Mining for gold in World of Warcraft can be a very long, hard and time consuming task. In fact, it is so hard and time consuming that many players end up getting frustrated when they try to mine for gold. Still, mining in World of Warcraft is a crucial part of playing the game because gold is used to purchase various items and better equipment that can be helpful in your quest.

Mining is a gathering profession and serves three professions: Blacksmithing, Engineering and Jewelcrafting. Each profession has its own set of skills required to gather, create and sell your items to purchase more valuable items and equipment.

Who needs Mining?

Miners looking for ores to smelt into bars

Jewelcrafters looking for ores to prospect (to find gems)

Blacksmiths need bars to level their profession.

Engineers use them for all kinds of gadgets

Auction house traders who will sometimes buy out your ores (if you price too low) to resell at a higher price.

How Do You Mine in World of Warcraft?

First, activate your ‘find minerals’ ability while wandering the world to identify mineral veins.

Second, when you find a mineral vein, walk up to it with a mining pick in your inventory, and click on the vein to gather minerals.

Third, you’ll receive a small cache of loot, including ore and stone.

Fourth, if you want to smelt ore for another profession (or to sell it), head to a forge (often found in cities and towns), click the ‘smelting’ icon on your professions menu, and choose the ores you’d like to smelt.

What Tools Do You Need to Mine?

Mining in World of Warcraft requires a mining pick to mine nodes in-game. This item can be found at various vendors, such as mining supplies, engineering supplies, and blacksmithing supplies vendors. The pick must be in your inventory to be used when mining a node.

Mining also requires a bag. There are a few specialized bags that can be made or bought. These bags typically have 20, 28, or 32 slots respectively and will automatically store mined ores.

A World of Warcraft Mining Guide. Mining guides are an absolute necessity to play WoW. Any hardcore gamer knows guides can make your WOW experience more enjoyable, very quickly. Guides help with power leveling your characters, with becoming a master of your trade, Buy wow gold allowing you to get filthy rich, and earn bragging rights, and showing the fastest way to make a burst of gold.

What Do I Do Now?

After collecting your ore it needs to be smelted. Smelting is the process of making your ores into bars and doing so will increase your mining skill. Gather 40 pieces of copper ore and then smelt them. You can do the same with most of the other ores, as well. It has been possible to level from 1-375 only by smelting, but this will be expensive, since at certain skill ranges there is a very low chance of getting a skill point. It’s perfectly possible to level your mining to the max ranks by buying each of the various ores off the Auction House and then smelting them into bars. This is expensive as well.