Talk:Prospecting

Hi,

First thing done with my wow wiki account. Anyway, I have read through the Prospecting page and it makes sense, I wonder though, you left out the special rare minerals like silver, gold and truesilver. Will Jewelers be able to prospect using half stacks of these raw ores?

Just wondering.

Thanks.

Kawaihae

The ability specifies that the ore must be of a base metal. Gold and truesilver are clearly not base metals, since they can be created by alchemists. As for silver, not certain, but since it too is a green ore, it probably can't be prospected. --Silverpie 09:33, 4 December 2006 (EST)

-- Interesting what you say about alchemists. But alchemists use smelted bars as a reagent (not raw ore), and turn iron bars into gold bars, etc. I guess we'll have to see unless someone from the expansion can confirm or deny what happens to prospectiing a half stack of gold, silver, or truesilver ore. --Kawaihae

Silverpie is correct, only the base ore can be transmuted. The uncommon (or green) ores Silver, Gold, Truesilver (and from Burning Crusade) Eternium Ore cannot be prospected. --Eltari 19:20, 11 December 2006 (EST)

Dark Iron Ore cant be prospected either (and probably not Elementium) --Jops

Neither Eternium nor Khorium is prospectable. In conclusion only the white-coloured (common) ores are prospectable, none of the green (uncommon) ones are. --Dreamshine 08:32, 24 February 2007 (EST)

-- Added list over non-prosectable gems. --Jops 13:59, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

On "rare blue gems"
You have listed that you can get blue gems from prospecting Adamantite, but you can also get it from Fel Iron (I just did this). Maybe it's just unclear, but it sounds like you can't get blue gems from Fel Iron.

Yes, you can most definitely get blue gems out of Fel Iron. Apparently at a lower rate than Adamantite Ore, but I've gotten many blue gems out of many, many, many Fel Iron prospectings.

-- Added all gems for Fel Iron Ore and Adamantite Ore, droprates taken from wowhead.com --Jops 13:54, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

Azerothian Diamond
I managed to see an Azerothian Diamond prospect off Mithril Exor674 19:01, 6 March 2007 (EST)

--- I can confirm this as well. Just prospected about 80 ore and got 1 azerothian diamond as well.

Targetting gems
The table here that identifies what gems drop from which ores is great. However, is it possible to have a table included going the other way, ie, for a gem type, which ores will drop it. This would help jewelcrafters immensely if they can identify the ore to prospect if they need a particular gem.

I'd do it myself, but tables in Wiki are a bit beyond my abilities atm.

Deep Peridot
In the same respect to finding the Azerothian Diamond in mithril, I've also found a deep peridot in mithril, albeit only once. Perhaps it could be added as a prospect.

Other Useful Prospecting Facts
The information on prospecting is quite useful so far, but here are a couple of points that I think would be good additions.

First, only gems that are usable by jewelcracters can be produced by prospecting. Black Vitriol and Arcane Crystals (are there any others?) must still be mined.

Second, while the breakdown of gem frequencies is nice, I think it would also be useful to note that overall, the prospecting conversion rate is approximately 4 pieces of ore to 1 gem. It's better than 5:1 because of the relatively frequent occurence of multiple gems.

Finally, it should probably be noted that prospecting occasionally results in no gems at all.

Cost to Learn
Haven't been playing long... went to learn this skill and it cost me instead of. Is there anything that would impact the cost before I update the main page? --Kanntara 20:32, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

This price is affected the same way any price from any trainer/vendor that is factioned is: Assume the base price is 1s:  Those that are friendly with that faction receive a 5% discount (making it 95c), Honored folks receive 10% (90c, your likely scenario), Revered nets you 15%, and once you finally reach Exalted, you are rewarded with a 20% discount. --Lywellyn 13:07, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Skill-up
Hi,

I don't believe that prospecting ore ever gives skill-up points for JC like disenchanting can. I wanted to know that when I was researching starting a JC. Can anyone confirm that? I haven't seen a blue post on it.

Wiggington 17:37, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Problem reports list - #36920
This page cites wowhead.com for the drop rates on the prospects and it's numbers don't quite match, which is a minor issue as the rates are similar. (I believe there to be a simple explanation like people prosepcting without enough room in their bags which is throwing off the numbers.)

The adamantite and titanium powders are not listed.

The drop percentages are listed, but the drop rates are not. [From Wowheard) All Northrend ores prospect for 1-2 gems of the each type, except for Cobalt Ore, which on


 * The numbers don't match, cause unlike a database site, numbers here don't change daily/weekly. Whenever someone adds the info using %s from wowhead those numbers would have been current as of that date. 00:05, September 12, 2010 (UTC)