What is Mining?
How do I become a Miner?
How do I find minerals?
How do I mine?
What do I do with the minerals I have mined?
What do I do with all my metal and gems now?
Is there anything else I should know about Mining?
Can I unlearn Mining?
To recap on Mining
Further Mining Reading & Resources
Patch changes made to Mining

What is Mining?
Mining is the excavation of ores, stones and gems from mineral-rich veins which can then be used to create weapons, armour and other items or to sell in their raw form to blacksmiths and engineers or NPC Traders. Selling to Blacksmiths 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 or Engineering.

It is a Primary Gathering Profession and therefore counts towards your 2 primary profession limit.

How do I become a Miner?
You need to seek out a Mining Trainer. There is usually an Blacksmith Trainer close by too. All Mining Trainers can train you to all ranks (Apprentice, Journeyman, Expert, Artisan) from character level 1.

Horde Alliance Neutral

Trainer
Krunn, 16, Razor Hill, Durotar

Makaru, 35, Valley of Honor, Orgrimmar

Johan Focht, 19, Sepulcher, Silverpine

Brek Stonehoof, 35, Elevation 1, Thunder Bluff

Brom Killian, 35, War Quarter, Undercity

Kurdram Stonehammer, 35, Auberdine, Darkshore
Dank Drizzlecut, 10, Gol’Bolar Quarry, Dun Morogh

Yarr Hammerstone, 10, Kharanos, Dun Morogh

Matt Johnson, 20, Darkshire, Duskwood

Geofram Bouldertoe, 35, The Great Forge, Ironforge

Brock Stoneseeker, 15, Thelsamar, Loch Modan

Gelman Stonehand, 35, Dwarven District, Stormwind

Pikkle, 40, Gadgetzan, Tanaris
Suppliers
Sells you stoof Gorina, 30, Valley of Honor, Orgrimmar

Kurm Stonehoof, 40, Elevation 1, Thunder Bluff

Sarah Killian, 30, War Quarter, Undercity

Thelgrum Stonehammer, 30, Auberdine, Darkshore

Golnir Bouldertoe, 30 The Great Forge, Ironforge

Brook Stonebraid, 30, Dwarven District, Stormwind

You can train to four ranks of proficiency and each has certain prerequisites that you need to meet before you are able to progress to the next rank of proficiency.

To Train to rank of: Cost Required Find herbs from/to skill level
Char Lvl Prof Skill Lvl
Apprentice 10c 1 - 75
Journeyman 5s 1 50 150
Expert 50s 1 125 225
Artisan 1g 1 200 300

Once you have trained as an Apprentice you will have two support skills. ‘Find Minerals’ and ‘Smelt’. These are both located in your ‘Skills and Abilities’ book (Hot key P) and you can drag them down to your action bars for quick access.

Before you begin you need to buy a mining pick which can be bought from a Mining Supplier or a General Supplier. These are located nearby Mining Trainers. You’ll need to keep this in your backpack at all times and do not need to equip it to use when you find a ore node. You can not use it from your Bank.

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 {right image}. Dull yellow dots indicate a mine is underground, in a tunnel or cave. If you hover your cursor over the yellow dot it will tell you the type of mine it is. Note, you can’t have Find Minerals and Find Herbs active at the same time. Thta would be too cheesy. Usually the veins have some beasties around them so you should dispose of them before mining as you’ll be interrupted when they attack.

Vein nodes and deposits can contain more than one mineral, for example a copper mine may also contain some rough stone or Shadowgems. 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, stone, tin, silver, iron, gold, mithirl, Tigerseye, Shadowgem, Moss Agate and Jade. Certain nodes have a chance to respawn as a rarer type of metal as follows:

Tins nodes can respawn as Silver
gold nodes can respawn as Iron
Truesilver nodes can respawn as Mithril
Copper nodes always respawn as copper.
Refer to the following resource maps to locate ore:

Loch Modan
Alternatively you can use WWNData and type in the ore/gem you’re looking for (i.e Silver Vein or Rich Torum Vein or Jade) and it will show you maps for each area with markers on showing exactly where the node spawns.

The colour of the text ‘Requires Mining’ when hovering your cursor over a vein indicates whether you are likely to gain a point in Mining when you mine it. As you rise in skill level this text colour will change for all veins eventually until only the most precious of ores will increase your skill level. Once you hit skill level 300 nothing will increase it as that’s the max cap.

The codes follow:

Grey = No skill increase.
Green = Unlikely to get a Mining skill point.
Yellow = Probably get a Mining skill point.
Orange = Will receive a Mining skill point.
Red = Can not create yet, need a higher skill level in Mining

What the vein contains isn’t set according to who is Mining it. Neither is it influenced by your mining skill level. If it’s copper, it’s copper for everyone and it will always spawn {reappear}. When it’s respawned you can mine it again and rise in skill once more in accordance with the above colour-coding rules.

Each time your level rises it’ll be displayed in the left hand chat area. ‘Your skill in Mining has increased to 31′ for example. You can check what level of proficiency you have reached by checking your skills tab in your Character screen (hot key C).

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. As explained above, you will either receive a Mining skill point when mining the vein or not, depending on your present Mining skill level. However, at most you can only ever receive one point per vein but you can mine it maybe four times before it’s exhausted of its contents and disappears. It will spawn again in due course. There will always be at least one mineral in a vein, they’re never empty.

More than one person can mine the vein which is useful for parties that contain more than one miner. When you’ve mined it a loot box will appear displaying what has been mined, some copper ore and some stones for example, you just click these as you would any loot and they’ll move to your backpack. If you do not move them to your backpack and close the loot window the minerals will return to the vein and someone else can mine for them.

This 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.

What do I do with the Minerals I have mined?
The ore you Mine will need to be ’smelt’ into a usable form and this ability is given to you automatically when you become an Apprentice Miner. You will need to be by a Forge to smelt your ore. These are usually located near a Mining Trainer or Supplier {look at the above list}. Once by a Forge {you only need to stand next to it} right click the icon you see on the left here which you’ll find in your ‘Skills & Abilities’ book. This will bring up a list of the smelting recipes you have learnt {recipes cost money from a Mining Trainer}. You are automatically given the ‘Smelt Copper’ recipe when you become an Apprentice Miner to start you on your way. Your mining skill will level up when smelting for the first few times and then that’ll stop all together after your first free recipes turn to grey.

You can see from the details on this shot there are three options when smelting. You can smelt individual lumps of ore into bars or ‘Create All’ which will smelt the entire stock of the selected ore or use the numerical box to smelt the desired quantity.

Ore can only stack up to 10 lumps whereas bars can stack up to 20 so it makes sense to smelt as soon as possible. Also, you get twice as much money at vendors for a lump of metal than for its ore equivalent (i.e 5 copper for a lump of copper ore whereas 10 copper if you smelt it into a bar first).

Forges
Forges are needed for smelting and are usually located near Blacksmith/Mining Trainers but occasionally they won’t and listed below are where you’ll find them on their own.

Arathi Highlands
Hammerfall
Badlands
Valley of Fangs (42,53)
Barrens
Camp Taurajo
Ironzar in Ratchet
Ratchet
Crossroads, near northern entranceway
Thorn Hill, East of Crossroads
Burning Steppes
The Pillar of Ash
Desolace
Shadowprey Village
Durotar
Ula’elek in Sen’jin Village
Elwynn
Village shop, goldshire
Lock Modan
Blunderblast Gunsmith, Thelsamar
Rann Flamespinner, Tailor, Thelsamar
Hinterlands
Revantusk Village
Redridge Mountains
Lakeshire
Searing Gorge
Thorium Point
Stonetalon Mountains
Sun Rock Retreat
Strangethorn
Grom’gol Base Camp
Swamp of Sorrows
Stonard
Tirisfal Glades
Brill
Westfall
Saldean’s Farm
The table below details the ‘recipes’ you can purchase from Mining Trainers and the Mining level you need to be before you can purchase the recipe.

Recipe Icon Mining Lvl
Req
Details Ore Sells
for Bar Sells
for # of recipes used in
Smelt Copper 0 Allows a Miner to smelt a chunk of copper ore into a copper bar. 5 10 23 Blacksmithing
9 Engineering
1 Smelt

Smelt Bronze 65 Allows the Miner to smelt a tin bar and a copper bar together into two bronze bars. 50 24 Blacksmithing
10 Engineering
Smelt Tin 65 Allows the Miner to smelt a chunk of Tin Ore into a tin bar. 25 35 1 Smelt
Smelt Silver 125 Allows a Miner to smelt a chunk of Silver Ore into a silver bar. 75 1 11 Blacksmithing
2 Engineering
Smelt Iron 125 Allows a Miner to smelt a chunk of Iron Ore into an Iron Bar. 1
50 2 22 Blacksmithing
6 Engineering
2 Alchemy
1 Smelt
Smelt gold 155 Allows a Miner to smelt a chunk of gold Ore into a gold bar. 5 6 15 Blacksmithing
1 Engineering
4 Tailoring
Smelt Steel 165 Allows the Miner to smelt a chunk of Iron Ore and a lump of Coal together into a steel bar. N/A 60 16 Blacksmithing
1 Engineering
Smelt Mithril 175 Allows the miner to smelt a chunk of mithril ore into a mithril bar. 2
50 4 34 Blacksmithing
31 Engineering
1 Alchemy
Smelt Truesilver 230 Allows the miner to smelt a chunk of truesilver ore into a truesilver bar. 5 12
50 23 Blacksmithing
11 Engineering
1 Tailoring
1 Alchemy

Smelt Thorium 250 Allows the miner to smelt a chunk of Thorium ore into a thorium bar. 2
50 6 46 Blacksmithing
9 Engineering
1 Alchemy
Smelt Dark Iron Allows miner to smelt 8 Iron Ores into one Dark Iron Bar 5 6 19 Blacksmithing
5 Engineering
‘Smelt Dark Iron’ is learnt in the Blackrock Depths from a Dwarven ghost. You will need to give him 10 bars of Truesilver, 20 Bars of gold and 2 Star Rubies in order to learn the plan. Once learnt the Forge there is the only place you can forge items with the dark iron bars.
Gem Mined From Sell To Vendor # of recipes used in
Do not need to smelt these, they are used as is.

Lesser Bloodstone
Lesser Bloodstone Deposit 25
Malachite Copper 15 4 Blacksmithing
4 Engineering
Tigerseye Copper 1 5 Blacksmithing
3 Engineering
Shadowgem Copper, Silver, Tin 2 50 7 Blacksmithing
2 Engineering
1 Enchanting
1 Leatherworking
Lesser Moonstone Tin, Silver, Iron, gold 6 11 Blacksmithing
2 Engineering
Citrine gold, Iron, Mithril, Truesilver 8 11 Blacksmithing
10 Engineering
1 Leatherworking
1 Tailoring
Jade Tin, Iron, gold 7 5 Blacksmithing
6 Engineering
3 Leatherworking
1 Tailoring
Star Ruby Mithril, Thorium, Truesilver 50 18 Blacksmithing
10 Engineering
2 Tailoring
Aquamarine Iron, Mithril, Truesilver 10 9 Blacksmithing
5 Engineering
1 Enchanting
Rough Stone Copper 2 3 Blacksmithing
1 Engineering
Coarse Stone Tin 15 3 Blacksmithing
1 Engineering
Heavy Stone Iron 60 3 Blacksmithing
1 Engineering
Solid Stone Mithril 1 3 Blacksmithing
1 Engineering
Dense Stone Thorium (rich & small) 2 50 4 Blacksmithing
1 Engineering
Data provided by WWNData

What do I do with all my metal and gems now?
Well you can sell them to vendors (not so good) or you can sell them to other players (much better choice) or you can trade them with other players for other items. The third option is to train as a Blacksmith or Engineer and use the things you mine to forge weapons, armor and other items.

Is there anything else I should know about Mining?
Etiquette - Yes. Your manners. There are plenty of mining nodes in the world, they all respawn eventually so it’s not the end of the world if you have to pass by one because someone else got there first.

If someone is fighting off a mob beside a node it’s polite to see if they’re clearing the area to mine or just happen to be fighting there. Don’t just wade in there and take the node. You can both have a go at the mine, both get a skill up and even take it in turns to loot but really if the other person has cleared the area it’s polite to leave the loot for them. Put yourself in their shoes and if you think ‘Yeah, that would really get my goat’ chances are they’d feel the same. Besides, there are enough idiots in the world already without adding another one.

Mining Bonus - There are two enchantments that can be applied to gloves to increase your mining skill. Mining (+2 to the skill) and Advanced Mining (+5). Engineers can make you a Goblin Mining Helmet which will add a further +5 to your mining skill and you need to be level 41 to wear it.

Can I unlearn Mining?
You can unlearn professions for free any number of times. Go to your skills panel (press K). Click on the Profession you wish to unlearn and a small icon will appear next to it and clicking on this will unlearn the skill. Be aware you will lose all associated recipes and support skills too and if you wish you hadn’t unlearnt it (eek!) you will have to start your training again at Apprentice level and work you way up again. Click the image on the right for a fully captioned shot. Use this feature with caution, Blizzard will not undo a mistake of this nature.

To recap on the Mining basics:
Training to be a Miner, at any level, costs money
Learning smelting ‘recipes’ costs money
All Mining Trainers can train you to all levels of Mining
Mining works best coupled with Blacksmithing or Engineering
You can fail when trying to mine a vein. Simply try again.
Your skill level in mining will determine which veins you can earn a skill point from {max 1 skill point}
Your skill level in Mining has no effect on what a vein contains.
10 Ore or 20 Bars can stack in one bag slot.
Bars sell for twice as much as ore
You can mine a vein and not loot the ore to leave for someone else to mine. This is useful for a group of miners to increase their skill in mining.
Mining breaks stealth.
Further Mining Reading & Resources
List of Mining Trainers
List of Mining Suppliers
Professions Forum
Profession UIs/Mods
WWN Data

Patch changes made to Mining
Patch 1.7.0 (13 September 2005)
Dark Iron mineral nodes will now sometimes appear in the Burning Steppes and Searing Gorge.
Patch 1.5.0 - 7 June 2005
Small Throrium Veins now sometimes will have Emeralds or Diamonds.
Patch 1.2.2 (27 January 2005)
Bug Fix. Mineral nodes will remain active if they are not fully emptied.
Patch 1.2.0 - 17 December 2004
Bloodstone Ore was made easier to mine.
Beta Patch 0.12.0 - 10 October 2004
Rich Thorium Nodes will now drop Arcanite.
Beta Patch 0.10.0 - 19 September 2004
Gemology has been removed (with hopes it will make a return someday).
Beta Patch 0.9.0 - 15 August 2004
Price that gems sell back to stores increased slightly to be somewhat closer to their real value.
Beta Patch 0.8.0 - 7th July 2004
Smelting bronze now requires one copper and one tin to produce two bronze bars.