Passive Goldmaking in BfA, part 1
If you want to actively make gold in Battle for Azeroth, go farm some herbs.
If instead you want to kinda kick back and get a couple hundred gold a day for doing not much at all (assuming you played in these expansions), then stick around. I might just blow your mind.
Sunsong Ranch (Mists of Pandaria)
Did you unlock all 16 slots in your MoP farm back in the day? Congrats on your free money.
Easiest/Quickest Sale: Spirit of Harmony (avg 480g/day)
Right now on Sargeras-US, one Spirit of Harmony is selling for around 300g apiece. If you plant Songbell Seeds in all the plots, you will generate 1.6 Spirits of Harmony per day, per character. A bag of Songbell Seeds has 10 “charges” and costs 30g, so your outlay is 75s per node (30g / 40) or about 7.5g per Spirit of Harmony.
Overall, you should be earning the equivalent of 480g without much thought or particular effort.
Medium-level Effort: trade in Spirit of Harmony (avg 707g-793g/day)
Keep in mind that Spirit of Harmony can also be exchanged for various other things, which can potentially be sold for more. The vendors will be in your faction hub in Vale of the Eternal Blossoms, and they sell things like this:
Most of these are not worth it, for the record.
For example, it’s possible that 20 Ghost Iron Ore (or 10 Ghost Iron Bars) will be worth more than a Spirit of Harmony by itself. On Sargeras-US, the price of Ghost Iron Ore is 22.1g apiece, so turning the Spirit of Harmony you just farmed (or bought on the AH) into 20 Ghost Iron Ore will net you 442g with six Motes of Harmony left over. Or looked at another way, each Mote of Harmony is worth 2 Ghost Iron Ore, so you should average 707g (32 * 22.1g) a day, assuming these prices.
To kick it up another notch, check the prices of Ghost Iron Bars. Right now, they are at 49.57g apiece on Sargeras-US, so having a Miner who can smelt bars will turn that haul into an average of 793g (32 / 2 *49.57g) a day.
Maximum Profits: Snakeroot Seed (avg 1016g-1428g/day)
Can we go deeper down the rabbit hole? Yes, we can. Specifically, Snakeroot Seed-deep.
Instead of planting Songbell Seeds, you plant Snakeroot Seeds. Now each node you harvest will result in 1 Trillium Ore (black or white) and 0-2 Ghost Iron Ore. The results are highly random: sometimes you will get 8 Trillium of each color, sometimes you will get 16 of one color. The total amount of Ghost Iron will also be random, but I typically net between 7-17 Ghost Iron Ore.
So, again, Sargeras-US figures:
- Black Trillium Ore: 91.5g
- White Trillium Ore: 53.96g
- Trillium Bar: 359.8g
- Ghost Iron Ore: 22.1g
- Ghost Iron Bar: 49.57g
Assuming a worst-case scenario, with the least-profitable outcomes: 1,016g (16 * 53.96g + 7 * 22.1g). If you achieve balance in all things, you can see 1428g (8 * 53.96g + 8 * 91.5g + 12 * 22.1g)
You may note that Trillium Bar is currently selling for well below material price (it takes 2 Trillium Ore of each color to smelt one bar). That’s because Alchemists can transmute 10 Ghost Iron Bars into 1 Trillium Bar all day long, with zero cooldown. That method is also below material cost, but it’s augmented by the fact that Transmute specialists can get Trillium Bar procs.
I’m listing Snakeroot Seeds last despite them being the most profitable because it’s inherently more risky. Spirits of Harmony is something that can be turned into all sorts of other things, as needed. The demand for them is constant, and high. Golden Lotus is selling for 188g apiece, for example, so you can technically turn that 300g Spirit of Harmony into 376g of Golden Lotus pretty quick. Meanwhile, it’s hard to tell who is buying Trillium Ore at these prices.
Bonus Round: Sky Golem (avg 2613g/day)
If you’re curious as to why people still need any of these materials, it’s probably because of Sky Golems. One of the required mats is an Engineering daily (x30) “transmute” which requires 10 Ghost Iron Bars. The other required material is Living Steel x30, which is a daily Alchemy transmute of 6 Trillium Bars (or 3 Trillium Bars and 3 Spirit of Harmony, with no cooldown).
If you bought everything off the AH, that would mean:
- 300 Ghost Iron Bars (14,871g)
- 30 Living Steel (55,730.1g)
- or 180 Trillium Bar (64,764g)
Considering the current price of Sky Golems are hovering around 149k, that is a tasty profit margin. Unfortunately, there is no way to speed up the Engineering transmute cooldown, so the Sky Golem can only be crafted after 30 full days. However, if you want to be a do-it-yourselfer, then a Snakeroot Farm will actually give you all the materials you would need to craft the Sky Golem from scratch. Eventually. I wouldn’t recommend it though, unless you don’t have the starting capital laying around.
…which you can certainly start accumulating by working your farm. Or actively farming BfA mats.
Posted on September 11, 2018, in Guide, WoW and tagged Battle for Azeroth, Farming, Making Gold, Mists of Pandaria, Passive, WoW. Bookmark the permalink. 14 Comments.
In An Age 
Ah yes. That kind of vendor. Totally forgot about that one. But Sky Golems were obvious to me. Surprised this thing never ends.
But these days even despite falling prices for herbs and ores farming them for 2-3 hours in the early morning can get produce 60k-110k in sales.
Tauren druids are the best. Or you can use leather binding and that BS buff, which allows interacting without dismounting. I’d boost a tauren druid but nearly all my chars are on the Alliance side of the server. Tough moral decision. Even after getting the Double Agent achievement (https://www.wowhead.com/achievement=7380/double-agent).
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I got my Sky Golem almost two years ago, and it’s tough to argue that (pre-flight) Druid is actually better than any other class. I have been running around on my Demon Hunter, actually, and it takes 0.5 seconds to a herb a node with the Herbalism Glove Enchant. I don’t get dazed very often given the Azerite shield power, and if it was actually a major concern, I could just switch to tank spec and remove the possibility of dazing for free.
The issue with Druid is that if you are running around in Travel form, get into combat, and then happen to fall into a deeper part of the river – I frequently farm Riverbud – then when you turn into Aquatic form and back into Travel form, you lose the mount-like speed. Overall, I have enjoyed the Demon Hunter’s double-jump and Fel Rush mobility to a greater degree than instant-mounting.
Once flying is enabled again though, of course the druid will win out.
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What a great tip. I loved my farm, but had no real “reason” to visit it again. If only we had a Hearthstone to Boralus, just like we did Dalaran! But I guess a few portals really does not take too long to travel through :)
Thanks for the tip. I have not spent any time trying to make gold since I returned to the game, but that new uptight chicken pet, who demands 1 million as well as that handy Auctioneer mount has caught my interest!
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If you are actively wanting to gather a lot of gold quickly, please note Alex’s comment. At this stage of the expansion, it is a lot more profitable to spend several hours farming mats than it would be farming your farm. The Sky Golem gambit, for example, will net you around 78,390g after 30 days (assuming prices stay stable). Meanwhile, a few herbing passes around Norwington Estate will likely net you more than 10,000g in herbs. I’ve never seen a 60k+ run like Alex was talking about, but I also have never farmed herbs for 2-3 hours at a time either.
That said, I still do the MoP farm way more consistently than I do herbing runs, simply because it’s a low-impact routine that I can fit in no matter what my mood happens to be. As long as that sort of thing feels appealing to you, go for it. But if you have a 1 million gold goal, I recommend more active measures.
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Ah right, I see, thank you for the clarification and tips. Yeah, I liked the farm since it is a favorite spot of mine, and does not feel a lot like “money grinding chore” :) But yeah, you are right, I should look to more active measures to reach a 5 million goal. Thanks :)
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Another low-time approach, which I use more for convenience (= for my characters) than for selling is the garrison with the garrison resources -> tissue -> 30 slot hexwave bags craft (you need a tailor). The advantage compared to the MoP garden is that you can hearthstone there…..
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The Garrison is part 2!
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Did you actually do this?! Because as I remember, you have to plow the farm, kill vermins (OK, they are oneshot nowadays) and then water/dust/weed the maturing plants. Finally you have to harvest.
I would guess you’d spend 5+ minutes for that 460G, making it an 5000g/hour activity. As you can buy a $15 WoW token for 180K, that translates to 40c/hour.
Which is the main problem with WoW moneymaking. Anything below $100K/hour is a waste unless you actually enjoy it and would do it without the gold, and the gold is just bonus. Otherwise, just spend the time at work and buy a WoW token.
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I do indeed actually do this on one character. It’s a relaxing, down-cycle activity performed while I ponder what it is that I actually want to do with the rest of the gaming session. Sometimes I will go from this, to actively farming herbs, which will eclipse the gold/hour within 3-4 herb nodes (Riverbud is 37g, and I get 5-6 herbs per node). Other days I do the farm (and Garrison) and log off immediately.
As for simply buying gold, that’s just silly. I have not paid any real money to play WoW since the beginning of Legion, including purchasing BfA. Paying for my in-game activity via in-game activity is a game all its own, and is enough entertainment to keep me going.
In any case, it’s difficult to imagine a scenario in which I would willingly sacrifice one minute of my free time (much less an entire hour) to work more IRL when I could be having fun. I’d work less hours if I could. Am I only “earning” 40c/hour by doing whatever in WoW? Who cares? I’m at home, in my gaming chair, with a stupid grin on my face, doing exactly what I feel like doing in that moment.
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