The War Within Mining Profession Leveling Guide (2024)

The War Within Mining Profession Leveling Guide

Mining in The War Within (Khaz Algar Mining) is very similar to Dragonflight mining, as is the layout of the Specializations. In this guide we comment on what is new, and provide some suggestions as well as 2 farming routes to level your mining.

New to Mining in The War Within

As with every expansion there are new types of ore to mine:

• Bismuth
• Aqirite
• Ironclaw

Bismuth ore is common quality and Aqirite and Ironclaw are both uncommon. Bismuth can be found in all four zones of Khaz Algar, while Ironclaw is only found on the Isle of Dorn and in the Ringing Deeps, and Aqirite is only found in Hallowfall and Azj-kahet.

New Ore Modifiers

In Dragonflight there was an introduction of special modified nodes (Hardened, Molten, Primal and Titan-Touched). In The War Within there will now be five new special node modifiers: Crystallized, Weeping, Webbed, EZ-mine and Camouflaged.

Crystallized

Gives a 2 minute buff increasing your secondary stats by 3%. You are also protected from the negative effects of Weeping Ore and Altered Herbs.

Additional drop: Crystalline Powder

Weeping

Weeping is the rarest node. When you mine this ore you will be inflicted with Horrific Poison for 1 minute, which will deal damage over time, as well as slow you and reduce your Primary stat and Stamina. This effect will be removed early or not applied if you have the buff granted by the Crystallized node; otherwise you will need to wait out the debuff duration.

Additional drop: Writhing Sample

Webbed

Webbed nodes will tether to you when you get close, slowing your movement speed by a significant amount for 7 seconds. This slow applies to any person who gets close, non miners as well.

Additional drop: Weavercloth

EZ-mine

A large amount of dynamite embedded in the ore will explode several times around the node as you mine them. The explosions are preceded by circles on the ground indicating where they will explode, and remaining in the circles will make you take heavy damage and a significant knockback. Depending on how the circles land it’s possible that you will be knocked away before you finish mining, and thus have to start over. These nodes in corners are nearly impossible to mine without a high amount of deftness (mining speed).

Additional drop: Increased amount of materials, like Rich nodes, and Rusted Piles of Scrap for Engineers.

Camouflaged

Camouflaged nodes can only be seen while you are under the effects of a Phial of Truesight. This Phial is crafted by Alchemists and lasts for 30 minutes, they are also tradeable on the auction house, but could be relatively expensive early on.

The camouflaged nodes will always be either Bismuth or the uncommon ore that is not usually found in the zone you are in. For example if you are in Hallowfall, the non-camouflaged ore will be Bismuth and Aqirite, and the camouflaged ore will be Bismuth and Ironclaw.

Knowledge Points from Mining

Just like in Dragonflight, you earn 1 knowledge point every time you mine a modified version of ore that you haven’t mined before. Considering there are 3 types of Ore, plus 3 seams and 6 types of modifiers (also counting Rich), there should be 24 knowledge points obtainable just from mining every type of ore, including the normal version.

Mining Nodes By Zones

Modified nodes occur in all zones however we have broken down the zones for each of the ore.

Location of the Mining Trainer in The War Within

The mining trainer is Tarib, who is located in the North of The Foregrounds, near the center of Dornogal, which is the capital city of Khaz Algar.

You will be sent to Dornogal within the 10 first quests, so there is no specific reason to go here ahead of time just for the training. But when you are here, make sure you learn Khaz Algar Mining.

Before Starting Mining

If you start mining right at launch, there is not a big opportunity to buy anything on the auction house before you begin. However, if you start at any point later, there might be a couple of things you want to get ready before you start leveling mining.

Equipment

Firstly, if you are able to grab some Mining profession equipment from the auction house, the extra skill will let you start gathering higher rank materials much earlier. The uncommon Proficient Pickaxe, Bismuth Miner’s Headgear and Miner’s Bismuth Hoard should be relatively cheap and a nice start.

Phials

If you have a Dragonflight Alchemist, who has left over Artisan's Mettle you can craft yourself some Steaming Phials of Finesse. The 30-50 Finesse they grant works on Khaz Algar nodes and is a nice little bonus. These are Bind on Pickup, so would have to be ordered through the work order system.

You can also get yourself some Phial of Truesight to see camouflaged ore, either through an Alchemist or the auction house. Beware, the materials to craft this Phial are expensive, and you may not get good returns; though you should probably expect the price to be lower than the 1 million gold I paid on the Beta.

Both of these phials can be active at the same time.

There is also the Phial of Bountiful Seasons, which unfortunately I was unable to test on the Beta, it grants a large increase of Finesse (chance to increase the amount of resources you gather) during the summer. However, the resourcefulness is not really used by mining. It's currently unclear how this phial works, but it's likely to be the go-to Phial for Finesse.

Mining Profession Knowledge

While actual profession knowledge choice will be down to what you want to obtain, usually specializing in the ore you want to collect more of, we do recommend unlocking the specializations in a specific order:

1. Mining Fundamentals - Just unlocking this tree will cause every node you mine to restore a Vigor (this effect was previously on the Skyriding talents and has been moved). Further specialization into this will allow you to mine while mounted, but it will cost 60 knowledge points to get there.
2. Mastering the Mysteries - By unlocking this specialization you will learn the Overload Node ability, this is a long cooldown you can use on nodes to gain additional resources. The cooldown gets reduced by mining and can be further improved by spending knowledge points in the specialization.
3. Plethora of Ore - This specialization just grants a flat 30 Finesse when you unlock it. Although we think spending points in this specialization early could be a great money maker, we think the other two specializations' base-unlocks are a lot more powerful.

Leveling The War Within Mining

To level Mining, you as usual just need to mine. However, what could be interesting to know is that some nodes stop giving skill ups much earlier than others. This table breaks down at what mining level each node will go yellow, green and finally gray.

While you may want to prioritize nodes that give skill up, you should not ignore nodes that are gray. If you see two nodes on your map, collect the skill-up node first to reduce the probability of it despawning before you get to mine it. However, unless you see another new better node, then go mine the common node. Always keep mining!

Mining Farming Routes

We have included two farming routes: one for Ironclaw ore, and the other one for Aqirite.

Ironclaw Farming Route

We recommend farming Ironclaw on the Isle of Dorn, as it has a large number of nodes. The route we have marked on the image below loops around the coast and then across the front of Dornogal.

Aqirite Farming Route

Our Aqirite route is in Hallowfall, marked on the image below.

During testing, we found that following the rivers up and down netted a large amount of nodes. Just be wary there is a little verticality in the zone, so make sure you are clever with Vigor when skyriding.

Darkmoon Faire

When Darkmoon Faire is active you can gain 2 skill points and 3 knowledge points by doing a short quest from Rinling, called Rearm, Reuse, Recycle.

We recommend leaving this as late as possible to get the most value out of the increased skill points.