Mining Guide Part I – Apprentice to Expert Miner
Mining Guide Part II – Expert to Master Miner
Mining Guide Part III – Master to Grand Master
Arathi Highlands
As an expert miner you will mainly be focusing on mining Iron as starters, the perfect route for Iron and the occasional Tin veins is located in Arathi Highlands. Be sure to take a southern route past Hammerfall if you are not very experienced in handling Horde as they will surely chase you if you pass by unprepared. From time to time return to Refuge Pointe to smelt the iron into bars until you know that process in your sleep.
When you reach 155 points, you will be ready to start mining Gold!
Alterac Mountains
It is now time to move onward to Alterac Mountains, this is the place to be if you want to mine Iron and Gold. I learned about this path from Eowind who in turn learned it from Happy and I guess the chain of knowledge goes way back in time. The path is not so long and along the way there are caves that you can visit for veins if you sense them from outside. There will also be the occasional Mithril Deposit for motivation to continue the path as a miner.When you have 175 points in mining you are ready to mine these deposits as well. At 175 points you could move to the Hinterlands or decide to stay in Alterac and mine Iron and Mithril there until 230 points. The other reason you may decide to stay is that the Ogres in Alterac carry around nice quality Silk Cloth.
The Hinterlands
The carrot to carry on with the mining in Hinterlands is the occasional Truesilver deposits. These can be mined when you have collected 205 mining points. Otherwise it is just ride and mine here but beware of the area called Seradane in the north eastern parts of the land as it is filled with very nasty dragons.At 200 points, it is time to visit your favorite mining trainer again and learn Artisan Mining and how to smelt Mithril. By now you should have a nice stack of Mithril Ore so head to the forge and smelt it all. I had a stack of 55 Mithril Ore and by smelting it all I was able to go from 200 points to 220. The numbers may vary for you but you should get the idea.
So now you only need 10 more points until you are ready for the next part. I went back to the Hinterlands and mined some more Mithril and started with some Truesilver as well.
Un’Goro Crater
For the last part of this guide, you will need to mine Thorium Veins. The best location to mine for Thorium is in the Un’Goro Crater so that is where we are headed now.You will only be able to mine Small Thorium Veins until you have 255 points. After that the Rich Thorium Veins will be available as well. The only downside with mining in Un’Goro Crater is that there is no forge available there. So the strategy of mining some ore and then smelting it does not work that well here. But in the end I think that it is worth the while anyway as the high availability of Thorium in the Crater makes it quick to get the points needed to move on to the next part.
Also, in the southern parts of Un’Goro there are some Silithid tunnels that contain Ooze Covered Thorium Veins that can be mined at 230 points. Rich Ooze Covered Thorium veins require 255 points. I myself did not find it worth the trouble to go for the Ooze covered veins as I happened to be the only miner in the Crater at the time. Very very late at night : )
When you have 300 points in mining, it is time to leave Azeroth for a while and learn the Master Mining skill in Outland. Mining trainers can be found in Honor Hold and Shattrath City.
That’s all for this time… In part III we will head out to Outland and continue our quest to become a Grand Master Miner!