Mining/Training

This page is out of date (v0.15.3).

This article is about training the Mining skill. For the skill itself, see Mining.

Mining is used to obtain ores and gems. To start Mining no requirements are needed.

Pickaxes

Upgrading your pickaxe should be done whenever you have the possibility to. The upgrades are available in the shop.

Equipment

If available to the player then rings such as Aorpheats Signet Ring, Ancient Ring of Skills, or Ancient Ring of Mastery should be equipped depending on whether the player prioritizes item, skill experience, or mastery experience gain.

In addition Clue Chasers Insignia may be equipped to increase the drop rate of Mastery Tokens, and also very slightly increase the rate of gem drops if not using Gem Gloves.

Gloves

Mining offers two alternative Gloves. Which can be found in the shop.

Training

Mining → Runecrafting & Smithing

This method opens up the option to train Smithing and Runecrafting after Mining training has been completed. The key here is to get 500,000 to purchase Gem Gloves to provide a steady source of gems and therefore passive income while Mining. Some sort of Money Making method is advised to fund the initial purchase of gloves. If in need of money, the gems gained from using Gem Gloves can be sold to fund the repurchase of gloves, however note that it is recommended to at least keep any Diamonds as they are useful in the late game for Diamond Luck potions.

When first starting with Mining, it is recommended to use any Mastery Pool experience to increase the Mastery level of rock(s) that are currently being mined (or rocks that will soon be mined) to around level 30-40. This is because each Mastery level increases the Rock HP, greatly reducing the amount of time spent waiting for rocks to respawn while Mining (as respawning will occur less frequently). In the later levels, it is more beneficial to save pool experience for the Mastery pool checkpoint bonuses.

Level 1-15: Copper/Tin Ore

Mine either Tin Ore or Copper Ore. Ideally, an equal amount of tin and copper will be mined in order to create Bronze Bars for training Smithing later.

Level 15-30: Iron Ore

Mine Iron Ore until you unlock Coal Ore.

Level 30-50: Coal Ore

Mine Coal Ore until you unlock Mithril Ore. Any Coal Ore mined will be needed for Smithing training later.

Level 50-99: Mithril Ore

From here on it is recommended to mine Mithril Ore with Gem Gloves equipped all the way until Level 99. This is because:

Mithril is key for Smithing training, consuming significantly less Coal Ore per bar than higher tier bars
The rock respawn time of Runite Ore and Dragonite Ore (60 seconds and 120 seconds respectively) is significantly higher than that for Mithril Ore (20 seconds), which harms the rate of experience gained
The required Coal Ore necessary to smelt the large amount of Mithril Bars needed later will be obtained once Level 99 has been reached, taking advantage of the Mining Skillcape perk

Once 99 Mining is achieved, the Mining Skillcape becomes available for purchase from the Shop. When equipped, this provides 1 extra Coal Ore for each ore mined.

Level 99: Rune Essence

With the Mining Skillcape equipped you have to mine about 330,000 Rune Essence for Level 99.[1] Gem Gloves do not work with Rune Essence, therefore if affordable the Mining Gloves are a good alternative to speed up the process.

[1] This number was calculated before the Mastery rework (patch V0.17). Approximately half as much Rune Essence (160,000) is required for Level 99. A new number is yet to be calculated, but it could be as low as 120-140k.

Level 99: Coal ore

After mining Rune Essence, about 235,000 Coal Ore will still be needed. Equipping Gem Gloves while mining this is recommended.

Mining Rune Essence and Glove Use

This section and table was developed by soup#8068.
Assumptions:

The player is wearing the mining cape and has no double drops, no gem drops outside gem gloves.
1.3 sec/action.
Avg. profit of 131 gp/charge of gem gloves.

Mining Resource	No gloves	Mining Gloves (MG)	MG Essence, Coal	MG Essence, Gem Gloves Coal
Essence (Mining Actions)	165,000	82,500	82,500	82,500
Coal (Mining Actions)	37,500	52,500	78,750	78,750

Action Total	202,500	135,000	161,250	161,250
Action Delta	0	67,500	41,250	41,250

Time Total (hrs)	73.125	47.750	56.88	56.88
Time Delta (hrs)	0	24.375	14.890	14.890

Cost Total	0	20,250,000	12,375,000	2,058,750
Approx Cost (Gp/hr)	0	415,000	212,000	35,000

The player should use mining gloves to mine essence, and then gem gloves for coal. A total investment of ~ 2 MGp saves ~15 hrs of time.
Furthermore, if the player has an excess of money, or access to money making methods to make in excess of 415k/hr (99 Fishing, 99 Woodcutting), then using mining gloves for all mining actions is a more efficient use of time.

Melvor Idle version v0.19.2 (Released: 1st April 2021)