Mining

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General Information

So you want to be a miner? Mining is an exciting Profession used to gather materials for Blacksmithing or Engineering. However, you don't need those Professions to be a miner. You could simply collect resources and sell them to blacksmiths and engineers. You're going to find these spots anyway as you travel throughout the world, so why not cash in on them? However, most people combine mining and blacksmithing or mining and engineering.

Mining Sale Prices: Mining is a very profitable profession at low levels. A stack of 20 copper bars can sell for as much as 1 at the auction house, although prices generally vary between 70-80 per stack. This is a very good way for a low level character to make some significant money. In the early days of the Jewelcrafting profession, copper ore can be sold for 1 for a stack of 5.

After learning mining you will have the "Find Mineral" button included with your other abilities. By activating this you will be able to see mineral veins (and deposits) on your mini-map, making mining far easier.

To mine a vein or deposit resource, simply right click it. You will be able to loot ore or other items (usually stone and sometimes gems) from the same vein 1 to 4 times (some higher-level veins will be titled 'small' which will give you 1-2 minging attempts or 'rich' which will give 2-4 attempts). Different veins will require different mining skill levels to loot. For example a mithril vein requires a mining skill of 175.

Ore alone is useless for blacksmithing plans and engineering schematics, however ore can be used in Jewelcrafting for [Prospecting] in which the crafter finds gems within the ore. The ore can be smelted at a forge, becoming a metal bar to be used in crafting. When you learn mining you will also gain the smelting ability and the [Find Minerals] tracking ability.

As of the January patch update, Ores stack in amounts of 20 (versus only 10 previously).

Trainers

See mining trainer.

Requirements

You need to go and buy yourself a mining pick. They are usually sold by a trade merchant NPC or other merchants near the mining trainer, like a mining supplier.

Increasing Mining Skill

Gaining skill level in the mining profession can occur by either smelting ores or mining veins. At the beginning, smelting copper is a very fast way to gain mining skill. However this peters out at about skill level 60-75. Even brand new smelting recipes will be green or gray in color, indicating you will not gain skill by smelting that ore. Gold and silver however are an exception, and can be smelted early on to gain skill. However these ores are quite rare. Other than by smelting gold and silver, mining veins is the best way to gain skill. However, even though you can mine one vein up to 4 times, you can only gain one skill point per vein, this doesn't stop another miner from gaining a skill point from that same vein.

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Quest ores may not be smelted, but are not "quest items" per se, and can be sold to other questors if they are willing to buy them.

Mining Etiquette

If someone is already looting a resource node, don't try and loot as well. Similarly don't use a speed enhancing ability to grab a node before someone else does. Ask if you can take a whack for the skill up, but otherwise leave the miner alone. In a party, share your nodes with other miners so you can split the skill ups and ores. If somebody is fighting a mob near a mining vein, either help kill the mob, or wait until the person is done, to see if he was planning to mine the vein you saw.

Mining Color Codes

Any vein or deposit that can be mined will have a color code on the "Requires Mining" property when you move your pointer over it:

• Red: Can't be mined.
• Orange: Difficult to mine, may fail; very good chance of increasing Mining skill, but Mining is one of the professions where an orange level task will not always increase your skill level after completion.
• Yellow: Moderately difficult to mine, almost never fail; 50% chance of increasing Mining skill level.
• Green: Easy to mine, should never fail; <50% chance of increasing Mining skill level.
• Gray: Very easy to mine, should never fail; 0% chance of increasing Mining skill level.

Other Products From Mining

When you mine you will always gain Ore, often times stones, and rarely gems. All of these are used in different recipes. Gems are used in many weapon recipes (or other professions, like leatherworking or tailoring) and stones are used in both engineering and blacksmithing. If you have taken blacksmithing with your mining, it may be wise to store those gems to craft weapons later on.

Suggested 2nd profession

• Blacksmithing
• Engineering
• Jewelcrafting

Much of the products of mining are ingredients common to both blacksmithing and engineering.

Suggested Classes

• Warrior - Plate smith
• Paladin - Plate smith
• Hunter - Mail smith or Engineer
• Shaman - Mail smith

• Druid - Stealth Mining for money
• Rogue - Stealth Mining for money

Income from Mining

Mining can be used to make a decent amount of side cash. The higher level people would rather buy the material already mined than go after it themselves. Also check the auction house and look at the cost of the ore in relation to 10 bars. Often the ore will be more. This is due to Jewelcrafters needing the ore for Prospecting, as well as high level people smelting the ore to raise their mining skill. Lastly look at the price of bronze. If you can get a stack of copper and tin for less than the price of a stack of bronze it might be worth it to smelt the two together to make the bronze. Remember 1 tin and 1 copper make 2 bronze.

Another good area for income is selling Iron and Mithril. Thorium depends on the server, on a new server it sells for a lot, whereas on an old server everyone can mine it. Dark Iron is also another good item to mine, as it is highly valuable for its uses in crafting and gaining reputation with Thorium Brotherhood.

Ore, without being smelted, rose in value once the expansion The Burning Crusade was implemented, as with the expansion came the new profession Jewelcrafting in which comes an additional ability called [Prospecting]. With Prospecting you can find gems within ores to use within the craft to make socketed items, rings, necklaces, trinkets, and rare head pieces.

Summary of Skill Levels

See ThottBot Table reference for more details.

Apprentice

Requirement: No previous Mining skill level required. In each case, smelting refines an ore into a bar. (Exceptions: Bronze is made from copper and tin bars; Steel is made from iron bars and coal chunks.) Ores can be stacked 20 high; bars can be stacked 20 high.

Skill level range: 1 - 75

Sub-skills or basic recipes:

• Smelt Copper (1)
• Smelt Tin (65)
• Smelt Bronze (65): Copper Bar and Tin Bar into 2 × Bronze Bar
• Smelt Silver (75)

• Smelt Elementium (1)

  This skill is obtained in Blackwing Lair. Used only for a small number of quests for Epic or Legendary items. Unlike common beliefs, you only need 1 Mining skill in order to be able to use this skill, and do not even need to be a miner to learn it.

Journeyman

Requirement: 50 Mining skill level required.

Skill level range: 76 - 150

Sub-skills or basic recipes:

• Smelt Iron (125)

Expert

Requirement: 125 Mining skill level required.

Skill level range: 151 - 225

Sub-skills or basic recipes:

• Smelt Gold (155)
• Smelt Steel (165):  [Iron Bar] and  [Coal] into  [Steel Bar]
• Smelt Mithril (175)

Artisan

Requirement: 200 Mining skill level required.

Skill level range: 226 - 300

Sub-skills or basic recipes:

• Smelt Truesilver (230)
• Smelt Thorium (250)
• Smelt Dark Iron (230)

  This skill is taught by an NPC named Gloom'rel, who is situated in the 'Chamber of the Sevens' in the Blackrock Depths instance. He will ask you to bring him a tribute, consisting of two  [Star Ruby], ten  [Truesilver Bar], and twenty  [Gold Bar]. Additionally, the skill can only be used at the Black Forge, also in the Blackrock Depths. Eight Dark Iron ores are smelted into one Dark Iron bar.

Master

Requirement: 375 Mining skill level required.

Skill level range: 300 - 375

Sub-skills or basic recipes:

• Smelt Fel Iron (300)

  Requires Burning Crusade

Mining Products

By Skill Level

See Mining Detail by Skill level.

By Region

See Mining Products available by region.

Quest Items

•  [Incendicite Ore]
•  [Lesser Bloodstone Ore]
•  [Indurium Ore]
•  [Rethban Ore]

Quest ore cannot be smelted.

Mining Bugs

Currently the most consistent mining bug is the "loot" bug and the double vein appearance.

• The loot bug occurs when your character bends down to loot a bugged vein, but no loot window appears and your character does not stand up. This bug seems to have been resolved in the current (2.0.3) version of the game. There is no way to tell a bugged vein from a non-bugged vein. You can move away from the vein, but your character will be frozen in the bent-over loot mode and will be unable to loot corpses. There are a few ways to resolve this bug.
  • Log out and log back in.
  • Mine another vein.
  • Open a Clam, or other container type item.
  • Mount up
  • Start Fishing
• The second bug is the double vein appearance. Sometimes 2 veins will spawn in the same place, effectively doubling the amount of ore you can get. Furthermore, the sprite on your minimap acknowledges the location of both veins on the exact same spot. This is considered a beneficial bug.
• Another bug is that the minimap might show that a vein exists, but the wall of the mine falls between you and where the minimap indicates the mine is. This is especially annoying if you are above ground, go underground to find it, and discover that you just waded through a lot of mobs in order to get to a vein that you cannot loot.
• Another bug is that the minimap does Not show you where a vein might exist, while there is in fact one right in front of you. This mostly happens underground as well. a few common examples are in BRD, the Dark Iron nodes to not always show up on your minimap.

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