Soloing legacy raids is one of the most reliable gold-and-transmog routines in modern WoW, but most "farming guides" just list every old instance and tell you to clear them. The problem is the weekly lockout: each raid resets once per week per character, so efficiency comes from the order you run them, which ones actually drop sellable gear, and where you stop wasting time. Here's a tight route that a single max-level character can clear in roughly 45-60 minutes a week.

Understand the lockout math first

Most raids from Burning Crusade through Mists of Pandaria share a single weekly lockout per difficulty. You cannot run the same raid twice in a reset on the same toon, so the gold ceiling per character is fixed. That's why serious farmers run the same circuit across multiple level-capped alts rather than grinding one raid repeatedly. If you have three or four 80s sitting around, the route below multiplies cleanly. One character is a nice weekly habit; four characters is a real gold income.

One nuance people miss: a handful of raids (Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, and the original 40-man tier) reset on the standard schedule, while the rare-mount bosses inside them are also weekly. So you're never losing a mount chance by clearing trash for transmog.

The high-value targets and why

Not every old raid is worth your reset. Value concentrates in three buckets: vendor trash and gear to sell to NPCs, transmog gear that sells on the Auction House, and raw raid-mount lottery tickets.

  • Firelands is the single best stop. Trash and bosses drop iLvl gear you vendor for a steady 1,000-2,000g per clear, plus Smouldering Essence and the chance at Pureblood Fire Hawk from Ragnaros. The cinder kitten (Corrupted Egg of Millagazor pet) and the legendary staff mats also drop here.
  • Dragon Soul gives the Experiment 12-B mount from Ultraxion (Cataclysm raid) and reliable vendor gold from a fast clear.
  • Throne of Thunder and Siege of Orgrimmar on the Pandaria patch are where the money is for Elegon's Hide and the chance at Astral Cloud Serpent (Elegon, Mogu'shan Vaults) and Kor'kron Juggernaut (Garrosh).
  • The Burning Crusade raids (Karazhan, Black Temple, Sunwell) are transmog goldmines. Black Temple holds Warglaives of Azzinoth and the Reins of the Raven Lord-adjacent appearances; Karazhan drops the Fiery Warhorse off Attumen.

The efficient weekly route

Run these in geographic clusters to cut flight time. Use a class with strong self-healing and AoE: Blood DK, Vengeance DH, Brewmaster, or a Hunter with a tanky pet all chew through old trash fast.

Block 1 - Cataclysm (Mount Hyjal hub)

  • Firelands - your priority clear. Pull large, AoE down the trash, kill all seven bosses. This is your biggest single gold and transmog dump.
  • Dragon Soul - port from the Caverns of Time / Wyrmrest. Fast boss kills, Experiment 12-B chance off Ultraxion.
  • Bastion of Twilight & Blackwing Descent - quick transmog runs; Blackwing Descent has the Pyrelord appearances and tier-11 looks that still sell.

Block 2 - Mists of Pandaria (Vale of Eternal Blossoms hub)

  • Mogu'shan Vaults - Elegon for the Astral Cloud Serpent lottery, plus heavy vendor trash.
  • Throne of Thunder - longest MoP clear but the densest transmog; Lei Shen drops sought-after looks.
  • Siege of Orgrimmar - Garrosh for the Kor'kron Juggernaut; trash here vendors well.

Block 3 - Burning Crusade (Shadowmoon Valley / Shattrath hub)

  • Black Temple - Illidan for the Warglaives (extremely rare, but they're worth playing the lottery weekly), plus a full set of iconic tier-6 transmog.
  • Karazhan - Attumen for the Fiery Warhorse's Reins; the whole instance is a transmog museum.
  • Sunwell Plateau - Kil'jaeden for the Bloodthirsty Dead-Eye-tier looks and warlock Felglow appearances.

What to do with the loot

Split your drops into three piles. Bind-on-equip transmog goes straight to the Auction House — list distinctive plate and cloth pieces from Black Temple, Sunwell, and tier-11/13 sets, since those move fastest. Bind-on-pickup gear you can't trade gets vendored or, if it's an appearance you don't own, learned first. Vendor trash, cloth, and crafting mats (Spirit Cloth, Embersilk, old gems) get sold to NPCs or auctioned in stacks. A single character's full weekly route nets roughly 5,000-12,000g in vendor value plus whatever your transmog flips bring in.

When to grind it yourself, and when not to

If you enjoy the solo-raid puzzle of figuring out boss mechanics that one-shot you (Spine of Deathwing solo is genuinely fiddly), this is some of the most relaxing gold in the game and you should just do it. The route pays for repairs, consumables, and the occasional mount-vendor splurge without touching your real-money wallet.

The honest exception is the mount and rare-appearance lottery. Drop rates on Experiment 12-B, the Fiery Warhorse, and the Warglaives sit around 1% or lower, so "weekly" can mean years of resets. If you specifically want a low-drop mount or a full legacy-set appearance by a deadline, and you'd rather not run the same lockout for 100+ weeks, that's the spot where a targeted carry or a gold top-up is a sensible time-for-money trade — buy the gold for a guaranteed AH purchase, or have the run done while you play the content you actually enjoy. For the bread-and-butter weekly vendor gold, though, just run the circuit yourself; it's faster than it looks once you've done it twice.

Set a reset-day reminder, build the three-block route into a single play session, and rotate it across whatever alts you have at cap. That's the whole system — no spreadsheet required.