: Even if it takes days to sell them, do not reduce your prices below 1000g. Not everyone needs these, remember that! :)

On top of the blood, you will also find BOE epics and Lava Cores for example, which sell for 20-100g most of the time.

Loot Hunters: Sunwell Plateau Solo Farming

Sunwell Plateau still gives trouble for certain players, but if you know how to play and have good dps, there should be no problems! Bosses on the other hand may prove more difficult, but that does not matter. Today we're focusing only on Trash Farming!

Lootwell Plateau
In case you are wondering how trash farming could make you rich in a TBC instance, the answer is simple: BOE profession recipes!

These are Brutal Gladiator gear equivalent and the materials for them are often very easy to come across, so the profits are insane in most cases. In other words, level 70 PVE epics with proper gems that last all the way to 80. This is the point you must make when selling these items!

If you come across a recipe and can't learn it, you can still make loads of gold by selling the recipe. If it's good, people (especially collectors) are willing to pay even 10k for one recipe, especially if the gear has multiple sockets in it and the materials are not worth more than the item itself.

This time there is no point giving gold estimations from one run, because it varies between 200g to 30000g, depending on if RNG is in your favor.

But I can't kill any :(
If the trash proves too difficult for you and you can reset aggro (Feign Death, Vanish, Invisibility) and can stealth around, you may attempt sneaking to the first non-elite patrol. This mob can be one shotted and it drops loot. The nearby mobs will aggro though, so you will have to get rid of them. Once out of combat, the non-elite will respawn and you can repeat the process for some easy loot epics!

If your aggro reset has a long cooldown, this might not be worth it.

What about bosses?
I haven't even attempted bosses, but as far as I know every boss has been soloed, with the exception of Kalecgos due to the encounter mechanics. If you're gonna try them, I suggest you to check the bosses' comments on wowhead before attempting one!

The trash come in big groups, but should not be too difficult. There's however some mobs that need to be nuked right away or you will get your ass handed to them. The Sunblade Slayers are a pain with their fixed percentage dot, and they use it on you even if your pet has the aggro.

Like usually, I prefer to solo stuff with a hunter and turtle pet that is specced fully into defensive talents. For more information on how a hunter can solo things, check the previous (AQ) Loot Hunters post.

Are there any other drops?
You will find lots of loot here! The recipes are very rare, but your bags will be full of cloth, equips and epic gems. Epic gems have a decent vendor price and should not be auctioned. Like always, greenies should be disenchanted for some yummy gold! On top of that, every monster drops gold coins.

You will also find Sunmotes and Marks of Illidari. Sunmotes in particular can fetch some nice amounts of gold should you find a buyer. There's also some BOP recipes dropping. These are often useless, but if the mat costs aren't that high, you might want to learn them if possible.

So, how do I get to Sunwell Plateau, anyway?
Getting there is fast! If you are not a Mage, use the portal in a big city to Blasted Lands. Go through to Outland and fly to Shattrath. In the middle of Shattrath, use the portal to Quel'danas.

Coilfang Armaments!

If you tried the previous method, there's more gold to be made nextdoors! You can get a bunch of Coilfang Armaments when you kill things in Steamvault and Serpentshrine Cavern, each sell for 15-50g usually, depending on how many there are for sale.

No one farms these yet so it's safe to buy every armament from the Auction House (if any) and resell them for a lot higher price.

As the other instance is a level 70 dungeon and other a raid, a lowbie can only make gold reselling.



You have obtained too much gold recently!
If you are good geared 85 and like to pull one room at a time, you may run into the instance cap, but should have plenty of armaments in your possession by that time. One run yields usually 20-30 Armaments, netting you about 1300g if you sell them 50g each. (However, the price will get too high if you sell them in large quantities, so you most likely have to lower your prices a bit. I usually ask for 25g each when selling hundreds of them.)

And that does not include the almost-as-valuable items, such as clams, greenies and primal waters. Primal Waters alone sell for over 100g usually. TBC pearls have been selling very nicely lately aswell!

And if you're suspicious, here's the breakdown of one run's phat lewt!

• Coilfang Armaments: 800g
• Greenies: 190-240g
• Vendor crap: 14g
• Water Motes: 160g
• All kinds of pearls: 10-150g

Prices may vary depending on realm population, guild perks and your advertising skill!

Power Word: Sell
Like previously, you have to advertise your armaments to make them sell. They are used to raise reputation with Cenarion Expedition, so check what benefits there are for gaining exalted with them and create a macro similar to the one found in the previous post.

The amount of Armaments people need vary. You can get the quest as early as neutral. Most only need to get from revered to exalted though, so also choose how big stacks you are selling.

Hint: There's a shiny Flying Mount available once exalted! c:

Time Spent vs. Profit
This is by no means the best way to make gold, but if you like farming and can clear a 70 instance in a couple of pulls, I'd definitely try this out!

Making gold with Sporeggar

Many people are after the diplomat title + achi pet and perhaps most importantly reputation rewards that are available after reaching exalted with Sporeggar. Since exalted can be reached by turning in non-bop items, this will be a nice gold maker for those that want to put a little "effort" into it.

After a hour of performing this I can get about 3700g usually. I tend to sell the plants for 3000g and the rest comes from disenchanted greenies and prospected adamantite ore mainly.

Bring Me A Shrubbery!
You will need to focus on one item only: Sanguine Hibiscus. This is obtained from Underbog instance in Zangarmarsh. It's dropped by almost every mob in the instance and can also be picked up from the ground while there. Not even herbalism is required! They drop from both Normal and Heroic modes. The instance is easily soloed by a level 70+ person.

You can get around 30-70 Sanguines from one run if you loot every flower and kill all non-naga creatures. In less than two hours of farming you can obtain hundreds of them! Note that you can enter only 5 instances in a hour.

Felicia from wowhead has posted an excellent farming tip if you're not familiar with the instance. Check it out. There's even a map with the spawn points marked!

Got the flowers! Now what?
To sell them efficiently, create an interesting macro and sell your plants in the trade channel. No one will bump into them in the Auction House unless they're specifically looking for them. Here's an example macro! Use it as a template and modify to make it look nice enough for even yourself to "buy it".

WTS 260 x Sanguine Hibiscus - Enough to get you exalted
with Sporeggar! Get the Diplomat title + Sporeggar Tabard
and the Tiny Sporebat companion pet for only 4000g!

Check how much the flowers go for in the Auction House before deciding a price. Usually there's only a couple for sale so you can ask for thousands easily! You may also remove the price tag and let people give you offers so more people will whisper you in case the price is too much for them.

The amount of flowers is a little lower with the correct guild perk or human racial, so offer cheaper deals for guilded people or humans if you wish.

This is a nice gold maker in my opinion as it only takes a hour or two to get enough flowers, and you don't need to spam your macro long before a buyer is found. I'm always the only one selling these so I don't have any competition either.. yet!

Loot Hunters: Getting rich in Ahn'Qiraj

Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj aka AQ20 in Silithus is still one of my favourite instances to farm, even though all bosses drop only about 20-50g as pure gold now, unlike the 250g they used to drop if I recall right. I can still usually profit about 1000-3000g, depending on if RNG likes me, from one AQ20 run and a few AQ40 bosses!

How to enter a raid instance without outside help!
It's a raid instance once again, so you need to form a raid group in order to enter. This time around I have a nice little trick for you that allows you to enter a raid instance without inviting anyone... Well, except yourself!

While it would be faster to invite some random nab, I prefer this method as you don't need to rely on anybody else. If you play during odd hours, it might be impossible to find someone you could abuse or you might even get kicked out of the instance if for some reason the other user has to log out and you get a dc during a boss fight.

1. Enter Battle.net account management
2. Create a new trial account under the same Battle.net account
3. When you login, you get to choose which WoW account you log into
4. Create a toon on the new account and level it to 10 so you are eligible for raid groups. It's extremely fast even without heirlooms. Just do a couple of quests (*And check nearby treasure chest and rare monster spawn points. Each will give about 1000 exp at these levels, granting you easy level ups!)
5. Open a new WoW window and login onto your main account (wow1) and reduce the other window's size a bit so it won't be so laggy
6. Invite your slave character into a group and convert into a raid!
7. Close the other window and start raiding!

Protip: Trial accounts do not expire anylonger so you can still login onto your slave toon at any point you wish, even after 14 days.

*: I will release a Treasure Hunting guide soon that focuses on hunting chests and rare monsters for some yummy exp and gold, instead of your regular questing guide!

I can crush some bugs nao?
The 20 (Ruins) instance is one big Tank & Spank, so no tactics are needed for any of the fights, at least on a level 85 hunter. I can simply send my pet in and nuke them all down in no time. If you are playing on a different character and are not sure how you should handle a certain fight, leave a comment and I will assist.

There are 6 bosses in the instance and the only one that might give you trouble would be Ayamiss. If your dps is too low and are a pet user, you might get into trouble. If you have control of your pets, make them assist you should you get sacrificed.

I've been able to find even 3000g worth of items from both AQ20 and 40. The latter takes a bit longer to clear since the bosses require more tactics and some will still not be soloable.

But it doesn't matter. I don't farm bosses only. Trash mobs are not trash here, each may carry valuable items!

How I do it as a Hunter
Spec: 7/31/3

As a hunter I use a turtle pet with only defensive talents for soloing raids and heroics. They take less damage than your average death knight tank of the same level and can even solo the bosses if you are interested in AFK kills.

My pet stays at 99% hp all the time due to Silverback and Spirit Bond. And if it's not enough, I toss a mend pet too.

Spec shouldn't matter, but I stick to Marksmanship for those one shot Aimed Shot kills and AOE Multi-Shot spam with 10 focus costs! Glyph of Misdirection is extremely helpful. I try to keep it up 24/7 so I don't have to melee.

I use the following misdirection macro so I don't have to target my pet manually everytime.

#showtooltip Misdirection
/cast [@focustarget,help,exists,nodead] [@pet, exists, nodead] [] Misdirection

It targets either your focused player, which should be a tank or if there is no focus, your pet.

Where's the gold?

Time to find out!

• Every monster can drop coffer keys, idols and scarabs. Each sell for 20-200g.
• Certain vanilla end game profession recipes are obtained from here too and are VERY valuable, but have low drop rates. If you find such item and are not sure how much you should sell it for, leave a comment!
• You will find lots of greenies. They all DE into GEEs and Illusion Dust! Anubisaths even drop essences!
• Some monsters drop an Obsidian chunk that can be mined. It may contain valuable gems!
• Your bags will be full of grey items, but they are not worthless.
• Each boss drops even 3 old class skill books that sell for 10g to a vendor.
• Each boss drops 20g ish as pure gold. AQ40 bosses drop 50g ish instead.
• Each boss drops epics that often have a decent vendor price.
• Each boss may drop an enchanting recipe. These are BOP, but VERY valuable when sold as scrolls!
• Moam often drops Plans: Black Grasp of the Destroyer. It's BOE and may sell for even 1000g.
• There are coffers scattered around the instances. If you find a key, don't forget to peek inside!

And that's not even all. Find out the rest yourself! ;)

Protip: Disenchanting greenies and mining the Obsidian chunks will make you rich. Don't forget Bountiful Bags guild perk for possible double loot!

Note: Since the removal of keyring, Coffer Keys have not been dropping anymore. It's a bug and will be fixed soon(tm) according to a GM.

List of soloable AQ bosses
Thanks to Durendil for the partial list!

Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj
All soloed at level 80. YouTube

Temple of Ahn'Qiraj
Skeram: Killed YouTube
Bug trio Killed YouTube
Sartura Killed YouTube
Fankriss Killed YouTube
Huhuran: Killed YouTube
Viscidus: Killed YouTube
Ouro: Killed YouTube
Twin emperors: Killed
C'thun: Not killed

Loot Hunters: Soloing Heroic Shattered Halls

For easier access this time around, it's time to reveal a gold mine that is not a raid instance: Heroic Shattered Halls! SH is a 5-man instance in Hellfire Citadel, Hellfire Peninsula, Outland.

Need to get attuned... For now?

For a while still, TBC heroics still need a key in order to enter. These keys are reputation rewards from the quartermaster involved with the instance. For example, Hellfire Citadel heroics need Flamewrought Key, purchasable from Honor Hold and Thrallmar reputation vendors upon attaining Revered with them.

In patch 4.2 the keyring will be removed, but there was no mention if TBC heroic attunements will also be lifted, or if you have to carry these keys in your bags instead.

One run might be worth 20,000g!

The entrance is located next to Ramparts

Since the mobs are level 70, they hit for only about 2k on cloth, meaning every class can farm here. Though like always, tanks have the advantage once again, as they can pull the whole instance in just a couple of pulls, making it extremely fast gold per hour method as it leaves lots of time to do something else afterwards.

A typical rush with a tank spec takes less than 18 minutes and can gain between 500-20,000 gold, depending on how lucky you are with drops and what professions you have available. A typical run gives me about 1400g usually. 500g if I'm unlucky and don't see any valuable drops. You have a small chance of obtaining extremely rare profession recipes from TBC heroics which give you a massive gold boost!

And with a small chance I mean statistically you have to run about 100-200 runs to get a rare recipe, but you will never know when RNG favors you! I've seen Battlemaster enchant and some blacksmithing plans both drop in one run, even though their drop rate is like 0.10%! Too bad it wasn't a solo run then. :/

How can a TBC heroic be profitable?

Let's see what loot you can find here!

1. Every mob drops 25-90 silver usually.
2. Every mob drops Netherweave Cloth.
3. You will get lots of TBC enchanting mats if you can DE.
4. Your bags will be full of greys, which each are worth a few gold usually.
5. You will find BOE blues. Most of them are worthless though.
6. Bosses drop loot that should be vendored for many gold pieces each.
7. You will find TBC Darkmoon Cards here.
8. If you are fast enough, you get a bonus "boss" which drops Primals, pots and scrolls!
9. Every mob has a small chance of dropping a extremely valuable BOE profession recipes. These can be Schematics, Recipes, Designs or Plans. There is about 30 of them out there!

While most of the profession recipes are junk, there are collectors who would let you have their babies for the said recipe.

Protips to make you even more gold:

• If you run into TBC Darkmoon Cards, they are worth 50-500g usually. If you sell them invidually and not as a deck/trinket, you get a lot more profit!
• Bosses drop epics, but Void Crystals are worthless. These should be vendored instead! If you want to create products, like enchanting scrolls with them, it's more profitable if you buy them from AH instead.
• Prismatic Shards can be valuable... Or not! Check AH prices before you choose to disenchant blue items.
• Like always, find a profitable use for Netherweave Cloth. You will find lots of it! These can be bags or tailoring products that can be DE'd for profit.
• Most blue quality BOEs are worthless, but some are worth a few hundred.

That's it for now!

Is there a instance that you have found to be profitable and also soloable, that I haven not mentioned yet? :) Leave a comment!

Manual: Strong Anti-Venom

 Recognize Valuable Loot!

If you like to level alts or otherwise farm low level instances, you're bound to find one, if not more of certain items that are a lot more valuable than they would appear to be. Most of the time people pass on these, sell them for ridiculously low prices or just vendor them, so clicking on need is highly recommended.

You should also check your AH if someone is doing the above and benefit from it.

World drop items - How to obtain?

One of the most common rare items is the manual for Strong Anti-Venom, a random world drop, mainly obtained from chests around level 30. Even though farming world drops is pointless, this is not the only valuable item a chest may contain. A good place to test your luck is Scarlet Monastery.

There are more than one wing, so the 5 instances per hour limit will not happen as fast as it would in a typical instance. There are no chests in Cathedral, but mobs also can drop valuables and that wing is the fastest in the game anyways :)

Half of the chests are locked, so bring something that can open them, like bombs or skeleton keys. Skeleton keys do not need a profession so they are often the good choice.

How valuable is valuable?

Most of the valuable items I will be listing here are worth 2-15k, sometimes more. They are mainly for collectors who want to learn every possible recipe in the game. That means you shouldn't expect these items to sell even in the first week. It may very well take even a few months to make one sell, depending on how much your are asking for it.

Protips:

•  If you create an interesting macro that advertises your rare loot, it will catch more eyes and sell a lot faster.
•  You will be the only one selling these most of the time, so you get to pick the price!

I will create a similar gold making method containing a "junk" rare item every 1-2 weeks. Next item I will tell about is a bit more rare, but also a lot more valuable. I've sold one of them for 20k after buying it for 15g a few weeks back!

Hint: It's Purple

Loot Hunters: Looting in the Molten Core

From the ghostly tower of Karazhan we travel to the Molten Core below the Blackrock Mountain itself, looking to find even better loot than previously. It may be many ilvls lower than Karazhan, but people still seem to fail here more than in Kara, so boss tactics for solo kills are included this time!

This is a raid instance also, so you need to be in a raid group to enter.

So where's this Blackrock Mountain anyways?
If you've never been to Molten Core or Blackrock Depths before, here's simple instructions on how to find the place.

1. Fly to Searing Gorge
2. Move south towards the Blackrock Mountain
3. Enter the big doorway that leads inside
4. Fly down towards the lava and look around until you see a Blood Elf NPC
5. If you don't have a flying mount, you can jump down into the lava and swim towards the lowest edge that touches the lava. Just make sure you're running straight forward when you approach the jump position.

I would create videos but blogger does not let me use freshly uploaded youtube videos for some reason.

One does not simply walk into Molten Core
Surprisingly enough, you need a key again in order to enter! Or rather a invisible buff that lasts forever, making you attuned to the instance. You may try to enter without getting attuned, but get some sun lotion ready before doing so!

This time the pre-quest for entering is way more simple and less time consuming. All you have to do is complete one quest and you are done! Talk to Lothos Riftwaker, who stands in a small room on your way to Blackrock Depths to get the attunement quest, Attunement to the Core

Afterwards continue your way to Blackrock Depths, deeper in the same mountain. Here's a video guide for the quest itself, if it's not familiar already.

After you have obtained the Core Fragment quest item, you can enter the green raid portal next to it, which leads to Molten Core. There is a faster way inside though! Go out of the instance again and return the quest. Once you have returned the quest, you can simply jump through the small window in the same small room and you get teleported to MC again. Better to not be lagging!

Skill requirement: AFK Autoshot Pew Pew
Molten Core is very straight forward. The trash won't give you trouble if you are high level, and the bosses are very simple once you are familar with their abilities.

Note that clothies without self heals or pets are always at a disadvantage. A mage will struggle soloing the place, but any other class should be able to clear all bosses if the spec is right.

Where's the loot?

Every monster can drop something valuable, such as BOE epics and unique trade goods. Molten Destroyers can also drop Blood of the Mountain which is VERY valuable, so they should not be skipped to maximize the loot. Skinners can also skin the core hounds for Core Leather, although it's prices haven't been very high.

All bosses can drop profession patterns, some of them being BOE. They should be sold or learned if you think you can profit from them. Golemagg can also drop Sulfuron Ingots, which also are extremely valuable. Ragnaros drops a few BOEs everytime.

For a more complete list of profitable items, check the last section of this post.

Image credit: Sirath

BY FIRE BE PURGED!

Some bosses have mechanics you may want to avoid, even if you are full epic with a 40 inch e-peen. Below is a list of boss tactics, if any. Last time I farmed Molten Core, I was level 80, so it's possible you do not need to pay attention in almost any of the fights at level 85.

Lucifron
Should give you no trouble. Better to solo Hogger instead if this boss gives trouble :)

Magmadar
This just in: Fire still hot.

Gehennas
Will curse you, reducing your healing taken by 75%. Better to keep a finger on the decurse button!

Garr
Will have dispel magic pulses; no point rebuffing if you are planning on getting hit by it often.

Shazzrah
Should give you no trouble.

Baron Geddon
This boss will turn you into a living bomb from time to time. It's a very smart move to pull him into the narrow cave so your head will hit the ceiling instead, otherwise you will take fall damage, a lot. Brain damage is an another matter though...

Golemagg the Incinerator
Tank and spank. Focus on the boss and ignore adds.

Sulfuron Harbinger
Should give you no trouble.

Majordomo Executus
Should give you no trouble.

Ragnaros
It's important that you position yourself during the encounter so that there's as much lava behind you as possible, since you will get knocked around a lot, as a melee at least. Fall damage is bad for your health. Lava - Not so much!

Loot that will make you rich

Schematic: Biznicks 247x128 Accurascope
Schematic: Core Marksman Rifle
Schematic: Force Reactive Disk
Formula: Enchant Weapon - Spellpower
Formula: Enchant Weapon - Healing Power
Pattern: Flarecore Wraps
Pattern: Core Felcloth Bag
Recipe: Major Rejuvenation Potion
Sulfuron Ingot
Lava Core
Fiery Core
Core of Earth
Blood of the Mountain

Some of them are BOP, but if you have the profession, you can make lots of gold if you create some items!

Loot Hunters: Farming Karazhan for lots of gold!

It be loot hunting time, mon! Loot Hunters focus on soloing raids and other dungeons for gold, so phat lewt awaits! First post is about Karazhan. Not only is Karazhan the best instance in the game, but it can also be very profitable and you might even get yourself a nice Fiery Warhorse mount while at it. Big chunk of the gold comes from professions, mainly Enchanting and Tailoring, along with pure gold drops from bosses.

If you're a new player or just having early dementia, Karazhan is located in Deadwind Pass, next to Duskwood. Fastest way to get there is by using the portal to Blasted Lands in any of the capital cities!

Make even more gold from Karazhan

The instance is full of humanoids, so you will find loads of Netherweave cloth on top of direct gold drops. This means you should not skip any mobs here to maximize your gold earnings. The amount is noticeable, even after the Philanthropist nerf which made the mobs drop about 12g less gold per kill.

To make use of the cloth drops, Tailoring is a very good choice, but it's not a requirement for the solo-toon, as cloth can be sent to other alts. Netherweave has 2 profitable paths, Netherweave Bags or Netherweave Bracers, which will be disenchanted into Arcane Dust and Planar Essences. Check your realm's prices for them and see which path is more profitable. Usually Netherweave Cloth has too low prices for it to be more profitable to sell as it is.

Whatever you do, do NOT disenchant epics unless Void Crystals are more valuable than the item's vendor price. Most epics sell for 3-15g to a vendor, while a Voidie sells for about.. 30 copper usually in the Auction House!


Farming profession recipes

There are many profession recipes that are BOP in Karazhan, most well known being the enchanting formula for Mongoose. Most of the following enchants and items are profitable to sell on some realms, but at least on my realm the mats are more valuable and also sell faster than the creations. Tailoring patterns are profitable only if they have 3 sockets, as people are ready to pay even 3000g for a 70 epic with 3 sockets, especially if you insert some WOTLK epic gems into it and don't forget the best fitting Wrath enchant. :)

Here's a list of profession recipes you can find from Karazhan. I'm fairly sure there was blacksmithing plans aswell, but I can't seem to find them.

Formula: Enchant Weapon - Mongoose
Formula: Enchant Weapon - Soulfrost
Formula: Enchant Weapon - Sunfire
Formula: Enchant Boots - Surefooted
Pattern: Soulcloth Vest
Pattern: Soulcloth Shoulders

Fuck the key, we'll take the shortcut!

When 4.2 arrives, the gate is no longer locked. But for now, you still need The Master's Key in order to enter Karazhan, or alternatively have engineering, blacksmithing or lockpicking available. Engineers can blast the door open, Blacksmiths can use skeleton keys and Rogues can lockpick.

However if you don't have any of those, you can just kill yourself next to the gate and walk through it as a ghost, releasing between the gate and the instance portal. To make a succesful suicide, hop onto your flying mount, fly high enough and unmount! Fun, fun, and it's not even friday! Or if you're slacking and don't have "old weather flying", you can pull nearby mobs and let them rape you. To save yourself from repair bills, strip a bit before doing so.

If that doesn't interest you either, the key quest starts next to Karazhan and leads you to Hillsbrad and then Shattrath. After that you have to clear a few TBC instances and the key is yours.

You also need to be in a raid group in order to enter a raid instance for some unknown reason. Perhaps so mentally challenged players don't accidentally enter green portals, pull elites and get some repair bills? :) *shrug*


Sources of gold

- You will find lots of greenies. Disenchant them!
- You will find lots of epics. BOE? Enchant/gem and sell them! BOP? Vendor!
- You will find lots of blues. Sell them!
- You will find profession recipes. Learn them and sell if they're profitable!
- Humanoids and bosses drop silver and gold!
- Netherweave can be turned into valuable bags and other items



Conclusion

If you're having "Lol, didn't read" thoughts, here's a quick summary!

- Get tailoring and enchanting
- Commit a suicide or open the gate
- Invite a random player and convert the group into a raid
- Something moves? Pew pew! Leave no one alive.. Oh wait.
- Loot every corpse!
- If you are decently geared level 85, you can do huge pulls and AOE farm
- Turn trade goods into something more profitable

Secret cloth farms with instant respawns!

For a while now cloth prices have been extremely high on most realms. For example, a stack of silk cloth can sell for even 50g these days when supply is low (which is almost always), and Frostweave easily 100g a stack.

There's also exceptions, such as Netherweave cloth which usually stays between 5-15g a stack. Netherweave should always be turned into something more useful, like bags to make even 4x more profit.

I find cloth farming the most fun in instances, but for the lower level cloths there are quite a few priceless instant respawn places outside the instances. Why I favor instances however is a high level player can pull the whole instance with one pull in most cases and then reset and repeat until the hourly cap is reached at which point it's a good idea to sell the loot and disenchant greenies and see if there's any other cloth that is valuable.

Inventory is full

If you are clearing low level instances, you will bump into "Inventory is full" message sooner than you'd like. There is a cure however! I recommend Loot Filter or any other similar addon that automatically removes worthless loot from your inventory so your bags won't be full all the time. You should add worthless items manually to the addon's blacklist, and make it automatically delete grey items. You can also configure it to delete only items worth a certain amount or less.

Everytime you run to a vendor to empty bags, you lose valuable time you could spend killing things instead.

Note that higher level grey loot may sell for many gold pieces, so if you are farming level 55 -> monsters, you'll lose a lot if you ignore grey weapons for example.

Here's the best farming locations from my experience. Phased means you may not be able to farm there if you have or haven't done the quests involved. I haven't quested much in the below zones so there may be more than one phased farm. I've only included places with close to instant respawn mobs!



Linen Cloth

Ragefire Chasm (Instance)
Riverpaw Bandits (Westfall)
Risen Hillsbrad Peasants and Farmers (Hillsbrad Foothills, Phased)


Wool Cloth

Stormwind Stockades (Instance)
Shadowfang Keep (Instance)
Risen Hillsbrad Peasants and Farmers (Hillsbrad Foothills, Phased)
Ebon Slavehunter (Wetlands)
Dragonmaw Whelpstealer (Wetlands)


Silk Cloth

Scarlet Monastery: Cathedral (Instance)
Gnomeregan (Instance)
Slitherblade naga (Desolace, near shore)


Mageweave Cloth

Stratholme (Instance)
Scholomance (Instance)
Zul'Farrak (Instance)


Runecloth

Blackrock Depths (Instance)
Blackrock Spire (Instance)
Hellfire Ramparts (Instance)

Protip: In soviet Ramparts the mobs come to you!


Netherweave Cloth

Blood Furnace (Instance)
Mana-Tombs (Instance)

It's often more wise to farm other cloths instead, and if you are in need of Netherweave, buy some with the gold you obtained from selling more expensive cloths.


Frostweave Cloth

All WOTLK instances (Heroic and normal)

Frostweave Farming locations


Embersilk Cloth

Embersilk Farming locations

Did I miss your favourite farming spot? Let me know! :)

How to make gold in instances

Some vanilla enchanting materials have had their prices increased dramatically in the past few months on some realms, notably Large Brilliant Shards as they are no longer obtained from the short instances, like Scholomance and Stratholme due to their level drop after Cataclysm.

For example, Large Brilliant Shards sell for 60g these days on the realms I play on, Small Radiant Shards 35g and Large Radiant Shards even 100g sometimes.

Considering how many you can get from one instance run and how fast, it's a nice way to make some extra gold if you have enchanting!

You also get lots of greenies that disenchant into sometimes even more valuable dusts and essences!

Here are some of the most valuable materials and where to obtain them. If you're doing this on a level 85 toon, you don't have to think which instance is the fastest, you will hit the 5 instances/hour limit very fast in every case. If you dont have a level 85 toon, better to level one there! :)


Scholomance

Small Radiant Shards

This was better pre-Cataclysm when you could aggro the whole downstairs from the bridge near the entrance, making the instance both faster and more fun. (In soviet Scholomance the mobs come to you!)

Engineers can still however aggro the zombies and skeletons in the cellar by tossing a Saronite bomb into the ground when you're above the cellar. The blast radius goes through the floor and aggros everything downstairs. Less running, unless you're going for the boss in there! Some other bombs may work too, haven't tested.


Stratholme

Large Radiant Shards

The instance is divided into 2 parts, "living side" and "undead side". You may want to stick to Balnazzar's "living side", depending on what you are farming. Both large shards tend to drop from that side. You can find mostly Small Brilliant Shards in the "undead side", which are not worth the effort usually.


Blackrock Spire

Large Brilliant Shard

This instance is huge, but every boss drops a Large Brilliant Shard. In addition to that, every greenie will disenchant into Illusion Dusts and Greater Eternal Essences if you choose to annihilate every monster in your path.

This instance is divided into 2 zones too, Upper Spire (UBRS) and Lower Spire (LBRS), the first one being a former raid instance. Upper is on the left side behind the stairs.

There's also valuable chests in this instance which may contain very valuable profession recipes, so in my opinion, this instance is the best one to farm large brill shards!


Blackrock Depths

Large Brilliant Shard

You should focus on the upper city, since the lower part of the instance gains you mostly Small Brilliant Shards which still are not worth anything sadly. There's the handy "mole" next to the entrance portal so you don't have to run into the upper city anymore!


Overall, depending on your realm's prices, its easy to make a few thousand gold pieces in a very little time, possibly even more if you find a valuable treasure chest on your way.

Love is in the air = Lots of gold!

If you would like to make some gold selling Lovely Charm Bracelets, I found a very good spot for farming them. It has not even been nerfed (yet!)

Halls of Lightning in The Mounta... Storm Peaks, specifically it's The Iron Crucible before the second boss contains lots of Elementals called Slag with only 15k hp, and they respawn almost instantly so you dont even need to reset, as most of you can remember. All level 85 classes can do this with eyes closed, but tanks always have the upper hand as they can pull way more mobs at a time and come out of a fight with full health.

I can get about 500 Charms in a hour here, so it's priceless!

Go grab your Lovely Charm Collector's Kit from a capital city and start farming before it gets nerfed!

Each monster you kill has about 30% chance of dropping a Lovely Charm. Note that not all monsters drop them, especially ones that are easy too kill and spawn in lots of over 9000.

Some other farming spots that deserve a mention:

- Converted Heroes in Icecrown (Check the Frostweave gold making method and combine 2 gold makers!)
- Stone Bats in Deepholm

You cannot post these on the Auction House anymore,so you have to sell your bracelets in the trade channel instead.