The Start Line

Everyone starts this journey at different points, but all are following it in hopes of reaching the same point — having enough gold to get what you want. For some people, this would be an epic flying mount for an alt, or a [item]44234[/item] to show off. For others, it’s making sure you’re never too broke to repair, buy reagents, or buy raiding supplies. And for a select few, just having the gold makes them happy.

Additionally, everyone has their own methods of obtaining gold. This post isn’t here to detail all the many ways one can get gold, but rather how I obtained my recent fortune.

Being a Tailor/Enchanter on my main (my Mage), money wasn’t easy to come by. I was constantly using [item]Frostweave Cloth[/item] to level Tailoring, and [item]Infinite Dust[/item] was being fought over by both Tailoring and Enchanting. I could sell the specialty cloths from Tailoring, but that made me a few hundred every few days at most, and didn’t always sell very well. Enchanting can be a big money maker, but I was using all my mats to try and level up. Between repair costs, flask costs, reagent costs, and being a raider, I was barely breaking even if I did my dailies every day.

And that’s when I decided it was time to change that…

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Why Would You Want Gold?

I’m glad you asked! Here are a few of the things you could do if you didn’t have to worry about gold…

1. I spent ~3500 gold on getting my Sons of Hodir reputation to exalted from friendly, and it took me only 2 hours (instead of the usual 22 days)! No more slaving to get all the dailies done!
2. I bought the most expensive high end enchants for all my gear, giving my DPS a very noticeable boost! Who doesn’t want to top the meters?
3. You can buy vanity mounts and show off! Some of my friends have used this information to buy a [item]44234[/item] and/or a [item]Mechano-hog[/item]. How hip and cool!
4. You can buy all the flasks you need for raids for weeks (or months) to come! No reason to get annoyed when the raid is being held up and your flask timer is ticking anymore!
5. You can buy all your alts epic flying mounts and not have to watch their mounts struggling to flap their wings as a giant Tauren sits on their back!
6. You can powerlevel your professions to 450 and never have to worry about skilling them up ever again!
7. You can help friends and guildies when they need a little extra gold to help them get by!
8. You could bribe three hundred gnomes and have them dance naked in Orgrimmar to the beat of I am a Gummy Bear.
9. …. and so much more!

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Okay, What’s the Trick?

Simple, mining. I know, I know, I just heard half of you groan. You’ve been mining for months (if not longer), and are wondering where I’m going with this. To be honest, this post isn’t directed at you, unless you find that you’re making very little with mining (or want to make more). I’m making this post to let others know of the amazing skill that is mining. I myself was amazed to find out how easy it is to make money with mining, and was surprised nobody had told me before how truly fantastic it is. Lucky for you, you’ve got me!

So, why mining, you ask? Why not herbalism? I’ll explain with three simple reasons.

1. Mining feeds three other professions — Blacksmithing, Engineering, and Jewelcrafting. All three of these professions rely on you for their crafts. Herbalism feeds only two professions — Alchemy and Inscription. Jewelcrafters buy [item]Saronite Ore[/item] thousands at a time for prospecting, and sell their gems. Players are constantly obtaining new gear, and everyone needs gems. Blacksmithing and Engineering aren’t quite as big buyers, but cannot possibly craft anything without the bars that you provide, and thus rely on miners entirely for their profit. On the other hand, every player only needs one set of glyphs per spec, and most players don’t respec (and thus don’t reglyph) very often. While everyone needs glyphs, players rarely buy new ones, and as such the market for herbs isn’t as big as it is for ore. Additionally, most inscribers and alchemists are herbalists as well, making it even harder for you to sell herbs to them. At least on my server, ore is a lot easier (and quicker) to sell than herbs.
2. Mining gets you gems and eternals, easily doubling your profits. Herbalism gets only [item]Eternal Life[/item], while mining is able to get all the other eternals. While mining, you’re also going to get a lot of gems (something herbalists do not get) which you can either sell for a nice boost of profit, or use yourself (never pay for gems again!).
3. Miners get a Titansteel cooldown every day that sells for a large sum of gold. Herbalists get… nothing.

Hopefully you’re as convinced as I am that mining beats herbalism hands down. If not, let me know in the comments why you still believe herbalism is a winner. I’m all ears!

Also important to note is Engineering. I would highly recommend you pick this up as your second profession. Some of you are probably asking why I chose engineering over an alternative such as skinning. Once again, let me explain.

1. For those who don’t know, engineers get a nifty little gadget known as a [item]Zapthrottle Mote Extractor[/item]. This allows them to zap those weird red/blue clouds you see and get free eternals! These clouds are all over the place, and can be tracked at the same time as mining.
2. By modifying the route you fly when you’re mining, you can track both professions at the same time, and easily zap and mine at the same time, without any inconvenience! This nearly doubles my income on my server, as [item]Eternal Fire[/item] (which engineering gets you plenty of) go for almost twice as much as a stack of [item]Saronite Ore[/item]. Try doing that with Skinning!

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How Do I Get Started?

Getting started on mining is surprisingly easy. You’re going to need to only four things before you can start on your way to ultimate wealth!

1. A level 77 character – I personally rolled a Death Knight for no purpose other than to make me money, and leveling from 55 to 77 took me no more than a week or so.
2. 425 Mining and 380 Engineering – This is a lot easier to get than most people think. Leveling mining will get you pretty much all the mats you need to level engineering alongside it. I googled an engineering powerleveling guide, and followed it until 380 engineering, which is when you get [item]Belt-Clipped Spynoculars[/item], allowing you to track gas clouds on your mini map. 425 engineering is enough for Rich Saronite Nodes, and you’ll easily get to 450 mining when you start mining Saronite.
3. The proper add-ons – Although add-ons are not required, I find they help me make my mining as efficient as possible, this making more gold in less time. I recommend the following add-ons.
   • GatherMate – Will plot all the nodes that you know of in your world map and your minimap. On its own it’s not very useful, but combined with the next two add-ons, it’s irreplaceable.
   • GatherMate_Data – Updated weekly (make sure to grab updates!) so GatherMate contains all the nodes that Wowhead knows of, which is pretty much all of them. You’ll have to open GatherMate (type /gathermate) and import this data before it becomes available. Check “Auto Import” to make GatherMate auto-import whenever you update this addon.
   • Routes – Words cannot describe how amazing this add-on is. Use this not only when farming [item]Saronite Ore[/item], but also to create routes when powerleveling mining. This add-on will grab data from GatherMate (above) and generate a route that passes through all the nodes (or close enough to them that you’ll see them on your minimap) in the shortest path possible. Type /routes to open up the config and set it up, and after creating a route, make sure you cluster the nodes and optimize it (in the background).
   • SexyMap – An all around awesome add-on for various reasons (full control over minimap buttons, yay!), but I’m mentioning it here for one absolutely terrific feature it has — HudMap. This cannot be fully described in words but must be experienced to be believed. In short, the author describes it as “a HUD overlay for resource gathering, target tracking, and more.” Best of all, it works fully with both GatherMate and Routes!

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That’s It?

Yep, that’s it. Once your route is set up, fly to the zone (I like Sholazar basin myself), switch to HudMap, and just follow the route! When you notice a yellow dot come up, land and mine/zap it! Remember to respect other miners, and they’ll usually do the same for you (unless you’re on a PvP server and can gank them, in which case you should absolutely destroy them!)

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Some Final Tips

Here are some final tips to help you make the most out of your mining time.

• Set a limit for your average farming period. I personally keep going until I have a full [item]Mammoth Mining Bag[/item]. Keep track of how long it takes you to do an average farming period, and use this information in the future. For example, I know I can fill said bag in about 2-2.5 hours.
• Use an addon such as Auctioneer to help you not only price your wares, but also to get your items on the auction house faster. I personally use (and love) the Appraiser tab that Auctioneer adds. With one mouse click, I update the data for all the items I’m about to sell. With another mouse click, I put up all my items on the auction house for a reasonable price (that almost always sells). It takes a bit of fiddling around with to get the hang of, but makes the whole process a lot faster.
• Sell Saronite as [item]Saronite Ore[/item], and Titanium as [item]Titanium Bar[/item].
• Make sure to use your [item]Titansteel Bar[/item] cooldown every day.

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Screenshots

Here are two screenshots to give you an idea of how easy it is to make so much gold in so little time.

1. An example of about how much I make with every full mining bag.
2. An example of how much money I move on average every week (look at the tooltip on the bottom of the screen).

Image credits to yochim.