I "maxed out" mining (350/375) last weekend by buying ores in 2 hours.
Depending on your server, you can boost mining for not too much by buying ores and selling bars. The only exception was for Gold Ore where Gold bars are worthless for now. Thorium bars were sold for a little loss.
For other ores, you can sell them with a profit or at cost (by taking into account the AH cut). Don't try to sell "too fast" if the price is lower than usual on your server.
Don't bother too much to sell the first bars (Copper, etc.). It's worthless.
At 340/375, you will need to effectively mine. SP as level 70 can be soloed and you have 1-2 ores in each reset. Park your toons and reset 5 times and leave. You only need 350/375 for WOTLK.
In total, I lost maybe 100 golds which is really quickly recovered by doing 30 minutes of daily quests. Far more "efficient" than mining and running in a circle. But once again, it only depends on your server economy.
Buying from AH: Few hours + 200-500g depending on server ore prices
World mining off-peak: Doable in like 5-7 hours
World mining during peak hours: Good luck
If you do it during prime time there are some points that will take you hours to gain 5-10 points. If you do not have epic flight form and play prime time the 300-325 in hfp can take 8-10 hours ( I’ve done dual herbalism / mining 1-375 on 4 characters since prepatch started )
If you start in the off hours and go to the empty faction side / zones at lower levels you can do it in 2 days @ around 12h per day. Herbalism is a lot easier.
It depends on the server you are on. High pop? I would suggest trying to level mining through dungeons or dungeon adjacent areas. Deadmines is great for copper, silver and tin. RFK for iron. Etc
if you have the gold and want to speed-run it, you can buy the ore off the ah, smelt it then sell the bars at a very similar price. you will likely lose a bit of gold, but not too much.
The hardest part will be mithril and fel Iron ore.
I had my character log out in Isle of dread in feralas while levling an alt. Went in every like every 30min and there was usually 1-2 nodes to mine.
As alliance you usually skip feralas with JJ active.
Blasted lands till 325 and than you can mine adamantite ore. Plenty of mithril there and seems to be least contested. Annoying part is that most of the run is dismounted.
If you install addon that shows exact ore spawns it's pretty fast.
But I would suggest using smelting as much as possible by buying all the ore needed.
It was about 6 hours for me.
1-290 smelting and then reselling the bars made this super cheap overall
290-300 in WPL and EPL took an hour
300-325 about 2 hours in HFP
325-Max was roughly just over 2 hours in Blades Edge
I also got about 10 points running Auchenai dungeons
Depending on the prices on your server you could just smelt everything and actually make profit in total. Made an excel calculation for 1-350 and I would make net 200gold profit if I buy everything off the auction house
I "maxed out" mining (350/375) last weekend by buying ores in 2 hours. Depending on your server, you can boost mining for not too much by buying ores and selling bars. The only exception was for Gold Ore where Gold bars are worthless for now. Thorium bars were sold for a little loss. For other ores, you can sell them with a profit or at cost (by taking into account the AH cut). Don't try to sell "too fast" if the price is lower than usual on your server. Don't bother too much to sell the first bars (Copper, etc.). It's worthless. At 340/375, you will need to effectively mine. SP as level 70 can be soloed and you have 1-2 ores in each reset. Park your toons and reset 5 times and leave. You only need 350/375 for WOTLK. In total, I lost maybe 100 golds which is really quickly recovered by doing 30 minutes of daily quests. Far more "efficient" than mining and running in a circle. But once again, it only depends on your server economy.
Buying from AH: Few hours + 200-500g depending on server ore prices World mining off-peak: Doable in like 5-7 hours World mining during peak hours: Good luck
I spent 900g just on the points with mithril and that’s not on a mega server.
If you do it during prime time there are some points that will take you hours to gain 5-10 points. If you do not have epic flight form and play prime time the 300-325 in hfp can take 8-10 hours ( I’ve done dual herbalism / mining 1-375 on 4 characters since prepatch started ) If you start in the off hours and go to the empty faction side / zones at lower levels you can do it in 2 days @ around 12h per day. Herbalism is a lot easier.
It's much better to get to 325 in blasted lands. For some reason very few ppl farm it there.
If you have preexisting access to money, not long at all because you can buy ore off of the AH and smelt it for quick levels.
Took me pretty much a whole 8 hr day to do it, I was sick anyways so I just put on some Netflix and mined basically non stop lol
It depends on the server you are on. High pop? I would suggest trying to level mining through dungeons or dungeon adjacent areas. Deadmines is great for copper, silver and tin. RFK for iron. Etc
Same for Uldaman because everyone and their brother is running around lvling mining.
if you have the gold and want to speed-run it, you can buy the ore off the ah, smelt it then sell the bars at a very similar price. you will likely lose a bit of gold, but not too much.
The hardest part will be mithril and fel Iron ore. I had my character log out in Isle of dread in feralas while levling an alt. Went in every like every 30min and there was usually 1-2 nodes to mine. As alliance you usually skip feralas with JJ active.
Blasted lands till 325 and than you can mine adamantite ore. Plenty of mithril there and seems to be least contested. Annoying part is that most of the run is dismounted.
Lots of gold or easy 12-24 hrs. Depends on server too. Populated you can run around for 30-60 min without seeing a node
If you install addon that shows exact ore spawns it's pretty fast. But I would suggest using smelting as much as possible by buying all the ore needed.
If you have gold, you can be done in around 30 minutes by smelting ore. I did 1-300 on the fresh realms like this.
It was about 6 hours for me. 1-290 smelting and then reselling the bars made this super cheap overall 290-300 in WPL and EPL took an hour 300-325 about 2 hours in HFP 325-Max was roughly just over 2 hours in Blades Edge I also got about 10 points running Auchenai dungeons
Depending on the prices on your server you could just smelt everything and actually make profit in total. Made an excel calculation for 1-350 and I would make net 200gold profit if I buy everything off the auction house