Complete World of Warcraft Mining Guide
Welcome to wow-mining-guide.com! We offer an extensive collection of free knowlege pertaining to the Mining profession. Mining in World of Warcraft is used to extract ore, gems, and stones from metal deposits located throughout the land.
The Mining skill is often paired with the Blacksmithing, Jewelcrafting, and Engineering skills, since these skills make use of much of the metal that Miners smelt. Mining can be quite a lucrative profession for just the purpose of making money as well, since much of the metal and stones can fetch quite a sum at the auction hall.
This site is devoted exclusively to being the web's premier mining and smelting resource. We also have links to more mining and profession resources around the web as well. This site makes a great jumpoff point when looking for mining or other profession information. Please feel free to Bookmark this page!
Mining also comes with 2 additional skills, Smelting and Find Minerals. Smelting is for converting your ore into usable metals. Smelting can be performed at one of the many forges located through most populated areas. The Find Minerals skill is like a radar that can be turned on and will operate passively to alert you on your minimap when mineral deposits are close by.
If you plan on taking Blacksmithing, Jewelcrafting or Engineering as one of your professions, Mining is highly recommended. Both of these professions require materials that can only be acquired through Mining. Mining is not required, but if you don't having Mining then you will have to purchase the metals, stones, and gems off the auction hall, which can be very expensive.
To start your Mining career, you will need to purchase a Mining Pick from a vendor and train in the skill with one of the mining trainers that are available. Many general goods vendors sell mining picks. You will want to keep this on you at all times. Check the table below to see which trainers are available. Right click on a city guard and they can direct you to the exact location if you are in a city.
| Zone | Name | Location |
| Azuremyst Isle | Dulvi | Azure Watch |
| Darkshore | Kurdram Stonehammer | North Auberdine |
| Dun Morogh | Yarr Hammerstone | Eastern end of Kharanos |
| Duskwood | Matt Johnson | North Darkshire |
| Exodar | Muaat | Southern section |
| Hellfire Peninsula | Hurnak Grimmord | Honor Hold |
| Hellfire Peninsula | Krugosh | Thrallmar |
| Ironforge | Geofram Bouldertoe | Deepmountain Mining Guild |
| Loch Modan | Brock Stoneseeker | Southwest end of Thelsamar |
| Orgrimmar | Makaru | Valley of Honor |
| Stormwind | Gelman Stonehand | Western end of Dwarven District |
| Thunder Bluff | Brek Stonehoof | Western edge of center plateau |
| Undercity | Brom Killian | South end of bridge leading to War Quarter |
• There isnt too much to the strategy behind mining copper. Copper is the easiest metal to improve and find deposits from. Copper can be found outside of any newbie zones. If you are farming for copper, consider travelling in a circular direction around the outer edges of your nearest newbie zone. Avoid looking in newbie mines or along the roads of newbie zones, as these are commonly picked clean by all the new players running around. On a more mature server, the newbie zones are fairly deserted during off-peak hours, and this is a good time to farm.
• Smelting provides very good improvements across the entire span of copper skill. Be sure to smelt all your copper to gain the improvements. Once copper becomes grey to smelt and no longer offers improves, you can either continue to smelt it for awhile if you need it to make bronze(copper+tin), or just sell the ore and skip making the metal. On many servers the low level ores are worth more than the metal versions.
• If you have alot of cash, consider purchasing copper ore on the auction and just smelting it for improvements. Then sell the metal to recoup some of your cost. This depends on the market conditions of your server, but this method can be done with copper on most servers.
• All starting areas as well as most of the lower level zones under level 20 or so have copper deposits available. Dun Morogh, Durotar, Elwynn Forest, Loch Modan, and the Northern areas of the Barrens are particularly rich with copper deposits.
• You should start coming across the occasional tin deposit about halfway through your copper levels. Tin is pretty straightforward, but can be a bit tough to find as you get into the higher end of tin towards your iron levels.
• Check your auction hall for possible cheap deals on tin ore. Improves can still be made easily from smelting tin, and it is a necessary ingredient in producing bronze metal.
• The higher ranges of tin can be difficult to level out of, partly because of a lack of tin, and also because the length of time you need to mine tin while it's green and gives few improves. Farming for the special ores such as lesser bloodstone ore or incendicite while in your upper tin range is highly recommended.
• Popular zones for Iron include: Alterac Mountains, Arathi Highlands, Ashenvale, Badlands, Blasted Lands, Desolace, Duskwood, Dustwallow Marsh, Feralas, Hillsbrad Foothills, Searing Gorge, Stonetalon Mountains, Stranglethorn Vale, Swamp of Sorrows, Tanaris, The Hinterlands, and Thousand Needles
• Popular zones for Mithril include: Alterac Mountains, Arathi Highlands, Azshara, Badlands, Blasted Lands, Burning Steppes, Dustwallow Marsh, Eastern Plaguelands, Felwood, Feralas, Hillsbrad Foothills, Searing Gorge, Silithus, Stonetalon Mountains, Stranglethorn Vale, Swamp of Sorrows, Tanaris, The Hinterlands, Thousand Needles, Western Plaguelands, and Winterspring.
• Consider using the Gatherer addon for use with mining. This tool is extremely helpful and will mark all the mining deposits and herbs that you find.
• If you are just starting out with mining and have decent funds, consider skipping through the copper and tin levels by purchasing the ore from the auction hall. A huge amount of time can be saved if you can purchase the ore cheap from the auction hall or other players. Smelt through these stacks of ore and then re-list the metal bars on the auction to recoup some of the money you spent. This method tends to become prohibitive towards the end of your tin range.
• Stone drops are very common from mining deposits. Save your stone until you get a full stack and list it in the auction hall. Stone sells quite well and in some cases can actually be worth more than the ore itself!
• Mining goes well with alot of other professions, and is a great way to make money. However it does not fit well with the herbalism skill since both of the skills have a 'Find' skill that accompanies them to help with finding the resources. These types of skills don't currently stack with each other, so you can only be looking for one type at any given time. If you are looking for pure money making skills and choose to go with mining, perhaps try a skill such as skinning as your other choice.
• While levelling your mining skill, one of the most difficult parts is the range between Tin and Iron. If you are levelling your mining organically while levelling your character, this is not so much of an issue. If you are having trouble reaching the iron stage, consider taking a trip around the outside edges of wetlands and arathi, stopping off at the incendicite and lesser bloodstone caves for improves.
