Gold Making Tips Guide
Select the Right Gold Strategy
Some gold strategies scale well with level or ability. Others don't. The ones that scale well are typically gold strategies based on mob killing. Always read the gold reports associated with a gold strategy to get other players' comments.
Make sure that you like the gold strategy you choose, because you'll need to spend quite some time with it to truly master it.
Be an Efficient Killer
Many gold strategies are based on killing mobs. The more you kill, the more loot you get. And the more loot, the more gold in your pocket.
Assuming optimal play skill (in terms of mob killing), the three most important things for efficient killing are your level, your gear, and your talent build. Efficient killing and leveling seem to hand-in-hand.
Being about 10 levels higher than the recommended level for a given gold strategy might boost your gold-making efficiency (i.e. gold/hour) by 50% or more. For having top-notch gear, add another 50%. These numbers assume that you really know how to play your character and use your abilities optimally. If you don't... well, learn how [lol]!
Get ALL the Loot
Make sure that you get ALL the loot available. In addition to mob loot, skin every skinnable enemy, gather every ore and herb, loot every treasure chest and locker, etc. (Exception: Don't spend precious time on things you know are not worth the time.)
Think twice about throwing away Grey items. Some may be worth quite a lot when sold to a vendor.
Make sure that your bags are large enough to carry all your loot. Otherwise, you'll need to throw away loot. And no gold-maker in his right mind wants to throw away loot (loot = gold).
Master the Auction House
Can't say this often enough. With some skill (and patience) you can learn how to get more (and often a lot more) out of your loot than what the Auctioneer and WoWecon guess you can. Find articles on mastering the Auction House and read them carefully. You can start out with the Auction House Guide article and proceed from there.
Understand Loot Tables
At ThottBot.com, there are loot tables for about every single mob in World of Warcraft. Use these when evaluating gold strategies and figuring out which monsters are to the best to kill for loot.
Note that luck certainly plays a factor when it comes to loot, particularly rare loot. If you plan to farm a certain mob (or group of mobs) for quite some time, maybe for a specific item, then you might want to make sure that the loot table(s) does indeed include some rare items, such as rare recipes or epics. It is very nice to suddenly get a drop worth 400 gold or more!
Measure, Evaluate, Optimize
Many gold strategies can be tweaked and optimized. The best way to find these tweaks is to play it over and over again while reading the comments and gold reports of other players. Time your activities. Measure them. Evaluate them. Maybe you can revise your combat strategy a bit and improve your average mob killing speed by a few seconds? Maybe you can optimize that mining route a bit? Maybe a mob has a slightly better looting table, or is simply easier to kill, than another mob and hence should be favored in killing? Maybe a certain time of day (or day of week) is better than another because of less competition? Etc. You get the idea. In my experience, you can almost always optimize a little bit more. Remember to take notes so you don't forget things.
If there is any missing information, please email: [email protected]
<-Go Back
Some gold strategies scale well with level or ability. Others don't. The ones that scale well are typically gold strategies based on mob killing. Always read the gold reports associated with a gold strategy to get other players' comments.
Make sure that you like the gold strategy you choose, because you'll need to spend quite some time with it to truly master it.
Be an Efficient Killer
Many gold strategies are based on killing mobs. The more you kill, the more loot you get. And the more loot, the more gold in your pocket.
Assuming optimal play skill (in terms of mob killing), the three most important things for efficient killing are your level, your gear, and your talent build. Efficient killing and leveling seem to hand-in-hand.
Being about 10 levels higher than the recommended level for a given gold strategy might boost your gold-making efficiency (i.e. gold/hour) by 50% or more. For having top-notch gear, add another 50%. These numbers assume that you really know how to play your character and use your abilities optimally. If you don't... well, learn how [lol]!
Get ALL the Loot
Make sure that you get ALL the loot available. In addition to mob loot, skin every skinnable enemy, gather every ore and herb, loot every treasure chest and locker, etc. (Exception: Don't spend precious time on things you know are not worth the time.)
Think twice about throwing away Grey items. Some may be worth quite a lot when sold to a vendor.
Make sure that your bags are large enough to carry all your loot. Otherwise, you'll need to throw away loot. And no gold-maker in his right mind wants to throw away loot (loot = gold).
Master the Auction House
Can't say this often enough. With some skill (and patience) you can learn how to get more (and often a lot more) out of your loot than what the Auctioneer and WoWecon guess you can. Find articles on mastering the Auction House and read them carefully. You can start out with the Auction House Guide article and proceed from there.
Understand Loot Tables
At ThottBot.com, there are loot tables for about every single mob in World of Warcraft. Use these when evaluating gold strategies and figuring out which monsters are to the best to kill for loot.
Note that luck certainly plays a factor when it comes to loot, particularly rare loot. If you plan to farm a certain mob (or group of mobs) for quite some time, maybe for a specific item, then you might want to make sure that the loot table(s) does indeed include some rare items, such as rare recipes or epics. It is very nice to suddenly get a drop worth 400 gold or more!
Measure, Evaluate, Optimize
Many gold strategies can be tweaked and optimized. The best way to find these tweaks is to play it over and over again while reading the comments and gold reports of other players. Time your activities. Measure them. Evaluate them. Maybe you can revise your combat strategy a bit and improve your average mob killing speed by a few seconds? Maybe you can optimize that mining route a bit? Maybe a mob has a slightly better looting table, or is simply easier to kill, than another mob and hence should be favored in killing? Maybe a certain time of day (or day of week) is better than another because of less competition? Etc. You get the idea. In my experience, you can almost always optimize a little bit more. Remember to take notes so you don't forget things.
If there is any missing information, please email: [email protected]
<-Go Back
