When smelting, you'll have to decide whether or not to keep copper and tin separate, or combine them to produce bronze. Iron often produces citrine, lesser moonstone and jade, while occasionally producing aquamarine or star rubies.

Sometimes it will also produce citrine, jade, or aquamarine. Tin will commonly yield shadowgems, as well as moss agate and lesser moonstone. Prospecting copper will give you malachite and tigerseye most commonly, and shadowgems occasionally. Tip: When deciding between smelting ore to sell it, or selling raw ore, note that a) if prospecting the metal is profitable, the ore will sell for more than the bars and b) some people pick up crafting professions and not the accompanying gathering profession, making the smelted bars most useful.īlacksmithing especially eats up a seemingly impossible amount of metal, and copper, tin and iron can fetch a profit that any low level miner will really appreciate.

The value of the five ore is a known value, but the gem(s) you'll receive and its value is a mystery. The vast majority of players buying ore are using it to level a crafting profession, namely blacksmithing, jewelcrafting, or engineering.Ĭurrently, aside from treasure chests, fishing and similar means based on chance, there is one way to acquire ore, and two to three ways to acquire gems, generally making low level gems worth less than the ore from which they are prospected.Īs of patch 2.1, prospecting has no chance of failure and so you are guaranteed at least one gem, although you are gambling in a sense when you do it. You should also pay attention to your target buyers. The first important thing to note is that whether or not you will prospect the ore, smelt it, or sell it raw, will depend heavily on the type of ore. Taking a break from the faction recipe series to shake things up a bit, let's take a look at how this breaks down.

When making gold from Mining, is it better to Prospect the Ore? Or is it better to just sell the Ores and Bars? When trying to make money from a profession, it can be difficult to determine what to sell, what to convert, and what to avoid doing all together. Recently, a reader wrote in with a question that everyone ponders from time to time.

Eternium bar transmog