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My Azeroth Life

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Vol. 1 · No. 39 The Neutral Edition Stormwind Edition · For the Alliance! Orgrimmar Edition · For the Horde!

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Copper, Greed and Giant Eggs: A WoW Forever Gold Roundup

By Tim Apple · · 15 min read

Engraving from the paper’s archive

Six days into WoW Forever, my net worth is roughly one stack of linen and a strong opinion about auction deposits. I’m not alone. One player on X is level 38 with 35 gold and a 100-gold mount waiting at 40. Another asked a chatbot where to farm because they had 29 copper.

So I did what I always do instead of farming: I read everything. Wowhead, Icy Veins, the Blizzard forums, Reddit, X, Bluesky, YouTube and a pile of guide sites. This post pulls it all into one plan.

To be clear: none of this is my idea. It’s a roundup. Every tip links to the person or site that came up with it, and the full source list is at the bottom. Where sources disagree or are guessing, I say so. Prices are from launch week and will be wrong by the time you read this. That’s how markets work, and it’s also how I work.

A weary adventurer in patched leather sits on a log by a small campfire at dusk, counting a few copper coins in his palm. His overstuffed pack spills linen, hides, herbs and a lump of copper ore, and an almost empty coin purse lies on the grass.

First, the bills

There’s no WoW Token in Forever, as Icy Veins points out, so every coin is one somebody earned. Here’s what you’re saving for:

BillCostWhenSource
Class training, 1–60206–207g, every classSpread across levelingBlizzard, Nov 2 dev notes
Apprentice Riding (first racial mount free)100g, or 90g at HonoredLevel 40Icy Veins
Dual spec50g, at any class trainerLevel 40Icy Veins
Journeyman Riding1,000g (reported by beta players, not official)Level 60WoW Forever Builds

So level 40 costs about 150 gold if you want both the mount and dual spec. Icy Veins’ advice is to buy the mount first and let dual spec wait. Paladins and Warlocks still get their mounts from class quests, per WoW Forever Builds, which is the closest thing to divine favor this economy offers.

One more change: quests at level 60 no longer turn their XP into bonus gold. Jokerd says a developer told him it’s an intentional change, possibly with a weekly gold quest added instead. Blizzard hadn’t commented officially when Wowhead wrote it up. The community is split. Some players say it goes against the “explore the world” pitch. Others think more open-world farming makes bots easier to spot. Either way, don’t save your quests for 60.

Phase 1: Leveling (1–40)

The consensus is boring, which is probably why it works: make money from the route you’re already running.

  • Don’t overspend at the trainer. Every class trains something every two levels, and you don’t need all of it. Icy Veins says skip the spells you won’t use while leveling, and put off crafting professions until later. Gathering professions are the exception.
  • Take a gathering profession, or two. Herbalism, Mining and Skinning cost almost nothing to start. Conquest Capped found that from the 30s on, a gathering profession often out-earns the mobs.
  • Check before you list. Icy Veins warns that a lot of items are selling for vendor price. Sometimes the vendor wins.
  • Fill Waylaid Crates. You get these from world drops and chests, and you can trade them, so they show up on the AH too. Fill one with a single listed material (10 Earthroot fills an Apprentice Herbs crate) and hand it in to Marcy Baker in Three Corners, Redridge (Alliance) or Dokimi by the Crossroads (Horde). You get Merchant’s Favor and reputation, and your first crate starts a one-time quest worth 50 Favor. Favor buys profession recipes. Full crate tables at Method.
  • Make a bank alt with Enchanting. Park it by the mailbox next to the AH in Orgrimmar or Stormwind and mail it every green and blue you don’t need. Install Auctionator and Disenchantry to see whether each item is worth more sold or disenchanted. Icy Veins admits this is “copper at this point, let’s be honest”, but it adds up.
  • Keep the weird greys for the Darkmoon Faire. The first Faire is up near Goldshire through Monday, Nov 16. You trade in leveling junk like Torn Bear Pelts and Soft Bushy Tails for tickets, and 50 tickets buy a 14-slot Darkmoon Storage Box from level 6. The box isn’t soulbound, so you can also sell it. Horde gets a Faire at Thunder Bluff on December 7. (That’s one well-shared post on X; I haven’t checked it in game.)
  • Fish open water. Before Fishing 205, open water in Westfall, Silverpine Forest and the Barrens brings up Tightly Sealed Trunks in about 3–8% of casts, according to Conquest Capped. Fish pools don’t drop them.
  • Don’t build your week around hyper-spawns. Blizzard sped up low-level respawns for launch and said it will turn the lower-level zones back down “once the initial launch surge of low-level characters has settled down”. The fast Dustwallow murlocs and Dun Morogh troggs have already been slowed.

Also, Blizzard patches vendor loops fast. Ceedsy’s beta video “How to get 10 gold in your first day” now opens with a note that wands sell for 1 copper. That’s the Forever economy in one sentence: someone finds a shortcut, a quarter of a million people watch it, and the shortcut gets patched.

Phase 2: Professions

  • Sell raw materials first, craft later. Icy Veins says hold off on crafting before 40, since new trainer recipes cost real silver.
  • Know your price ceiling. Mister Graphed, a Black Market vendor at Powderfuse Port in the Riverglades, sells Black Lotus, Arcane Crystal and some new Forever materials in unlimited amounts. Wowhead reads that as a price cap. So nobody is getting rich hoarding Lotus this time. Conquest Capped agrees it caps what those reagents can sell for.
  • Hunters shoot money. Two days in, one player’s AH analysis found that 10 ammo items made up 15.4% of all units sold. That’s one person’s dataset, but it’s a strong hint for Engineers and Leatherworkers (see Hunter below).
  • Mid-level herbs and ore were the strong sellers on Nov 9. Prices on the EU AH, from Conquest Capped’s scan:
MaterialSkillPrice each, EU, Nov 9
SungrassHerbalism 23037s 79c
Truesilver OreMining 23019s 95c
WintersbiteHerbalism 19518s 99c
FirebloomHerbalism 20515s 86c
Gold OreMining 1558s 58c

These will move. If you’re reading this in December, treat it as history.

Phase 3: The Auction House

The deposit. Right now every listing costs at least 1 silver in deposit. Kris Zierhut told the streamer Crix it’s going back to 1 copper: “That’s coming. Not yet, but coming.” No date yet. Once it’s live, Wowhead expects the old formula to return: 5% of vendor price for a 2-hour listing, 20% for 8 hours and 60% for 24 hours. Players had flagged the 1-silver floor as a bug back in the beta. Comment sections everywhere had feelings about that.

Until it changes:

  • List full stacks, and vendor anything that sells for about its vendor price. That’s Icy Veins’ workaround. You can also hold cheap materials until the fix lands.
  • You lose the deposit if your auction expires or you cancel it. Wowhead says so, and that matches the classic rules. One Icy Veins article says you get it back on cancel or expiry. The sources disagree, and I’d plan on losing it.
  • Sell slowly when supply is thin. Only about 240 Giant Eggs were listed on Nov 9. Conquest Capped’s advice: sell 20 at a time, not 200.
  • Check prices before you farm. One Bluesky player calls Auctionator the most vital Forever addon. Their scan found only about 7,000 things on their AH, and a profit margin of “like 50 copper.” Glamorous.
  • Prices feel high because nobody has money. Another Bluesky player points out that everyone is paying for class and profession training, and most gold still comes from quests and vendors. That’s a good reason for some patience with sellers, and with yourself.

Watch out for rollbacks. After the server restarts and emergency maintenance of Nov 8–10, players on the Blizzard forums reported that their newly trained skills rolled back but the gold they paid stayed gone. One player bought the skills again and got rolled back a second time. If the servers look shaky, maybe don’t do your big spending right then.

Farming spots by level

The 30–45 numbers come from Conquest Capped, which checked mob drops on Wowhead and priced them against the EU AH on Nov 9. Value per kill doesn’t include coin, greys or skinning.

LevelWhereWhatValue per kill (EU, Nov 9)
34–35Thousand Needles: Sparkleshell SnappersTurtle Meat, shell fragments~6s
38–39Arathi Highlands: elemental exilesCharms Warriors need for the Whirlwind Axe quest, plus elementals11–17s
39–43Dustwallow Marsh: Mudrock turtlesTurtle Meat, shells, clams~10s
40–47Feralas and Tanaris ogresMageweave Cloth~8s
41–45Tanaris: Rocs and Fire RocsGiant Eggs, Buzzard Wings~24s
42–47The Hinterlands: owlbeastsGiant Eggs (about half drop one)~38s

The Hinterlands owlbeasts are the top pick. At about 100 kills an hour, Conquest Capped puts them at 35–40 gold an hour from loot alone. The Hinterlands are contested, though, so on a PvP ruleset the Tanaris rocs near neutral Gadgetzan are the safer egg farm. Also from Conquest Capped:

  • Blue Pearls: the Giant Clams along the Stranglethorn coast hold a Blue Pearl almost every time, and the Badlands quest Pearl Diving wants nine. Black Pearls from Big-mouth Clams are a 4% lottery. Open the clams you get anyway, but don’t farm for them.
  • Fancy greys: Long Soft Tails from Swamp of Sorrows cats and Soft Bushy Tails from Badlands coyotes sell for more than normal grey items.
  • What stopped working: the Scarlet Monastery chest farm was hotfixed in the beta, Mage AoE is weaker, and turning cloth into bandages to resell no longer pays.

A painterly golden-hour view of misty green highland hills and crumbling stone ruins. Large feathered owlbeasts stand on the slope while a hooded hunter and his wolf kneel beside a basket of big speckled eggs.

Level 60: it’s too early to say much. The first players only hit 60 on Nov 7. Warcraft Maps lists the usual Classic level-60 farms, like Dire Maul East and Maraudon, but labels them Classic know-how that nobody has proven in Forever yet. Treat every level-60 gold-per-hour number you see as a hope.

Class by class

The best class-by-class breakdown I found is Warcraft Maps. It’s careful to label what’s been tested in Forever and what’s just carried over from Classic. Most of this section comes from there.

Mage

  • The AoE nerfs target gold farmers by name. Blizzard’s beta notes, quoted on the forums, cut Improved Blizzard’s slow to 40% from 65% “to reduce the power of Frost Mages to AoE farm instances, which was widely used by gold farmers.” Cone of Cold got shorter, and Arcane Concentration procs less from low ranks. Warcraft Maps’ fix is to start with packs of three or four and add more as you learn.
  • Sell water, food and mana gems for tips at dungeon entrances and in capitals. Mana gems start at 28. Conjured items vanish after 15 minutes offline, so you can’t stock up overnight. Tips are voluntary, and a crowd of Mages drives them to zero (Warcraft Maps).
  • Portals: Stormwind, Ironforge, Orgrimmar and Undercity at 40, and Darnassus and Thunder Bluff at 50. The client lists a 10-second cast and a 60-second cooldown, so you can serve one group a minute.
  • Dungeon claims: one creator says solo Zul’Farrak as a 40+ Mage makes “around 40–50 gold per hour”. That’s his number, not a measured one. Morphus TV has a Revelation-plus-Blizzard trick if you’d like to test it before the next hotfix does.

Rogue

  • Pick pockets as a habit. Pick every humanoid’s pocket before you open from stealth. It’s a bonus on top of quest money, not a farm. Warcraft Maps notes that junkbox drops in Forever are still unconfirmed.
  • Open boxes for tips near the AH, using the trade window. Blacksmith keys compete with you, so tips stay modest.
  • Craft poisons. Only Rogues can make them, and only Rogues buy them. That’s a small but protected market.
  • Graveyard chests: a Forever beta video reaches both Scarlet Monastery Graveyard chests with Advanced Target Dummies (Engineering 185), Sprint, Vanish and Preparation. That’s one creator’s run, so treat it as unproven.

Hunter

  • Skin while your pet tanks. Forever adds Scarce skins like Pristine Leather, but each creature can only be skinned once, and nobody agrees on the drop rate yet.
  • Craft ammo, quivers and ammo pouches. You’re your own first customer, and the ammo sales numbers suggest plenty of other buyers. Don’t count on vendors, since Blizzard cut vendor prices on many crafted items.
  • Mind the Forever changes: Tame Beast no longer works on beasts above your level (Blizzard notes), and Warcraft Maps says traps now work in combat and Auto Shot needs you to stand still briefly. Old Classic solo routes may not work the same way.

Warlock

  • Level Affliction and keep every cloth drop. DoTs and a Voidwalker mean less drinking and more looting (Warcraft Maps).
  • Sell summons at busy dungeons. Ritual of Summoning comes at level 20 and needs two other party members to click. Meeting Stones can’t summon in Forever, which makes you more useful. Healthstones also vanish 15 minutes after logout, so hand them out as a perk rather than stock.
  • Craft Soul Bags from 40. Only Warlocks can use them, so other Warlocks are your market.

Druid

  • Travel Form herb loops from 30. You get 40% speed long before most people can afford a mount, and you can drop into Prowl to reach nodes next to camps. Warcraft Maps hadn’t seen a node picked in Travel Form yet, so test it before you plan a route around it.
  • Tauren Cultivation: grow a second copy of a herb and pick it without Herbalism. It has a 15-minute cooldown, and you need character level of at least the herb’s skill divided by 5. A Tauren Druid with Herbalism gets two herbs per stop.
  • Bear tank in pickup groups. Tanks are scarce, and scarce gets invited.

Paladin, Priest, Shaman and Warrior

What to avoid

Buying gold. Blizzard’s position is “crystal clear”: anyone found generating, selling, buying or receiving illicit gold risks losing the gold, a suspension or a permanent closure. During the beta alone, it closed more than 2,100 gold-buying accounts and almost 1,600 selling or botting accounts. Suspicious accounts can also get a Temporary Economy Hold that locks trade, mail, guild banks and the AH while Blizzard investigates. Be careful taking gold from strangers too, since receiving it counts. Report bots when you see them. Some of the “guides” you’ll find while searching are on sites that also sell gold, which tells you how seriously to take their warnings.

Need-rolling BoEs you won’t use. A hot take on X calls rolling Need on every BoE “financial responsibility”. It got 157 replies, and I’m guessing they weren’t all thank-yous. I’ll say this as gently as I can: a 5-gold weapon isn’t worth becoming the guy everyone remembers. Honest dealing pays better over time. People invite you back.

Paying for the secret. Plenty of the YouTube gold videos I checked have a paid gold guide or membership link at the top of the description, for example Solheim Gaming and Studen Albatroz. Some of those videos are genuinely useful. Just notice that one of the most reliable gold farms in WoW is selling gold guides. For a calmer free option, WoW Forever Tavern’s casual guide walks through getting the mount and dual spec at 40 without a dedicated farm.

Giving it all away to people who don’t need it. One Bluesky user wondered why people play Forever just to donate gold to streamers. Generosity is great. Maybe aim it at the level 12 who can’t afford his spells.

The point of all this

Gold in Forever is supposed to feel scarce, and right now it does. It’s easy to let that turn every evening into spreadsheets and suspicion. I’d rather not.

’Abdu’l-Bahá wrote that “wealth is most commendable, provided the entire population is wealthy” (The Secret of Divine Civilization). In Azeroth terms: get your mount, sure. But tip the Mage who saved you the boat ride. Sell your Giant Eggs a few at a time instead of crashing the market for everyone. Mail a spare bag to someone who’s still carrying everything in a backpack. Moderation works in the game too. Farm enough to fund the fun, then go have some.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have 1 silver riding on a stack of linen.

Sources

None of these tips are mine. Thanks to everyone who did the actual work.

News and guides

Blizzard

Reddit, X and Bluesky

YouTube

And one older source