Guides:Mining Skill Tips
Mining Skill Tips
To gain more mining skill, you will want a relatively low ql pickaxe with as much Circle of Cunning on it as possible. This will give a lot of skill if you mine rock shards with it, as it heightens the difficulty and the mine time. It is the mine time that improves the skill gain in mining: longer mine time = more skill. #
Mining rock shards is easier for a new player up to a decent skill level (20 - 30?), but from then on if you want to grind mining I would suggest mining on an ore vein. At around 30 skill, mining iron may be the best option for you, but as you get up to around 40 or even 50 in mining, you should mine gold or silver.
I would not recommend you start off mining on gold or silver, because you are very unlikely to get any ore above ql 1.00. Mining a ql 1.00 ore or shard gives no skillgain whatsoever.
You want to mine shards or ore about half of your actual skill, so say you have 50 mining, you want to be mining 25 ql rocks or ore. This means you have a 50% chance of mining a full ql (your mining skill) and failing (1 ql). Try to not mine capped walls lower than your skill.
# There is actually some disagreement about this. Some people are of the opinion that the extra mining actions with a fast pickaxe make up for the loss of skillgain due to short timers. There is also a third camp which believes that it makes little difference which method you prefer and that skillgain will be about the same if you spend the same total amount of time mining. If this is the case, then how many shards or how much ore you want at the end of your mining session might be more important.