Welcome to our Classic WoW gold farming guide. It’s common knowledge that Classic WoW is pretty ruthless when it comes to grinding and making gold, especially at lower levels when you need coins for training your spells to the highest ranks and evidently, getting those mounts at 40 and 60 respectively. And while life is pretty expensive in Azeroth, there are a lot of ways of making gold in Classic.
In this guide, we’ll show you some of our favorite gold-making methods in Classic WoW, some are popular, some are less-known by the average player. What’s important is that any player can farm gold effectively in Classic, by using their professions, playing the Auction House or just grinding for loot.
We also recommend checking our WoW Classic Complete Guide for all the professions guides, leveling tips, addons, class builds and other Classic tips.
We’ll keep this Classic WoW gold farming guide updated with more gold farming tips as well as grinding locations. Keep this page bookmarked for updates.
Classic WoW Gold Farming Tips
- Invest in some bags early-game. Even if it’s a burden first, having more loot space is way better than not having enough bag space.
- Do not buy items from the Auction House until you’re at least level 40. It’s simply not worth it, you’ll outlevel them fast anyway. Also, most quests have good rewards so gear won’t be a big problem.
- Grinding materials is one of the most profitable ways of farming gold reliable in Classic WoW. Pick at least 1 gathering profession and start farming mats. Mining, for example, is one of the best gathering professions since mats collected by miners are used in Blacksmithing and Engineering.
- Skinning is one of the profitable starting professions since it allows you to farm almost any mob you kill when you level-up. Materials from Skinning can be used in Leatherworking but are used in Tailoring as well or Engineering (in some recipes).
- Herbalism is also a great gathering profession, all end-game raids and dungeons require Alchemists to create powerful potions. If you use a Classic addon such as GatherMate2, you’ll know exactly where are those Black Lotus plants.
- Always empty your bags when you go farming, it’s a complete time-waste if you get to your desired farming place to find you only have 10 empty slots left.
- Early game, try to sell most of your green items to the AH, even if the price you get vs the vendor price is just slightly better. Those silver coins start to stack up and you’ll need any and all coins you make.
- When you do your questing, if you don’t intend to use the given rewards, always choose the Plate Armor, Axe or Sword from those rewards. These items sell better than cloth armor for example.
- Create Mules! Mules are alts that are mostly used as bank characters. There’s no point in buying bank space since it’s very expensive early on. Also, mules can be placed in front of the Auction House to check it regularly for better prices/bargains or to sell your loot. Just mail the items from your main character to your Mule and auction them.
- Get to know the price of various items at the AH. You’ll always find bargains, players underselling certain items that can be resold for more. Use an addon such as Auctionator, it will save you a lot of time and effort.
- All classes can AoE farm, some classes better than others, but don’t get fooled, your class can farm reliably. Just find a good grinding spot or create a gathering route, the game offers endless possibilities. Don’t be stuck in the “I have to be a mage/hunter” mentality.
Grinding Zones in Classic WoW
Farming Pearls in Wetlands (20+)
This is for levels 20 to 30+ since you cannot farm effectively under level 20. Our aim here is to farm Bluegill Murloc, which are really easy to kill and can be AoE’d easily. Careful about Bluegill Oracles, you don’t want to draw any of those since they are ranged.
These mobs drop Murloc Fin, Thick Murloc Scale, a wide variety of fish (useful for cooking or selling) and a lot of green items. They also drop Thick-Shelled Clam which can provide you with a lot of Tangy Clam Meat that you can sell but more importantly, they have a chance to have Iridescent Pearl and Small Lustrous Pearl. These sell for 1-3g and can be farmed reliably for hours. The are has also a lot of quests in that area so you can combine them to farm effectively.
Farming Deviate Fish (Fishing 75+)
This method doesn’t require you to kill anything, rather you have to do a bit of fishing. I know, most of us won’t touch Fishing at all but trust me when I say it, it’s worth you level Fishing to 100. You’ll make a lot of gold farming Deviate Fish not only early-game but in end-game as well since the Savory Deviate Delight is in demand pretty much always.
To fish reliably you have to be at least level 75 Fishing but I recommend level it to 100 for a better catch rate. The perfect fishing spot is the Wailing Caverns instance in The Barrens. You can catch the Deviate Fish outside the instance (the pool outside the cave) but I don’t recommend doing that especially on a PvP server. There are several safe spots in the instance but I’ve found, the stream just past the first batch of raptors works great and the pool near Kresh. There’s only wandering ooze you have to deal with so that’s no problem.
I’ve found the catch rate actually varies from trip to trip, sometimes I’ll be catching a deviate at around 1 per every 2.5 fish or around 40% of the time. On slower days it breaks down to about 1 in every 4 fish or 25% of the time. Bottom line is, there’s never less than 1 in 4. If you consider the occasional no catch and the rare “fish got away” message, you should be catching 1 deviate in every 5 casts on average. The average cast time for a catch is around 30 seconds (this is an estimate). That means you’re catching around 2 fish a minute or 1 deviate fish every 2 minutes. To do some simple math, you’ll be catching 30 x Deviate Fish per hour.
The Deviate Fish stack sells on average for about 12-15g (Vanilla data). If you have Recipe: Savory Deviate Delight, you can do way more than that since Savory Deviate Delight sells for around 1-2g per piece (in some cases more).
Scarlet Monastery Gold Farming (40+)
There are many tactics and methods on farming SM, we’ll try to cover some of the most popular ones. First of all, to effectively farm in SM, you’ll need to be at least level 40. You can do it sooner, but it’s a hassle and there are other better areas for that level.
The Free Chest Technique
In the Graveyard, the first room you enter has Large Solid Chest at the end of the hall. You can go to the chest without aggroing any mobs, but to play safe, you can kill the first 2 mobs. The trick is, you have to be in a party with someone. The deal is, go there, loot the chest, leave the instance, invite your friend, reset the instance, leave the party. Rinse and repeat. You’ll get about 3-5g worth of loot from the chest every time. And that’s once per minute if the chest doesn’t glitch (it happens sometimes).
Farming cloth in SM Armory & Library
As we’ve stated in our Tailoring Guide, for Silk Cloth / Mageweave Cloth farming, Armory and Library are the best places. Besides the cloth materials, you can get a lot of green items and some blue ones. Doing SM repeatedly also allows you to get Tabard of the Scarlet Crusade which is a nice bonus. You also get a chance of getting Scarlet Chestpiece which can drop in all the SM wings (it can sell very well at the AH)
Dust Stormers in Silithus (48+)
Mobs in Silithus are an excellent source of materials, gold and items. Elementals in these areas drop a lot of green and blue items, gold and other vendor junk but most importantly they drop essences. We’re looking for Dust Stormers in Silithus since they can drop Essence of Air and occasionally, Traveler’s Backpack. You can make A LOT of gold in this area, provided it’s not heavily camped by others. Keep in mind you have to be at least level 48-50 to grind the Stormers effectively. Here are their locations:
Essence of Fire farming in Un’Goro (39+)
Essence of Fire is the word here, one of the most coveted essences in the game. Needed for Blazing Rapier, Fiery Plate Gauntlets, Sulfuron Hammer and the popular Fiery Weapon enchant. The essences drop mainly off Living Blaze and Scorching Elementals at Fire Plume Ridge in Un’Goro Crater. If the place isn’t too heavily camped, you can farm a lot here and get about 15-20g per hour, if lucky. Keep in mind you have to be at least level 39-40 to farm effectively.
Badlands Grinding (35+)
Agmond’s End in the Badlands is a good place to farm Enraged Rock Elementals, if you’re level 35+. The elementals will aggro you very fast but they are melee only so it shouldn’t be a problem. They can drop a lot of blacksmithing stones like Smooth Stone Chips, Solid Stones and Deeprock Salt which you can sell in the Auction House. The elementals also have a chance to drop Elemental Earth which is used in professions like tailoring, leatherworking, and smithing. Evidently, the mobs drop various green and blue items that can boost your earnings. With the stones, you can make about 10-15g/hour, which is more than decent given the difficulty.
Arathi Highlands – Circle of West Binding (37+)
Another good Classic WoW gold farming zone is the Circle of West Binding. The area is populated by about 10 Burning Exiles ranging levels 37-39. That means you have to be level 40ish to grind this spot effectively. The problem with this spot is that melee classes will have a harder time farming them since they have a damage shield and hits fairly hard. Casters like Mages and Warlocks have no problems here. The Exiles will drop Elemental Fire (1-2g each), Burning Pitch (vendor food) and Coal for smelting. With the vendor drops and elemental fires you can make about 5-10g per hour. If you’re bored or during the respawns, you can also grind the farm north-east.
Fungal Rock (Un’Goro Crater) 50+
The grinding spot is inside the Gorilla Cave in Fungal Rock. This is a known place back in the day but even then, it wasn’t that extremely popular. Using this grinding spot, you are able to farm about 8-9g per hour. The mobs there drop gorilla hair, fangs, and empty barrels. The barrels sell for around 30s each, while the hair and fangs around 15s. There is, of course, the occasional green item drop that can be d/ed or sold at the AH or vendors. The mobs inside are around level 51-53 and besides the actual gold farming, the xp per hour is also great.
Western Plaguelands Runecloth Farming (50+)
In Western Plaguelands there’s a graveyard on your right, just as you enter the zone (as seen in the screenshot). There are a lot of 50-52 Undead mobs there that drop Runecloth, about 2-3 per kill on average. A stack of Runecloth, depending on the server, sells for 5-7g per stack. If you’re a Tailor, you can craft Runecloth Bags, which sell for 8-10g each fast. If not, just sell the Runecloth to the AH or directly to other players. The mobs also drop green and even blue quality items, so you can get a pretty effective farm route just in this area.
Western Plaguelands – Sorrow Hill Grind (50+)
Sorrow Hill is usually a very popular area, it can get crowded with Horde and Alliance that are on their way to Scholomance or Stratholme. Sorrow Hill is just east of the Chillwind camp in Western Plaguelands, it’s a fairly compact area packed with pre-grouped undead mobs Skeletal Flayers and Slavering Ghouls. The mobs wander around each of the three graveyards in tightly grouped packs which are easy to AoE. All mobs are melee without any special abilities and moderate health pools. The loot drops are nice, green and blue items, 1-3 pieces of Runecloth per mob, and the all-important Scourgestones, which are used to level your Argent Dawn faction reputation (useful for high level Enchanting and Alchemy). Since this grinding spot provides good loot and reputation, I think it’s worth grinding it out.
Blackroch Depths Farming – 50 gold per hour method
This is one of the most efficient gold farming strategies in Classic WoW and probably one of the more popular ones. You have to be at least level 53 to farm BRD, but we recommend being around 55. This route provides around 50 g/hr and around 100k xp/hr, making it an extremely efficient method. The only downside is that you have to be a mage or a hunter to farm it, other classes have a more difficult time as it increases the effective farming time. I’ve heard some rogues are able to farm this efficiently, but I can’t confirm this.
The strategy is to farm the first room as you enter the instance. You’ll notice the room is full of dwarves and you can pull each small group with Rank 1 Fire Blast or Counterspell. You’ll need some practice but it’s pretty easy, the goal is to pull as many groups as you can, kite them around and AoE them. Here’s a video that explains this a little better visually:
Dire Maul Farming (coming soon)
Dire Maul has many of farming routes and strategies, such as the Tribute run or the “Herbalism” run.
