Gold Management 101
This is part 2 of the Gold Management 101 series. This part covers what is no doubt the best way to get gold in Wizard101: mass Couch Potato farming. Read on below! If you missed the other parts, you can find them here:
Part 1: Obtaining Gold: Getting Started
Part 2: Obtaining Gold: Passive Income (This guide)
Part 3: Storing Gold: Best Practices and Tips
Passive Income through Gardening
Without a doubt, gardening is the best form of passive gold generation. With the right plants and the right amount of them, you can generate tons of gold each week. The best plant for gold generation is – you guessed it – Couch Potatoes. Couch Potatoes are wildly popular for their mega snacks and relative ease to obtain. Couch Potatoes are dropped very often in Mirage, Empyrea, and Grizzleheim. With all that said, let’s take a look at just how much gold Couch Potatoes can provide.
In the lifespan of a Couch Potato, you can get 3 mature harvests and 1 elder harvest in 5 days. The rewards are as followed:
- Mature (3 Harvests)
- Average 210 gold
- 1 treasure card (Fortify, Amplify, Vengeance, Infallible, Conviction, Empower)
- Fortify, Amplify, Vengeance, Infallible are worth at least 100 gold
- Conviction is worth at least 150 gold
- Empower is worth 800-2000 gold depending on Bazaar stock
- 1 rank 5-7 snack (Golden Pizza, Jar of Jellybeans, Taco Town Special, Killer Tomato, Shanta Pudding)
- Taco Town Specials are worth at least 250 gold
- Golden Pizzas and Jar of Jellybeans are worth at least 300 gold
- Killer Tomatoes and Shanta Puddings are worth at least 350 gold (with Shanta Pudding often selling for more)
- Elder
- Average 1070 gold
- 1 of the above treasure cards
- 3 of the above rank 5-7 snacks
- Not relevant to gold management: 1 mega snack (Fancy Yogurt, Captain Canteloupe, or Golden Wheat Bread)
Let’s assume you are following the gold management and storage practices outlined in part 3 of this guide series and crunch the numbers and see just how much gold you can get from your couch potatoes…
GOLD: 210 * 3 (mature) + 1,070 (elder) = 1,700 gold (1,870 with a gold miner pet!)
TC: There are 6 TC available, and in a CP’s lifetime, you get 4 at random. Thus, the odds of any one TC being dropped in a CP’s lifetime is 4/6 = ⅔.
Following gold management principles, we will instantly sell Auras and keep Empowers:
⅔ * 100 * 4 (the 4 100 gold auras) + ⅔ * 150 (conviction) = 367 gold
⅔ * 800 [to] ⅔ * 2000 (empower) = 533 – 1333 stored gold
SNACKS: Now this is where the gold really is. There are 5 rank 5-7 snacks available, and in a CP’s lifetime, you get 6 at random. Thus, the odds of any one snack being dropped in a CP’s lifetime is 6/5. We will follow gold management principles and keep all rank 5-7 snacks.
6/5 * 250 (Taco Town Special) = 300 stored gold
6/5 * 300 * 2 (Golden Pizza and Jar of Jellybeans) = 720 stored gold
6/5 * 350 * 2 (Killer Tomato and Shanta Pudding) = 840 stored gold
300 + 720 + 840 = 1860 stored gold
That’s a lot of math, but I wanted to make sure it’s clear where I’m getting my numbers. It may not look like much, but notice that these numbers are for just ONE Couch Potato every 5 days. Just one Couch Potato will provide you with 2,067-2,237 gold to spend right away, depending on whether you have a gold miner pet or not. This one CP will also provide you with at least 2,393-3,193 gold that is stored for later use. Again, I will explain why this is important later.
One CP is quite impressive! What if you had a stack of 69 Couch Potatoes? Every 5 days, you’d generate 142,623-154,353 gold to spend right away and 165,117-220,317 gold stored away for future use! If you garden 4 69 plots like I do, then you would be getting 570,492-617,412 gold to spend right away and 660,468-881,268 gold stored for later! These numbers may seem unbelievable, but the math doesn’t lie. Of course, your mileage may vary depending on your luck and patience with selling empowers, but these numbers are a good approximation.