- For the enchant, see
[Mining].
Mining allows a player to find and mine ores, stones, and raw gems from resource nodes and certain minable creatures scattered throughout the world using 
[Find Minerals]. Because of this, it is referred to as a "gathering profession". Mining is a primary profession that is a complementary profession to other primary professions; primarily blacksmithing, engineering and jewelcrafting.
Mining can be a profitable gathering profession because of the large sums utilized by the other primary professions. Materials from mining and the items miners can create from them are crafting reagents for other professions which rely specifically on ore and ore-derived materials. Some examples of these crafting reagents include Jewelcrafters which can require five ore per prospect, blacksmiths which can use dozens of bars for specific items, and engineers which can use large amounts of ore for the many consumable materials they can create.
Mining pointers:
in range of mining node that can be mined
out of range of mining node
Tools and abilities
A trained apprentice miner will immediately learn the [Find Minerals] ability, which highlights nearby nodes on the mini-map. A miner will also learn the accompanying Smelting skill. This skill is used to convert one or more ore and elemental ingredients into bars, which are used in various professions. This skill can only be used in the vicinity of a forge, and will occasionally grant skill points depending on the player's profession level.
To mine a mining node, right-click on it. After a brief animation, a loot window will appear containing ore, stone and sometimes rare drops like gems or elemental ingredients. In order to smelt certain ores into bars, the player needs to be near a forge (found in most cities).
The primary tool for miners is a mining pick. For a complete list of mining packs, see click here.
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Proficiency
Miners must be tough and precise to succeed - a mining pick is not necessary but can help.
- See also: Mining proficiencies
Nodes that are orange or yellow in difficulty will likely skill your mining ability, so it is important to focus on these nodes when leveling this profession. Different mining nodes will require different mining skill levels to loot (e.g. Mithril veins require a skill of 175). The relative difficulty of the mining attempt is color coded as all other crafting and gathering professions:
- Red:Skill insufficient.
- Orange:100% chance of increasing skill level.
- Yellow:75% chance of increasing skill level.
- Green:<50% chance of increasing skill level.
- Gray:Never increases skill level.
Although the same colors are used as for other professions, the actual odds of getting a skill point are considerably higher than the color would indicate. For example, at skill 60, a copper vein will appear green but have a ~80% chance of giving a you a skill point. In general, if a node is of the highest-level type of ore you can mine (not counting rare veins like silver or gold), there is a very high chance you will gain a skill point.
The subject of this section has been removed from World of Warcraft but is present in Classic.
Prior to patch 3.0.8, mining a node completely required multiple attempts, one for each unit of ore. As such, each node could yield a one point of skill increase per miner. This would allow several players in a raid or group to mine the same node for a skill-up. Since that patch, a single mining attempt extracts all available loot from the vein. Alternatively, miners can share a node for a skill-up by not looting the vein. This allowed multiple miners to gain a skill point (or tap) a vein, but only one miner will receive all the ore. This again changed in patch 4.0.1, prior to the launch of Cataclysm; Ore nodes (indeed, any Herb nodes or skinnable corpses) can now only be tapped by one player at a time. If a player attempts to mine it while another player is, the player receives the error "This object is already tapped".
Smelting provides an opportunity to level mining at a faster pace. Smelting large stores of collected ore can be smelted en masse and in large quantities. Since patch 3.0.8, it has been possible to level from 1-375 only via smelting, but this is expensive, since at certain skill ranges there is a very low chance of gaining a skill point.
Proficiency tables
Mining products
Node variants
Respawns
There are rare versions of various ore nodes that can spawn in place of more common metals. Specifically:
- Tin can spawn Silver.
- Iron can spawn Gold.
- Mithril can spawn Truesilver.
- Fel Iron and Adamantite can spawn Khorium.
- Saronite can spawn Titanium.
- Elementium can spawn Pyrite.
- Ghost Iron can spawn Trillium.
Rich
Rich nodes offer more ore output than their base counterparts. These vein types are visually distinct from normal veins. They are visually distinctive and typically have a larger, glossier, and shinier model than normal ore nodes. Some of these rare versions of nodes only spawn in elite and end-game areas.
Seams
Seams are longer mining nodes. Lick Rich nodes, they offer more ore output. They are usually found in caves or underground. They were introduced in Legion.
Altered
- : Hardened, Infurious, Metamorphic, Molten, Primal, Titan-Touched
- : Camouflaged, Crystallized, EZ-Mine, Webbed, Weeping
Tips and tricks
- If the node is a light gray on the minimap, it's likely in an interior location, generally a mine or cave.
- If the node is solid yellow, but not visible, it may have spawned inside a piece of terrain. Usually this results in the node being inaccessible, though sometimes you can move the camera inside the terrain to click on it.
Enchants
Abilites
- Paladins, Frost death knights, hunters, druids, and engineers have a slight advantage in mining because of speed increasing talents.
- Rogues also have an advantage, as some mining deposits are in caves filled with mobs. Players usually don't farm there because they don't want spending a lot of time killing the mobs to get to the veins. Rogues can stealth around mobs and knock out nearby mobs.
- Certain races have profession bonus racial abilites.
Mining bugs
- Nodes have been known to respawn in rapid succession immediately after mining.
- Rarely, certain nodes will not appear in the minimap but be harvestable in-game.
[Dark Iron Ore] is a good example of this.
- Players standing on top of ore nodes will remain where they stand after the node is mined.
Notes
- Swords are not good for mining.[1]
Patch changes
- Patch 11.0.2 (2024-08-13): Khaz Algar Mining added.
- Patch 10.0.2 (2022-11-15): Mining tools and profession equipment added. Profession knowledge and specializations introduced.
Patch 8.0.1 (2018-07-17): Each expansion now has a separate profession skill bar, with smaller caps for each expansion, instead of one gigantic profession skill bar for all expansions put together.
Hotfix (2016-07-26): In Draenor, mining and herbalism nodes are no longer able to be looted by multiple people at once. (This hotfix requires server restarts.)
- Patch 7.0.3 (2016-07-19): [citation needed]
- Mining nodes can all be mined from Mining skill level 1.
- Nodes from most ores no longer give nuggets.
- Mining skill no longer determines yields.
- With the introduction of world quests, the Mining skill is required to see the relevant profession world quests.
- Mining techniques added to the game.
- Mining Seams added to the game.
Patch 6.0.2 (2014-10-14): No longer grants 
[Toughness].
- Patch 6.0.2 (2014-10-14): Miners can now harvest mineral nodes in outdoor areas of the game world without hard skill requirements. The yield a miner will be able to harvest from each node is now determined by skill level.
Patch 5.3.0 (2013-05-21): Miners of low skill can now mine mineral deposits in Pandaria for a small amount of usable material. The yield a miner will be able to harvest from each node is determined by skill level.
- Patch 5.1.0 (2012-11-27): All mineral nodes will now despawn one minute after they are mined, even if items remain in them.
- Patch 5.0.4 (2012-08-28): Mining pick no longer required to mine nodes.
Patch 4.2.0 (2011-06-28): The levels at which vanilla nodes may be mined has been decreased, substantially in some cases.
- Patch 4.0.3a (2010-11-23): The XP from Mining has been increased. Also, with the removal of Zul'Gurub, Hakkari Thorium Nodes are no longer available to players.
- Patch 4.0.1 (2010-10-12): Mining gives XP. The higher level the character is, the less XP it will get.
Patch 3.2.0 (2009-08-04): In addition to the normal requirements, mining deposits in Northrend now require a minimum character level of 65 to mine.
- Patch 3.1.0 (2009-04-14): You can no longer fail when Mining, Herbing, and Skinning.
- Patch 3.0.8 (2009-01-20): Mining veins and deposits no longer require multiple hits to receive all the ore. Players will receive around the same amount of ore, stone, and gems they would have received from multiple hits.
- Patch 3.0.2 (2008-10-14): Grants [Toughness].
Patch 0.6 (2004-04-13):
- Underground mines show up as gray on the minimap so you can tell them apart from above ground mines.
- When underground, above ground mining nodes will not be visible.
- You no longer need to face the mining node to gather the minerals.
References
See also
External links
Mining (Profession)
[Infernal Brimstone]
