So you want to be a miner? Mining is an exciting Profession used to gather materials for blacksmithing or engineering. However, you dont need those Professions to be a miner. You could simply collect resources and sell them to blacksmiths and engineers. You're going to find these spots anyway as you travel throughout the world, so why not cash in on them? However, most people combine mining and blacksmithing or mining and engineering.

First you will need to find the mining trainer. After you have learned basic mining, open up your abilities book (hit "p") and look for the "Find Minerals" icon that has been added to your abilities. This will be used to detect mineral veins. Shift Click and drag that icon over to one of the rows of your action bar.

Now you need to go buy yourself a "mining pick". They are usually sold by a "trade merchant" or other merchants near the mining trainer.

Now you need to find mineral veins. While you are playing, hit your "Find Minerals" Icon (or press the corresponding hot key). Mineral spots will now show up on the mini-map when you are near them. Seek them out. You will have to look around to find mineral veins. They are often found near quest locations and inside mines. They are usually near mountain terrain. It's up to you to discover the good mining locations. Often it's good to find a path that you can repeat between the mining nodes you have discovered. If a mining node is gray on the map, that means it's above or below you or possibly in a cave nearby.

Have "Find Minerals" active nearly all the time so that you will know when minerals are nearby.

• Dark Iron is found mostly inside instances such as Blackrock Depths or Molten Core. Dark Iron must be smelted inside Blackrock Mountain inside an instance.
• You can purchase an enchant to gloves that will increase your mining skill. There is also an engineering item that raises mining.
• You can earn money by mining and selling bars, stones, or gems on the auction house.
• Sometimes you might want to sell ore on the auction house instead of bars because miners like to purchase those to level up their mining.
• You can share a skill point increase on a mining node by taking turns. One player gathers some ore, then another player gathers ore.