This Mining leveling guide will show you the fastest way how to level your Mining profession up from 1 to 300.
Professions skills are split between expansions now, you'll have a separate skill bar for each expansion. This guide is for the "Vanilla" Mining skill in the current retail version of World of Warcraft. I have a separate guide for Classic World of Warcraft, so if you are looking for that, visit my Classic WoW Mining Leveling Guide.
Mining serves three professions: Blacksmithing, Engineering, and Jewelcrafting, so it's really good combined with any of these.
Table of contents:
- 1 - 50 - Copper Ore
- 50 - 100 - Tin Ore
- 100 - 150 - Iron Ore
- 150 - 200 - Mithril Ore
- 200 - 275 - Thorium Ore
- 275 - 300 - Smelting
Playing WoW Classic?
Visit my Classic WoW Mining leveling guide 1-300 if you are looking for the Classic WoW guide. Profession skills are split between expansions in the latest World of Warcraft expansion, you'll have a separate skill bar for each expansion, and you can level them separately. This guide is for the "Vanilla" Mining skill in Shadowlands.
Learning Mining
First, visit any trainer in the main cities of old Azeroth - just ask a guard, and learn Mining.
You can mine ores without a required skill, the amount of ore you'll get is determined by your skill level. This means it's still recommended to level in zones where your skill level is close to the mining deposit's hidden skill requirement.
You will get much fewer ores if you start picking the highest level ore with mining skill 1.
Smelting
Check out my Smelting guide if you want to level mining with smelting, you can level Mining to 300 without mining a single ore. It will cost you a lot of gold, but you can usually get most of your gold back if you sell the bars.
Smelting is a much faster and easier way to level Mining.
1 - 50
You will mine [Copper Ore].
Durotar
Darkshore
IMPORTANT! If you are level 50, you will see an updated map of Darkshore. But, if you talk to Zidormi, she will allow you to switch between the new and old phases of Darkshore. (if you open the map, she is marked with a white text bubble at north)
50 - 100
You will mine the following ores: [Tin Ore], [Silver Ore]
You can find alternative maps at my Tin Ore farming guide.
Ashenvale
100 - 150
You will mine the following ores: [Iron Ore], [Gold Ore]
Western Plaguelands
Feralas
150 - 200
You will mine the following ores: [Mithril Ore], [Truesilver Ore]
Felwood and Burning Steppes are the best places to farm because the mining route is just so simple in these two zones. Badlands is also a really good place, but I found a bit more Mithril in the other zones.
Felwood
Burning Steppes
Don't go into Dreadmaul Rock. There is plenty of Mithril at the corner of the map, and you will just get dismounted if you go into the cave and it will slow you down.
200 - 275
You will stop getting skill points from Small Thorium Veins at 275, and from Rich Thorium Veins at 295. I don't know if this is a bug, or this is intended. The only way to reach 300 is to smelt Dark Iron Ore or Complete the Darkmoon Quest. (Highmountain Taurens have +15 Mining skill, so it's 290/310 for them)
You will mine [Thorium Ore].
Un'Goro Crater
Winterspring
275 - 290
Smelt all your Thorium Ore until you reach 290. If you didn't reach 290, you have to buy/mine more Thorium Ore.
You could mine Rich Thorium Veins until 295. But it's rare to find Rich Thorium Veins, and even if you see one it will be green, so it could take an hour of farming to get that 5 skill points if you are unlucky. I recommend smelting Dark Iron Ore for the last 10 points because it will be a lot faster. If your level is high enough, it's really easy to farm Dark Iron Ore for the next step.
Darkmoon Faire +5 free skill points
First of all, you should check your Calendar in-game to see if the Darkmoon Faire is open, the event starts at 00:01 on the Sunday before the 1st Monday of each month.
You can gain +5 Mining skill points by completing Rearm, Reuse, Recycle. You can get this quest from Rinling.
The skillups will apply automatically to the most recent expansion profession progress that is not at its maximum. This means you can only get the +5 skill points if you haven't learned any of the other expansion's mining skill yet, or if you maxed them all out. If you have already learned other expansions profession skills, you have to level all of them up to their maximum, and then you can get the +5 in the base Mining skill since that will be the only one that is not at its maximum.
The location of the Faire is on Darkmoon Island. The portals to the Island can be accessed in the following locations:
- Eastern Kingdoms, on the south side of Goldshire in Elwynn Forest
- Kalimdor, in Mulgore at the base of Thunder Bluff
Complete this quest when you reach 295!
290-300 - Smelting Dark Iron Ore
Learning to Smelt Dark Iron requires completion of a quest inside the Blackrock Depths instance. I put together a separate Dark Iron Ore Smelting Guide with a detailed explanation on how to complete this quest.
10 x [Smelt Dark Iron] - 80 x Dark Iron Ore (or 40 if it's Darkmoon Faire, or you mined Rich Thorium Veins)
Check out my Dark Iron Ore farming guide if you want to farm Dark Iron Ore, but make sure to read the first part of the Dark Iron Ore Smelting guide before you head out, so you don't miss on buying the quest items.
I hope you liked this Mining leveling guide, congratulations on reaching 300!