Terraria – How to Get Pickaxe and Find Mine Ore (Easy Way)

A guide on how to get pickaxe and find mine ore (easiest way) in Terraria.

How to Get Pickaxe?

Note: Credit goes to lolsevryday

Pickaxes are tools used to remove (“mine”) blocks and furniture, normally converting them to item form. Note that removing blocks includes both ores and placed wood blocks. However, they cannot remove background walls (this requires a hammer instead), nor cut down trees (which requires an axe or chainsaw). They also double as basic melee weapons. Some of the Hardmode-tier pickaxes have drill counterparts. New players spawn with a Copper Pickaxe.

When evaluating the practical efficiency of a pickaxe, consider two things: the amount of hits required (from high pickaxe power); as well as the ticks per hit from low mining speed – see the respective pages for more details. Ignore the use time attribute, which reflects the weapon swing/animation and is not related to the hits for mining.

Pickaxes can use modifiers that increase speed, like Quick and Light. Accessories with a melee speed bonus will only affect the weapon swing, and will not affect mining hits (by affecting use speed not mining speed).

Currently, there are 30 different pickaxes, 15 of which are Hardmode-exclusive.

There are also drills.

Drills are a type of Hardmode tools and an alternative to pickaxes. A Cobalt Drill/Palladium Drill is required to mine Mythril Ore/Orichalcum Ore, and a Mythril Drill/Orichalcum Drill is required to mine Adamantite Ore/Titanium Ore.

(3DS) The Drax is available pre-Hardmode, found in Shadow Chests.

Currently, there are 13 different drills, 12 of which are Hardmode-exclusive.

When you create a NEW Terraria player, you spawn with a “Copper Pickaxe”.

This is how you get your first pickaxe.

How to Find Ore?

Ores are primary crafting materials necessary for game progress. They generally must be crafted into bars at a Furnace, after which they can craft several essential tools, weapons, armor, and other items. Some items require raw ores themselves, most commonly bricks and potions. Raw ores can also be used as plain blocks for construction.

Ores are generally found as veins of placed blocks in the Underground layer and below, and are mined with a pickaxe or drill. Lower-tier ores can be found among Dirt near the surface, or within Floating Islands. Some ores are also dropped by bosses, namely Eye of Cthulhu, Eater of Worlds, Brain of Cthulhu, Ocram (Old-gen console version, 3DS Version), and Moon Lord.

An Extractinator and Wooden Crates (from fishing) also provide ores as random rewards.

A world will generally only contain one ore type from each tier, which is chosen at random (see tables below). The alternate ore types that do not generate naturally in a world can be obtained from crates, as bonus drops (Desktop Version, Console Version, Mobile Version, 3DS Version) from slimes, from an Extractinator, or other worlds. Hardmode ore types are chosen at random when players destroy Altars.

The first three tiers of Hardmode ores are spawned by destroying Demon/Crimson Altars, which requires a hammer with 80% hammer power or higher, e.g. the Pwnhammer. Chlorophyte Ore spawns on its own once Hardmode is triggered, and Luminite does not occur naturally. Neither are affected by destroyed altars.

Players will be able to find these new ores scattered across the Underground layer to near-Underworld levels, with them replacing most blocks created during world generation. They will spawn at random locations in varying quantity, in places explored and unexplored alike.

Destroying more altars will never spawn Hardmode ore types beyond the three that were randomly assigned to the world during the initial round of destroyed altars. A world with Palladium Ore deposits will never spawn Cobalt Ore deposits, or vice versa.

Which ores are generated is not determined until the first, second or third altar is smashed. For example, it is not determined if the world has Cobalt or Palladium until the first altar has been smashed. The same goes for Mythril/Orichalcum with the second altar, and Adamantite/Titanium for the third.

Subsequent altars destroyed will begin the cycle again, though the fourth to sixth altars will drop half as much ore as the first ones, the seventh to ninth will drop only one third of the ore of the first ones, and so forth. So, destroying the 19th altar would yield one-seventh of Cobalt/Palladium Ore compared to the first altar. Destroying 12 altars will roughly double the ore provided by the first three; tripling that original allotment would require destroying 33 altars (if a world spawns that many).

No matter how many altars are destroyed, ore rarity remains set with Cobalt/Palladium being the most common, followed by Mythril/Orichalcum, then Adamantite/Titanium as the rarest.

Cobalt/Palladium is roughly twice as common as Adamantite/Titanium, with Mythril/Orichalcum halfway between.

Hardmode ores will not generate over Granite Blocks, Marble Blocks, or any hardened sands, and as such cannot be found in the Granite Cave, Marble Cave, and Underground Desert biomes.