Blacksmithing

I've been leveling Mal's blacksmithing at a breakneck pace, without buying off the AH. I started yesterday and bought a few stacks of mithril. Since then, I have gone through Thorium, Fel Iron and Adamantite. I have the Cobalt and I need only 399 more saronite to hit 445.

Anyways, its a difficult profession to get started in because of the immense amount of materials you need for some of the earlier recipes. Additionally, early recipes often involve 'foreign materials' like cloth, leather or gems, that your everyday BS can't get.

I've been using wow-professions guide to help me through it (thats how I know what I need). They give you the 'cheapest' route. That means, the least number of materials. They do not assume that you are leveling mining along side so they consider the AH prices. This is nice because with multiple profession at or near max, well, its just nice.

Anyways, it said I needed 441 saronite bars to get to 445. So I went out and gathered 459 ore (I grabbed some extra on my way to dal). Then I realized that I need 2 ore per bar. So, you know what I'm doing tonight. Gotta mine em all...