Going for Gold
Kate wants to mine gold so I did a little checking to find some good areas for that, and it turned out that the Arathi Highlands was one place that we could try. It has quite a few gold veins around and it's just north of Wetlands so we could get there pretty easily. We still have a handful of open quests in Ashenvale so we're not quite done there and we'll have to go back soon, but I for one liked the idea of a change of scenery so off we went to Menethil Harbour.
We headed east to the base of the mountains then followed them so that we could watch for ore to mine. While I was doing the checking earlier I'd found that there was supposed to be a gold vein in that general direction, but we didn't find it - either the information is wrong or someone had mined it out before us. I have no idea how long it takes for gold veins to refresh but it seems that it's a lot longer than for copper, so we gave it just a minute or two then moved on.
When we'd gone far enough east we turned north to hit the road toward the Arathi Highlands, which runs past Dun Modr on the way. I was under the impression that Dun Modr was a safe place but I was wrong; we were attacked by Dark Iron dwarves, which surprised me because I thought dwarves were Alliance. I don't know exactly whose side these guys are on. It looks like they mostly stay to the west side of Dun Modr and away from the road, so it wasn't hard to get past them and continue north over Thandol Span and into the Arathi Highlands.
We headed west along the border hills so that we could watch for gold. The area has a lot of level 33 and 34 spiders and raptors, which at my current level 30 are a challenge but not impossible one-on-one. We found Stromgarde Keep, but we didn't find any gold. What we did find was a Mithril vein - and Kate was spitting because her mining skill was 173, just two points short of what it needed to be for mithril.
I went inside Stromgarde Keep to explore. It appears to be a ruin, but there are Alliance guards in one part and Horde in another. Other than that, though, there's nothing of interest. Now, it turned out that my memory had failed me slightly about where to find the gold (I've got a stinker of a cold and I guess I was a little muzzy); the main concentration of gold veins is east of Thandol Span, not west. So we found the road north of Stromgarde and headed east.
This was a mistake. The eastern side of Arathi is tougher than the west, with level 37+ raptors (and I suspect they're higher still further east). We were okay until we left the road to cut south to where the gold is, but after that we had no hope. Together we can handle one level 37 beast, but it's a hard fight. Any more than that is just too tough - and one thing to remember is that you don't get XP for almost killing an enemy.
We went back to the road for safety for a minute, and it turned out it wasn't safe at all - we were attacked by four bandits of some kind. We were saved by a level 38 mage who happened by. Then we were all attacked again by another group, and this time we helped save the mage by wading in and with my Holy Light to give the guy a health boost; in return he offered to enchant something and we both got +5 strength added to our bracers. The next move was pretty obvious - we weren't safe off the road or on it, so we hearthstoned out.
We'll be going back to Arathi, probably very soon, but we should stick to the western end. Apparently there are gold veins in the western part but they're further north than where we were, and in any case Kate's mining skill is now up to 180 so we can go back to the mithril vein we found.
In the meantime I learned a valuable lesson from the Mage, and that is that my level 30 mage is built all wrong. This guy can take on four level 36+ bandits, while my guy gets ripped apart by just one level 27 raptor. I put it down to inexperience, since my mage was my first WoW character. I'd like to be able to continue his progress but I realise now that I need to be more careful about equipping him, and I'm also considering unlearning his talents and rebuilding from scratch.
We headed east to the base of the mountains then followed them so that we could watch for ore to mine. While I was doing the checking earlier I'd found that there was supposed to be a gold vein in that general direction, but we didn't find it - either the information is wrong or someone had mined it out before us. I have no idea how long it takes for gold veins to refresh but it seems that it's a lot longer than for copper, so we gave it just a minute or two then moved on.
When we'd gone far enough east we turned north to hit the road toward the Arathi Highlands, which runs past Dun Modr on the way. I was under the impression that Dun Modr was a safe place but I was wrong; we were attacked by Dark Iron dwarves, which surprised me because I thought dwarves were Alliance. I don't know exactly whose side these guys are on. It looks like they mostly stay to the west side of Dun Modr and away from the road, so it wasn't hard to get past them and continue north over Thandol Span and into the Arathi Highlands.
We headed west along the border hills so that we could watch for gold. The area has a lot of level 33 and 34 spiders and raptors, which at my current level 30 are a challenge but not impossible one-on-one. We found Stromgarde Keep, but we didn't find any gold. What we did find was a Mithril vein - and Kate was spitting because her mining skill was 173, just two points short of what it needed to be for mithril.
I went inside Stromgarde Keep to explore. It appears to be a ruin, but there are Alliance guards in one part and Horde in another. Other than that, though, there's nothing of interest. Now, it turned out that my memory had failed me slightly about where to find the gold (I've got a stinker of a cold and I guess I was a little muzzy); the main concentration of gold veins is east of Thandol Span, not west. So we found the road north of Stromgarde and headed east.
This was a mistake. The eastern side of Arathi is tougher than the west, with level 37+ raptors (and I suspect they're higher still further east). We were okay until we left the road to cut south to where the gold is, but after that we had no hope. Together we can handle one level 37 beast, but it's a hard fight. Any more than that is just too tough - and one thing to remember is that you don't get XP for almost killing an enemy.
We went back to the road for safety for a minute, and it turned out it wasn't safe at all - we were attacked by four bandits of some kind. We were saved by a level 38 mage who happened by. Then we were all attacked again by another group, and this time we helped save the mage by wading in and with my Holy Light to give the guy a health boost; in return he offered to enchant something and we both got +5 strength added to our bracers. The next move was pretty obvious - we weren't safe off the road or on it, so we hearthstoned out.
We'll be going back to Arathi, probably very soon, but we should stick to the western end. Apparently there are gold veins in the western part but they're further north than where we were, and in any case Kate's mining skill is now up to 180 so we can go back to the mithril vein we found.
In the meantime I learned a valuable lesson from the Mage, and that is that my level 30 mage is built all wrong. This guy can take on four level 36+ bandits, while my guy gets ripped apart by just one level 27 raptor. I put it down to inexperience, since my mage was my first WoW character. I'd like to be able to continue his progress but I realise now that I need to be more careful about equipping him, and I'm also considering unlearning his talents and rebuilding from scratch.
Labels: Draenei Paladin, Games, Human Mage, WoW
posted by Pete Ford at
12:51 PM
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