Which Ores Are Worth Your Time

Mining advice ages worse than any other kind, because the thing that makes an ore valuable at the start of an expansion is exactly the thing that disappears three months in. Here is what the price history actually did, and what still works now that it has happened.

Every current ore lost most of its value between March and July 2026. Not some of them. All of them, by between 80% and 92%, while the amount listed on the Auction House went up rather than down.

Ore	March 2026 average	July 2026 average	Change	Units listed, March	Units listed, July
Refulgent Copper Ore, lower rank	39.38g	7.65g	-81%	461,182	598,324
Refulgent Copper Ore, higher rank	131.14g	29.63g	-77%	88,142	216,947
Dazzling Thorium	210.47g	17.38g	-92%	43,225	67,848

That combination, falling price with rising supply, is the signature of a market that has been solved. Enough people learned the routes, enough alts hit maximum skill, and the material stopped being scarce. It is completely normal, it happens every expansion, and it is why a guide written in March is actively misleading by August.

Dazzling Thorium is the clearest casualty. It was the ore every list recommended, and it gave up more than nine tenths of its value in four months. Any guide still describing it as the strong pick is quoting a market that no longer exists.

The part that did not collapse

Something did survive the decline, and it is the thing worth building a plan on.

The premium for the higher quality rank held steady the whole way down. Gathered ore comes in quality ranks, and the higher rank consistently sells for roughly 3 times the lower one. That ratio has been remarkably stable while the absolute prices fell off a cliff.

Here is the current state of every rank pair, on 31 August 2026:

Ore	Lower rank	Higher rank	Lower rank units	Higher rank units
Refulgent Copper Ore	5 gold10 silver	19 gold72 silver	661,902	518,539
Umbral Tin Ore	7 gold	22 gold5 silver	378,152	149,922
Brilliant Silver Ore	6 gold59 silver	20 gold88 silver	368,414	228,223
Dazzling Thorium	10 gold	single rank	96,853	n/a

Compare that to herbs, where the rank premium swings from about 37% on one herb to roughly 40 times on another. Ore is boringly consistent. Every pair here sits near the same multiple.

That consistency is genuinely useful, because it removes a decision. With herbs you have to work out which one rewards gathering skill. With ore, they all reward it about equally, so the rank premium tells you nothing about which vein to mine. Skill investment pays off across the board, and you pick your target on something else entirely.

Pick on depth instead

With the premium roughly equal everywhere, market depth is the only differentiator left, and one ore stands out clearly.

Refulgent Copper Ore has the deepest market on the list at both ranks. The lower rank carries the most units of anything here, and unusually the higher rank is nearly as deep. That is rare. On most materials the valuable rank is also the thin one, which caps how much of it you can actually sell. Refulgent Copper does not have that ceiling.

Brilliant Silver Ore is the reasonable second choice for the same reason, with a higher rank that stays comfortably deep.

Umbral Tin Ore splits more sharply. Its lower rank is deep, its higher rank considerably less so, which makes it the weakest of the three if quality is what you are chasing.

Dazzling Thorium sits apart from all of them. One rank, the thinnest market on the list, and the steepest decline in the table above. It is what is left of last quarter's recommendation.

What to mine

Mine Refulgent Copper Ore and push quality. The higher rank is worth about 3 times the lower one, and unlike almost every other material, the market for that higher rank is deep enough to take everything you can produce. That combination is the whole argument.

Take Brilliant Silver Ore when your route offers it. Same premium, slightly less depth, no real downside.

Do not build a session around Dazzling Thorium. It is thin, it has fallen 92% since March, and the reason it appears on so many lists is that those lists were written when it was worth twelve times more.

The broader lesson is worth carrying into the next expansion. When a material is new, price is high and supply is thin, and the guides all point at it. Neither of those conditions survives. What survives is the quality-rank premium and the depth of the market, which is why those are the two numbers to build on and price is the one to check last.

Checking it yourself

Every claim here is readable from the site in under two minutes. Open the materials index, filter to ore, and look at listed quantity before you look at anything else. Then open the item page for the exact rank you gather and read the 90-day history, which is where the decline above is visible.

Ore is a commodity, so it is priced across the whole region rather than server by server. There is one ore market and everyone in the region trades in it.

For the reasoning in general form, how to read auction house price data covers the four numbers that decide any market, and why a high herb price is not a good farm works through the same supply trap on the herb side.

FAQ

Which ore is the best to mine right now?

Refulgent Copper Ore, because its higher quality rank carries both the premium and the market depth to sell that premium in volume. Most materials give you one or the other.

Is Dazzling Thorium still worth farming?

It has lost about 92% of its value since March 2026 and has the thinnest market of the current ores. Mine it when you pass it. It does not justify a route.

Why did every ore price fall at once?

Because supply caught up. More players reached maximum Mining skill, the routes became common knowledge, and listed quantities rose. Prices falling while supply rises is the normal maturation of an expansion's materials, not a crash.

Do Mining specialisation talents pay off?

Yes, and evenly. The higher quality rank sells for roughly 3 times the lower one across every current ore, so quality investment pays about the same regardless of which you mine.

Will prices recover?

Not usually within an expansion. Supply keeps growing as more players reach maximum skill. The reliable earnings come from the rank premium and from selling into deep markets, not from waiting for a rebound.