WoW Forever Mining leveling guide 1-300: where to mine, trainers, and gold

Mining is the core gathering profession. You mine ore veins and smelt the ore into bars. It takes almost no investment, since a pick costs 10 copper from a vendor, and Wowhead calls Mining a great source of gold that needs no money to start. Blacksmiths, engineers, enchanters, and tailors all buy ore, bars, stone, and gems, so almost everything you dig up will find a buyer.

In Forever the demand is wider. Regular veins sometimes drop new rare materials, and new recipes in other professions depend on them. Alchemists need Pyrite for the acid blacksmiths and leatherworkers use, and engineers need Bauxite for sandpaper. Level 60 items call for new bars only a miner can smelt. And at the campfire you can set up a Lodestone, which adds melee attack power to everyone sitting nearby.

Wowhead suggests pairing it with Herbalism, since you pass plenty of herbs anyway while you look for veins. If you'd rather use the ore yourself, take Blacksmithing or Engineering. Their leveling routes need thousands of bars, and your own bars make leveling them a lot cheaper. Mining is easiest on a druid, who can sneak past mobs and outrun them in Travel Form, and on a hunter or warlock, whose pet keeps the mob busy while you mine.

• Rare materials from regular veins. Every so often a new rare material drops along with the ore. Wowhead says Pyrite turns up in copper, tin, and silver veins and in iron deposits, and Bauxite in gold veins and mithril deposits. Where Pitchblende comes from isn't confirmed yet, and Wowhead suspects truesilver deposits and higher-level veins. Who needs these materials is covered in the gold section.
• New bars. At skill 275 you can learn Smelt Azerothium from the trainer for 5 gold, and each bar takes Pitchblende (2) and Coal. From skill 300 you can learn Smelt Heavy Thorium for the same 5 gold, but Heavy Thorium Ore can only be smelted next to a Molten Foundry in camp. The third new metal, Legionite Bar, comes from alchemists, and the transmute takes a Heavy Thorium Bar and a Fel Crystal.
• Heavy thorium on Mount Hyjal. Mount Hyjal has new Heavy Thorium Veins. Wowhead says they hold Heavy Thorium Ore and Dense Stone, and the gems include Torbernite and Fel Crystal. Wowhead doesn't say yet what skill these veins need.
• Lodestone, Rock Garden, and Molten Foundry. Miners have their own camp items to put down at the campfire now. The Lodestone at skill 20 adds melee attack power to everyone sitting nearby, the Rock Garden at 140 also grows an ore vein, and the Molten Foundry at 300 is required to smelt heavy thorium. There's more in the camp section.
• Junior trainers, and a book instead of a trainer. Six starting zones have Junior Mining Trainers, who only teach Apprentice. And a quest at level 3-4 lets you pick the book Mining for Dummies as a reward. It teaches you the profession if your two primary slots aren't both taken and gives +2 skill, but not above 15. There are regular trainers in new places too, two on Zephras Isle and one in Powderfuse Port in Riverglades.
• Legacy. Mining has no Legacy challenges of its own, but four perks help miners too. Bountiful Harvest raises the rare materials you get from veins, herbs, and skinning, Working Overtime adds up to 20% to your skill-up chance, Performance Bonus gives a chance at double Merchant's Favor for a crate, and Dedicated Study raises your lowest profession by one point once every 23 hours.

No recipes will take Mining to 300. Your skill grows from the veins you mine, and until 185 from smelting too. Wowhead says one vein gives at most one point, even if it takes several swings to empty. That gives you the main rule: mine veins that haven't turned green yet, and move to a new zone as soon as the main ore there goes green. The thresholds for every vein are in the vein table, and when smelting helps is covered in its own section.

Don't forget your ranks. Learn Journeyman at 50, Expert at 125, and Artisan at 200, or your skill will stall at 75, 150, and 225. Some gear adds a little skill. The Goblin Mining Helmet gives +5, but only an engineer with skill 205 can wear it, and enchanters can put Enchant Gloves - Mining (+2) or Enchant Gloves - Advanced Mining (+5) on your gloves. With a bonus like that you can mine a vein a bit before its threshold, so with +5, silver opens up at 70 instead of 75.

Up to 225, the zones in the table come from Wowhead's plan. Wowhead gives no plan past that, so we picked the zones for 225-300 from its list of veins, going for places where mithril and thorium spawn side by side. We don't know yet which veins the new zones, Riverglades and Shen'dralas, have. The only new entries in Wowhead's list are copper on Zephras Isle and heavy thorium on Mount Hyjal.

A miner doesn't have to put any money in. The pick costs next to nothing, and everything you dig up can be sold. Not all ore is equal, though. What sells is whatever blacksmiths, engineers, alchemists, and enchanters need for their leveling routes and the new Forever recipes. Here are the materials that will definitely sell, and why.

You won't find prices here. The beta was capped at level 30, so nobody has seen mithril or thorium prices yet, and after launch your realm's Auction House will show them. The only known price ceiling is for rare materials. Beta players say the vendor Mister Graphed at the Black Market in Powderfuse Port sells Pyrite for 5 gold, Bauxite for 20, and Pitchblende, Fel Crystal, Torbernite, and Arcane Crystal for 50. As long as the vendor has stock, nobody will pay more on the Auction House.

Two kinds of trainers teach Mining. Junior Mining Trainers stand in six starting zones and only teach Apprentice, which takes you up to 75. Regular trainers in the capitals, towns, and new zones teach all four ranks: Apprentice for 10 copper, Journeyman (up to 150) from skill 50 for 5 silver, Expert (up to 225) from skill 125 for 50 silver, and Artisan (up to 300) from skill 200 for 5 gold.

Wowhead says the higher ranks also need a character level. In Classic that was level 10 for Journeyman, 20 for Expert, and 35 for Artisan, and we'll check the exact Forever numbers at launch. The client data says trade goods vendors sell a Mining Pick for 10 copper, and Wowhead says the junior trainer in Deathknell also sells the 4-slot Apprentice's Mining Pack. To see veins on your minimap, turn on Find Minerals.

Smelting is the second way to level Mining. You smelt bars at a forge, which you'll find in the capitals and some towns. Until skill 185 smelting gives points, but as Wowhead notes, one point often takes several smelts. After that, smelting gives no skill at all, because steel, mithril, thorium, and the new bars are gray the moment you learn them.

Smelting pays off in three cases: when the ore's already in your bags and the veins in your zone have gone green, when ore on the Auction House is cheaper than bars, and when you need a couple of points to unlock the next vein without leaving town. Wowhead put together a 1-185 path using only smelting: 130 Copper Ore, 60 Tin Ore, 70 Silver Ore, 35 Iron Ore, and 60 Gold Ore. There's nothing to smelt from 140 to 155, so those points have to come from your pick. The bars won't go to waste, since blacksmiths and engineers buy them, and in trading company crates they're worth more than ore.

• For bars, not points. You learn Smelt Steel from skill 165 for 25 silver, Smelt Mithril from 175 for 50 silver, Smelt Truesilver from 230 for 1 gold, and Smelt Thorium from 250 for 2 gold. The new recipes, Smelt Azerothium and Smelt Heavy Thorium, cost 5 gold each and unlock at 275 and 300.
• Dark iron. The trainer doesn't sell Smelt Dark Iron. In Classic Gloom'rel in Blackrock Depths taught it for the quest The Spectral Chalice. In Forever that quest is still in the game and asks for the same items: Star Ruby (2), Gold Bar (20), and Truesilver Bar (10). Dark iron can only be smelted at the Black Forge in those same Depths, 8 ore per bar.
• Heavy thorium. You smelt it next to a Molten Foundry set up at the campfire, not at a forge. Without a foundry the 5-gold recipe is useless, and nobody knows yet where the foundry blueprint comes from, so don't rush to buy the recipe.

Skill	Smelting	Learn at skill	Cost	How much you need
1-65	Smelt Copper	From the start	Free	Copper Ore (130); set aside 60 of the bars for bronze
65-75	Smelt Tin	65	50c	Tin Ore (60)
75-100	Smelt Bronze	65	2s	60 copper bars and 60 tin bars
100-125	Smelt Silver	75	2s	Silver Ore (70)
125-140	Smelt Iron	125	5s	Iron Ore (35)
140-155	Nothing to smelt	-	-	Mine veins
155-185	Smelt Gold	155	25s	Gold Ore (60)

The four numbers for each vein are its skill thresholds. From the first you can mine it and always get a point, from the second it's yellow and points come almost every time, from the third it's green and points come rarely, and from the fourth it's gray and gives no skill. The data comes from Wowhead's Forever Mining overview. Stone and gems drop from a vein along with the ore, and the rare material only drops now and then.

Dark iron is mined in Searing Gorge, Burning Steppes, and the Blackrock Mountain dungeons, and heavy thorium only on Mount Hyjal. Wowhead hasn't listed thresholds for the Heavy Thorium Vein.

Vein	Thresholds	Stone and gems	Rare material
Copper Vein	1 / 25 / 50 / 100	Rough Stone; Malachite, Tigerseye, Shadowgem	Pyrite
Tin Vein	65 / 90 / 115 / 165	Coarse Stone; Moss Agate, Shadowgem, Jade, Lesser Moonstone	Pyrite
Silver Vein	75 / 100 / 125 / 175	Moss Agate, Shadowgem, Lesser Moonstone	Pyrite
Iron Deposit	125 / 150 / 175 / 225	Heavy Stone; Jade, Lesser Moonstone, Citrine, Aquamarine	Pyrite
Gold Vein	155 / 180 / 205 / 255	Jade, Lesser Moonstone, Citrine	Bauxite
Mithril Deposit	175 / 200 / 225 / 275	Solid Stone; Citrine, Aquamarine, Star Ruby, Black Vitriol	Bauxite
Truesilver Deposit	230 / 255 / 280 / 330	Citrine, Aquamarine, Star Ruby	Not listed
Dark Iron Deposit	230 / 255 / 280 / 330	Black Vitriol, Blood of the Mountain, Black Diamond	Not listed
Small Thorium Vein	245 / 270 / 295 / 345	Dense Stone; Star Ruby, Black Vitriol, Blue Sapphire, Large Opal, Azerothian Diamond	Not listed
Rich Thorium Vein	275 / 300 / 325 / 375	Dense Stone; Star Ruby, Blue Sapphire, Large Opal, Arcane Crystal, Huge Emerald, Azerothian Diamond	Not listed
Heavy Thorium Vein	Unknown	Dense Stone; Torbernite, Fel Crystal	Not listed

The camp is a new Forever system. At a campfire, each player can put down one item from their profession, and it gives a bonus to everyone who sits or works nearby for at least a minute. All camp items share a 1-hour cooldown, and their bonuses mirror class buffs and don't stack with them.

You learn the Lodestone at skill 20, either from the trainer for 1 silver or through the quest Camping 101: Mining. It takes a Rough Stone and a Copper Bar, which cost next to nothing, and gives melee attack power to you and everyone sitting nearby. That's the same bonus as a paladin's Blessing of Might, so the two don't stack. Wowhead recommends the Lodestone to anyone who fights in melee. The tooltip doesn't show the exact bonus yet.

The Rock Garden unlocks at skill 140. You put it down instead of the Lodestone, it keeps the Lodestone's bonus, and after a while a regular ore vein shows up in it. Blueprint: Rock Garden drops from the Relic Guardian in the Excavation Site: Wetlands dungeon for levels 24-29, about 7% of the time, according to Wowhead. The blueprint doesn't bind, so you can buy it on the Auction House.

The Molten Foundry is the skill 300 item. It has the Lodestone bonus too, but that's not the point, since without it you can't smelt heavy thorium. Nobody knows yet where to get Blueprint: Molten Foundry.

Item	Skill	What it gives	Made from
Lodestone	20	Melee attack power at the campfire, like Blessing of Might	Rough Stone, Copper Bar
Rock Garden	140	The Lodestone bonus and an ore vein in camp	Heavy Stone (2), Iron Ore, Silver Bar
Molten Foundry	300	The Lodestone bonus; required to smelt heavy thorium	Thorium Bar (5), Dense Stone (2), Truesilver Bar

• Mining gray veins. A gray vein gives no skill, and a green one rarely does. As soon as the main ore in a zone turns green, move on to the next zone in the leveling plan.
• Forgetting about ranks. Your skill caps at 75, 150, and 225 until you learn the next rank. You can learn Journeyman from 50, Expert from 125, and Artisan from 200, and Wowhead reminds you that each rank also needs a minimum character level.
• Smelting steel and mithril for skill. After 185, smelting gives no points, because steel, mithril, and thorium are gray the moment you learn them. Smelt them for the bars, and get your skill with the pick.
• Vendoring Pyrite and Bauxite. A vendor pays 1 silver for Pyrite and 2.5 silver for Bauxite. They go into the acid and sandpaper that new Blacksmithing recipes depend on, so sell them to players instead.
• Trying to smelt dark iron at any old forge. Dark Iron Ore can only be smelted at the Black Forge in Blackrock Depths, 8 ore per bar. If you mine in Searing Gorge or Burning Steppes, hang on to the ore until your next run into the dungeon.
• Stockpiling Heavy Thorium Ore. It can only be smelted next to a Molten Foundry, and nobody knows yet where the foundry blueprint comes from. Until someone finds it, don't sink all your gold into this ore.