| 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.
Becoming a Miner
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.
Finding Mineral Veins
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.
Using Mineral Veins
After you find a mineral vein, right-click on it to begin mining. If you are successful, you will now be able to loot some minerals and possibly some rough stones. If you fail, try again. Continue to mine the mineral vein until it disappears.
Mining Components
When you mine, you will find three main types of ingredients: metal, stones, and gems. Gems are rare and are used for better recipes for other professions, such as blacksmithing or engineering. Collect all the ingredients you find and keep them for later. Stones can be transformed by Blacksmiths and Engineers without the use of a forge. Many of these components can also be found from killing monsters or bought from other players.
When you mouse over the mineral vein, you will see a color showing whether you will gain skills by mining it.
Gray - You cannot increase your skill by mining.
Green - These mineral veins give you a fairly poor chance to increase your skill. You can still do it, but its going to take a lot of gathering/creation to up your skill with these mineral veins.
Yellow - These mineral veins give you a reduced chance of increasing your skill. Its still pretty reasonable to try to increase your skills with these mineral veins.
Orange - These mineral veins give you your best chance of increasing your skill. For many of the Professions making an orange item will always increase your skill.
Red - you cannot mine it yet. You need a higher mining skill.
After you have mastered the mining of a particular type of mineral, you will no longer gain skills by mining it. However, you can still use the minerals and stones you mine.
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