Make Gold With Alchemy and Herbalism in WoW

As I have mentioned in a previous post, gold is the cornerstone of the world of warcraft economy. Not only do you need it to progress, but you will constantly find yourself spending money on materials, items for raids and so forth.

My main character is a herbalist and an alchemist, a perfect match for making money, a gathering profession with nearly the only WoW profession that gives a wide range of regularly used consumables. This gives fantastic opportunities for making some gold, whether you need it to support raid progression, or just to get that flying mount you have been lusting after.

Firstly, gathering.

Easy, if mind numbingly boring, this is a guaranteed way of making money. Alchemy mats are constantly being bought, and herbs can be found in abundance in most outland areas.

There is no real 'money making' herb, instead simply look for a few different herbs and go to gather those which are most expensive!

You can find different herbs in different locations,

(List to come shortly)

Making money from alchemy is a different story, and requires a pretty large amount of patience. I find Super Mana Pots to be a lucrative source of gold in WoW, however if there is a lot of competition at the time I can struggle to break even.

Elixirs of Healing Power can also be a good source of gold, they require expensive mats but can sometimes sell for twice what it costs to make them. If mats for items are going for a huge amount on the auction house you may want to consider grinding the mats rather than buying them, it may take a bit longer but can net you a healthy profit!

Of course these examples are purely from personal experience, I also find tanking elixirs, flasks and potions also sell well. Though the profit tends to be smaller as mats are more expensive (Poor tanks)

It does seem best to avoid DPS flasks and elixirs. While there are some great things out there for DPS they have a tendency to avoid the expense, after all you can berate a tank or a healer for not having every buff up, but can you shout at a hunter who doesn't have one yet beats some of the poorer players in the group?

Of course all DPS should be using flasks and elixirs for that one last boost, it rarely seems to happen outside of high-end, good guilded raids though.

Making money from these professions is largely a matter of intuition and experience. There is no guide out there that can say 'grind this' 'make that' 'sell at this price' because the market for herbs and pots is one of the most flexible in game.

At some times you will find Golden Sansam, a rather low level herb, selling for upwards of 35g a stack, and dreaming glory going for as little as 7g, the trick is simply to stock up while things are cheap and sell while they are expensive. Sometimes you may find yourselves buying herbs at a cheap price and selling them a few days later. Remember to look at the cost of mats and pots on the AH, if it is more profitable to sell your materials separately you might as well do it. Each stack of potions instantly has the 1.75g imbued vial cost as well as the auction house cut to contend with!

After several weeks of playing the auction house you should be more than capable of making informed decision on what to buy, what to sell and more importantly what to make.

As a final point a great bonus of high level alchemy is speccing into a particular branch of alchemy, these are

Transmute Master
Potions Master
Elixir master

Taking any of these will give you around a ten percent chance of proccing an extra 1-4 of whatever you are making.

I do not suggest making a transmute master. Because you can only transmute once every 23 hours you are literally gimping yourself to one proc every ten days.

Potions mastery and elixir mastery are great options for money making, both proc regularly and you can make hundreds of potions in one day.

If you wish to unlearn your alchemy specialisation and respec into a new branch of alchemy (Ie unlearn transmute mastery and learn potions mastery) you simply have to go to the person who taught you the mastery of your spec and ask him to release you from it. This WILL cost you 150g

Ignore the people who tell you to go to a specific person whatever spec, you do have to visit the person who trains your specific alchemy mastery. These guys are

Transmute Master - Zarevhi at Stormspire in Netherstorm
Elixir Master - Lorokeem At the Lower City in Shattrath
Potions Master - Lauranna Thar'well in the Cenarion Expedition in Zangermarsh

To learn a new specialisation simply got the Master trainer you require and he will teach you his mastery, you will NOT need to do their quest.