Beginner's guide to cataclysm goldmaking

Get some basic tools for Cataclysm classic goldmaking. Learn how to use the best goldmaking addons, how to make gold with professions and much more.

GOLDMAKING

7/24/20247 min read

Cataclysm classic is currently the easiest way to pay for your gametime with gold. The Cata token is at 6000 gold while the retail token sits at 300 000 gold. With this ratio, 1 gold in Cata is equal to 50 gold in retail. However, it’s important to note that this ratio is in the America region! In the EU, the ratio is 1 to 35 instead of 1 to 50. ( The numbers may vary. Keep in mind that the numbers showed were at the time this article was written. )

Imagine if cloth was at 100 gold each in retail. Well, since cloth is 2g or more in Cata, it’s the same as if it was 100 gold in retail ( or 70 gold in EU ). So how can you capitalize on this opportunity? Well, if you have an active World of Warcraft subscription, it doesn’t cost you any money to find out!

Cataclysm classic does not have a box price and can be played if you have a sub to the game!

Basics of transformations

Cata classic has a server based auction house unlike retail which has a region wide auction house for materials. Because of that, it’s very important to check prices before modifying anything. Sometimes, turning copper ore into bars can give you some nice profit but other times, you can lose gold from doing this process. Same goes for cloth transformed into bolts.

Linen cloth and linen bolts
Linen cloth and linen bolts

Some more complex transformations can be milling and prospecting. For inscription, it can be profitable to sell both inks and pigments or transform them into glyphs. Looking at the current professions in Dragonflight and in The war within, you might think that crafting gives you little to no profit but you would be wrong. On a side note, I have a milling spreadsheet as well as a prospecting spreadsheet available right now for members of my patreon. ( They will be released to everyone soon. Make sure to sign up to the newsletter to get an email when they get released! )

As mentioned above, crafting bars with ore can be massively profitable. I remember making 3 gold for each bar crafted at some point and they were selling like hotcakes. Every material can be important in Cata. In retail, you just need Dragonflight materials for the current expansion but in Cata, you need every material from every expansion to get to the current content crafting.

Starting from scratch

Learn herbing and mining. First of all, your character will gain experience from gathering. Secondly, the materials from leveling are sometimes the same price as Cata materials while other times, pricier than Cata materials. In addition, mining gives you the ability to craft bars as a bonus.

Making gold can simply turn into leveling your character! The higher the level of your character, the more opportunities. You can also travel faster with ground mounts and then flying mounts. This can have a huge impact depending on what you like doing.

firefin snapper fishing wow
firefin snapper fishing wow

Fishing can also reel in bonus gold. Vanilla fishing pools will guarantee a fish worth over 1 gold each ( Prices can vary ). Most times, take a look at the auction house to see what is good for gathering. Even cooking materials can be insanely profitable.

Cloth is ridiculously expensive for what it is. I’ve seen vanilla cloth for over 4g each! Players reported getting 250 gold worth of cloth from 1 run of an old dungeon. It really shows the multitude of opportunities in Cata classic!

silk cloth cataclysm classic
silk cloth cataclysm classic

You can also make a second character for disenchanting. A level 1 character can disenchant items up to level 30. A level 10 character can disenchant items up to level 45 and a level 20 character can disenchant items up to level 60.

wow professions disenchanting chartwow professions disenchanting chart

Disenchanting can bring a lot of value to your green items. In the image below, you can see the disenchant value of your items from the addon TSM.

TSM destroy

TSM destroy is part of the tradeskillmaster addon. The quality of life it provides is unparalleled. It tracks millable, prospectable and disenchantable items in your bag. You can then click a button or a macro repeatedly to destroy everything in your bags.

tsm destroy for disenchanting
tsm destroy for disenchanting

It will also show you the outcomes when you destroy an item with the rates associated with each reagent. If you ever want to get into disenchanting, prospecting or milling, make sure to use tsm destroy. If the destroy window doesn’t show up, you can write “/tsm destroy” and it will open only if an item in your bags can be destroyed. Note that it will not show soulbound items.

I made a youtube video featuring inscription. You'll see how fast tsm destroy can be compared to regular milling. Click below to see it!

TSM destroy ratios for inscription
TSM destroy ratios for inscription

Profession slots are extremely important. The best advantage obtained from gathering is the lack of friction to gain profit. You farm the goods and then sell the goods. If you don’t enjoy gathering, this is where crafting could come into play. Find what suits your preferences, but regardless of the result, I would start with gathering to gain some capital. Leveling professions can be expensive!

Wow-professions.com


To level professions, wow-professions.com is usually the website people use. It showcases profession guides for every single profession. However, it’s not always the “best” way to gain skill points.

wow professions guideswow professions guides

The website will heavily focus on speed. It can be a very fast way to get to max skill but it will come at the price of gold. Make sure to look at all your options when leveling professions before purchasing everything the website suggests.

A good example of speed being the focus is in the image above. You can get to skill 60 with enchanting by simply disenchanting items which can usually be a profitable process. The website doesn’t take the auction house prices into account. It can lead to people jacking up the prices of items featured in the leveling guides.

There are also lost opportunities when using the website. When I leveled most of my professions, I made gold instead of losing gold! Tons of recipes can be profitable at a lower level. Especially professions like inscription with glyphs. The guide will tell you to craft scrolls that sells at the vendor instead of crafting profitable glyphs!

Auctionator

Make your life much easier with the addon Auctionator. With Auctionator, your items will be much easier to sell. It’s very user friendly and fast.

Auctionator classic selling tab
Auctionator classic selling tab

In the image above, you’ll see the selling tab. Click on an item you want to sell and it will show you all current prices. Then click post! Simple as that. On top of that, you can edit the price, stack sizes and durations.

Auctionator classic shopping tab
Auctionator classic shopping tab

Browsing the auction house is a breeze with this tool. You can create shopping lists for items that you search regularly. You can also look at items that you have recently shopped for. A great quality of life improvement.

Free death knight

At level 55, you can make a death knight which starts at level 55. This is relevant for profession slots. With the DK, you can level 2 professions up to skill 375. If you get him to level 65, you can upgrade to skill 450. Finally, at level 75, you can upgrade to skill 525 which is the max. It’s important to note that you will need to do the full intro to reach the capital city. It can take up to 2 hours to complete.

My personal data

In 27 days of playing Cataclysm, I’ve made about 135000 gold in profit. I played an average of 2 hours per day. With that in mind, you could see that I’ve made roughly 2225 gold per hour or 4500 gold per day! Most of my gold comes from glyphs and shuffles. My main professions are jewelcrafting and inscription.

I did buy a boost with my retail gold which can be very worth it if you can replicate my results. At this moment, I can sub for free for the next 18 months!

Approximately 20000 gold was obtained from jewelcrafting, 100000 gold from inscription and the rest from various means like gathering at the start, disenchanting shuffles and some tailoring ( my death knight has enchanting and tailoring which is a great combo of professions ).

Many opportunities have not been shown in this post. New ways to make gold keep showing up. I personally enjoy playing a different version of World of Warcraft. It’s a trip down memory lane where making gold wasn’t as complex as it can be in our current era. Professions are simple but they take longer to level and to me, it’s way more satisfying whenever you reach the end. I highly recommend giving it a try especially that it’s free if you already have a retail subscription!

Shuffling

Shuffling is the process of transforming items multiple times to make new items with profit in mind. You could get some cloth into bolts, use the bolts to make pants and disenchant the pants to sell the enchanting goods on the auction house. It’s not for everyone but it can be a very simple way to make some gold without having a high level character.

Other forms of shuffles are with inscription and jewelcrafting. Tsm destroy will really help you with those as they will show you the rates of each item. For example, obsidium ore has a 5% chance to give you a carnelian.

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