Thorium Ore and the Best Routes for Farming Them as of 9.2

FAQ

What are your PC specs?

• You can find them on my PC specs page.

What addons are used for farming Thorim Ore in WoW?

• The addon Routes.
• The addon FarmHUD.
• The addons Gathermate2 and WoWGatheringNodes.

Is this a Thorium Ore mining route for Classic WoW?

No. I play retail, not Classic World of Warcraft, so these routes might not be the ones for you to go by.

In case they aren’t, you might want to check out VanillaGuides, as they might have updated Mining routes for Classic.

What professions benefit from Mining?

• Alchemy
• Jewelcrafting

First off, Mining, because you can’t exactly mine without said profession to begin with. Though you can still possibly acquire ore through other means–such as treasures and chests you pick up while fishing. Not to mention some mobs that can actually be mined for the ore as well.

Not as speedy as far as gathering goes, though.

Jewelcrafting allows you to prospect ore in stacks of five (5), in order to obtain gems, which in turn a Jewelcrafter can craft items out of. Now, some of the gems obtained from Thorium Ore actually sell for a decent chunk on the AH, so that’s something to think about. Others not so much, but they’re always good for making rings and necklaces.

With Alchemy, there’s one potion that can increase your armor for a short period of time. Good for PvP and possibly certain PvE situations, if you’re a tank.

What else can you get from farming Thorium Ore?

You have a chance of gathering Arcane Crystal, Azerothian Diamond, Black Vitriol, Blue Sapphire, Huge Emerald, Large Opal, and Star Ruby.

Maps, Routes, and Data

Reduced resolution
The routes in this section offer you full view of the maps in question, at a reduced resolution of 1280×720. In order to get the full resolution of 2560×1440, you’ll need to purchase my In-Depth Farming Guide. It offers a variety of routes for each zone, with all the data I’ve accumulated over the years of farming.

• My miner is a Horde druid, thus giving faster in-and-out flight form.
• Mining skill isn’t high enough? Then you’ll gather Thorium Ore Nugget.
• Overall farming time per zone: 30 minutes.

Eastern Kingdoms

There’s only one zone in the Eastern Kingdoms worth farming for this ore, but it’s not the number one place. In fact, I thought of not putting it on here at all, but I found a way to make it work.

Swamp of Sorrows

You’re going to want to gather every single mining node you find in this zone, in order for the respawn to kick in after a complete look around the route. Which means you’ll be needing to go into the cave and gather all the ore in there, as well as everything on the outside.

Stay alert for the alliance and horde camps this route comes close to.

• Thorium Ore – 218

Kalimdor

Here’s the continent with all of the zones that grant the most amount of ore. The positives with the above, is not many people are going to farm a route with bad respawn value, which makes it so the zones below might have more competition.

Silithus

I love farming this location because it nets a ton of Thorium, however, there are several ore in underground hives that I don’t go into. Despite this, the amount of ore you can get in this zone is great. Also, you don’t get too close to any opposing faction areas.

• Thorium Ore – 500

Un’goro Crater

I’m actually surprised Un’Goro didn’t net as much ore as I’d thought it would. The nodes aren’t as clustered and close together as the ones in Silithus, however it’s a very simplistic route that circles the border of the zone. So much so, that you wouldn’t even need to follow a route.

• Thorium Ore – 364

Winterspring

This route in Winterspring isn’t a bad one and can net you a lot of ore. This zone has a lot of trees that could get in the way of your finding one of the ore nodes, but that’s the only annoyance. Initially, I’d had three routes to follow–one for the upper area, one for the lower, and the third that connected both–but to simplify it for you, here’s the one.

The first route I created, which deals with the lower section, can be found on my In-Depth Farming Guide.

• Thorium Ore – 378

Professions

If you’re curious as to how much gold you can possibly gain from the items listed below, you can always check out The Undermine Journal, choose your region, and then your realm. After that, search for the items below and see what they’ve been selling for lately.

Alchemy

Greater Stoneshield Potion
Skill: 280 | Usable | Learned via World Drop
With a boost in defense that lasts 15 seconds with a pretty short cooldown, this potion can be helpful for tanks in dungeons, as well as certain instances in BGs.

Requires:

• (2) Stonescale Oil
• (1) Thorium Ore
• (1) Crystal Vial

Jewelcrafting

Due to how much of this ore you can obtain in so many zones, it’s one of the best stacks of ore that you can prospect into gems. So if you’ve got Mining, and you’ve got JC, and you need gems, use the ore to your advantage.

Mining

Thorium Bar (via Thorium Bar)
Used by Blacksmithing, Jewelcrafting, Enchanting, Alchemy, Mining.
This bar has a ton of uses for a variety of professions, but it mainly helps out the blacksmithers. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t craft other helpful items in other crafting professions though.

Requires:

• (1) Thorium Ore