Cataclysm has introduced new elemental items that are heavily used in professions which are Volatile Air, Fire, Earth, Water and Life. The WOTLK versions were Eternal and Burning Crusade was Primals.
These items sell for a good amount since they are constantly in demand, although crafting items and selling them on the Auction House is a much faster way to make gold, farming is a great way to get initial gold if you are broke or need funds to powerlevel a profession.
I am on the hunt in Cataclysm to find the best items to farm for the highest gold/hour rate and when I looked at the auction house Volatile Air seemed to be in high demand across every server and seemed like a worthy item that could offer a high gold/hour reward for those looking to farm up some gold.
Here are all the best zones to farm Volatile Air and which one gives you the highest gold/hour and Volatile Air an hour. Starting with the best spot.
Uldum – Scion of Al’Akir at Orsis
Out of all the spots I farmed in my trials I found the Scion of Al’Akir in Uldum to give the most volatile air, there are tons of them that spawn around the Orsis with about 4 that spawn inside. The spot isn’t camped to heavily and it’s easy to sneak up on them as a rogue since they remain standing in one spot facing south the whole time.
Volatile Air – 26 ( x 30g each = 780g)
Crackling crystals – 111 ( x 0.2073g each = 23g 1s)
Shimmering Shards – 30 ( x 0.4323g each = 12g 97s)
Total Gold An Hour = 816g 7s
Twilight Highland – Storm Vortex’s Above Victor’s Point
This is the most heavily farmed spot and for good reason. Storm Vortex’s spawn in a small circular area, there are about 4 single ones that spawn seperately within the inner circle in the pit while others pawn outside with a humanoid caster with them. I would usually just sap the humanoid and kill off the storm vortex and either vanish or just sprint to the next storm vortex in sight.
In an hour of farming this spot I looted the following:
Volatile Air – 21 ( x 30g each = 630g)
Crackling crystals – 60 ( x 0.2073g each = 12g 43s)
Shimmering Shards – 32 ( x 0.4323g each = 13g 89s)
Embersilk Cloth – 13 ( x 6g 30s each = 81g 90s)
Green Items – 2 ( x 25g value you could sell to an enchanter = 50g)
Total Gold An Hour = 788g 52s
Mount Hyjal – Howling Riftdweller below Shrine of Goldrinn
Initially I thought this would be a fantastic spot, not heavily farmed and you can get in a really good rhythm constantly killing these mobs, they are also level 80 which makes them the fastest to kill out of any of the other spots. However they have the lowest drop rate of volatile airs.
Spending an hour here I looted the following:
Volatile Air – 19 ( x 30g each = 570g)
Hoary Crystals – 164 ( x 0.1956g each = 32g 7s)
Efflorescing Shards – 32 ( x 0.25 each = 8g)
Greens = 3 ( x 25g value you could sell to an enchanter = 75g)
Total Gold An Hour = 685g 7s
Twilight Highlands – Enslaved Tempest at The Twilight Citadel
Even though WoWhead shows that these are the mobs with the highest drop rate of volatile air they are so spread out that it isn’t the most efficient place to farm them. The nice thing is that they do spawn by themselves, but other mobs do frequently path close to them.
Another thing I like about this farming spot is that you can also farm volatile fire and volatile water in the same area, I’ll share a bit about this below.
Here were my results farming for an hour:
Volatile Air – 18 ( x 30g each = 540g)
Crackling crystals – 71 ( x 0.2073g each = 14g 72s)
Shimmering Shards – 15 ( x 0.4323g each = 6g 45s)
Green Items – 3 ( x 25g value you could sell to an enchanter = 75g)
Total Gold An Hour = 636g 17s
While this spot may be the worst to farm volatile air’s only, if you are looking to make the most gold an hour by farming this place has an even higher gold/hour rate than the #1 farming spot at the top of this list.
I chose instead of only going after Enslaved Tempests to kill all the elementals (fire/water/air) and see how much gold/hour I could get in an hour of farming. Here’s how much I made:
Volatile Air – 18 ( x 30g each = 540g)
Volatile Fire – 6 ( x 20g each = 120g
Volatile Water – 15 ( x 20g each = 300g)
Crackling Crystals – 78 ( x 0.2073g each = 16g 17s)
Shimmering Shards – 28 ( x 0.4323g each = 12g 10s)
green items – 3 ( x 25g value you could sell to an enchanter = 75g)
Total Gold An Hour = 1,063g 27s
If you are going after only Volatile Air’s, then go to Uldum, but if you are trying to make gold to invest into professions (since they are the highest gold earner per hour) then I’d suggest heading over to Twilight Highlands at the Twilight Citadel and killing all the elementals you see and make over 1,000g an hour. Once you’ve made enough to invest into professions I recommend reading Markco’s Guide to quickly learn how to pull in thousands of gold a day with each profession. Good luck!