Mining is a profession for procuring metals out of rocky and subterranean areas.
Contents [hide] |
Mining creates ore. And stone. And occasionally gemstones. But mostly just ore. Fortunately ore is important for three different production skills, blacksmithing, engineering, and jewelcrafting.
To do this, the miner tracks the mineral nodes on his mini-map, and then harvests from it anywhere from 2 to 4 times. (At later levels this number varies more greatly.)
Mining also comes with an associated skill, Smelting. Smelting allows the miner to reduce the ore to metal bars.
Mining just requires a mining pick in your backpack and a willingness to explore strange places. It does occupy your current tracking skill, which can be a nuisance for certain players like hunters. Smelting can only be performed in front of a forge.
Mining is a gathering skill, and so it is normally taken by the people who also have a profession that uses mined ores, and by people who want to make money off of the first group.
In terms of making money, mining can be lucrative. High-level ore is more plentiful than it was before Burning Crusade, but also needed in larger quantities. A dedicated miner can make a good amount of money at the auction house. Be warned, though: Blacksmiths and Engineers generally want you to smelt the ore into bars, and Jewelcrafters strictly want the ore to prospect.
There are no special benefits to being a miner.
There is no specialization for mining.
There are no known quests specifically for miners, however there are quite a few for blacksmiths.
Quests that require products from a miner: (other than blacksmithing)
M |
MT |