In this part two of my total gold guide for Shadowlands we will focus on the evergreen pasttime of farming for your gold. There are multiple methods available to you, with and without using gathering professions.
Farming basics
Farming means that you go out in the game world to generate some useful item. You can do it with gathering professions or by killing mobs. In both cases you will then sell the items you get to other players. This is the most traditional method of goldmaking and it will always work, as the only thing you are risking is your time.
I don’t personally spend any time farming as I don’t like it, so in stead of links to my guides there will be links to various youtuber for specific Shadowlands farming spots. They represent the starting point for your own experimentation!
Gathering basics
Gathering always works as it is the only way to generate the materials you need from gathering professions. Mining and herbalism both gather from nodes and can often be combined very profitably. Skinning is more of a one-off profession that gathers skins from dead mobs, so it usually can’t be combined much. Fishing is the odd-ball that requires you to stand still and fish the waters.
Gathering professions
Herbalism
Herbalism allows you to gather herbs, which are used by alchemists to craft potions, flasks etc. and scribes to craft inks. Scribes primarily only buy Death Blossom and Nightshade, both of which can be found in any zone, while alchemists will use all the herbs. The most profitable routes will usually combine herbalism and Mining, but you can farm with only herbalism in every zone. Druids are the best gatherers as you can gather in travel form, which saves a TON of time. Alternatively, the Sky Golem mount will allow you to gather herbs while mounted.
Mining
In Shadowlands most of the best mining routes will combine herbalism and mining. If you have a maw mount the Maw is a great zone where you get Elethium, which is still the highest value ore. It’s used primarily for base legendaries, which still sell incredibly well. In Shadowlands ores are all zone-specific and the highest value ores are Sinvyr from Revendreth and Phaedrum from Ardenweald as they prospect into the two highest value essences. You can also farm the other zone specific ores, but the value per ore is lower.
There are tons of routes on youtube and I’ve linked some of them below:
Skinning
Skinning has been incredibly lucrative in Shadowlands. Callous Hide and Heavy Callous hides in particular are a HUGE bottleneck for leatherworking legendaries. This means they have consistently had very high prices and they are still quite strong. There are tons of spots where you can kill mobs yourself or reely on other people killing them. For the world quest spots you will likely face a lot of farming competition, so a well geared character will help immensely. Demon hunters have great AoE and mobility and are generally quite good for this.
4 Solo skinning spots – The Game Part
Fishing
Fishing generates fish from open ocean as well as schools of fish. These are generally only used in cooking, but as usual cooking gives access to buff foods that all PvE players want. Elysian Thade in particular is needed for the feasts and has a high price. Fishing can be a bit monotonous, but I know many players like the slowness of it, and you can get it on any character so there’s no real opportunity cost.
Killing mobs
Let’s swap our attention to farming that is based on killing mobs. This will not cost you a profession slot, and that means you can always use these methods.
2×4 farming
2×4 (two by four) farming took off in BfA. It relies on two groups of four players in a small area where you can kill mobs fast enough that they start instantly respawning due to the dynamic respawn mechanic. The reason 2 groups of four is optimal, is because each mob can be tagged by 5 players, but if one player from the second group does it all 4 can loot, so you get essentially 8 players killing mobs and all of them get to loot everything. A monk for the statue and druids has been the traditional setup, but any ranged class can help pull and kill mobs, and melee AoE classes can kill them.
The items you are after is usually cloth, raw gold and the various epic BoEs that drop in the world. the 190 and 207 items still sell well. Currently the meta spot is in Revendreth in the southeast corner. This video by Solheim has a more in-depth look at the spot.
Raid BoE farming
With how powerful raid BoEs are in Shadowlands there are tons of opportunities there. Both heroic and mythic thrash farm groups exist. For mythic you will have to sacrifice a lockout as you have to kill Shriekwing to get access to the juicy pulls and resets. This also means you need to be geared enough to kill Shriekwing. If you can do that it can be very profitable however, so this is definitely something to consider if you have the gear. With cross-realm mythic open it is very easy to find groups in the group finder.
Solo farming
Solo farming to kill mobs is mostly a thing of the past in current content zones. If you like this way of making gold I suggest farming old dungeons and raids for transmog, outside of that you are usually better off with one of the two group based methods.
That’s it for farming
Did I miss any of your favorite spots or items? Let me know, this is not my favorite goldmaking pasttime, so I’m sure some things slipped through the cracks.