It’s well past time to write my Total Gold Guide for SL. I have written one for Legion and BfA in the past, so let’s look at what SL has for us goldmakers. This is part 1 where I focus on crafting, and in the next part I’ll go through farming and flipping.
The foundation
To make money in WoW you need to have items that other people need or want. In WoW there are two primary categories of items that people are willing to pay for:
- Performance increasing items
- Cosmetic items
People are generally more willing to pay for performance increases than cosmetics, as it will directly impact the core gameplay. Performance increasing items are items that directly increase the power of your character. This can be gear, item enhancements, consumables etc.
Cosmetic items include mounts, transmog, rare recipes etc. These items don’t increase your performance, but they are in demand because they look cool, give bragging rights etc.
After identifying items that people want you need to figure out how to obtain them at a lower price than the current auction house price, as this will ensure a profit. In general there are three ways you can obtain items in the game: buying them off the auction house, looting them (from mobs, nodes or similar) or crafting them. These methods help you obtain the items that you want to sell. This leads into the three main gold-making methods in WoW. Crafting, Farming and Flipping. So let’s dig into them.
Crafting
Crafting is the art of buying materials and turning them into other materials or finished products that you can sell on the Auction house for a profit. It is one of the most consistent gold making methods in the game, but generally requires you to bind up some amount of capital in your inventory in the form of materials and finished items before they sell.
Alchemy
Alchemy is a crafting profession that can create potions and flasks, as well as some trinkets and mounts. The primary materials used are herbs. In Shadowlands you can craft the basic potions and flasks used by raiders and PvErs across the board.
Alchemy is almost always a great profession as it is the only one that crafts the main consumables for players. New in Shadowlands is the addition of weapon oils in addition to flasks and potions. The main focus should be on flasks and potions, primarily the stat potions and Phantom fire, as they sell by far the best. Outside of that the weapon oil, health potions and the Shadestone transmute are all good options.
Blacksmithing
Blacksmithing uses ores to craft plate armor and weapons. In Shadowlands the main goldmaking is through base legendaries. Leveling the recipes is very expensive, but I’ve found that they sell really well.
In addition to Base legendaries you can make gold with the Shadowsteel Armor set if you have the Ven’ari rep for Crafter’s mark 2. Item level 168 catch up gear sells really well. The sharpening stones for weapons also sell well, but the price is quite low, so you won’t be making much gold from them.
Cooking
Cooking is as always focused on buff consumables. Buff food is a staple in high-end PvE and will always sell well. In shadowlands you will want to focus on the +30 secondary stat single use foods and the two main stat feasts. Both feast types fill a useful niche and you should see them both sell quite well.
Enchanting
Enchanting can as usual craft the item enhancements with stat boosts that most players want to maximize their performance. It is also the only profession that can make enchanting materials by disenchanting items. All of the Best in Slot enchants for the various slots sell decently, with a few more slots in Shadowlands compared to BfA, but prices are lower.
In addition enchanters can craft the enchanted items needed as a material to craft base legendaries. This makes enchanting mandatory if you do base legendaries. You can also sell the materials directly to other crafters for a small profit. The volume is quite high, so that can also work well.
Engineering
Engineering is absolutely useless for goldmaking Shadowlands. There’s a single recipe that you can sell profitably, the Wormhole Generator toy for Shadowlands. Overall Engineering is a waste of a profession slot for Shadowlands recipes.
Inscription
Inscription turn herbs into pigments and inks that you can then craft various items from. The most relevant from a goldmaking perspective in the Shadowlands are the missives used to craft legendary items and the Darkmoon Decks. Both these can still sell quite well and you can craft them only using Death Blossoms and Nightshade.
In addition you can often make gold crafting the talent reset tomes and the Vantus runes for Castle Nathria, both of which will be fairly popular for PvErs.
Jewelcrafting
Jewelcrafting turns ores into gems and the gems into socketable gems. In addition you can craft base legendary jewelry and necklaces and rings. The base legendaries sell quite well, but they are not too expensive to level compared to the other professions.
The crafter’s mark 2 based gear for Jewelcrafting also sells really well, and the crafter’s mark 2 from jewelcrafting is quite cheap to craft.
Prospecting this time is mostly about getting essences for base legendaries, as the gems are worth almost nothing. you can turn the gems into either crafter’s marks or gems. The gem clusters sell for low prices, but they do sell fairly fast.
Leatherworking
Leatherworking can craft base legendaries for leather and mail, as well as rare armor for both armor types. Leatherworking has by far the most expensive base legendaries to level, particularly many of the mail recipes that are quite bad. Leather is much better and should be a focus. In addition the crafter’s mark 2 based item level 168 armor sells really well, but you need to pair leatherworking with another profession as the material cost for crafter’s marks from leatherworking are too expensive.
Lastly you can craft armor kits players can apply to their chest armor which gives a stamina boost which PvErs will also use.
Tailoring
Tailoring is almost exactly in the same boat as leatherworking. You craft cloth base legendaries and item level 168 gear as the main goldmaking methods. Tailoring is by far the cheapest profession to level base legendary recipes for, and the profit margin is often really good. You can also craft bags, which will always sell, even if not getting you rich.
168 gear will again require you to have maxed your rep with Ven’ari. It’s quite profitable, and a good way to get rid of excess cloth, particularly if you pair it with Blacksmithing or Leatherworking.
Overall thoughts
I’ve already given my ranking and suggestions of what professions to go for in my tier list post. In my next post I’ll go through part 2 with the major farming markets and part 3 for flipping.