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1-99 Mining Guide

Runescape 3 Mining

Mining is a gathering skill that lets you harvest ores and gems for other skills. Smithing and Construction use ores while Crafting uses gems. Leveling this skill up can supply you with the materials you need for those other skills, which can cut down training costs.

The higher your Mining skill, the faster you can harvest nodes and the higher level ores and gems you can get. Here’s how to level up efficiently and obtain that skill cape.

Some Items and Equipment to Consider

These items will significantly increase your leveling efficiency. They are only an absolute necessity if you want to rush through the process or have a ton of gold to spare.

Pickaxes - Your primary Mining tool. Always use your best one, and have it enhanced as much as possible. That ensures that you constantly have the highest damage output while Mining. With 22 Invention, you can augment your Pickaxes with Honed or Furnace + Fortune to help with skilling.

Ore Boxes - It stores metal ores, freeing up your inventory for other things. A fully-upgraded one can store up to 140 ores. Activate it by putting it on the action bar and clicking it there. You can have more than one, but you can only use one at a time.

Magic Notepaper - This automatically notes your ores, freeing up inventory space. Useful if you want to sell raw ores.

Varrock Armor* - You get this when completing the various Varrock Achievements. The body armor sometimes doubles the ore you get, which has the side effect of doubling the XP you gain. You can also do the easy New Varrock Achievements to get its effects without equipping the armor. Those tasks become available after starting Dimension of Disaster.

Golden Mining Suit* - Wearing the whole armor set gives you a 6% bonus to Mining XP. That’s 1% per piece and another 1% for wearing the complete suit.

Golem Outfits* - With 80 Mining and 20 Invention, you can get pieces of these outfits by combining Gemstone Golem Fragments. Otherwise, you could obtain them through Treasure Hunter. There are four types: Sapphire, Emerald, Ruby, and Magic. The last can be made by combining the other three’s pieces, providing better bonuses.

Tagga’s Corehammer - A skilling off-hand that adds 10% crit hit chance and 35 crit damage when Mining. When used on cores, it allows one to obtain Deathspore arrow tips.

Signs of the Porter - Teleports most ore types to your bank. It has charges that get used up, which can be increased with Grace of the Elves (500) or the Dark Facet of Grace (2,000). The porters also charge some gold for their service (Divination level dependent), which is why some prefer noting ores instead.

Mining Cape - Useful only for those wanting to reach the invisible 120/200 cap. You can only get it when you attain level 99, so it is too late to help with leveling.

Brooch of the Gods - It can store up to 1000 decorated mining urns and increases the Rockertunity multiplier by 1. Sometimes spawns a divine blessing that provides invention components.

Summoning Familiars - Some add the damage you deal per swing when called. Those are the Desert Wyrm, Void Ravager, Obsidian Golem, Gargoyle, and Lava Titan. The Waterfiend familiar can also be helpful by duplicating gathered ores and storing 20 of them. The Waterfiend Scroll (Straight Flush) can teleport those ores straight to your bank for 6 special move points.

Urns - These get filled as you mine. When full, you can teleport them away to get a portion of the XP you gained while filling it. You can have 10 full urns in your inventory but must teleport some away if you want to load more. They get filled one by one. There are five types.

Urn Enhancer - Provides a 25% boost to the XP you earn from urns. Obtainable with 24 Invention and completion Nomad’s Elegy. It costs 20 charges.

Mining Accumulator - Players can create these with 50 Invention and 25 dwarven currencies to unlock the blueprint. Every critical hit you make charges it up by 1%. When complete, you can study it for some Mining XP.

Rock-Crushing Scrimshaw - Boosts your critical hit chance. Has two types: Inferior and Superior. Only the former is tradeable; Fletching is required to make the latter.

Juju Mining Potion - Gives a chance to spawn a Stone Spirit of the ore you’re mining. Spirits replenish your Mining Stamina when consumed after using the Perfect variants.

Powerburst of Opportunity - Doubles Rockertunity effects for the next 15 seconds.

Torstol Incense Sticks - Increases XP gain (0.5% per level). Levels increase every 10 mins with a maximum of 4 (total 2% gain to EXP). You can overload by using 6 sticks to jump to the max level.

Quarrymaster Aura - Obtained by exchanging Membership Loyalty Points. Increases critical hit chance depending on its tier. Lower ones must be owned to get higher ones.

Skillchompas - Boosts critical hit damage but gets consumed in the process.

Crystallize - After completing The Light Within quest, you can access Seren spells and prayers. One of those is Crystallize, which increases the Mining experience by 20%, but you don’t get ore. It lasts 30 seconds, and you can cast it on a Rockertunity to stack the effects. It costs 6 of the following runes (24 total): Water, Fire, Chaos, and Soul. Using staves can cut the price. You can use the spell on any rock but Coal, Silver, and Gold ores.

Light Form - A Seren Prayer that enhances the effects of Seren spells. Casting this and using Crystallize will double the latter’s bonuses, from 20% to 40%. However, you’ll need several Prayer Potions to keep it up while skilling. This can become quite expensive when combined with the rune costs of the previous spell.

Strength-Enhancing Potions - These increase your Strength and thereby increase your Mining efficiency.

Relic Powers - With 117 Archaeology, players can activate the Inspire Effort relic. This provides a 2% increase in Mining XP gain, which can be done at the Mysterious Monolith.

Anachronia Dinosaur Farm Perks - The Scimitops and Asciatops perks can help with Mining.

Pontifex Rings - These rings shorten the interval between Rockertunities, and upgraded ones increase your luck. The final upgrade also increases the spawn rate of Rockertunities. However, the exact values and mechanics still need to be determined.

Ring of Whispers - Gives +3 Mining Damage per swing.

*The armor sets can have stacking effects even when the others aren’t worn. Having the Gold Suit also gives the effects of Varrock Armor. The Golem Outfit provides you with the other sets’ bonuses and its own. However, you must also own the other sets for this to take effect.

Pay-to-Play Leveling Method

Since there’s only one way to level up, here’s when to change what you’re mining.

  • 1-10: Copper and Tin
  • 10-20: Iron
  • 20-30: Coal
  • 30-40: Mithril
  • 40-50: Adamantite and Lumite
  • 50-60: Runite
  • 60-70: Orichalcite and Drakolith
  • 70-80: Phasmitite and Necrite
  • 80-90: Banite
  • 89-97: Corrupted Ore
  • 90-97: Light and Dark Animica
  • 97-99+: Alaea Crablets

It’s pretty straightforward. Mine whatever node, and switch if a Rockertunity appears nearby. Use whatever boosts you have and upgrade your pickaxe when you reach specific levels.

Alaea Crablets can be found on Uncharted Isles. This requires the completion of the quest ‘Impressing the Locals’ and the ‘Flag Fall’ miniquest. You must first gather some Chimes from skilling in The Arc, which you can exchange for the supplies to go on a voyage.

When you find an island with Crablets, you can claim the island to return to it (costs 3 supplies). There can be at most three colonies of Alaea Crablets on an island, especially if you went on a long voyage. You can mine one colony for around 35 minutes before they deplete and respawn at midnight (UTC).

Selling the Alaea Sea Salt you get from the Crablets will fund you enough chimes to sustain your comings and goings to find more Crablets. It’s an autonomous method.

Alternatives

Wilderness Warbands

This activity is dangerous, as it takes place in the Wilderness. The aim is to infiltrate a camp and loot supplies. You can turn in these supplies to Quercus and get experience in exchange. The XP you get depends on what kind of loot you turn in, so you want to get and submit Mining supplies. This becomes available every 7 hours.

There are calculators for the experience you can get from this activity, which lets you know whether it’s worth it. After all, you must run through the Wilderness with the loot since you can’t teleport or log out with the supplies in your inventory. This leaves you vulnerable to player killers, as you get skulled once you grab some of the needed items.

However, you can also turn it around and attack other participants to get extra supplies. It’s a risk-reward balance you should decide for yourself.

Cabbage Facepunch Bonanza

This minigame awards you Renown you can exchange for skill experience. Depending on your luck, skill, and other players joining you, you can get anywhere from 3k-198k experience. It’s a broad range because the exchange rate has your skill level as a basis.

Your objective is to cross the arena in 1 minute and 10 seconds. Various obstacles and traps will hinder you, and some Gorilla Guards can chase you down. Besides that, maximizing your renown gain means finding Cabbage Trophies scattered across the area.

Stealing Creation

Proto-Tools and Volatile Clay Tools can help you gain Mining XP, though only if they form the correct tool. Cooperation in the minigame helps to finish it early and faster, so you can play more games in an hour. Use the reward points to get these tools and get the bonus experience. Most efficient with 80 Mining, Hunter, Fishing, and Woodcutting to gather clay from all sources.

Barbarian Assault

It’s possible to earn Mining experience in the Hard mode of this minigame. It will cost six Barbarian Assault Tickets - Hard Wave 10, but it’s worth it for 1M+ experience. However, that’s for level 99, so you’ll likely get way less.

Daeyalt Ore

After the quest ‘The Darkness of Hallowvale,’ players can access the Daeyalt section of the Meiyerditch Mine. They can mine this ore at level 20 Mining, and this method is purely AFK. It doesn’t provide any Rockertunities nor generate geodes, so you don’t have to watch it. Also, that leaves you some free space for incense or Mining Urns. However, if you haven’t completed the ‘River of Blood,’ you must pay a toll of 15 Daeyalt ore to exit the mine.

Menaphos Worker District Mining

The mine is located where it says on the tin, the Worker District of Menaphos. It contains 3 concentrated sandstone rocks (level 50 to mine). With enough reputation, you can also use the VIP skilling area to travel quickly to a bank.

Solid Crystal Mining

At level 75 Mining, during or after ‘The Light Within’ quest, you can mine Solid Crystal in the Tarddiad. Have Angof turn the Crystal Shapeshifters non-aggressive, so you don’t get disturbed while you collect fragments. Along with being able to train Mining, you can exchange the pieces for Tarddian crystals, which is for repairing or buying Crystal Armor.

Free-to-Play Leveling Methods

F2P players have more limited options, but some armor sets remain owned even if the bonds have expired. Still, they’re reduced to using Urns, Magic Notepaper, and Gemstone Golem outfits.

Still, training the skill remains mostly the same. Use the best and most upgraded pickaxe available, and use whatever you have on hand. Here is what you should mine at what levels.

  • 1-10: Copper and Tin
  • 10-20: Iron
  • 20-30: Coal
  • 30-40: Mithril
  • 40-50: Adamantite and Luminite
  • 50-99: Runite

Occasionally, you might encounter a Shooting Star (or your friend tells you about one). It’s an excellent source of Mining XP, which you can do at any point in your leveling journey.

Quests You Can Do for Mining XP

Only one is available for F2P players: What’s Mine is Yours. Members can access these quests that award Mining XP:

  • The Tale of the Muspah
  • Boric’s Task I-III
  • Legacy of Seergaze
  • Plague City
  • The Giant Dwarf
  • Heroes’ Quest
  • Another Slice of H.A.M.
  • The Lost Tribe
  • Between a Rock…
  • Summer’s End
  • A Void Dance
  • Enakhra’s Lament
  • Defender of Varrock
  • Rebuilding Edgeville
  • Kennith’s Concerns
  • TokTz-Ket-Dill
  • The Dig Site
  • The Curse of Arrav
  • Ritual of the Mahjarrat
  • King of the Dwarves
  • Plague’s End
  • Nomad’s Elegy
  • River of Blood
  • The Brink of Extinction
  • Birthright of the Dwarves

And with that, you have everything you need to level Mining quickly and efficiently.

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