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Comment by Shkaira

(Pandaria Beta, 29 Jul 12)

I mined both Trillium Vein and Rich Trillium Vein in Valley of the Four Winds, Townlong Steppes and Dread Wastes.

Both Trillium Veins are spawns of the Ghost Iron Deposit

I mined 6 Trillium Vein and Rich Trillium Vein spawns and got 25 White Trillium Ore and 2 Black Trillium Ore

There was no clue whether it was going to be white or black.

600 Jewelcrafting is required to prospect White Trillium Ore, and you'll get all the new gems and Sparkling Shards. Ten Sparkling Shards, and the Jewelcrafter can make Serpent's Eye, the new Jewelcrafter's Gem.

Comment by 886623

Mining Trillium Vein and Rich Trillium Vein provide either Black Trillium Ore or White Trillium Ore, they are a rare spawn, normally spawn in ghost iron node locations in the same zone. Looking closely at the node you can see a black and white swirl symbol on it.

If you can see the color of the rock under the vein, the ore mined will be the same color. Example: Townlong Steppes has black rock and white rock, if a node is on black rock you get black ore, white rock you get white ore.

Update 03 Aug 2012: Locations are in Jade Forest and Valley of Four Winds Level 90 daily zones, Kun-Lai Summit, Townlong Steppes, Dreaded Wastes, and Vale of Eternal Blossoms. Each area can spawn normal or rich veins.

Note for Vale of Eternal Blossoms, all mining and herb locations are phased out unless the first quests for the Golden Lotus faction are completed, must be level 90 to start the quests.

Comment by 1032972

i have gotten 13 white and 41 black

Comment by 984584

Iv been farming ore in Valley of the Four Winds, particularly around Skyrange, in about 2 hours i had mined close to 700 Ghost Iron ore, about 15 Black Trillium and around 12 White Trillium ore. Didnt keep track on how many mines i actually got so i can't tell you how many Rich Ghost Iron mines i seen but out of all of those i can tell you i only seen 2 Rich Trillium mines ( mainly cause they are rare and hard to find and that is what i look for the most).
I would also like to add that I do most of my farming around 2 a.m. (12 a.m. Hyjal server time) so there aint alot of people to compete with.
I got the quest Seed of Doubt during my Cloud Serpent Dailies and in the cave i found 2 Trillium mines. For anyone who is interested.

Comment by 236258

If any other players could help I think that the drop rate can be skewed due to the time of day you are farming. I normally farm ore at 1-3am PST in the Vale on a weekend night and I normally see a 2:1 ratio favoring black to white. This is based on about 200+ ore farmed out of Rich and normal nodes. If you have a wild disparity like I have had post the time and location of your farming so we can possibly see if there is a rhyme or reason here?

Comment by Mookosh

Gems can only drop from these and other veins in Pandaria if you possess Ancient Pandaren Mining Pick
But even with the pick, the drop rate is abysmally low.

Comment by 1054754

I would like to point out That this seems to be a Dwarfs only option for reaching 600 mining, Because yet again Blizzard did not account for the +10 bonus.

Comment by 572194

The name is possibly taken from Star Trek, where Trillium is named as a trade good: .

Star Trek possibly took it from its meaning in the 'real world': Trillium is a genus that includes several species of plants . The origin of the word comes from the Greek tris or the Latin tri- (three), so called for its leaves and its flower petals.
One of their species is called White Trillium.

The idea of a material that has a black component and a white component, which are complementary, comes clearly from the Yin-Yang concept from classical Chinese philosphy; you can see it exposed in the tooltip icon, and remember that Mists of Pandaria is highly inspired by China (and surroundings).

Other interesting explanation (posted by Rogirek) is that the name and the appearance of the vein could be inspired in Trilobite.

Comment by Alexianoryuu

I've taken notice of something interesting while mining any of the trillium veins.
Getting the white ore seems more common during the server's day time, while getting black ore seems more common during the night. I'll suspect that the rich veins play by the same ruling, albeit with a chance of the other type also 'dropping' at normal veins' chances.
Of course, I could just be wrong and it ends up being my luck that this is what it seems like so far.. XD

Comment by GoHF

As of 5.3 (PTR), these can now be mined from skill level 1, yielding lower amounts of trillium ore (starting at 1 ore per vein).

Comment by hersfold

These nodes also appear in the Shado-Pan Monastery dungeon (both Normal and Heroic), along with Ghost Iron Deposit.

Comment by Eido

Note to those with Jewelcrafting who are searching for some information as I was about obtaining rare, MoP gems:

When Prospecting, the best ore to receive rare, Mist of Pandaria gems is either Black Trillium Ore OR White Trillium Ore, with an average, gem, drop rate of 17% each (according to Wowhead).

This ore can be obtained directly via two methods:

These can be mined from two, rare-node-spawns: Trillium Vein or Rich Trillium Vein.
If you are Revered with The Tillers, plant Snakeroot Seed for random chances at obtaining either type of Trillium Ore per plant.

This ore can be obtained indirectly by executing two steps:

If you are Revered with The Tillers, plant Songbell Seed to farm Mote of Harmony (yields 1 Mote per plant) and eventually make Spirit of Harmony to use as currency in the next step.
Purchase a stack of 5 Trillium Ore in exchange for 1 Spirit of Harmony.

Here is a quick list of each rare gem for easy-viewing:
Primordial Ruby
Vermilion Onyx
Sun's Radiance
Wild Jade
River's Heart
Imperial Amethyst

Since Trillium nodes are rare spawns, a more surefire way to obtain rare, MoP gems is through Alchemy, specifically through Transmutations.
Being a Transmutation Master will result in the highest transmutation yields. Here is a quick list of each transmutation recipe for easy-viewing.

NOTE: Each recipe requires a Golden Lotus and the Uncommon version (listed below) of each, rare gem.

Tiger Opal
Lapis Lazuli
Sunstone
Roguestone
Pandarian Garnet
Alexandrite

Transmute: Primordial Ruby
Transmute: Imperial Amethyst
Transmute: Sun's Radiance
Transmute: Vermilion Onyx
Transmute: River's Heart
Transmute: Wild Jade

If you DO decide to transmute and you are hard-up for Golden Lotus, you can:

A) buy 2 in exchange for 1 Spirit of Harmony from NPCS:
Danky (horde)
Krystel (alliance)

B) become Revered with The Tillers to purchase, then plant:
Enigma Seed to get a rare chance at gathering a Golden Lotus
Songbell Seed to farm Mote of Harmony (yields 1 Mote per plant) and eventually make Spirit of Harmony to use as currency in
option "A".

LASTLY,

The least-effective way to farm rare, MoP gems is through prospecting:
Kyparite OR Ghost Iron Ore
Each having roughly a 5% rare-gem, drop rate (according to Wowhead).

I hope this was helpful and saved you some time! Please feel free to add or suggest anything else!

Comment by Mognus

For those who dont know those are rare spawns from ghost iron deposits. Meaning that in order to collect it you have to keep mining ghost iron and then come back after the respawn. There is a rare possibility that instead of ghost iron deposits you will find these. Also mist-piercing gogles help.

Comment by WokkaD

The Jade Forest nodes on the mainland are in the caves where the Order of the Cloud Serpent quests take you.

As mentioned below or elsewhere, you tend to get more white ore during the day and black ore at night.

Comment by Tantrevalles

More data for people who want it:

Last night I worked a steady route in Dread Wastes for three hours (roughly). I ended up with 800 Ghost Iron ore and only enough white/black Trillium to make 16 Trillium bars.

The 800 GI was then turned into 400 bars, which, thanks to a friendly alchemist, netted me another 40 trillium bars (1 trillium bar for every 10 ghost iron bars - there is no longer a cooldown on the transmutation).

By contrast, if one can get one's hand on Spirit of Harmony, one can go to the Spirit of Harmony vendor and purchase 5 each of either white or black Trillium ore for every 1 Spirit of Harmony.

For those who have found a time-friendly place to farm motes of harmony (I have not, sadly), you'll need to farm 20 motes to use the vendor to get enough trillium for 2 bars. (20 motes = 2 Spirit = 5 each of white and black trillium = 2 bars with some trillium left over).

No really good news here. You can burn time or you can burn gold.

Seems to me, based on this, my best approach will always be to mine Ghost Iron - which grows like weeds in Pandaria - and transmute whenever I have a stack.

Hope this helps.

MOTES of HARMONY, fastest 2 sources per my recent experience (I'm sure there are more):

Heart of Fear raid, trash up to the first boss (don't kill the boss, of course), reset, reset, reset etc.

When you do your 10 runs and have an hour to spend, go to the Vale and farm all the Shao-Tien you see. You'll even pick up skyshards faster than ever before thanks to recent nerfing.

If competition is a problem on a given day, in Kun-Lai Summit there's also a cave west of One Keg that is chock full o' imps (or whatever they're called) that respawn rather quickly.

Transmutation of Ghost Iron bars is still your quickest solution. Good luck!

View in 3D Links

Trillium Vein

This object can be found in Dread Wastes (587), Kun-Lai Summit (504), Townlong Steppes (521), Vale of Eternal Blossoms (267), The Jade Forest (88), Valley of the Four Winds (65), Timeless Isle (38), and Shado-Pan Monastery (3).

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