wow Gold Making: Transmog Farming - The Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj

[Peelyon 416]

 

The Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj

 
Location:  Sithilus (Bottom Left of Kalimdor)
 
Mob Level:  55-61(Elite)
 
Approx Time per run:  6 - 15minutes
 
Instance cap reached: No
 
Average LIV / hour: 10000-20000g (although some very high value items can drop)
 
Notable Items / Sets: Glorious Legplates Vanguard Legplates Lofty Legguards

Welcome to my transmog farming guide for The Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj.  Commonly known as AQ20 this instance can be a very lucrative farm. It has the potential to drop some of the most sought after transmog in the game, of which some is very rare and can sell for a lot of gold.

 
As with any instance farm there are a number of benefits.  You can farm without any competition and after completing a run you can just reset the instance rather than having to wait for re-spawns. This particular farm will take you between 6 and 15 minutes depending on whether you clear the majority of the trash mobs or not and how fast you are.  This means you will never reach the instance cap (you are limited to 10 instances in an hour), so you can continue for as long as possible without having to wait for the instance count to reset.  The route (shown in the video below) is a very circular one, so unlike most dungeons and raids you do not have to run the full length after you have finished just to get back to the entrance and reset.
 
Probably the most important thing to note before you begin farming here is that this is a raid instance, so you cannot kill any of the bosses.  If you do so you will be saved to the instance and you will not be able to reset it and so the trash mobs will not respawn.  If you do accidentally engage a boss then try and run back to the entrance (be aware of the first boss in particular).  If you accidentally kill a boss then you will need to wait 3 days until the instance unlocks again or switch to another character to continue farming.
 
The majority of mobs drop some form of transmog or another and it is well worth clearing the majority of the mobs inside.  However it is extremely important that you kill as many of the Silicate Feeders as possible.  These mobs are neutral (they will not aggro) so having a ranged attack that you can use continuously is beneficial.  
 
The Silicate Feeders are in the bottom right hand corner of the map in "The Comb". These trash mobs have the potential to drop a wide range of rare transmog.  Most notably the Glorious Legplates from the Glorious Set.  Other parts of the set have the chance to drop from other mobs in the instance but only the Silicate Feeders have a chance to drop the legplates (the rarest and arguably the most lucrative transmog item currently in game).  
 
I have personally managed to loot one set of legplates from them which I sold for 80,000g to a fellow guild member.   At the time of the sale it was an average fee, and at time of writing I have heard of numerous sales for 100k+.  This price is high for a reason, it is a low drop chance and although you should be encouraged and motivated that it can drop, do not expect it to happen.  Thankfully the instance and the Silicate Feeders drop enough valuable transmog that it will be worth your time even if any of these high ticket items do not drop.
 

 
Having a Loot-A-Rang can be really useful here as if you get too close to the boss in the Comb it will engage you.  If this does happen, don't panic.  You can just continue to farm and make your way out of the instance as normal (it doesn't chase you).  Sadly you won't be able to mount up as you are still in combat, so it is preferable to not get too close.  There are a couple of silicate feeders behind the boss - just ignore these as you won't be able to reach them without aggroing.
 
One of the more frustrating parts of this instance is constantly looting both Clay Scarab tokens and Alabaster Idol.  These items have no vendor value and can take up a considerable amount of bag space.
 
There are however two macros that you can place onto your action bars which with one click can delete all scarabs or all idols from your bags.  Theses are
 
Scarab Macro:
 
/run for bag = 0,4,1 do for slot = 1, 32, 1 do local name = GetContainerItemLink(bag,slot); if name and string.find(name,"Scarab") then PickupContainerItem(bag,slot); DeleteCursorItem(); end; end; end
 
Idol Macro:
 
/run for bag = 0,4,1 do for slot = 1, 32, 1 do local name = GetContainerItemLink(bag,slot); if name and string.find(name,"Idol") then PickupContainerItem(bag,slot); DeleteCursorItem(); end; end; end
 
This will save you a considerable amount of time deleting them from your bags.  
 
Below is my Youtube guide on the route I take. It offers a little more explanation on the mobs that I clear in each run!
 

 
I hope you enjoyed this farming guide.  There is a wide variety of transmog items from this instance so it is a great place to start if you are new to transmog farming in particular.
 
Have you farmed AQ20 before?  Have you had any successes?  If you would like to offer any more tips feel free to post below!

[Hippocrates 1]

thank you very much for this post, i am on 18k feeder kills and i have seen no glorious legplates drop, but your sentence that i have to believe they can drop helped me. all the best

[Stormbringer007 1]

Well, I started reading your stuff last night. I set up TSM and appraiser today. I did about 5 runs, messed it up thanks to some obnoxious beetle knockbacks, and then proceeded to finish the run out and got some Bloodlust Britches. Feels good man, thanks a lot!

[Valks 2,375]

1 hour ago, Stormbringer007 said:

Well, I started reading your stuff last night. I set up TSM and appraiser today. I did about 5 runs, messed it up thanks to some obnoxious beetle knockbacks, and then proceeded to finish the run out and got some Bloodlust Britches. Feels good man, thanks a lot!

Peelyon is definitely a helpful chap to keep an eye on! I'd recommend tuning into his streams and the like for more tips. Whether you ask him here or there, he's very helpful when it comes to answering questions.

[Stormbringer007 1]

5 hours ago, Blainie said:

Peelyon is definitely a helpful chap to keep an eye on! I'd recommend tuning into his streams and the like for more tips. Whether you ask him here or there, he's very helpful when it comes to answering questions.

Yeah I absolutely will! I've always been a poor sap in all the years I've been playing WoW off and on and it's great to see how people are actually making some gold in this game. These guides are very helpful for someone like me who hasn't a clue.

[Valks 2,375]

5 hours ago, Stormbringer007 said:

Yeah I absolutely will! I've always been a poor sap in all the years I've been playing WoW off and on and it's great to see how people are actually making some gold in this game. These guides are very helpful for someone like me who hasn't a clue.

It's one of those parts of the game that is always puzzling for me. In Vanilla, I was super poor. Ever since BC or so, I always had steady gold income. I never have issues with gold, so it's strange for me to see people struggle so much. 

I feel like it's because people are lured in by those, "Make 5000000 gold in 15 minutes!", so they don't see the point of putting in time to make much less gold.

It's that same old formula of more time = more gold.

[Dontbejello 0]

I was just wondering is this run still usable in 2018. 

[Zodlike 0]

Hi, it is not true only silicate feeders drop the glorious legplates!!! The gladiators used to be on super fast respawn and this was the best place to get the legs, 10 min. and you had them, this however has been fixed. Also I did a quick trash run today and got a same item lvl green (58) from the Obsidian things. A lvl 58 item should drop from anything 56-60 the chance significantly reduced if two item lvls below or above as opposed to one.