WoW Forever Mining, the Route to 300 and the Weapon That Makes it a Lot Easier

Mining runs 10 ore nodes and 14 smelting recipes in Forever, from Copper Vein at skill 1 to Rich Thorium Vein at 275. Two of the bars are new and neither existed in Classic.

Smelting counts toward your skill as well, so half the profession happens at a forge rather than on a mountainside. That matters more in Forever than it did, because Blacksmithing and Engineering both went deep on new recipes and both run on bars

The Deadmines weapon that mines for you

Rockslicer drops in the Deadmines and got new stats for Forever. The wielder can mine Copper, Tin, Silver and Iron nodes without having Mining at all, for 30 charges. After that the weapon stays in your bags and the mining use is gone.

Iron normally needs skill 125. A character with Engineering and Blacksmithing and no free profession slot can now pull their own ore out of the ground, hand it to a guild miner for smelting and skip the Auction House entirely. Farming several Rockslicers stacks the charges.

The tooltip does not display the charge count to other players, so check it yourself before you buy one off someone

Every ore by skill

Copper and Tin veins also drop Rough Stone and Coarse Stone, which Blacksmithing needs by the hundred. Thorium veins can give Dense Stone and Citrine

The route from 1 to 300

Smelt as you go. Every bar recipe grants skill until it greys out, so a bag of ore turned into bars at the forge is free progress you would otherwise spend riding for.

Journeyman opens at skill 50 and character level 10. Expert at 125 and level 20. Artisan at 200 and level 35. The beta caps professions at 225, so nobody has tested past Mithril yet

Smelting, including the two new bars

The two new bars matter because the top of Blacksmithing runs on them. Azerothium Bar turns up in the endgame plans and Bold Dirk alone wants 130 of them across the 291 to 300 stretch. Both new bars come from ore that is not in the Classic tables, so the veins themselves are somewhere nobody has mapped yet

What Mining brings to camp

Ninety attack power is the largest raw number any camp object puts out. It does not stack with Blessing of Might, so a group with a Paladin gets nothing, but a Horde party without one should always have a miner drop this.

The Rock Garden is the sleeper. A camp that spawns its own ore node over time turns a rest stop into a farm

Mining and Herbalism do not work well together

Find Minerals and Find Herbs share one tracking slot. You can have one active, never both.

Classic let people run the double gatherer and see everything on the minimap at once. Forever does not. A Mining and Herbalism character has to open the menu and switch every time they change what they are hunting, which means running ore laps and herb laps separately rather than one efficient circuit.

Mining pairs better with Blacksmithing or Engineering now, since both eat bars by the hundred and neither competes for tracking

Is Mining worth it in WoW Forever?

It is the best gold profession on a fresh server and it is not close.

Nobody buys gold in Forever. Every Blacksmith needs 602 Bronze Bars to reach 225 and 1,390 Thorium Bars past it. Every Engineer needs metal in similar volume. Every player who reaches 60 wants a mount. Ore feeds all of it and the demand arrives on day one rather than at raid time.

Bountiful Harvest makes it better. Five Legacy ranks, open from the start, and the top rank finds 100% more scarce materials from Mining, Herbalism and Skinning.

The catch is that Mining is a two-profession commitment in practice. Ore sells fine raw, but ore you smelt yourself sells for more, and smelting is where half your skill comes from anyway

What to do first

• Put five points into Bountiful Harvest early. Open from the start, doubles scarce material drops at full rank
• Smelt everything you mine. Free skill until the recipe greys out
• Pair with Blacksmithing or Engineering, not Herbalism. The tracking slot only holds one
• Reach skill 20 for the Lodestone. Ninety attack power at camp, unless your group runs a Paladin
• Push to 140 for the Rock Garden. A camp that grows its own ore node
• Keep your stone. Rough, Coarse and Dense Stone all feed Blacksmithing in bulk and most miners vendor them
• Grab a Rockslicer if you skipped Mining. Thirty charges of Copper through Iron with no profession attached

Mining is hours in the ground and gold out of it. KingBoost levels WoW Forever professions from launch day so the bars are banked before the raids open on December 9