ok im working my miner up, im currently sitting at 77.5 and was wondering if i should actually be just randomly hitting ore spots in del, or weather i would gain better somewhere else.. or if i should find a certan type of ore.. yea.. help pls?

You can gain by simply mining. It is possible.
You gain better, faster by mining ore that is closest to your level without going over. (hope you got that)
You will gain by smelting your ore so if you dig up a pile of 14 gold ore smelt them one at a time.

I can say that smelting your ore one pile at a time as opposed to all at once does work....I GM'ed my miner/smith that way.

It takes time, but it's worth it.

you want to know a very awesome place to build your mining. I know alot of people prefer to recall to their spots, but this is how I Gmed mine. Go to umbra, walk in any direction outwards, stop at the river of blackness, and start picking away. Go around in a circle, it is 1 giant circle, its very close to a forge, and you can bank it. All without having to recall to a single spot, no spawn anywhere... I dont know why people dont do it more. Well actually, I was glad, cause they werent stealing my ore.. hehe.. I have every single nook and cranny of umbra memorized so that I can go anywhere in that town and get any metal I need at the moment.

Yup!
There's even a val spot there... but shhh...

I used a mask of orcish kin (or whaever they are) and went down into the orc caves where the orc brutes are. Nothing down there would attack me with the mask on, and I could mine away. Often tamers would be killing the brutes, and if I would smelt for them, they would either just give me the ore or split it with me.

And thats how I have around 11k of Shadow Ingots in my bank and only 1k of iron LOL.

Anyways to Gala:
I would just mine away, don't bother recalling around, just mine. But when you get coloured ore smelt it 1 by 1. This will increase your chance to gain.
When Gold, Verite and Copper Elementals were spawning in Ilshenar that is how I GMed my second miner(one on GL one on Cats).

Started in Orc Caves, mined and smelted the Shadow Ore til I was about 75, then moved to the pile of 20k of Copper Ore my Bard gathered. Then went onto the gold, and then Verite for the GM.

Also remove any mining gloves you may have. It makes it harder to gain.

If you want, I can show you 4 Val spots there.... If you want I can come on your shard and show you..It can be our little secret. Like I said, I pretty much memorized all the spots of all the worthwhile metals in that town. I was born there..

I dont ever think there was any specific spots or ore to mine. Just anywhere.

Don't the spots vary from shard to shard?

I didn't know the ore type you mined affected skill gain. Does it work the same way with lumberjacking on the new wood types now?

Smelting higher ore types definitely help skill gain though -- especially smelting one unit at a time, as mentioned above. It also keeps you from ruining a large stack of high end ore you just mined.

Even now, at 105 mining with my gloves, I still smelt verite and valorite one unit at a time. I even split my gold and agapite up into smaller stacks of 5, just so I won't waste too much if I fail.

cool ive never made a miner before but i actually enjoy doing skills like this (i had real fun with lumberjacking) so yea i'll try umbra in a bit like i said im still gaining atm in del