World of Warcraft Wednesday: Storm Peaks
Places of Interest
Ulduar
Halls of Stone
Halls of Lighting
K3
Frosthold
Grom’arsh Crash-Site
Bouldercrag’s Refuge
The Storm Peaks are another interesting case of “This is a zone you may never really see.” It’s tucked away in the far corner of Northrend, questing in the other zones will probably have already gotten you to 80, and unless you’re into the dailies or raids, then there’s no real reason to visit Storm Peaks except for a couple achievements, pointless attempts at farming the Time-Lost Proto-Drake, or because you got lost on the way to Icecrown. And unless you’ve got the money to have your flight training, then you’re SOL, because most of the zone is only accessible by air.
Don’t make the mistake of skipping the zone however, even if you don’t really quest there or do the instances. Storm Peaks is kind of the height of Blizzard’s art in WoW, I think, and it’s really a zone you have to pass through at least once just to see it. From the sweeping Titan architecture dotting the landscape, to the cool and subtle mountain formations, to one of the more unique player bases in the game, the Alliance town of Frosthold, Storm Peaks is easily one of my favorite zones in WoW right now.
Mining: Cobalt, Saronite, Titanium. Standard fair here now. The Cobalt is along the Crystalsong/Zul’Drak/Storm Peaks border, and everything else is in the zone proper. It’s worth a buzz-through for titanium seekers.
Herbalism: Lichbloom, Icethorn, Frost Lotus. All great high level herbs, all in fairly good supply here, but it’s a tough sell, because they all spawn in one circuit through the zone, and pretty much everybody knows it, so expect some competition while you’re out gathering.
Cloth: Frostweave. The drops are honestly not as high as you might think, but there are a number of mobs, especially in the vykrul areas that will drop some cloth if you’re in the area questing.
Leather: Borean Leather, Arctic Fur. Everybody loves skinning in Stormpeaks. Partly because the worms are easy to kill and have good drops, partly because the worgs in the area have a tremendously fast respawn time, and partly because the rhinos are fun to kill. There’s more/better variety elsewhere, but you’ll get plenty of leather fast here.
Like I said, I love Storm Peaks. I love the huge ruins that make it feel like you’re seeing the last vestiges of some long dead civilization. I like the quests that have you switching allegiances every few seconds just to fuck with Arthas, and mostly I just love flying around and seeing a zone that actually feels massive in scale. Unfortunately, most of those aren’t really good reasons to come or stick around, Storm Peaks is kind of a dead zone. Unless, that is, you want to camp for days at a time for that 2% chance that you’ll see a Time-Lost Proto-Drake that you can snag.