From WoW: IncGamers World of Warcraft Wiki

Contents 1 What is Mining? 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Type of Profession 2 How to Become a Miner? 2.1 Trainers 2.2 Training Costs 3 What are the Mining Specializations? 4 How to Change Profession or Unlearn it? 4.1 Unlearning Mining 5 Gathering 5.1 How Do I Find Minerals? 5.2 How Do I Mine? 5.2.1 How Do I Gain Skill? 5.3 How Do I Make Items? 5.3.1 How Do I Learn More Recipies/Patterns 5.4 What Items Can I Create? 5.5 What Can I Make That Other Professions Need? 6 Anything Else 7 Recap 8 Further Mining Reading & Resources

What is Mining?

Introduction

Mining is the excavation of ores, stones and gems from mineral-rich veins which can then be smelted and used to create weapons, armour and other items or to sell in their raw form to Blacksmiths, Engineers or Jewelcrafters. Selling to other professions can be highly lucrative, especially when you start mining higher level minerals and that's what makes Mining one of the best money-making professions to adopt. Mining is best paired with Blacksmithing, Engineering or Jewelcrafting.

Type of Profession

• Mining is a Primary Profession, and therefore counts towards your 2 Primary Professions Limit.
• Mining is a Gathering Profession, it is used for Gathering materials for other Professions.

How to Become a Miner?

You can train to five levels of proficiency (four if you don't have the The Burning Crusade expansion) and each has certain prerequisites that you need to meet before you are able to progress to the next rank of proficiency. You need to be character level five or above to begin your training in a Profession. Below is a list of locations with links to maps which pinpoint exactly where the Trainer can be found.

Trainers

Trainer Rank	Horde	Alliance	Neutral
Mining Trainer Trains you to Apprentice - Expert	Krunn, 16, Razor Hill, Durotar Belil, 30, Silvermoon City Brek Stonehoof, 35, Elevation 1, Thunder Bluff Brom Killian, 35, The War Quarter, Undercity Johan Focht, 35, Sepulcher, Silverpine Forest Makaru, 35, Valley of Honor, Orgrimmar	Dank Drizzlecut, 10, Gol'Bolar Quarry, Dun Morogh Yarr Hammerstone, 10, Kharanos, Dun Morogh Dulvi, 13, Azuremyst Isle Brock Stoneseeker, 15, Thelsamar, Loch Modan Matt Johnson, 20, Darkshire, Duskwood Muaat, 30, The Exodar Gelman Stonehand, 35, Dwarven District, Stormwind Geofram Bouldertoe, 35, The Great Forge, Ironforge Kurdram Stonehammer, 35, Auberdine, Darkshore Prospector Nachlan, 45, Blood Watch, Bloodmyst Isle	Pikkle, 40, Gadgetzan, Tanaris
Grand Master Trains you to Master	Krugosh, 65, Thrallmar, Hellfire Peninsula	Hurnak Grimmord, 60, Honor Hold, Hellfire Peninsula
Suppliers Sell you stuff	Gorina, 30, Valley of Honor, Orgrimmar Sarah Killian, 30, War Quarter, Undercity Zelan, 30, Silvermoon City Kurm Stonehoof, 40, Elevation 1, Thunder Bluff	Karm Ironquill, 16, Thelsamar, Loch Modan Karen Taylor, 22, Lakeshire, Redridge Mountains Brooke Stonebraid, 30, Dwarven District, Stormwind Golnir Bouldertoe, 30, The Great Forge, Ironforge Herble Baubbletump, 30, Darkshire, Duskwood Merran, 30, Exodar Thelgrum Stonehammer, 30, Auberdine, Darkshore	Lunnix Sprocketslip, 54, Everlook, Winterspring

• All Mining Trainers

Training Costs

Proficiency	Level Req.	Skill Range		Cost	Required Trainer
Apprentice	5	1-75		10	Journeyman
Journeyman	10	50-150		5	Expert
Expert	20	125-225		50	Artisan
Artisan	35	200-300		5	Master
Master	50	300-375		10	Grand Master

If you have at least a Honored standing with the faction that the trainer belongs to, you will only pay 90% of these prices.

What are the Mining Specializations?

• Miners do not require any specialisation.

How to Change Profession or Unlearn it?

If you ever grow tired of your choosen Profession, you can rather easily change the Profession to something else. This can be done either through changing Profession Specialization, or comletely unlearn it, starting again from scratch.

Unlearning Mining

If you want to completely unlearn your profession, it is easy, and can be done for free any number of times. All you need to do is to open your Skills panel (press K), click on the Profession you want to permanently unlearn. A small icon will appear next to it and clicking on this will unlearn the skill. Be aware of the fact that you will lose all associated recipes and support skills, and will have to start the new Profession up from start. If you accidently deleted your Profession, you will have to start it up from the beginning again, buying all skills and recipies. Be very careful to make no mistakes here, as Blizzard will probably not help you undo the unlearning.

Gathering

How Do I Find Minerals?

Once you have trained as an Apprentice Miner you will find the Rank 1 'Find Minerals' icon on the left in your 'Skills and Abilities' book (Hot key P). You should drag this to your action bar ready for use when you're out playing. Once 'Find Minerals' has been activated ore/stone veins above/below ground and under water will show up on your minimap as bright yellow dots.

Vein nodes and deposits can contain more than one mineral, for example a copper vein may also contain some rough stone or [Shadowgem]s. Vein nodes are located in mountain crevices or jutting out from the side of hills or inside mines/caverns or even under water. Veins can contain minerals such as [Copper Ore], [Tin Ore], [Iron Ore] or [Gold Ore], as well as a lot of other gems, stones and other "vein related" items. Some nodes can spawn either as their "common" substance, or as a more rare one:

• [Copper Ore] nodes always respawn as Copper, but can spawn as two nodes on the same place (giving twice as much to mine)
• [Tin Ore] nodes can respawn as [Silver Ore]
• [Iron Ore] nodes can respawn as [Gold Ore]
• [Mithril Ore] nodes can respawn as [Truesilver Ore]
• [Thorium Ore] nodes (normal) can respawn as [Truesilver Ore]
• [Thorium Ore] nodes (rich) can respawn as [Truesilver Ore], but when they don't, they have a chance of containing an [Arcane Crystal].
• [Fel Iron Ore] can respawn as [Khorium Ore], and can contain [Eternium Ore]
• [Adamantite Ore] (normal) can respawn as [Khorium Ore], and can contain [Eternium Ore]
• [Adamantite Ore] (rich) can respawn as [Khorium Ore], and can contain [Eternium Ore]

To actually find the mineral nodes, you can look at these lists:

• List of all ore called "veins" (copper, tin, incendicite, silver, gold, mithril, thorium and khorium veins).
• List of all ore called "deposits (lesser bloodstone, iron, mithril, dark iron, truesilver, fel iron, adamantite and nethercite deposits).
• You can also use WoW Digger to search for "Silver Vein" or "Adamantite Deposit" to get all the areas they spawn, as well as where others have reported exactly where they spawn.

You can mine all veins you come across, as long as they are showing their name in green like this, yellow or orange. Red means that it is too difficult for you to mine it. More on this below, in "How Do I Gain Skill?".

How Do I Mine?

Once you have found a vein right click on it to begin mining for minerals. You will not need to equip your mining pick, your character will automatically swap from their weapon to the pick and begin hacking at the vein. You can mine it maybe four times before it's exhausted of its contents and disappears. It will spawn again in due course, but that can sometimes take hours, so don't sit there and wait for it! There will always be at least one mineral in a vein, they're never empty.

When you've mined it a loot box will appear displaying what the vein contains. Depending on the vein type you just mined, the contents will be different, some copper ore and some stones for example. Just click these as you would when looting a dead enemy, and the contents of the vein will be picked up into your backpack. If you do not move them to your backpack and close the loot window, the minerals will remain in the vein and any other miner that mined the specific deposit after you will see the exact same items.

How Do I Gain Skill?

• Smelting - In the beginning of your mining career, you can gain skills in Mining by just smelting ore. If the miner character isn't your first, or if you start to level up mining at a high level, you might want to buy a whole lot (like a hundred or more) [Copper Ore] and start smelting it all, instead of doing it the hard way of mining it all. You require a Forge to smelt.
• Mining - The standard way of gaining skill with mining. Run around in the nature, or ride, if you have a mount, and look for outcroppings in mountains for minerals. You get one chance per mineral node to get a skill. The chance of getting a skill increase is the same as with other crafting:
  • Grey = You will not receive a skill point when mining.
  • Green = You will sometimes gain a skill point when mining.
  • Yellow = You will probably gain a skill point when mining.
  • Orange = You will always gain a skill point in when mining.
  • Red = You do not have high enough skill level mine on this node.
• More than one person can mine the vein which is a good way for parties of miners to each get a mining skill point from a vein as you can take it in turns to mine the vein, get awarded your Mining skill point, leave the loot and then let the next Miner have a go at the vein and also get a Mining Skill point. The same is true of Herbalism when gathering herbs from a bush.

How Do I Make Items?

The only "crafting" involved in Mining, is smelting ore to bars, or to split up [Primal Fire] and [Primal Earth] into 10 [Mote of Fire] and 10 [Mote of Earth] respectively. You require a Forge to be able to do these things.

How Do I Learn More Recipies/Patterns

The majority of recipies for smelting all kinds of ore, and to split Primals up is from a Mining Trainer that will learn you these skills for a fee. The mining recipies do not drop in WoW. A few smelting recipies are aquired through quest or specific events.

• Smelt Dark Iron - [Dark Iron Ore] can only be smelted in the Black Forge in Blackrock Depths, by a miner who have learned the secrets on how to smelt it by Gloom'rel in Blackrock Depths (one of the 7 ghosts). Bring 20 [Gold Bar]s, 10 [Truesilver Bar]s, and 2 [Star Ruby]s to Gloom'rel there before you start the fight, and he will learn the skill to you.
• Smelt Elementium - [Elementium Ore] found in Blackwing Lair on "trash" mobs there, can be smelted as well. It is a slightly more complex procedure... You first need to fight your way up in Blackwing Lair, until you come across the goblin Master Elemental Shaper Krixix, and then you must have a Priest in order to Mind Control Krixix, and then use him to learn the miners in your raid the Smelt Elementium skill. There is no minimum skill level required, just having the Profession Mining.

What Items Can I Create?

A Miner can not create that many items. He can smelt most minerals you can find.

<<Detailed list of all ore Minders can smelt>>

What Can I Make That Other Professions Need?

This is the strong side for the Miner! There is no less than three other professions that rely on miners to craft their thinks, and they often need tonnes of minerals to craft something good. All of the smelted Bars a Miner can do is needed, but people are also interested in Ore as well, so you don't even always have to smelt to gain cash! If you have Blacksmithing, Engineering or Jewelcrafting as a crafting Profession, Mining is great to avoid having to buy minerals from other miners at a very high price.

• Blacksmithing needs
• Engineering needs
• Jewelcrafting needs

Anything Else

• Character Levels - No bars or ore received from Mining have level requirements per se.
• Cool Downs - Mining have no big cooldowns. It takes a lot of time to smelt a lot of ore though!
• Soulbound - No bars or ore received from mining are BoP or BoE.
• Tracking Minerals - Never forget to always reactivate the "tracking minerals" skill after you have died, so that you always can see where there is minerals to be had.
• Shatter - Miners is one of few who can split a Primal Earth or Primal Fire back into Mote of Earth and Mote of Fire.

Recap

• Mining is good for those that want to accumulate money, or have Blacksmithing, Engineering or Jewelcrafting.
• Mining is a Primary Gathering Profession, and will use one of your two Primary Profession slots
• Mining is used to get mineral ore, and making it into bars for other professions.
• You need to be lvl 5 to learn Apprentice Mining and have 10 copper
• Every time you want to upgrade your status, it will cost a lot more money
• Every skill you aquire through a Trainer costs money
• You get skill for smelting in the beginning, but after that have to mine in the wilderness
  • Grey = You will not receive a skill point when mining.
  • Green = You will sometimes gain a skill point when mining.
  • Yellow = You will probably gain a skill point when mining.
  • Orange = You will always gain a skill point in when mining.
  • Red = You do not have high enough skill level mine on this node.
• Miners can also split a Primal Earth or Primal Fire back into Mote of Earth and Mote of Fire.

Further Mining Reading & Resources

• Forum to talk with other Crafters
• Mining Trainers & Suppliers
• (No Mining Quests)
• Mining User Interface Mods
• Mining Patch History (Article)