Deadwind Pass

In the World of Warcraft there are numerous spots to grind gold, some being good and others great. If you talk to gold farmers, you’ll notice many have there own favorite spots (if, like a prize-winning fishing enthusiast, they are willing to talk about their favorite fishing hole at all).

For the past year or so now, my favorite spot to grind gold has been, hands-down, the area Deadwind Pass. Home to Medivh’s Tower (which is supposed to be accessible as an instance in Burning Crusade), I was fascinated early on by it’s strange lack of content (no quests here!) and weird mix of ogres and high-level undead spirits – a perfect out-of-the-way place to explore.

I also soon realized that Deadwind pass was also a perfect place to grind gold – a suspicion confirmed by the numerous professional gold farmers camping the area. Fortunately for us, the pros have since largely moved on to greener pastures (or had their accounts banned), leaving the area mostly free to the intrepid solo WoW player looking to earn their epic mount.

There are three main areas to grind in Deadwind Pass – the Deadwind Ogres (levels 50-58), Sky Shadow vultures (levels 50-56) and various unliving residents (levels 56-60) of Kharazan. Of these three, the Unliving Residents are the least effective to grind (though the giant cave at the northernmost end of the zone makes grinding on pvp servers a bit easier); I won’t talk about them more here because they generally aren’t worth the effort to grind, especially after their 2.0.1 patch buffs.

The other two types of mobs in Deadwind Pass are, I believe, the best mobs in the entire game for the solo grinder (at least for now).

The Deadwind Ogres are great for the mellow, my brain-is-on-autopilot type of grinding. They go down very easily, drop lots of runecloth, average about 6-7 silver each and occasionally drop nice green and blue items (these ogres have given me more traveler’s backpacks than any other mob). Plus they are numerous and spawn VERY quickly.

The Sky Shadow vultures have long had a reputation as THE best trash mob in the game – hands down. While they drop green and blue items, they drop them too rarely to be worth grinding them for those. However, they regularly drop useful white items like ironfeathers and vibrant plumes. Most importantly they drop gray items which sell for lots of silver to vendors; one example is the feathery wing – these sell for more than 12 silver (making a stack of 5 worth more than 60 silver!). The only downside to farming these birds is that you’ll likely have competition for them no matter what time of day you go there.

Tip: If you find competition for the ogres too intense, try sticking to cave at the north end of their camp – especially if you are a rogue. Because of the quick respawn rate, you can farm in here for hours without ever seeing sunlight and it gives you a tactical edge versus any would-be kill-thiefs and gankers; make sure to leave the ogre nearest the entrance alive as an alarm to alert you to anyone else entering the cave.

If you are serious about earning up to $200/gold per hour, you should read Valkor’s Gold-Making Guide. It will teach you the best strategies to pwn the auction house, and with killer references like a complete database of limited-sell patterns, this 108- page monster won’t let you down.