Fel Iron = /cryFollow

How the heck are we meant to be able to level mining when three professions NEED Fel Iron? Bloody hell, Blizzard, good job on making our tradeskills flow needlessly harder.

i totaly agree i dont know weather to take up skinning and leatherworking or mining and armoursmithing and what other skill goes with tailoring? damn blizzard. >:(

I'm not having too much trouble with my herbs and most of my guildies are doing just fine with mines.

And I too am confused by alliancesavior's response.

I found that for both Herbalism and Mining the basic new node (Felweed and Fel Iron) appears in all zones and that I could quickly level the former by staying ahead of the herd. With most players questing in Hellfire Peninsula I was herbing in Zangarmarsh. When I started seeing more players in that area I moved to Terokkar Forest. By yesterday I hit 375 herbalism in Shadowmoon Valley and then spent a decent amount of time herbing Netherbloom in the Netherstorm zone. Typically there was less than 5 people in the zone and I had no competition for spawns.

The obvious drawback is that to achieve this you need to sacrifice your levelling speed and contend with mobs that are well above your level. Depending on your class you will have different methods for that but I can confirm that as a Priest I could do solo herbalism gathering in Netherstorm (level 68-70 mobs all over the place). If you struggle then pair up - one person kites mobs away while the other herbs/mines.

Ummm... are we even playing the same game? Last I checked near the dark portal there was a never ending battle with tons of 70 elites fighting people from both factions. Not to mention the big pit boss... On the sides of it maybe? But I could have sworn it hung into the abyss... Just after the pit commander I believe is where the transporters are, which means lots of mobs and players there... though I could be slightly off on positioning.

Circling the peninsula the dark portal is on is great, and what I used on day one (cause I knew there'd be spawns there nobody would check) to ensure I got myself up to 325 for adamantite. My mining is now up to 375, but I jump-started it to 330-something around the portal until I got bored and wanted to actually do stuff on opening day.

What makes it especially frustrating is the utter lack of mining nodes in Zangarmarsh. There's effectively nothing in the middle of the zone, so you have to generally rely on Hellfire Peninsula, which is overcrowded for the time being. Eventually it will thin out, but until then, circle the portal or run the perimeter of Zangarmarsh. You start getting adamantite in Terokkar, so it's no guarantee on fel iron there.

That said, I'm a jewelcrafter. I don't care what metal I have as long as I can prospect it. If you are an engineer or blacksmith, I am your bane. I am a parasite that simply mines and "disenchants" the ore, regardless of what it is or how much of it I get. So it doesn't matter to me how much Fel Iron I get so long as I get my mining past 325, because I could level up completely on my prospecting of adamantite ore if I can prospect it. (Granted I need 325 skill to do that, but there are other sources of gems.)

Something i've actually noticed is that while you do start seeing a little higher amount of adamatite in terrorkar and beyond, I still see quite a bit of fel iron too. Even in Netherstorm or Shadowmoon valley. There does tend to be more of the higher level stuff, but you still see quite a bit of fel iron. or at least I do.