Starting to realize why Valley of Mines vs Jharkendar first is such a big debate...

Heyo, so I've been playing Gothic 2 for the first time(after finishing Gothic 1 for the first time last week, I wrote a post about it as well) and I heard that you should read at least a basic quickstart guide to not screw up levelling and experience too badly as a beginner. So I knew coming in that come chapter 2 there'd be a split between going to Jharkendar for the Night of the Raven Expansion and the Valley of Mines.

From what I can tell, the argument over which to do first is one of the biggest in the game. In the end I decided to go with the Valley of Mines first, since I'd heard that the experience was a lot better if you came into that chapter after Chapter 1. Which it was, to be fair. I felt like I was at the peak of my strength without really crunching stuff off of chapter 1, I had killed most enemies I could see(though not all, Orcs and Wargs were still beyond me. What happened to Orc Dogs? Change of breeder?). So while I still had to run away from truly terrifying threats like Orcs, Dragon Snappers, Fire Lizards etc. I was slicing through snappers and lurkers and everything below them pretty nicely. I admit I also thoroughly abused the Diego(or whatever Skinwalker he is with his voice so different) escort at the end to kill some orcs and otherwise too tough encounters though for some handy xp. Over all the experience was very nice, being able to see the old Colony but changed(sometimes logically, sometimes less so)

But the problem comes with Chapter 3. I'm ready to leave and head out and now suddenly there's an evil cultist shouting demonic magic at me and Lester is telling me to see Xardas immediately and it's just like... now I can see why people are saying there's not a good off ramp to the NotR map lol. Now I'm wondering whether I ought to just rush straight to Saturas and leave poor Xardas on hold or whether I ought to talk to Xardas and see if there's a slightly better off ramp. I somewhat doubt it though.