Ore Galore!

I have mining on three of my level 80's, but I don't actually farm ore. Mining is basically an easy way for my characters to get 60 stamina and a titansteel cool down. I used to farm herbs when my paladin was a herbalist. I never minded farming herbs because there always seemed to be another node just around the corner, also herbs weren’t farmed by tons of people on my server. As far as ore goes, I pick it up when I see it, but I don't go looking for it. This is basically due to ore being farmed like crazy on my server. It's like every node I spot gets taken by someone else before I get there.

Prior to patch 3.3 saronite was basically useless. People would farm saronite, but they were really looking for titanium. The same reason herbs are mostly useless, people are looking for frost lotus. 3.3 let alchemists transmute saronite into titanium. After 3.3, It became cheaper to buy saronite and transmute titanium, then to actually buy titanium ore/bars. One can even make a profit transmuting titanium and reposting the bars on the AH. I figured there would be a few weeks of this until prices of saronite increased, and prices of titanium dropped. While the prices have started to equalize, the best titanium for your dollar is still transmuting ore. Based on higher prices of saronite ore, I need to assume two things. Demand for saronite is up(duh, because of titanium xmute), and supply of saronite is down(duh, people who farmed saronite for titanium no longer need to). This lead me to the assumption that farming of saronite is down over all. This brings me to the point of my post.

For the past week I've been farming ore again. I've only farmed in the early morning and normally not more then 30 minutes. This is my "wake up" time before getting ready for work. I have yet to encounter one other person mining ore in three days. Normally at this time of day there would be at least a few. I'm also running into tons of titanium ore. Over the past three mornings I've farmed 12 stacks of saronite ore and over 2 stacks of titanium ore. What's really nice about titanium nodes is they also have a chance to drop crystallized fire which is needed in titansteel bars, and is a big cost to the final profit (anywhere between 30g-60g). The saronite easily yields eternal earth/shadow. I don't plan on selling these mats on the AH, but I am using them for the production of my three titansteel bars per day, and at the end of the day 30 minutes of farming easily pays for three titansteel bars. The only thing I might have to buy is an eternal fire or two if I get unlucky with the titanium nodes dropping crystallized fire. Even if I don't get enough titanium for three bars (18 ore per day) I can always transmute the saronite ore. Afterwards I send my JC all the extra saronite and gems from the nodes and that off sets the cost of the eternal fire. It looks like im back on track to recoup the cost of my ilvl 264 boe's.