I have been running around in World of Warcraft Cataclsym now since it was released, and have 3 level 525 Miners. One of them was a new miner which took up the profession after the release of the expansion, and the other two were sitting on 425 when it was released. You’ll find there are lots of new locations to do your gpu and some great locations to get your skill points in mining very quickly.
The biggest tip i can give you, if you are planning on mining node’s all the way up to 525, is to get the fastest flying mount you can, this will speed up your traveling, and increase the amount of mining skill ups you’ll get.
The First Tier is Copper, mining levels 1-65, For horde characters the best place is Tirisfal glades, if you go around in circles around the outside of the map, you’ll get all the skill points you need quickly. For alliance Characters the best place of Dun Morogh, this is the starting location of the dwarves. If you go around the outside of the map, you should only need to do 2-3 rounds before your skill points are maxed out for this range.
The Next Tier is 66-125, and you’ll be looking for tin and silver nodes. If you find copper or a lower node at any point in the game, mine it, as they count as a node and will be stopping one of the nodes you are after from spawning. The best place for this is Hillsbrad Foothills, If you Circle around the outside of the Ruins of Alterac it won’t take long at all to get all the nodes you need to get to skill level 125.
Moving onto the Next tier, you skill level will go from 125 to 175 and you’ll be mining Iron and Gold. The western Plaguelands has to be a great choice for this location, and only just north of Hillsbrad Foothills as well. Once again, if you circle along the mountain ridges on the outside of the map you should only need 2-3 circles around the map to max out your mining at 175.
The next Tier will take you up to 230. The best place for mining on this tier is Felwood. as usual just circle around the outside of the map and you’ll get your skill points very quickly.
The next location to get up to 275 is Silithus, it’s a rather square zone, but high is mining node’s, and you’ll be able to get in and out of this zone very quickly. Once again as long as you fly around the mountain ridges on the sides of the map (they look like one big square in this zone), it won’t take long at all.
next we move onto Hellfire Peninsula, We’ll be mining for Fel Iron up to 325, I just do a small circle around the left hand side of the map, When you look at the map, you’ll see on the left hand side, there is a box shape of mountains, as long as your circle around the inside of them, you’ll get all the mining nodes you can handle. The right hand side of the map is a waste of time and should be avoided.
Mining 326-400, We’ll be mining Adamantite in Nagrand, this is really the only location to mine for this skill range, and nodes are pretty rare to boot as well, this will be a little slow, but as long as you go around the outside of the map it shouldn’t take that long.
From 400 up to 450 we’ll be mining Cobalt nodes and rich Cobalt nodes in Howling Fjord. The Cobalt nodes will take you up to 400, and the normal ones will take you up to 375. You should just fly down the left hand side of the coast, and up the right hand side of the island, when at the top go back to the start, the path you’ll take will look like a triangle pointing downwards.
For Skill levels 450-475 you’ll be Mining Saronite in Sholazar Basin, This will be very fast, as long as you fly in circles around the outside of the map, it won’t take long at all for you to get to 450 and move onto the Obsidium Mining nodes from the Cataclysm expansion. The best location is Mount hyjal. If you follow the path from the zone in location, all the way down to the Gates of Sothann, and then do a circle around the Sulfuron Spire, and fly back the same way, you’ll be able to get in and out of the zone in less than 30 minutes with will skill up’s in hand.
From 475 to 525, well this one is very simple, twilight highlands, Fly down one side of the river, and when you reach the end, fly up the other side, you’ll find there are a large amount of mining nodes in this zone and you’ll be able to make a fortune very quickly.
One thing you should be aware of, is that you don’t have to running around mining nodes to get your skill points, you can smelt your way up to 525 if you do it correctly. There are only a few skill points where you’ll have to go out and mine, that can’t be smelted past, the two areas are skill level 340-350, and skill level 375-425. While all up that’s 65 skill points, that means out of 525 skill points, that’s 460 nodes you won’t need to mine at all. If you level up a character, or using a levelling guide to get from level 1 to 85, or from level 80 to 85, you’ll find you’ll get more than enough gold to smelt your way up the rest.
