How Do Nodes Spawn in World of Warcraft?

Basic Node Spawning

• Each zone has set positions where nodes can spawn, as well as a maximum amount of nodes of each type that can be active at the same time. Whenever somebody gathers all materials contained in a node, that node disappears and another node spawns in a random, unoccupied node location. Each type of node is completely independent and doesn't affect other node types. For example, the looting of a herbalism node will only ever cause another herbalism node to spawn.

Affected Professions

• The normal node spawning affects nodes from which you can gather materials using the mining, herbalism and fishing professions. Although specific node locations may be reserved for a specific type of material, this doesn't affect node spawning. For example, although Azshara's Veil, Cinderbloom and Stormvine herbalism nodes can all spawn in Mount Hyjal, the node that spawns after you fully loot a Cinderbloom node is not necessarily going to be another Cinderbloom node.

Rare Nodes

• Certain types of ore, such as truesilver, gold or pyrite, can only be gathered from special mining nodes. These nodes have a low chance of spawning in place of a common node of the same level: truesilver may spawn rarely instead of mithril, gold instead of iron, pyrite instead of obsidium or elementium and so on. Every time a node is emptied, the new node that spawns may be a rare node rather than a common one. If you are trying to collect rare ore, the most efficient way to do so is to gather from all nodes you find, whether they are rare or common.

Archaeology Nodes

• Although the archaeology profession is also based on nodes, these nodes behave differently from mining, herbalism and fishing nodes. Archaeology nodes are located within dig sites; only four dig sites can be active at a time for each continent, and each dig site contains three randomly-placed nodes. You can locate these nodes by using the "Survey" skill; collecting archaeology fragments from all three nodes within a single dig site will cause a new dig site to spawn on the same continent.