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As we run a number of twinks, and WotLK released gathering profession buffs, some of our twinks are close to the dreaded ding into the next bracket. One of my twinks is so close that 7 discoveries would level me into the next bracket. As I had 225 mining early on as a consequence of leveling engineering with no ‘main’ account that could mine, I was able to grab the 300 training from the trainer in Orgrimmar before WoW was patched to disallow this. After an uprising, Blizzard removed the limits and allowed characters of any level to max out their gathering skills.

As with any smelting/mining guide, there are holes where you are required to mine to get past a number of grey levels.

From 1 to 450 with minimal experience gains:

If you have Stonetalon Mountains/The Charred Vale discovered, there is Mithril and Truesilver that spawns within and you can easily get your mining above 270 just running around the outer edge and the few nodes that are within. As a 19, you probably never quested here, but, most 29s will already have discovered this area. You can save a lot of smelting from 220-275. There is also Iron, Copper and Tin within this area which you can sell on the Auction House to offset your smelting materials, or, to make engineering gadgets.

There are two areas that have Rich Thorium Veins that are covered under one discovery area. Since you are not required to go to the Outlands for any mining, you save discovering the trainer location, a Fel Iron mining location and an Adamantite mining location. Three discoveries could be the difference between having 375 mining and 450 mining on some twinks.

The first area that has five Rich Thorium Veins that spawn on a 15 minute timer is Fire Plume Ridge in Ungoro Crater.

There are also a number of other Rich Thorium Veins in Hive’Regal in Silithus on a similar timer, with a lot more mobs that would need to be cleared. There are more ore spawns and at any one time, three appear to be available every 20 minutes.

If you were to pick one location, I think Fire Plume Ridge is a little easier to get to, you can camp your main nearby, clear the mobs, do a quick search, log in with your twink and mine the Rich Thorium.

As a result, you should be able to avoid 3 discovery areas in the Outlands, bringing the total areas required for 450 mining to two areas. One in Un’goro Crater, one near your trainer in Northrend. If you have the room to discover one other area in Northrend, Sholazar Basin has a number of Saronite nodes. If you want to be extremely safe, pick the right-hand five nodes and do not cross the road. On the other side of the road is an encampment which is a discovery zone. The five nodes spawn relatively quickly and are camped quite heavily, but, there are no aggressive mobs near them. The easternmost spawn does have a mob that patrols nearby, but, if you wait until they are at the far end, you can get one tap on the mine and loot and run back until the mob is at the other end of its patrol again.

* pwndepot.com provided the Saronite Map in the following post thanks to Santreal.
* thenoobschool.com provided some of the information required to develop the smelting table. Numbers used above were tested on a few twinks.
* twinkinfo.com has a relatively good guide for Mining 1-450 without as much concern for discovery areas.

Any newly created twink shouldn’t have discovery problems, but, any old-school twink that is close to dinging may be able to get 450 mining if they can afford a discovery or two and have already quested in some of the areas.