Classic Mining Profession and Leveling Guide

Currently there are no new ores, bars, or mining-related Season of Discovery specific content. Many of the new crafts in SoD do require ores and bars, however, making Mining a critical profession for the SoD economy.

As a gathering profession, WoW Classic's Mining first requires you to have a Mining Pick. It is sold at every Trade vendor who can easily be located near Mining Trainers. With that pick, you'll be able to mine the mineral veins in the open world and gather mainly ores and also stones and gems on the side.

You can learn Mining from any Mining trainer at most of the cities of any race. The idea is, when you get out of your starting zone with your character, you will be sent to the city, like Orgrimmar for Orcs, Stormwind for Humans, Thunder Bluff for Taurens and Ironforge for Dwarves and Gnomes, etc.

When you arrive at your city, you can ask any City Guard for directions, when asked for a Mining trainer, it will be marked on your map and with that you can easily find your way to them and learn Mining and other professions or locate other places of interest you need.

Note that, unlike other professions, there is not a Mining Trainer at every city, so for you to be safe, here is a list of all of the Mining Trainers in WoW Classic, with continent of the zone indicated as (K) = Kalimdor, (EK) = Eastern Kingdoms.

• Alliance Mining Trainers:
  • Gelman Stonehand: Stormwind City (EK), Dwarven District (51,17)
  • Geofram Bouldertoe: Ironforge (EK), Great Forge (50,26)
  • Yarr Hammerstone: Dun Morogh (EK), Steelgrill's Depot (49,50)
  • Dank Drizzlecut: Dun Morogh (EK), Gol'Bolar Quarry (69,55)
  • Brock Stoneseeker: Loch Modan (EK), Thelsamar (37,47)
  • Matt Johnson: Duskwood (EK), Darkshire (74,49)
  • Kurdram Stonehammer: Darkshore (K), Auberdine (38,41)
• Horde Mining Trainers:
  • Makaru: Orgrimmar (K), The Valley of Honor (73,26)
  • Krunn: Durotar (K), Razor Hill (51,40)
  • Brek Stonehoof: Thunder Bluff (K), central bluff (34,57)
  • Brom Killian: Undercity (EK), War Quarter, inner ring (56,37)
  • Johan Focht: Silverpine Forest (EK), The Sepulcher (43,40)
• Neutral Mining Trainers:
  • Pikkle: Tanaris (K), Gadgetzan (51,28)

After you grab your Mining Pick (which does not need to be equipped to mine veins and can just be kept in your bags, you should locate a Mining Trainer. Learn Mining as a profession, which will also make you learn the Find Minerals skill. This skill will show nearby mineral veins as a golden point at your minimap. We suggest you put a button for Find Minerals on your Action Bars, because you will need it to constantly re-activate the skill buff, because just like your other buffs, it does not persist through death and has to be re-applied all the time.

Note that mineral veins and deposits generally can be found only on or around cliffs, inside of caves or at dig sites. So, when you look for veins, it is clever to check these places and make your gathering route around the edges of the zones and high places most of the time.

When you see a golden point on your minimap and go to that or you see a mineral vein yourself, you can interact with it to try to mine the vein and gather the ores, stones and mines from it. But you can not mine all veins from the start, you will see different colors representing how hard is it for you to mine that certain vein. These colors represent the skill level needed to mine the vein and they can be:

• Red means that vein needs higher skill level than you have and you can not mine it.
• Orange means you can hardly mine this vein, your attempts may often fail but every successful attempt will definitely increase your Mining skill.
• Yellow means you can normally mine this vein, your attempts may sometimes fail and so every successful attempt will generally increase your Mining skill.
• Green means you can easily mine this vein, your attempts will rarely fail and so every successful attempt may not increase your Mining skill.
• Gray means you can mine this vein with no effort, your attempts will never fail and so it will not increase your Mining skill.

Before you start your gathering, these are important to learn and remember, especially in grouped and instanced gameplay:

• Remember that, unlike retail, in WoW Classic, mineral veins will disappear when you successfully mine the vein.
• So, if you are in a party with more than one Miner, share the veins you find with them.
• Also, multiple players can gain skill off the same vein if the first person avoids picking the loot off the vein by pressing "Escape" after the vein's loot box appears (auto-Loot has to be turned off). That way you can allow other players to gather and have a chance to raise their Mining skill.
• Do not try to mine veins during combat, just wait until all of the party is safe before any gathering attempt.
• Do not run off to a vein by yourself without letting the other party members know.
• If there are monsters in the way, ask the party to clear them for you.
• Basically, do not do anything to risk the safety of your team just to do mining.

When you learn Mining from the trainers, besides the very useful Find Minerals, you will also learn a technique called Smelting. It is a skill Miners can use when they are near a Forge to melt the minerals into usable metal bars for crafting. The good part is, smelting minerals also increases your skill in mining too and it can be used to level your mining quicker and we will get into how to do that next.

As you improve your skill in mining veins, higher skill levels in Mining and Smelting needs to be trained at Mining trainers to be able to gather harder to mine minerals and find much rarer stones and gems. Also you have to learn how to smelt these new minerals.

The skill levels you will need to train at are:

• Apprentice Level: Learned when starting, starts from 1 skill, goes up to 75.
• Journeyman Level: Learned when you reach 50 skill, goes up to 150.
• Expert Level: Learned when you reach 125 skill, goes up to 225.
• Artisan Level: Learned when you reach 200 skill, goes up to 300 and that is the highest Mining Level.

For leveling Mining fast and cheap, mixing up some gathering and smelting is the best method. Below are the essential minerals needed and the zones you can find them listed step-by-step.

After you learn Mining, just enable your Find Minerals and roam around the surrounding areas of the city and starting zones. Your character can be around level 1-15, it is even better to learn the professions from the start, that way you can integrate them into your overall leveling experience. So, after you learn, just mine every vein you can until you improve your skill to 65+. After you pass 50, you can go back to your city to learn Journeyman Mining and the new Smelting techniques from the trainers.

For this first step, you just need to mine for:

• Copper Ore (1 25 50 100) which can mostly be found in Durotar, The Barrens, Ashenvale, Tirisfal Glades, Silverpine Forest and Mulgore for the Horde and Elwynn Forest, Loch Modan, Dun Morogh and Darkshore for the Alliance.

Alternatively, you can use the ores you gathered to Smelt Copper up to 47 skill.

At this step, depending on the place you started, you will go to the next zones and, like the mobs and quests, mineral veins there will also have increased level. Your character can be around 15-30 level bracket, 30+ may be needed for the last parts. Again, you will improve your skill by either mining veins or smelting them up to 100+. After you pass 125, you can go back to your city to learn Expert Mining from the trainers.

To quickly complete this step of leveling, you mainly need to mine for:

• Tin Ore (65 90 115 165) which can mostly be found in The Barrens, Ashenvale, Tirisfal Glades, Silverpine Forest and Hillsbrad Foothills for the Horde and in Westfall, Wetlands, Duskwood and Redridge Mountains for the Alliance;
• Silver Ore (75 100 125 175) can also come from the Silver Veins spawned rarely at where you can find Tin Veins.

Alternatively, you can use the ores you gathered to:

• Smelt Tin up to 65 skill;
• Smelt Bronze up to 90 skill, by using leftover Copper Bars and new Tin Bars you just made;
• Smelt Silver between 75 to 112 skills if you have gathered any Silver Ore.

This step requires you to be in higher level areas mostly, so your character has to be around 30-45, up to 50s for the last parts to level their Mining with ease. Again, you will keep improving your skill by mining veins up to 175+.

At this step, you mainly need to mine for:

• Iron Ore (125 150 175 225) which can mostly be found in Arathi Highlands, Thousand Needles, Desolace, Badlands, Alterac Mountains, Ashenvale, Swamp of Sorrows, Tanaris, Stranglethorn Vale and Hillsbrad Foothills;
• Gold Ore (155 180 205 255) can also come from the Gold Veins spawned rarely at where you can find Iron Deposits.

Alternatively, you can use the ores you gathered to:

• Smelt Iron up to 135 skill;
• Smelt Gold between 155 to 184 skills if you have gathered any Gold Ore.

Note that Smelting will only help up to 184 skill level, so this is the last phase you may use it to help level your Mining.

For this step, your character needs to be around 45-50+ level bracket, Again, you will improve your skill by mining veins up to 225+. After you pass 200, you can go back to your city to learn Artisan Mining, the highest skill level available from the trainers.

At this step, you mainly need to mine for:

• Mithril Ore (175 200 225 275) which can mostly be found in Arathi Highlands, Azshara, Desolace, Blasted Lands, Tanaris, Badlands, The Hinterlands, Searing Gorge, Alterac Mountains and Stranglethorn Vale;
• Truesilver Ore (230 255 280 330) can also come from the Truesilver Deposits spawned rarely at where you can find Mithril Deposits.

The final step of our leveling requires you to be in highest and max level areas mostly, so at this point your character has to be in the 50-60 level bracket to level this last part with ease. This time, you will be able to improve your skill by mining occasional Truesilver Ores up to 280 but mostly Small and Rich Thorium Veins along with some Ooze Covered ones up to 300 and finally reach the highest skill level.

So, to complete this final step, you mainly need to mine for:

• Thorium Ore (250 275 300 350) which can mostly be found in Tanaris, Silithus, Burning Steppes, Un'Goro Crater, Blasted Lands, Felwood, Western Plaguelands, Winterspring, Searing Gorge and Eastern Plaguelands.

Alternatively, you can also mine for Dark Iron Ore (230 255 280 330) which can only be found inside Blackrock Depths and Molten Core.

As we have mentioned before, mineral veins and deposits generally can be found only on or around cliffs, inside of caves or at dig sites. So, when you look for veins, it's clever to check these places and make your gathering route around the edges of the zones and high places most of the time.

Besides the essential ones needed for leveling your skill listed above, here is a list of all the ores, stones and gems that come from them in WoW Classic and the places where you can farm them. Locations are listed from highest number of ore veins per zone to the lowest. The continent of the zone is indicated as: (K) = Kalimdor, (EK) = Eastern Kingdoms.

As we have mentioned before, Smelting is a skill Miners can use when they are near a Forge to melt the minerals into usable metal bars for crafting.

Besides the essential ones needed to help leveling your skill listed above, here is a list of all other smelting you can do in WoW Classic.

Smelting Skill + Range	Materials	Produced Bar
Smelt Copper 1 25 47 70	Copper Ore x1	Copper Bar x1
Smelt Tin * * 65 75	Tin Ore x1	Tin Bar x1
Smelt Bronze * 65 90 115	Copper Bar x1 Tin Bar x1	Bronze Bar x2
Smelt Silver 75 100 112 125	Silver Ore x1	Silver Bar x1
Smelt Iron 125 130 135 140	Iron Ore x1	Iron Bar x1
Smelt Gold 155 170 177 185	Gold Ore x1	Gold Bar x1
Smelt Steel * * * 165	Iron Bar x1 Coal x1	Steel Bar x1
Smelt Mithril * * * 175	Mithril Ore x1	Mithril Bar x1
Smelt Truesilver * * * 230	Truesilver Ore x1	Truesilver Bar x1
Smelt Dark Iron * * * 230	Dark Iron Ore x8	Dark Iron Bar x1
Smelt Thorium * * * 250	Thorium Ore x1	Thorium Bar x1
Smelt Elementium * * * *	Elementium Ore x1 Arcanite Bar x10 Elemental Flux x3	Elementium Bar x1

No Mining Trainer knows the ancient art of smelting Dark Iron, so the only way to learn it is to bring tributes to Gloom'rel at Summoner's Tomb in the Blackrock Depths.

Only after you level your mining beyond 230, this Dark Iron Ghost will take you seriously, but to do that you need to speak with him before starting the encounter with Doom'rel. You will get the The Spectral Chalice quest from him, which requires you to bring the following tributes:

• Star Ruby x2
• Gold Bar x20
• Truesilver Bar x10

After you bring these items, you will be able to complete his quest and he will teach you how to Smelt Dark Iron.

You can have more Mining skill in various ways. This will allow you to mine nodes that are slightly out of your reach, so you can both level your Mining skill faster and have lesser failed attempts in general, this becomes useful even at highest level nodes.

Below, you will find a list of all of the bonuses for Mining.

• There are Glove Enchants that Enchanting players can apply to any glove, so you can even enchant a gray glove to send to your Miner alts. These enchants are:
  • Enchant Gloves - Mining which gives +2 skill points;
  • Enchant Gloves - Advanced Mining which gives +5 skill points.
• Goblin Mining Helmet is a Mail helm that gives +5 skill points. It is made by Engineering players and can be worn by players who can wear Mail and have Goblin Engineering at skill level 205. There is no level requirement for the helm, but it binds when picked up, so you need to be at a certain level or waste a lot of gold to be able to craft it.

Combining these bonuses, you can increase your total Mining skill by +10.