So I made over 60,000 gold in a couple of hours yesterday, and I want to show you exactly how I did it. Welcome, my adventure friends, to the ultimate Cataclysm gold-making guide. From AFK gold making to dailies that unlock tens of thousands of golden profit, we definitely don’t want to fall behind those greedy gnomes.
Why Focus on Farming Gold
As we get into my ultimate gold-making guide, some players are going to be asking why we focus so much on farming gold, especially in an expansion like Cataclysm. After all, this is an expansion known for gear being locked behind reputations and the legendarily difficult heroic dungeons. But while many pieces are locked behind RDF spam, in the case of classes like fire mages, over half their gear can simply be purchased on the Auction house. That includes things like the epic Dark Moon card volcano.
Advantages of Having Gold
Not only does having gold save you dozens of hours of time and those super frustrating heroics, but you’re also getting this gameplay advantage as well. Having significantly stronger gear compared to the 346 pieces is a huge benefit.
Farming
First, we’ve got farming, and this is the least scalable method of them all, but it is a very important way to generate that initial income to level professions.
Profession-Based Methods
Then we have those more lucrative profession-based methods, crafting bind and equip items to sell. In my case, Prospecting ores to sell gems, or you could even be gambling Dark Moon cards.
Daily Quests
We also have Daily quests, and these have an outsized importance in Cataclysm because they’re used to gate some of the most lucrative recipes in Azeroth.
Cooldowns
Finally, we have cooldowns, the most scalable method of them all. These are the passive cooldowns from professions that allow you to generate thousands of gold per week.
Open World Farming
Let’s quickly start with open world farming, and the reason we’re starting with that is that if you want to make the 60,000 gold I made yesterday, you kind of have to have some startup gold. So power farming Volatile elements really is the most popular method by far right now. What I would do is search the Auction house for all
Power Farming Different Elements
The different elements, such as air, earth, fire, and water, are essential for power farming. Whichever one is the most valuable is what you’re going to go out and farm. For volatile air, my favorite spot would be Uldum, near the middle of the map. For volatile water, which is currently the most valuable on my server, that would be west of the Dragon W port. For volatile earth, which is cratering in price, I would not recommend farming it. However, it can be found near the Black Breach in Twilight Highlands. As for volatile fire, east of the Sulfuron Spire in Mount Hyjal is a very good spot as well.
Profession Gold Making
With farming out of the way, we can talk about how I made 60,000 gold yesterday, specifically with profession gold making. After leveling, I immediately rushed my jewelcrafting to 500 to prospect Pyrium ore. It’s worth noting that with any of these professions, you could actually max them out at 75; you don’t have to be level 85. In Cataclysm, prospecting works exactly like it did in Wrath. You buy five ores and use a macro to spam prospect as quickly as you can.
Buying and Prospecting Ores
With so many miners at the start of the phase, I was able to buy over 12,000 Pyrium ore very cheaply. It’s important to note that this ore was purchased in chunks, so you don’t have to have 200,000 to 300,000 gold to do this. Prospecting nearly 200,000 gold worth of ores led to a variety of gems. In Cataclysm, just like in Wrath, each prospect has a chance to generate uncommon gems.
Value of Inferno Rubies
Just like in Wrath, the new Inferno rubies are still the most valuable item to receive in prospecting. I’m definitely still getting that dopamine rush I got from Wrath prospecting. So, what makes Pyrium ore such a good gold maker? You’re really after the volatile earth drops, and some of these prospects are giving you up to three. It sells instantly on my server and is used in a variety of crafts and enchants as well.
Achievements from Gold Making
With the launch of volatile earth prices, I was able to make over 60,000 gold from these prospects. This meant I was able to secure my Dark Moon deck, my prized BoE, a heartbound tome, and really everything else I needed.
Securing Future Wealth Beyond Prospecting
I wanted to get the problem is, though, that 60,000 gold really isn’t what it used to be, and prospecting profit is just not going to last forever. So next, let’s talk about some specific ways I’m securing my future beyond that launch week of prospecting. The two methods I’m setting myself up with for a full expansion of wealth are Daily quests and passive gold making.
Daily Quests
Talking about those Daily quests, the new Tol Barad Daily quests reward about 50 gold each. So, just one time per day before Tol Barad, I’m going to pick up all the quests near the portal, and then after Tol Barad, I’ll go in a circle, just knocking out all the quests. This nets me over 350 gold in about 20 minutes. That is, unless you play Alliance, because I’ve literally never seen an Alliance member win Tol Barad before. While that reliable gold pays my bills, I’m also setting myself up for profit far beyond 350 per day by doing the cooking and jewelcrafting dailies.
Jewelcrafting Dailies
These dailies are setting my characters up with recipes that’ll make me tens of thousands of gold in the next couple of weeks. Starting with jewelcrafting, these new dailies are arguably the single best long-term profit maker in the game. You’ll be picking up a future quest next to your trainer, and you’re going to have to cut about 20 gold worth of uncommon gems. Your reward for doing that is 16 gold, but far more importantly, you get a jewelcrafter’s token. These tokens are used to purchase recipes so you can cut rare gems like the Bold Inferno Rubies for warriors. Since the recipes take so long to get, you’re guaranteed profit doing these cuts for the next several weeks.
Cooking Dailies
This isn’t the only daily that Blizzard designed to heavily reward the savviest and most dedicated players, though. The smartest gold makers in Azeroth are rushing their cooking dailies as fast as they can on all their alts. The priceless reason to do these dailies, just like with jewelcrafting, is to unlock the invaluable recipes. These recipes are gated behind Chef Awards, and you can only get these from Daily quests. The more recipes you have, the more potential gold you have flipping on the Auction house. Profit potential is well over 5,000 gold per hour.
Passive AFK Gold Makers
I still haven’t talked about my passive AFK gold makers. After all, cooking and jewelcrafting still require a fair amount of manual, backbreaking labor. That is where my profession cooldowns come in to save the day. The single best profession cooldown by far is Truegold. Truegold has a one-day cooldown, so every single day you can make over 1,000 gold like clockwork.
Dreamcloth Cooldown
The next best profession cooldown is Dreamcloth. It is a bind-on-pickup cooldown and uses Embersilk and Volatile elements. You might have noticed I said bind-on-pickup for the Dreamcloth. The way you unload your profit is to craft items like the Dreamless Belt and then sell those items on the Auction house for insane profit. Currently, the belts are worth over 18,000 gold to mages.
Maximizing Profit in Cataclysm
Having talked about the four pillars of Cataclysm gold making, from open world farming to professions, dailies, and cooldown CDs, hopefully, you are set up to maximize your profit-making in Cataclysm. I know personally that I want to have every single BoE possible, from the Darkmoon cards to even the BoE weapons. I also want to be able to save a ton of time gearing out my alts.
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