WoW Mining Guide

Mining in World of Warcraft is an essential skill to gather resources for a few other professions, such as Blacksmithing, Engineering or Jewelcrafting.  While you don’t need the mining skill to use those other professions, it can be very handy to gather your own materials rather than having to buy them.  On the other hand, if you don’t want one of those crafting professions, it can be excellent to have the mining skill so you can make money selling your materials in the auction room.  Remember, people are ALWAYS buying these materials so you can never do enough mining!

Mining skills go from 1-450.  At 300 skill you become a master miner, but you don’t become a grand master miner until you reach 450.  At which point you can mine all the different resources there are to gather, with the least amount of failing possible.

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The first thing you will need to do is to learn your mining skill.  You can find the profession trainers in most of the large cities, just ask a guard for directions and it will be placed on your map.  Once you have learnt your basic mining skill you will need a mining pick.  These are normally located in the same area as the profession trainer,  or by any trade merchant that are scattered around the cities and towns.

Luckily, there is an option built into World of Warcraft that highlights mining spots that are nearby (mining nodes is the correct term).  On your mini map on the top right, click the top round button on the side of the map and click “Find Minerals”.  Now whenever you are near to a mining node, it will show up as a dot on your map.  So you want to go there and mine it!  If it is gray then it is not on the same level as you and you will need to either go up a mountain/hill or it is in a cave which runs underneath you. 

In order to gain your mining skill you have to mine things that are not too easy for your current skill, but not too hard that it becomes impossible to mine it.

WoW Mining Guide Difficulty Ratings

Gray – Your skill will not increase by mining it (still get the materials to sell though)

Green – Small chance of gaining skill

Yellow – Fair chance of raising your skill

Orange – Best opportunity to raise your skill, you may fail a couple of times to gather the material, but keep at it

Red – You will not gain your skill and cannot mine the materials here yet

To begin mining a node, you do not need your pick to be equipped.  As long as it is in your pack, it’s fine.  Once you find a node you wish to mine (every node you come across preferably) simple right click on it to begin mining.  Keep repeating this until it disappears from view and all the material has been used.  From the easier nodes you can normally mine about 3 lots of material from it before it disappears.

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