Mining
From WoWWiki
|  Mining (Profession)
|
|---|---|
| List of ore veins • List of ore by zone • Quests • Recipes • Trainers |
Mining allows you to find and mine minerals, ores, and stones from resource nodes scattered throughout the world. It is one of the primary professions. Materials from mining and the items miners can create from them are reagents needed for recipes within other professions.
The Burning Crusade expansion contains several mobs that are capable of being mined. This method is continued in Wrath of the Lich King. See Ore skinning for a general definition, and Mineable Mobs for a list.
Mining pointers:
in range of deposit/vein that can be mined
out of range of deposit/vein
For other articles related to Mining, see the Mining category.
Contents |
Uses
Mining is a complementary profession to blacksmithing, engineering and jewelcrafting. These professions rely specifically on ore and ore-derived materials.
Mining can be a profitable gathering profession because of the large sums utilized by the other primary professions. Jewelcrafters require five ore per prospect, blacksmiths can use dozens of bars for specific items, and engineers use large amounts of ore for the many consumable materials they can create.
Mining skill also grants the player Toughness.
Economical Gain
As with any gathering professional, low-level characters and characters without economic support may consider using two gathering professions. While this denies the player the ability to directly enhance his or her equipment/abilities, it does allow one to, in theory, make money quickly and easily through the use of the auction house.
Regardless of the method chosen, mining can be profitable. With regards to mining, be sure to check the local prices of your ore against the local prices of your smelted bars. Frequently ores will be more valuable because they can be prospected or smelted for skill points. This desirability leads to increased cost per unit.
Tools and Abilities
A mining pick is required to mine nodes in-game. This item type can be found at various vendors, such as 'trade good, mining supplies, engineering supplies, and blacksmithing supplies vendors. The pick must be in the player inventory to be used when mining a node.
A trained apprentice miner will immediately learn the Find Minerals ability, which highlights nearby nodes on the mini-map. The miner will also learn the accompanying smelting skill. This skill is used to convert one or more ore and elemental ingredients into bars, which are used in various professions. This skill can only be used in the vicinity of a forge, and will occassionally grant skill points depending on the player profession level.
In addition to a miner's pick and their ore-sensing abilities, dedicated ore farming may require a bag. There are a few specialized bags that can be made or bought. These bags typically have 20, 28, or 32 slots respectively and will automatically store mined ores.
Worthy of note:
- Enchant Gloves - Advanced Mining adds +5 to mining skill.
- Enchant Gloves - Gatherer adds +5 to all gatheringskills (mining, herbalism and skinning).
- [Goblin Mining Helmet] adds +5 to mining skill.
Mining Skill and its Increase
Different veins will require different mining skill levels to loot (e.g. mithril veins require a skill of 175). The relative difficulty of the mining attempt is colour coded as all other crafting and gathering professions:
- Red: Skill insufficient.
- Orange: 100% chance of increasing skill level.
- Yellow: 75% chance of increasing skill level.
- Green: <50% chance of increasing skill level.
- Gray: Never increases skill level.
To mine a vein, right-click on it. After a brief animation, a loot box containing ore, stone and sometimes rare drops like gems or motes. Nodes that are orange or yellow in difficulty will likely skill your mining ability, so it is important to focus on these nodes when you are leveling this profession.
Prior to Patch 3.0.8, mining a node completely required multiple attempts, one for each unit of ore. As such, each node could yield a one point of skill increase per miner. This would allow several players in a raid or group to mine the same node for a skill-up. Since the patch,a single mining attempt extracts all available loot from the vein. Alternatively, miners can share a node for a skill-up by not looting the vein. This allows multiple miners to gain a skill point (or tap) a vein, but only one miner will receive all the ore.
Smelting provides an opportunity to level mining at a faster pace. Smelting large stores of collected ore can be smelted en masse and in large quantities. Unfortunately, smelting skill-ups turn gray very quickly, especially at the higher levels.
In Azeroth and Outland, there exist rare spawns of various ore veins in place or more common metals. Specifically:
- Tin can spawn Silver.
- Iron can spawn Gold.
- Mithril can spawn Truesilver.
- Fel Iron and Adamantite can spawn Khorium
- Saronite can spawn Titanium
These vein types are visually distinct from normal veins. They typically have a glossier, shinier model, and are described as silver, gold, or truesilver when exposed on the minimap.
| Mineral Vein | Skill Color | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Orange | Yellow | Green | Gray | |
| Copper Vein | 1 | 25 | 47 | 100 |
| Tin Vein | 65 | 90 | 115 | 165 |
| Silver Vein | 75 | 100 | 125 | 175 |
| Iron Vein | 125 | 150 | 175 | 225 |
| Gold Vein | 155 | 175 | 205 | 255 |
| Mithril Deposit | 175 | 200 | 225 | 275 |
| Truesilver Deposit | 230 | 255 | 280 | 330 |
| Dark Iron Vein | 230 | 255 | 280 | 330 |
| Thorium Vein | 245 | 270 | 295 | 345 |
| Rich Thorium Vein | 275 | 300 | 325 | 350 |
Fel Iron Vein
| 300 | 325 | 350 | 400 |
| Adamantite Vein
| 325 | 350 | 375 | 425 |
| Rich Adamantite Vein
| 350 | 375 | 400 | 450 |
Cobalt Deposit
| 350 | 375 | 400 | 425 |
| Khorium Vein
| 375 | 400 | 425 | - |
| Rich Cobalt Deposit
| 375 | 400 | 425 | 450 |
| Saronite Deposit
| 400 | 425 | 450 | - |
| Rich Saronite Deposit
| 425 | 450 | - | - |
| Pure Saronite Deposit
| 450 | - | - | - |
| Titanium Deposit
| 450 | - | - | - |
Mining Products
By Skill Level
See Mining proficiencies and Smelt proficiencies.
Quest Items
-
[Incendicite Ore] (objective of 
[22] Search for Incendicite
- [Lesser Bloodstone Ore] (objective of [37] Favor for Krazek)
-
[Indurium Ore] (objective of 
[42] Indurium Ore)
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[Rethban Ore] (objective of [24] Rethban Ore)
Quest ore is usually mined off special nodes, but can also drop off certain mobs in the same area. The ores cannot be smelted and are not "quest items" per se, so they can be traded or purchased off the AH.
Abilities Gained
Sufficiently skilled Miners gain the Toughness (mining) buff.
Tips and Tricks
- MapWoW is a great Google Earth-like web application for finding node locations.
- Gatherer is an add-on that can keep track of historical mining data. It can keep track of when and where you last mined a node. Additionally, it can be partnered with GathererDB. This addon is a communal database of mined ore.
- GatherMate is a replacement for the now defunct Cartographer_Mining. It aims to be map addon independent.
- Weapons can also serve as a mining pick:
-
[Kobold Excavation Pick]
-
[Brann's Trusty Pick]
-
[Cold Iron Pick]
- [Miner's Revenge]
- [Tunnel Pick].
- [Digmaster 5000]
- A Gnomish Army Knife cannot be used as a weapon but does function as:
- Paladins, Unholy Death Knights, Druids and Engineers have a slight advantage in mining because of speed increasing talents.
Mining Bugs
- Nodes have been known to respawn in rapid succession immediately after mining. This is much more common with nodes in Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor than in Outland or Northrend.
- Occasionally, a node will appear on the minimap but be inaccessible.
- If the node is a gray-yellow in the minimap, it is underground.
- If the node is solid yellow, but not visible, it has bugged and cannot be mined.
- Rarely, certain nodes will not appear in the minimap but be harvestable in-game. Dark Iron Ore is a good example of this
- Players standing on top of ore nodes will remain where they stand when the node is mined.
- This is not, strictly speaking, a bug. It serves to protect miners from falling from precipitous heights, especially in locales like Icecrown and the Storm Peaks. It is arguable that this is not a bug, but a feature.
Patch changes
Patch 3.2.0 (2009-08-04): In addition to the normal requirements, mining deposits in Northrend now require a minimum character level of 65 to mine.
Patch 3.1.0 (2009-04-14): You can no longer fail when Mining, Herbing, and Skinning.
Patch 3.0.8 (2009-01-20): Mining veins and deposits no longer require multiple hits to receive all the ore. Players will receive around the same amount of ore, stone, and gems they would have received from multiple hits.
External links
- For leveling guides please visit Tradeskill leveling guides
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