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Mining is a skill that allows players to obtain ore and gems from otherwise regular rock. A player can then either smelt bars from the ores at a furnace and make equipment using the Smithing skill, or sell them for profit. Mining is also one of the most popular skills in RuneScape because many players try to earn such profit from the skill. On the map, mining areas are identified with a regular pickaxe File:Miningicon.PNG for Mining spots or a gold PickaxeFile:Mining shop icon.png icon for a Mining shop. The current minimum requirement to be ranked (at rank 2,000,000) on the hiscores for Mining is level 52.
To mine, a player will first need a pickaxe. Pickaxes are sold by Nurmof in the Dwarven Mines, Tati in Keldagrim, Bob at Lumbridge (bronze only), or the Grand Exchange, or can be made at the appropriate smithing level for players that have completed Perils of Ice Mountain. Players can get one free bronze pickaxe from Bob's Brilliant Axes after completing the Unstable Foundations quest. Players should then choose where to mine, taking into account proximity to a bank as well as ore types available. Players only need to click once on any rock containing ore to mine it (provided they have the level needed for that ore type.) Players can discover which ore is in a rock by right clicking and choosing Prospect. Most higher level miners do not need to prospect every rock, as they recognise the colour of the rock and know what it contains. The obtained ores, gems, or essence can then either be sold or used by the player for the smithing, crafting, or runecrafting skills. Selling ores and essence can, but won't always be, very profitable.
Luck will play a certain factor in how quickly ores are obtained from mining. While the player's level and the type of pickaxe which they use also have an influence, there remains a certain randomness that determines when the ore is finally mined. When two players of different levels both attempt to mine the same rock it is very unlikely for the lower levelled player to get the ore. However, while the players' Mining level certainly affects the outcome, their influence has not yet been proven.
Some players believe that they can get ores faster by repeatedly clicking on the rock until they get an ore because by clicking a rock, it will reset the "luck" timer so players will just have to click until they get an ore in one stroke of the pickaxe.
Pickaxes
The pickaxes used in Mining can also be equipped as a weapon, giving players one more space in their inventory. A player's Mining level determines the type of pickaxe they can mine with (while their Attack level determines whether they can wield it and thus save that inventory space.) As with all weapons, as the pickaxe type progresses, so to does its effectiveness. The higher a level a pickaxe, the better its effect is when it can be wielded and or used.
The prices in the table below are those from Nurmof's shop. The shop in Keldagrim is slightly more expensive.
Not required. Attack is only required to wield, not mine. You can mine an ore with a pickaxe in your inventory, but wielding it gives you one extra inventory space.
This player mines rune/pure essence used in the Runecrafting skill.
Ores are obtained from the different types of rocks; these rocks can be found in mines. On the mini-map, mines are labelled with a grey pickaxe. The colour of a rock's vein corresponds to the ore's colour, so a black vein will yield coal ore, a blue vein will yield mithril ore, and so forth. Players can identify which kind of ore a rock is composed of via Prospecting.
When a player clicks on a rock, they will hit it with their pickaxe and attempt to get the ore out. The higher level the rock (prime examples being mithril and adamant), the longer the mining procedure will take, requiring the player to have patience.
After the ore has been mined, the rock will no longer have a visible vein of color (previously, the whole rock would change shade when the ore was mined) for a while. Eventually another ore will respawn and the rock will regain its vein of colour. Players can only mine a rock when ore is available. Ore respawn times differ with the difficulty of the rock and the amount of people on the server. For example, runite rocks can take over 20 minutes to respawn, while iron rocks take about 3 seconds. Rune essence is an exception to this, as there is no respawn time and you can get a full inventory without stopping.
To mine rune essence, players will need to complete the Rune Mysteries quest. It is used in the Runecrafting. Rune essence does not have a respawn time, allowing a player to click once on the rock and wait until his/her inventory is full.
Members only. Limestone is needed in the members quest Regicide. It can be crafted into limestone bricks by using a chisel on them, which are used in the Construction skill. It is found next to the place where you start Rag and Bone Man.
Members only. Daeyalt ore can only be mined from the Meiyerditch mines during and after the Darkness of Hallowvale quest. Mining 15 ores is required before being released from the mine. It is nontradeable.
Members only. To mine pure essence, players will need to complete the Rune Mysteries quest. It is used in Runecrafting. Pure essence does not have a respawn time, allowing a player to click once on the rock and wait until his/her inventory is full.
Members only. Gem rocks are only available to members who have completed the Shilo Village quest or Lunar Diplomacy quest, there are gem rocks in the lunar mine as well as in Shilo Village. Gem rocks can also be found randomly during the Tai Bwo Wannai Cleanup minigame or by mining ore or coal rocks. Mining a gem rock gives a player a gem ranging from opal to diamond (Meaning no dragonstone or onyx), which can be used in Crafting or Fletching.
Players can use the Smithing skill to smelt a Runite ore with eight coal to make a runite bar. This ore can take 10-20 minutes to respawn depending on how full the world is. You can only mine runite ore as a non-member in the wilderness, where there are only two rocks, and you run a high risk of being killed by revenants. As a member, there are many safer areas in which you can mine it, but no more than two rocks in one place. This combined with the long respawn times makes world hopping highly recommended.
Accessible after the Between a Rock...quest. Contains lots of gold veins, and a local dwarf to transport the gold ores to the bank (for a small fee of gold ores).
Coal trucks can hold up to 120 coal. You can hold up to 140 coal if the easy tasks of the Seers' Village Diary is completed, 168 if the medium diary is completed, and 196 if the hard diary is completed.
Accessible during and after the Lost Tribequest. Is a good place to power mine without losing a lot of money, as Mistag (at the southern end of the mine) will buy your iron and silver ores. Requires a light source.
Shooting Stars are a part of the Distractions and Diversions, but it's for Members only! They can be found via a Telescope in a Player Owned House. They fall in waves every 2 hours on all Members worlds and land around 2-15 minutes after each other. The stars can be from size 1 (10 Mining required) up to size 9 (90 Mining required). Bigger stars give more stardust, but are much harder to mine. There are nine areas in RuneScape that shooting stars will fall. You can learn more about the specific locations in the Distractions and Diversions guide. If you reach your limit of 200 stardust, you can still carry on mining the star for XP. Mining stars give players stardust. 200 stardust may be exchanged for:
If you are very desperate about finding a shooting star then make a clan to find them. If you are going to make a clan then you need someone in their Player Owned House to look through their telescope and find out where and when it will land, this way when one person finds it they can say where it is and what size it is. There is one problem, however, with making a clan. If there a lot of players in the clan then there will be more players mining the shooting star, which means that you would get comparatively less stardust.
Random events
Random events are events that happen at random times. They were introduced to stop macroers, or people who use programs to play RuneScape automatically for them. Some random events include non-player characters asking players to do a task for them and rewarding them if they are successful or monsters that appear and attack the player. In Mining, there are quite a few random events.
Gems
When mining your player may find a gem in the rock. A player's chances of finding gems are increased when wearing a charged amulet of glory. There is also an extremely small chance of finding more than one gem
in a rock.
While mining, a Rock Golem may appear and begin attacking the player.
The combat level of the golem depends on the player's combat level, but it will always be stronger. The Rock Golem's combat level varies from level 14 to 159. Players may either attempt to kill it, or run away. The Rock Golem also has a ranged attack. If a player kills the golem, it can drop ores, stouts, pickaxes, uncut gems or nothing.
Rock Golems are especially vulnerable to pick axes.
Since the random event update, Rock Golems can't be found with a random event, though, they are in the enchanted valley with the rest of the discontinued random creatures.
Exploding rock (Discontinued)
The Exploding rock event can occur when a player mines a rock that has gas bubbling out of it. If a player continues mining this rock once it starts smoking, they will likely set a spark and it will explode, dealing 10 damage to the player and destroying the head of the player's pickaxe. The player can get it repaired, for a price, by Nurmof, the dwarf who sells pickaxes in the Dwarven Mine, or by Bob in Lumbridge. Bob can also repair barrows equipment (member item only).
A good trick to save money was to go to the Grand Exchange buy a broken pickaxe then go to Bob in Lumbridge and get him to fix it for you. With the Random Event update, broken pickaxes do not exist any more.
Pickaxe head (Discontinued)
While mining, the player's Pickaxe head may fly off. The head lands somewhere nearby, usually 3 to 10 squares away. When this occurs, the player has to find the pickaxe head quickly before it disappears or before someone else sees and grabs it (and some would try to extort money from the player to return the pickaxe head). Once retrieved, the player can use the pickaxe head on the handle to put the pickaxe back together.
With the update of 25 February2009, this has been discontinued. Any pickaxe heads in a player's inventory or bank was transformed back into a full pickaxe. Handles were removed from the game.
Tips
Animation when mining
It should be noted that when mining a player's animation will never be stopped unless they log out, die, or click some place else or eat/drink anything. So, with this in mind, players could in theory mine continuously until the ore runs out. One example of this is when players are attacked; their mining animation may be delayed or seem as if it has been stopped, but in reality they are actually still mining.
Players could also transfer to another ore if they feel that the ore they are mining is taking too long. The animation will transfer and you might find mining faster this way.
Power mining
Also known as drop mining, this is where a player fills their inventory with ores, drops them all, and repeats. While this method of mining allows players to raise their Mining level quickly, dropping a whole inventory of ores can take some time. Also, by using this method, a player would be missing out on Smithing experience or money from selling the ore. Another method of power mining is to drop an ore just as another ore is mined, allowing players to mine while dropping ores at nearly the same speed as mining without dropping ores. Some mining spots for:
Free-to-play- Power mining iron is a popular way to quickly raise levels in free-to-play. Good locations include the Hobgoblin Mine (located in levels 29-31 wilderness) and the Al-Kharid (Scorpion) Mine. Other good locations are in the Rimmington Mine, as this area is usually deserted. Mining and dropping iron can lead to around 37000 exp an hour. However, the Dwarven Mine is not as good for lower levelled players, as there are level 14 Scorpions and two level 32 King Scorpions which are aggressive towards players under level 65.
Members- The Granite Quarry in the Al-Kharid desert is a useful place to power mine. This requires the player to carry Waterskins or an Enchanted water tiara to avoid the effects of the desert heat, but Granite provides better experience than iron. You can also cast the Lunar Spell "Humidify" to keep your water skins filled. You can get up to 80,000 experience an hour doing granite, although most players are only able to get around 50k per hour. The only mining spot in the Quarry that can provide 80k exp per hour, is the "Crossover", the area with two sandstones and 2 granites next to each other. If a player chooses to mine iron instead, the mine south of Piscatoris Fishing Colony is another good place to power mine iron.
An extremely helpful tip when dropping the ores is to generally drop a stack of ores located near the top. A stack refers to one of the four columns (in your inventory, since there are 28 spaces, with 7 in each column, four per row). Right click and drop the first ore located near your upper most stack, and as soon as you click on the Drop option, right click again and just repeat the process. The reason why this method is good is since it doesn't require much timing or accuracy, since the right clicking will be based on your previous right click. The Drop option is conveniently located right below each pixel, so this provides a smooth flux of movement!
Ore Running
This is a far less popular type of power mining. The main difference is that you needn't drop all of your precious ores. All you need is a friend who is willing to run back and forth from the bank to your mining spot for payment or profit of ores. When you have a full inventory of Iron ore (F2P) or Granite (P2P), you trade them to your runner before mining another full load of ores. Your runner will then take the ores to the bank and withdraw them as notes before bringing them back to you for payment or a percentage of the ores, usually half. This is still a good form of power mining that alows you to keep some of your ores and runners can also profit from your ability to mine quickly. The reason this is so unpopular is that it is usually very easy for a runner to find a power miner who is dropping or willing to give all of their ores for free.
Magic Mining
This term refers to the use of the Superheat Item spell, available to players with 43 or higher magic. Using this technique allows players to emerge from a mine with an inventory full of bars instead of ores, at the cost of one nature rune per bar (with a fire staff equipped). Players should enter the mine with an equipped fire staff, a stack of nature runes, and a pickaxe in their inventory. After mining the appropriate ore and coal, the player casts the spell, which frees up extra inventory space so the process can continue. This allows players to spend far longer in a mine before returning to a bank, and streamlines the smelting process. Using this technique to create mithril bars in the Mining Guild is one of the most effective ways to gain mining and smithing experience in the game. In addition, when casting Superheat Item on
a iron ore, there is no longer a 50% chance of success, it is always 100%.
Busy world vs. empty world
The rate of ore respawn for each rock is proportional to the number of players logged in that world. This means that the same rock will respawn quicker in a busy world like World 1 or World 2 than it would in a quieter world such as World 127. This is especially important to consider when power mining (see above).
For general mining, it is slightly more advisable that players go to a quieter trading world such as World 127. Although it has a slower rate of rock respawn, there are much fewer players in the world and therefore less competition for the rocks. As for selling the ores, the new method of trading in the Grand Exchange allows the player to make offers with players in all servers. The only disadvantage, as mentioned before, is the ore respawn rate plus the disadvantage of the traditional method of trading as there would be very few people wishing to purchase your ore.
Wield the pickaxe
Players are strongly recommended to wield their pickaxe. This way, they have more inventory space to allow them to carry ores. To wield picks players must have the appropriate Attack level, as the pickaxe is considered a weapon.
Wear light items
Players are strongly recommended to wear few items or nothing at all other than their pickaxe. Members are advised to wear the boots of lightness, obtained in the Temple of Ikov quest, so that their weight is lower, therefore allowing them to run for longer periods of time. Also, wearing the Spotted Cape or Spottier Cape from the Hunter Skill can be very useful, as well as Penance gloves from the Barbarian Assault mini-game. If they are wearing armour, then they would be quite heavy, making them lose a large amount of energy in a short amount of time.
Wear Varrock armour
Among other benefits, the Varrock armour (obtained from completing the different levels of difficulty of the Varrock Diary) offers a small chance of obtaining two ores at the same time from one rock. The player will get experience for both ores. As the Varrock armour is upgraded upon completing the tasks of the diary, this unique effect will be available for rocks up to adamantite.
Wilderness mine tips
In the Wilderness, players can be attacked by dangerous Revenants, all of whom can hit very high in any attack style, and can freeze and/or teleblock. They can even steal players out of combat with another monster. Before you begin mining, check which attack you are weakest to in terms of equipment bonus (Magic or Ranged. Melee doesn't matter since you'll be running and will not be next to the Revenant), as revenants primarily attack with whatever you are weakest to. If a Revenant does attack you, the best thing to do is to use the Howl scroll (while you have a spirit wolf around) to make it flee; or if you don't have a wolf, turn on the protection prayer of which attack you are weakest to if you can, run away (preferably south, in hopes that they won't be able to attack you in a lower level of the wilderness), and switch worlds as soon as you're out of range.
Switch worlds
For higher level ores such as adamantite or runite, it is sometimes faster to switch between servers rather than wait for the rocks to respawn. This is not recommended for any lower level ores.
PvP Worlds
If you want to Power Mine you could go to a PvP world with nothing but wielding a pickaxe and a chest-type armour and shield. Usually all the other players are too busy attacking each other to mine or notice you, so you have almost no competition. With the update of being auto-skulled, you must be willing to lose your pickaxe and armour. If you want to keep the ores for profit, keep your inventory on the log out screen and watch your mini-map. Log out if you notice anyone running toward you. Wearing a dragon hide body and legs are preferred over two pieces of rune armour to prevent getting hit from long range.
Switch Language
If you go to the home page and switch the language in the top left corner by selecting a flag, you can switch servers and join worlds that are in another language. Although this may be challenging with everything in a different language, there are always far less people on these servers.
Here are some suggested training methods for players to raise their Mining level.
Level 1 to 15: Mine clay, and sell it for 100gp, or use it for crafting. An alternative which also levels Runecrafting or provides income is rune essence. Rune essence is easier to mine because only one click is required and a full inventory is mined in one go. Rune essence can be mined, after completing the Rune Mysteries quest, by talking to Sedridor in the basement of the wizard's tower, or Aubury in Varrock (recommended, as it is close to Varrock east bank).
Level 15 to 40: Mine iron rocks. Iron can be obtained quickly, making it a valuable rock to use when levelling up. Iron is the best ore to gain experience all the way to level 99. If coins are needed coal can be mined, but it's better to wait until access to the guild has been granted. From level 41 onwards the player can mine with a rune pickaxe and mine iron in one hit.
Level 40 to 60: Mine iron rocks in the Dwarven Mine or gold rocks in the crafting guild. Getting up these levels will take much longer and players should be prepared to put in some time. Power mining iron as recommended for the previous levels will take about 84 hours of work. Putting in an hour a day it could be done in about 3 months.
Level 60 to 85: Mine Coal rocks in the Mining Guild, or continue power mining iron as the faster option.
Level 85 to 99: To continue levelling the player should now mine coal in the guild. If coins are wanted mine runite ore, which can be found in the wilderness of both free-to-play and members worlds. There are also 2 rocks in the Heroes' Guild for members. Power mining iron is recommended for the quickest rate of experience in the non-member worlds.
Similar to non-members, mining Iron is very good experience. There is an additional 3 iron rock formations east of Ardougne, and another south of Piscatoris Fishing Colony. The closest Iron mine close to a bank is north of Yanille, where there are four iron rocks nearby. These Iron ore can also be banked in the Port Khazard deposit box.
Members also have the option to combine mining with very fast banking trips. The Ring of duelling and some of the dragonstone equipment allow players to teleport to a bank and quickly get back to the mining area. Slower teleport options involve using a house portal.
The Shilo gem rock mine is easily reached by activating the Karamja gloves 3. The gloves teleport ends at the gem mine. Mining the gems rocks on the group and the ones below allows continuous mining. With a Duelling ring based bank trip, this gives very fast mining experience.
Another decent mining option is to mine and drop granite rock. With the Enchanted water tiara players can stay at the mines for extended periods of time. This yields better experience than the iron ores.
A very good way to powermine is iron mining in the Dorgeshuun Mines (requires Lost Tribe quest. This has the advantage that you can quickly sell all your ores to Mistag to get some money (albeit not much, but more than most powermining).
Mining Shooting Stars gives the fastest experience and does not require banking, however only one appears every two hours, making it difficult to mine for long periods of time. It is also beneficial because you can receive rewards for mining into the core as well as experience. See Distractions and Diversions.
Drop mining only is interesting if bank trips are slow. The mining area south of the Piscatoris Fishing Colony is very close to the teleport of the Spirit Kyatt familiar. The mine features three iron rocks around a single square enabling mining without moving. On a full world this allows for constant mining. Use duel rings and glory amulets to bank the ores.
For players above level 80 Mining, mining concentrated Gold rocks is a fast way of leveling. Players can mine a full load of ores then use the close deposit bank to send the ores to bank. The concentrated Gold rocks are located in Living Rock Caverns.
A player wearing the Mining cape while performing the emote.
Dwarven Stout - Drinking this will raise a player's Mining and Smithing levels by 1 for a short time. Dwarven stouts can be bought in Falador one at a time, or members can buy them in bulk in Burthorpe. They are also a common drop from dwarves, and can be bought in several places in members areas, as well as brewed using the Cooking skill. There are several re-spawns in the dwarf tavern along the shortcut under White Wolf Mountain (you need to complete Fishing Contest to go there).
A brown spicy stew can raise mining temporarily by up to 6; however, it can also decrease it by up to 6.
Desert wyrms summoned with the Summoning skill will give the player's mining a boost of 1 level.
Void ravagers summoned with the Summoning skill will give the player's mining a boost of 1 level + 1 invisible boost.
Obsidian golems summoned with the Summoning skill will give the player's mining an invisible boost of 7 levels.
Lava titans summoned with the Summoning skill will give the player's mining an invisible boost of 10 levels.
Star sprites from a Shooting Star will reward you with being able to mine 2 ores at once (25% Chance), lasting for the amount of stardust you collected (200 stardust-15 minute boost) it DOES work on runite.
Special Mining Areas
Coal Trucks - The coal trucks are located west from Seers' Village and north from Ardougne. There are 18 coal rocks and handy carts for storing coal in. The carts can store 120 at a time and it is also recommended to take 28 coal when leaving as well. There is a quick way or a slow way to get to and from the coal trucks.
Quick Way: With 20 Agility go across the log that is on the east side of the coal trucks. The Camelot teleport spell can also be used for quick access to the Seers' bank
Slow Way: To walk all the way around the lake, past the fishing guild, to Seers' Village.
Once in Seers' Village go north-west from Seers' Village bank and there are more coal trucks in the shed. Remove all the coal and bank, repeating the process until all the ore has been taken.
After completing the Seers Achievement Diary the coal trucks can hold up to a max of 196 coal before having to be emptied
Mining Guild - In the Mining Guild there are 37 coal and 5 mithril rocks. It is close to a bank (just climb the ladders to the west and head north). Level 60 Mining is required to enter (level 59 miners can achieve this by drinking a Dwarven Stout just before entering the guild). There is one especially efficient place to mine, in the south-east corner, where there are 6 coal in very close proximity. Mining mithril is not recommended in the guild unless there is no-one else at the rocks. An anvil is available outside of the guild in the North end of the mines. The anvil, in combination with the superheat spell, allows the player to smith the ores they mine. The smithed items can be turned into coins with the high alchemy spell or sold at the nearby shop avoiding trips to the bank.
You can save a couple of seconds while banking using the skills necklace' Mining Guild teleport, which teleports you directly in front of the stairs leading to the mining area.
Crafting Guild - The Crafting Guild is the best place in free play to mine gold, silver, and clay. 40 crafting and a Brown apron are required to enter. Members can easily teleport there by use of a Skills necklace or the balloon transport system. Gold ore is very valuable and in high demand by members using the Goldsmith Gauntlets for quick smithing experience, so free players hoping to make money mining would benefit greatly by training their Crafting level to 40.
Arzinian Mine - After completing the Between a Rock... quest, members can access the largest gold mine in the game, with over 100 gold rocks. Players must talk to Dondakan while wearing a Gold helmet in order to access it. To leave the mine, simply remove the helmet or log off and log in again. The mine is very far from a bank; however, a short ways away, there is a dwarf who will deliver Gold ore to the bank for you in exchange for a 20% cut of the profits, rounded up. The fee is halved if the player is wearing a Ring of Charos (a).
Shooting Star - A shooting star can be seen through a telescope in a Player-owned house every two hours. Details will be given, such as the location of impact site and time remaining until impact. Once a shooting star has crashed onto Gielinor, a player may search it out and mine it. Mining the star will give the player stardust, which can be exchanged for some rewards from a Star sprite at the middle of the star, after the star has been fully mined. The sprite will also give the player an ability to mine more than one ore per rock (for a limited amount of time). Only 200 stardust pieces can be mined from the star. After that, the player can continue to mine the star and get experience (amount of experience depends on the level of star, or the amount of outer shell of the star still intact). This can be helpful to assist people in breaking the star apart so they can get their reward. Also, a star sprite can only reward a player once per day. It is recommended that the player exchanges a full 200 stardust pieces, for a larger reward.
Trivia
In the days after the release of the Sacred Clay Pickaxe, when you started to mine, the pickaxe would change to look like a Bronze pickaxe for the duration of the animation, and until you managed to mine the ore. Jagex has fixed this glitch.
On 3 July2007, the mining animation was dramatically changed. The change initially irked some players, likely because they had become accustomed to the very steady pace and sound of the prior animation.
A common myth states that mining with the pickaxe equipped without a shield will allow you to mine faster than any other way. It is not true.
The Emote of the Mining Skillcape very faintly resembles the special attack of the Barrelchest anchor,also in some way,it seems to resemble the Inferno Adze (although the pickaxe seen in the emote seems to be made of steel but it's on fire).
If you prospect a rock and another player successfully mines the ore before you finish prospecting the rock, it will give you a message saying "This rock contains ore."
On 9 September 2009, the dragon pickaxe was released making it the best pickaxe in the game.
Mining
Fishing
Woodcutting
Farming
Hunter
Divination
Archaeology
Herblore
Crafting
Fletching
Smithing
Cooking
Firemaking
Runecrafting
Construction
Agility
Thieving
Slayer
Dungeoneering
Invention
Hitpoints
