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Mining allows you to find and mine minerals, ores, and stones from particular 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 vital reagents for many recipes within other professions. In this guide we will look at how you can train Mining from 0 to 375. If you have any questions and/or comments, please do not hesitate to leave a comment!

Introduction
This guide is all about where and how to train your Mining Skill. If you train as you level your character, you generally shouldn’t need to go grinding for minerals, but if you are a higher level character then you will have to grind ore spots a fair bit.

Mining is used as a major source for Engineering, Blacksmithing, Jewelcrafting, as well as supplying (particularly at high level in Outlands) many other recipes for other skills also. Ores both smelted and non-smelted are always in high demand, but be sure to check which kind is worth more before you sell them!

Income from Mining
Mining can be used to make a decent amount of gold, as many higher level players would prefer to buy the material rather than collect it themselves. It is also worth noting the difference in price between raw ore and the bars themselves; Jewelcrafters need the ore for Prospecting, and occasionally new miners will be willing to purchase the ore to smelt for easy mining skill increases. Lastly remember that 1 copper bar and 1 tin bar makes 2 bronze bars, so it may be profitable to purchase a stack of copper and tin to smelt into bronze and resell.

Additional sources of income are Iron and Mithril. Thorium is dependent on the server, on a new server it will fetch a hefty profit, whereas on older servers the market tends to be flooded. 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.

Raw ore rose in value once The Burning Crusade expansion was introduced, due to the new profession Jewelcrafting which makes use of an ability called Prospecting. Prospecting is used to find gems to craft rings, necklaces, trinkets, and rare head pieces, or to cut which allows them to be placed into socketed items.

General Points

• Get a mining pick (npc trade merchant). Cant do much without it
• Optional: Get some gloves enchanted with +5 mining skill (shouldn’t cost you more than 2g, as it takes 3 x Truesilver Bars and 3 x Vision Dust). Don?t bother with the +2 enchant as it’s not worth it.
• If you?re an engineer then make yourself a [Goblin Mining Helmet] as this will add +5 to your mining skill.
• ALWAYS have ore tracking on. Press P to open your skills book and drag the icon to a quickslot. Having this one will make your life much much easier, as you’ll be able to spot ore thats behind hills and out of sight.
• Ore spots are always found on hilly ground - but this does not just mean vertical hills - they can often be found on the bottom of lakes and ponds, as well as in holes in the ground.
• Caves are generally an excellent location to find ore veins as well.
• Most ore veins give between 2 and 5 pieces of ore, plus some stone and occasionally some gems.

Training the Mining Profession from 0 to 375

Mining Skill 1 - 65

• Copper Ore

Copper can be found all over the starting zones and providing maps would be rather futile. You should not have an issue finding enough copper to train your skill to 65.

Mining Skill 65 - 125

• Tin Ore
• [optional] Incendicite
• Silver (rare)

The Barrens
Make sure you can effectively defeat level 25 mobs before heading to the southern section of The Barrens.

Thousand Needles
Similar to the southern section of The Barrens, ensure you are high enough level to deal with the mobs in this region. This will really apply to all mining throughout this guide.

In addition to these mining routes above you could also perform full circuits of Wetlands, Ashenvale, and Redridge mountains.

Mining Skill 125 - 175

• [optional] Lesser Bloodstone
• Iron
• [optional] Indurium

Don’t forget to go back to the mining trainer before you hit 175.

Desolace

Badlands

Arathi Highlands

You could also do the Thousand Needles route in the previous section but go into the Shimmering Flights and do a full circuit as well.

[optional] Lesser Bloodstone: go to the cave in north east Arathi Highlands, just to the east of Hammerfall (path to cave is at 80,40) and mine the nodes inside. It’s used as part of a quest chain thats started in Booty Bay by Corporal Kaleb (in the tavern). You only need to keep four of them for the quest.

Mining Skill 175 - 250

• Gold (rare)
• Mithril
• [optional] Dark Iron

Don’t forget to go back to the mining trainer at 225 so you can advance your skill.

Searing Gorge

Aszhara

Tanaris

Other options would be places such as The Hinterlands and Blasted Lands.

Mining Skill 250 - 300

• Truesilver (rare)
• Small Thorium
• Rich Thorium

Ungoro Crater

Burning Steppes
This zone has the added benefit of skill-ups from Dark Iron Ore in addition to finding Thorium Veins.

Eastern Plaguelands

Western Plaguelands
This is an alternative route reasonably far away from flight-paths, so the ore is usually available.

Mining Skill 300 - 330

• Fel Iron

Make sure you visit the mining trainer first!

Hellfire Peninsula
The easiest route to farm some Fel Iron is to stay in Hellfire Peninsula. Around the portal there are a ton of mines but are usually only occupied by miners because there are very few mobs in the area. If the route below doesn’t work any of the mountain sides will produce Fel Iron Veins as well.

Zangarmarsh
Alternatively, Fel Iron can also be found in the souther portion of Zangarmarsh.

Mining Skill 330 - 375

• Fel Iron
• Adamantite

Nagrand
From 325-350 continue mining Fel Iron when possible but begin to look for the non-rich adamantite veins which become available for mining at skill 325. The best zone is Nagrand where almost anywhere you look in the zone you can find adamantite veins. Start by performing a full-circuit as shown below and then move into the inner water areas if those are camped or you prefer a change.

Mining Skill 350 - 375

• Rich Adamantite
• Khorium

Blade’s Edge Mountains
Mine in Nagrand until you reach skill 365, at which point you can switch to Khorium to finish to 375.

Credits:
Special thanks to Bearheart on EU-Twisting Nether.