Everyone talks about getting "fully BiS" in Season of Discovery like it's just a loot problem. It isn't. By the time you're stacking enchants, rune-specific consumables, profession mats, and the engineering and tailoring crafted pieces that out-perform raid drops in several slots, the gold cost of a true best-in-slot setup runs into the hundreds — and that's before you account for re-gemming or re-enchanting every time the meta shifts between phases. Here's where the gold actually goes.

The crafted pieces that beat raid loot

The first surprise for players coming from retail is that several SoD BiS slots are crafted, not dropped. The level-cap phases lean heavily on the old-world recipes that Blizzard rebalanced for the season, and those mats are the bulk of your spend.

  • Tailoring sets — Cloth specs running the equivalent of a Bloodvine or high-end tailored kit are looking at stacks of cloth plus rare reagents. Buying the cloth alone (especially when Mooncloth-tier cooldowns gate production) can be 100g+ for a single piece by the time you account for the cooldown premium sellers charge.
  • Engineering goggles and trinkets — Engineers get head slots and on-use trinkets that compete with raid drops. The mats are cheaper than tailoring but the recipe grind and Thorium/rare-component cost still adds up.
  • Leatherworking armor kits and Devilsaur-style pieces — Leather and rare drops like the relevant scale mats spike hard when raid logs go up and everyone re-gears at once.

If you don't have the profession leveled, you're either paying a crafter a tip (commonly 20–50g per craft on top of mats) or you're leveling the profession yourself, which is its own gold sink.

Enchants: the silent 200g+ line item

This is where most people undercount. A fully enchanted character in a level-cap SoD phase wants an enchant on nearly every slot: weapon, chest, bracers, gloves, boots, cloak, and shield or off-hand if applicable. The expensive ones carry the whole bill.

  • Weapon enchants are always the heaviest. The top-tier spell-power and Crusader-style weapon enchants need rare formula mats and big essence/dust counts — frequently 50–150g for a single application depending on phase and server economy.
  • Bracer, glove, and chest enchants stack up fast because they each want a handful of greater essences or nexus crystals.
  • The hidden multiplier: SoD's runes change build priorities between phases, so the stat you enchanted for in one phase can be wrong in the next. Re-enchanting a full set is effectively paying the enchant bill twice.

Tally it honestly and a fully enchanted raider is regularly past 200g in enchants alone, separate from the gear itself.

Consumables: the cost that never stops

Gear is a one-time spend. Consumables are the real economy, and serious raiders pay them every single lockout.

  • Flasks vs. battle/guardian elixir doubling — A double-elixir setup (one battle, one guardian) is cheaper per raid than a full flask but still meaningful; flasks for progression nights are the premium option.
  • Food buffs — The well-fed stat food (spell power, agility, or strength fish/feast equivalents) is a few gold per stack but consumed constantly.
  • Class-specific reagents and weapon oils/stones — Sharpening stones, mana oil, wizard oil, shadow/holy protection pots for specific bosses, and free-action or dispel items for mechanics.
  • World buffs and the chronoboon — Not gold-direct, but the time cost of collecting them is why many players value gold-for-time trades during a raid week.

A genuinely tryhard consumable kit for one raid night can run 50–100g+ depending on phase. Multiply by raids per week and the season-long consumable bill dwarfs your gear cost.

Adding it up: the realistic full-BiS number

Rough, honest math for a level-cap phase, assuming a mid-priced server economy:

  • Crafted BiS pieces + mats/tips: 150–350g
  • Full enchant pass: 150–250g
  • Gems/consumable trinketing and misc reforge-style swaps: 30–60g
  • First few weeks of progression consumables: 200–400g

That lands a serious raider in the 500–1,000g range to get and keep a true BiS kit through a phase — and the consumable portion resets every week. Players chasing parses or doing speed/HC-style clears spend more.

When farming it yourself is right — and when it isn't

If you enjoy the gold game — flipping the auction house, running a profession that prints (alchemy transmutes, enchanting disenchant flips, herbalism on a druid), or simply farming during off-hours — make your own gold. The economy is the game for a lot of SoD players, and you'll never feel the consumable treadmill if you have a reliable income loop. Honestly, most players should just play it out: gold comes naturally if you raid-log responsibly and sell your professions.

The time-for-money trade makes sense in narrower cases. If you've got limited weekly playtime and you're spending all of it farming consumables instead of actually raiding with your guild, topping up your balance so you can show up enchanted and flasked every lockout is a reasonable call — that's the one scenario where a gold top-up or a gear/consumable-funding boost buys back the part of the game you actually want to play. Likewise, if you're re-gearing an alt mid-phase and don't want to re-grind a profession from scratch, a one-time top-up beats weeks of catch-up farming. Outside of those, the cheapest path is patience plus a money-making profession.

Two things that quietly lower the bill

  • Pick a self-funding profession. Alchemy and enchanting effectively subsidize their own consumable and enchant costs. Going double-gathering on a farming alt is the other classic.
  • Don't over-enchant in early progression. Until your group is reliably clearing, run the mid-tier enchants and save the top-shelf formulas for when your gear is stable. Re-enchanting a moving target is where gold evaporates.