I actually prefer Stabbey suggestion; don't significantly tone down the arrows (or perhaps they should be level base; i.e., low level doesn't last long or have smaller area of effect); but anyways I generally agree that west area should be fairly mundane (almost impossible to die) and the player should gradually get introduced to arrows elemental/aoe. If the damage/duration scale by level then simply making them level 1 might be sufficient but I'm not sure the world is large enough to support these changes.
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Having said this there needs to be some introduction into mixing of elements (the starter zone does a little of this so perhaps that is enough).
