Mining
Swings pickaxes at 21 configured ore rocks - from stone and rune essence to runite - with per-rock break time, depletion chance and respawn timers.
Mining is where most of the game's raw material comes from. Ore feeds Smithing, rune essence feeds Runecrafting, uncut gems feed Crafting, and clay becomes soft clay and construction teleport tabs. Your level decides which pickaxe you can swing, which rocks you can break and how fast they break, and it opens the Motherlode Mine at 30 and the Mining Guild at 50. It is slow, steady and always in demand.
Level 1 to 120
Copper and tin to 15, iron to 30, then coal and gold through the forties. Fifty opens the Mining Guild, where mithril carries you to 65. From 65 graphite gives the most experience per rock you can break and stays the method all the way to 120, with adamant at 70 and runite at 85 worth mining for the ore rather than the rate. Upgrade your pickaxe at every tier, because the pickaxe decides how fast every rock breaks.
- Copper and tin at the Lumbridge Swamp mine 1 to 15
Nine experience a rock, three seconds a swing, and a bronze pickaxe from any general store is all you need. The swamp mine is the closest to where you start. Rimmington, the Al Kharid mine and the Dwarven Mine hold both rocks as well, and Barbarian Village has tin.
- Iron 15 to 30
Sixteen experience a rock at six seconds, with an iron pickaxe at 10 and a steel one at 20. The Al Kharid mine, Rimmington and the Dwarven Mine all hold iron. Doric's Quest is 1,300 mining experience for six clay, four copper ore and two iron ore delivered to him outside Taverley.
- Coal 30 to 40
Thirty-four experience a rock, and a mithril pickaxe becomes available at 30. Coal sits at Barbarian Village, in the Al Kharid mine and, once you can get in, in the Mining Guild. Every steel, mithril, adamant and rune bar burns it, so nothing you mine here goes to waste.
- The Motherlode Mine 30 to 50
Level 30 to get in, in the caves under Falador. Pay-dirt does not come loose on every rock, so the raw rate is modest, but you tip it into the input chest and draw coal, gold, mithril, adamant and runite back out, plus golden nuggets. Your mining level decides both how often the dirt comes loose and how good the ore in the sack is.
- Gold, then mithril in the Mining Guild 40 to 65
Gold is 56 experience at 40, mithril 72 at 50. Level 50 also opens the Mining Guild under Falador, which keeps coal, gold and mithril in one place, so it is where you sit for this whole stretch. A rune pickaxe unlocks at 50 as well.
- Graphite 65 to 120
One hundred and eight experience a rock and quicker to break than mithril, which makes it the best experience in the skill and keeps it best all the way to 120. Graphite also replaces the entire coal cost of an adamant or rune bar at the furnace, so bank anything you do not smelt yourself.
- Adamant and runite 70 to 120
One hundred and forty-eight and 206 experience, but adamant takes close to thirty seconds to break and a minute to come back, and runite is slower on both counts. Mine them for the ore, not the rate. Adamant sits in the Al Kharid mine, Rimmington and the Dwarven Mine, and the Dwarven Mine also holds the single runite rock.
The sweet spot
While you work a rock a small marker sits on one corner of the face you are breaking. Keep your crosshair on it and you take bonus experience every second, worth about a quarter of the rock again across a full break, plus a streak bonus that grows the longer you hold it. Look away and the streak resets to nothing, so an attentive rock is worth a good deal more than an idle one.
Kit that changes the numbers
The pickaxe is the biggest single change. Each tier needs the matching mining level to swing, and a dragon pickaxe at 70 cuts a swing to well under half a bronze one, with the 3rd age pickaxe at 85 faster still. Dragon pickaxes are a very rare drop from dragons and high-level bosses. The black pickaxe comes from easy clue scrolls, the gilded pickaxe from elite and master ones, and the 3rd age pickaxe from master. A mining store sells pickaxes up to mithril over the counter, along with copper, tin, iron and coal ore.
Golden nuggets from the Motherlode Mine buy the prospector set, which adds a small experience bonus to every rock, stacks piece by piece and pays an extra bump for the full four, and makes pay-dirt rocks last longer. The same shop sells an ore bag that holds 27 ore and fills itself as you mine, a gem bag for 54 uncut gems, and a mining sack upgrade. A gems necklace raises your chance at uncut gems until its charges run out and it crumbles to dust.
What mining feeds
Ore becomes bars at a furnace, which is the whole first half of Smithing. Rune essence, 3 experience a block from level 1 and mined in the Rune Essence Mine, is the entire input to Runecrafting. Uncut gems come out of ore rocks as a rare extra and go to Crafting: sapphires from the lowest rocks, emeralds from iron, coal and silver upward, rubies from gold and graphite, diamonds from mithril, adamant and runite. Clay makes soft clay with a bucket of water, and construction teleport tabs each need one.
Worth knowing
- Once your mining level is 20 above a rock's requirement you keep swinging automatically instead of clicking again for every ore.
- Sneak while mining with a dragon pickaxe to spend special attack energy and take the ore in a single hit.
- Ore spirits turn up while you mine tin, copper, iron, coal, silver, gold, mithril, adamant and runite. Carry the spirit matching the ore you are on and it is spent for a second ore.
- A meat pizza makes rocks break faster for your next 40 swings, and a tuna potato does the same across mining, woodcutting, fishing and farming.
The full table
XP is shown wherever it is fixed.
