Wondering how to get Miner Shards in The Forge? After acquiring a Pickaxe with augment slots in Roblox's blacksmithing RPG, your next thought will probably be cramming as many Miner Shards into it as possible. These Runes drop from enemies, and by taking them to the Runemaker in town, you can add useful "Traits" to your Pick that boost your mining power, your yield or your luck.

But it's not immediately clear where you actually get these chunks of magical stone. No vendor is selling them, and they don’t drop from rocks. That's because they're unique enemy drops that you can only get from specific foes. But that doesn't mean there aren't a few ways to quickly cram your inventory with them. We've spent some time down the mines analysing which monsters to farm to stock up on these useful trinkets, so if you want to boost your luck as high as possible, here's how to farm Miner Shards in The Forge.

In this guide:

• How to get Miner Shards
• The Delver Zombie Route (Stonewake's Cross)
• The Bomber Skeleton route (Forgotten Kingdom)
• How to equip Miner Shards
• A quick tip for Luck Miner Shard hunters

How to get Miner Shards

From all my testing, I've found there are two useful farming methods for Miner Shards, and they both have their own unique perks. There's the Delver Zombie route or the Bomber route.

The Delver Zombie route is the best way to simply get Miner Shards and nothing else. The Bomber Skeleton route is better for farming cash and other runes while finding fewer Miner Shards. Let's run through them each individually.

The Delver Zombie Route (Stonewake's Cross)

For the first farming route, you'll want to teleport over to Stonewake's Cross. The tutorial area secretly contains the best method of quickly getting Miner Shards. All you have to do is head to the Stonewake's Cross cave, equip your weapon and charge through, looking for Delver Zombie enemies.

They're relatively easy to spot due to the mining helmets they have on. Every time you kill one of these undead foes, you have a 1 in 35 chance of earning a Miner Shard. It's as simple as that. You'll want to stick largely to the Inner Cave and Deep Cave areas, as you'll find fewer regular zombies and more Delvers.

This strat is incredibly useful if you've already reached the Forgotten Kingdom and have a buffed-up weapon that makes cutting through Delver Zombies feel like cutting through green, grunting butter with a warm katana. Spend about 15 minutes doing it, and you should come away with a hefty sack of Miner Shards.

The Bomber Skeleton route (Forgotten Kingdom)

The second farming route is better if you're also in the market for cash and runes. You'll sacrifice the speed at which you're getting Miner Shards but it's a good way to generally stock up. Step one is to head to the Forgotten Kingdom cave. You'll be looking for the small Bomber enemy, which is easiest to find in the Ashen Passage area. You'll usually come across several in the Basalt Vein farming section, past the cave where you can find Amber and the Magma Pickaxe.

You won't struggle too much to find the Bomber, because this guy's actually very friendly. It's hard to feel particularly chuffed with your new little buddy though, because he's carrying a Looney-Tunes-lookin' bomb that explodes after a few seconds. If you can kill him before he explodes, he's a valuable source of loot. There's a 1 in 15 chance he drops a Miner Shard, but there's also a 1 in 10 chance that you get a Blast Chip instead. From my testing, I've never got two runes in one drop, and tend to get Blast Chips much more frequently than Miner Shards, so it will take a little longer.

On the plus side, the Bomber is a great farm for cash, essences and, well, Blast Chips too. Farming him and the other skeletal enemies he surrounds himself with in the Ashen Passage is a phenomenal way to stock up on coins and other loot, so this path can ultimately be slower but more lucrative.

How to equip Miner Shards

Once you've hauled out a huge sack of Miner Shards, it's time to take a look at what you've scavenged. If you click on a Miner Shard in your Stash, you'll see it has a Trait attached. Every Miner Shard in the game so far has one of three Traits:

• Mine Power: Boosts the damage you deal to rocks.
• Yield: Increases the chance of dropping 1 extra ore while mining a rock.
• Luck: Increases the chance of rarer loot dropping.
• Swift Mining: Increases the speed of mining rocks.

How effective the Trait will be is dictated by a randomised percentage. If you hover your cursor on the Trait while looking at the Miner Shard in the Stash, you'll be able to see how effective it is. For example, if you got the Luck Trait, it might boost your luck stat by 13% or you could be unlucky and get 11%.

Make sure you're happy with this percentage before equipping it to your Pickaxe, because attaching Miner Shards costs a lot of money. To give you a rough estimate, a single augment to the Arcane Pickaxe costs a whopping $37,000. Not chump change, that's for sure. But what's even worse, it costs $31,000 to detach an augment. Treat attaching Shards like getting a tattoo of the Goblin King on your neck. Make sure you really want it before you commit to the act of slotting it in.

When you have a Miner Shard you want to attach, head to the Runemaker's shop in either the Forgotten Kingdom or Stonewake's Cross. Talk to the Runemaker and select your chosen Pickaxe when given the opportunity. Slot in your chosen Rune, pay the eye-watering fee, and just like that, your spruced up Pickaxe is ready to go.

A quick tip for Luck Miner Shard hunters

I initially devised my routes for farming Miner Shards for the same reason I assume many of you are here. I wanted to devise the luckiest of lucky Pickaxes. If you're farming for lucky Miner Shards, I wanted to give you a quick rundown of what you should be hunting for.

Essentially, you'll want two things. First, the Arcane Pickaxe. It has the highest luck stat of any pickaxe in the game, as well as being able to mine every rock in the current build of The Forge, including Volcanic Rock. You can find it by completing Bard's Lost Guitar quest in Stonewake's Cross, where he'll give you a key to unlock the hidden door in the area's mine.

Inside, you'll find the Arcane Pickaxe. Save up $125,000, purchase it and then hunt for 3 Luck Miner Shards. For the best results, you want all of these shards to give you a 13% luck boost or potentially higher. Once you farm three of those, save up to attach them to your Pickaxe, and right there, you've set yourself up with the highest luck stat possible.

Now, your Pickaxe has a natural 50% Luck boost, plus somewhere around 39% extra Luck depending on the boosts provided by your enhancements. Package that with a Luck Potion, and you're twice as likely to get a rare drop every time you mine a rock. Considering there's a rare Ore in the game that has a 1 in 100,000 drop chance, that's worth more gold than you could possibly amass.

Now, go forth and use your Miner Shards to drum up some truly great Ore. If you need some help knowing exactly where to find it, why not check out our list of all Ores and where to find them? If Ore isn't your issue though, we have a ton of The Forge guides, including walkthroughs on completing the Goblin King quest and finding Tomo's missing cat, as well as a full cash farming guide, instructions on how to reroll your race, and a collection of all The Forge codes.