Raw gold is coin that lands directly in your bags — boss drops, mob loot, quest payouts, treasures and grey vendor trash — with no Auction House and no buyer needed. The most dependable raw gold farm in modern WoW is soloing old-expansion raids, above all the five Legion raids: roughly 40 bosses that pay in coin plus vendorable loot, with a separate weekly lockout per difficulty.
The raw gold farms that actually pay
| Farm | What it pays | Reset |
| Legion raids (Emerald Nightmare, Trial of Valor, Nighthold, Tomb of Sargeras, Antorus) | About 40 bosses of coin, plus greys and BoEs to vendor | Weekly, per difficulty |
| Warlords raids (Highmaul, Blackrock Foundry, Hellfire Citadel) | 30 bosses; less per kill than Legion, but very fast clears | Weekly, per difficulty |
| Mists and Cataclysm raids | Smaller coin per boss, but trivial to solo and quick to sweep | Weekly, per difficulty |
| Current-zone treasures, chests and gold-reward world quests | Flat coin, no combat pressure | Daily / one-time per character |
| Vendor-trash grinds (dense humanoid packs in old zones) | Steady greys and coin | No lockout at all |
The weekly raw gold route, step by step
- Pick a self-sufficient character — Demon Hunter, Paladin, Death Knight, Druid, Monk and Hunter all clear old content fast without stopping to eat.
- Turn on auto-loot and, if you can, an auto-vendor addon for greys. Manual looting is where most of the time goes.
- Start with Legion. Run Antorus, Tomb of Sargeras and Nighthold first — they pay the most per boss of anything you can solo.
- Use the separate lockouts. LFR, Normal, Heroic and Mythic each hold their own weekly ID in Legion raids, so one character can clear the same raid more than once a week for more coin.
- Vendor everything grey. Sell or disenchant greens; if you want strictly raw gold, the vendor is fine.
- Repeat on alts. Since gold is shared across your Warband, every extra character is another full set of lockouts feeding the same pile.
What is the difference between raw gold and Auction House gold?
Raw gold comes from the game itself and cannot crash. Auction House gold — herbs, ore, flasks, crafted gear — often earns more per hour, but only when someone else is buying, and prices swing hard around patch days.
Most players who farm seriously do both: raid sweeps for guaranteed coin, professions for the upside.
How much raw gold can you actually farm per hour?
Honest answer: nobody should quote you a fixed number, because it moves with your gear, your class and how many alts you run. What is stable is the shape of it — old raids pay far better per minute spent than open-world trash grinding, and the gap widens the more characters you keep on the route.
Treat it as a weekly income, not an hourly one. The lockouts, not your skill, are the real ceiling.
Which class farms raw gold fastest?
Anything with strong AoE, self-healing and mobility. Vengeance Demon Hunter, Protection Paladin, Blood Death Knight and Guardian Druid are the usual picks because they pull half a wing at once and never stop moving.
Ranged classes still work; they simply spend more time gathering packs than deleting them.
Do old raids still get nerfed enough to solo on Mythic?
Legion and Warlords Mythic content is comfortably soloable at current max level on most specs, though a few encounters have mechanics that punish low gear or a bad pull. If a boss walls you, drop that raid to Heroic and keep the route moving — the coin difference is small next to the time you lose.
If you would rather spend your playtime raiding than sweeping Antorus for the ninetieth time, PewPewShop can help. Our vetted human players do coaching and play-together progression help — no bots, no cheats, long clean record — and if it is Classic economy you are chasing, Pandaria Classic Gold starts from EUR 36.