Dark Iron Farming, Part 1: Mining

First, a guy named Nakhu deserves recognition for his excellent guide to Dark Iron farming. But I have a few things to add.

I'm writing this from the point of view of a 60 rogue with Improved Sap. While druids, hunters, and rogues without improved sap can also farm Dark Iron, some of the techniques I will discuss will only work for a rogue with improved sap. I'd be curious to hear how other classes/builds do it. I once tried to ask a hunter how he did it, but he evidently thought I was trying to steal his techniques (yeah, right) 'cause he didn't say anything. Was pretty obnoxious and self-important about it, too. Anyway...

1. Nakhu advises only going after the blue and red nodes in the interest of maximizing ore/hour, but I suspect he wrote his guide before the patch that limited the number of instances you could enter per hour, because if you only hit the blue and red nodes you will very quickly bump into the limit. However, I have found that if I farm all four areas I only hit the instance limit if I get a few "poor" instances in a row. (I.e., bad luck on the nodes.)
   
   
2. Map Notes:
   
   
   • A: These 2 nodes do not show up on your radar, so you have to go and look. As I've seen elsewhere in Azeroth (specifically one Rich Thorium Vein in Winterspring and one variable node in Searing Gorge), the ones that don't show up on your radar glow differently so you can spot them anyway. By the way, the nice thing about the red "A" node is that you can walk right up and mine it without sapping, killing, or waiting for guards to leave.
     
   • B: Nakhu claims this node can't be mined, but they might have changed it. The guards occasionally leave to march around for a few seconds, and if you pull the 3 hounds and kill them along the wall to the south, you can then walk up to the node and mine it without aggroing the guards (who will have returned by the time you kill the hounds.)
     
   • C: Both of these nodes can be mined either by sapping the guard closest to the node and then carefully positioning yourself, or by waiting for the guards to roam.
     
   • D: As far as I can tell these nodes are inaccessible without killing the whole group of guards.
     
   • E: These nodes require killing hounds.
     
   • F: This node (also see notes for "Green Nodes") suffers from a variety of patrols: a group of 3 rogue-sniffing hounds, a guard + two hounds, an elemental, and a guard who walks up and joins the group already there. In the last case I've never stuck around long enough to see if he leaves again, but while he is there the node is inaccessible. Anyway, the message is: watch out for pats.
     
   • Yellow Nodes: All the yellow nodes are accessible, although they all require a sap and usually very careful positioning. Note that the workers cannot see through the bases of the unfinished golems, so in some cases you have to use statues to screen yourself from unsapped mobs. Actually, I lied in the first sentence because in one case you actually tap the node without sapping anyone if you stand in exactly the right place.
     
   • Green Nodes: Both of these require a single sap. What's notable about the green nodes though is that they don't belong in a node group: I have seen both greens (or neither) spawn many times. Also, there are other nodes in this area, and to the south, but they can be very tricky or impossible to mine solo.