Archaeology -- Yes/No?

[Mosg2]

My team is now established with solid starter gear and their Alchemy is maxed so I'm bringing in ~15k a day via transmutes. I still need to get Engineering to 500 but farming Obsidium makes my eyes bleed--I can make around 300-400 Elementium Ore an hour but Obsidium is terrible. With that in mind...

I'm thinking that leveling Archaeology for 4x Zin'rokh is going to be the best choice for a 2h melee team. Since you're capped on the amount of Conquest points you can get a day/week it'd be better to use your time to farm up the best weapon available in game (look at the top end) apart from the heroic raid gear.

After a bit of research I think you're looking at 30-40 hours per character to get it. On average.

Agree/disagree? Thoughts?

[EaTCarbS]

That really depends on if doing 30-40 hours per toon of archaeology leveling to have the high quality items is worth it to you. It may also depend on your accessibility to heroic level raid instances. In the end it comes down to what you think is worth it.

[Mosg2]

I've been doing it for an hour on 4 toons now and I can say that doing it on multiple characters is only somewhat slower than a solo character. Using the windrider system I can basically always have guys on the flight path to their next dig site while I'm actually doing the nitty gritty at digsites on a toon. It's tedious but if I only have to do this for 40 hours to get 4x Zin'rokh I'm sold :)

[Shodokan]

I'm going to do it, but not till after things get into swing... too much gold to be made now.

BTW i'm almost 83.

[HPAVC]

I fancy the Scepter of Azj'Aqir (http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92148) or Fossilized Raptor (http://www.wowhead.com/item=60954) more so, but I will wait for levels and a serious guide first.

[Mosg2]

It's frustratingly slow but it's also the only way to get the Sandstone Drake mount.

With my 4 DK's I just Deathgate after they do each find and then hop on the flight master to the next spot. This way I'm pretty efficient about it--At this rate I'd guess 50 hours to hit 450 on all four DK's but the good news is that's all you have to hit to get all the epic items.

I've got three days before I go back to work. I wonder if I can get it done between here and there? :)

[blbjtb]

It's frustratingly slow but it's also the only way to get the Sandstone Drake mount.

With my 4 DK's I just Deathgate after they do each find and then hop on the flight master to the next spot. This way I'm pretty efficient about it--At this rate I'd guess 50 hours to hit 450 on all four DK's but the good news is that's all you have to hit to get all the epic items.

I've got three days before I go back to work. I wonder if I can get it done between here and there? :)

I didnt know this was the only way to get the drake... This makes baby jesus cry... Eventhough I'm only going to solo box Cata... Im not looking forward to this...

[Mosg2]

It's a super rare drop from the Canopic Jar.

As an update, my guys are basically at 140 apiece now. That's deceiving though, because they each have 200+ troll fragments saved so they can do all the troll completes after 450 skill--So that each troll complete has a chance of giving it :)

[BrothelMeister]

I would have to say that this would be a very disappointing goal. From what I read it's somewhere around 1%, but probably much less.

I spent probably 30 hours trying to get all 219 shield from normal pit of saron on my 4 shamans in season 8 (before I got 1800 of course). With a 16% drop rate, I should have seen 6 of those shields drop, but only saw 1.

Realizing how bad your odds can be when you have 5 toons running together for a random spawn makes me have no desire what so ever to aim for this rare spawned weapon. It will be out of date in far too little time for me to have any desire to waste 40-100 hours on it instead of just farming for other gear/money.

[Mosg2]

I'm leveling it on my 4 DK's all at the same time. Since I'm shooting basically just for Zin'Rokh and then the Alchemy mount once my skill gets high enough, here's the "best" way I've determined to get the sword:

I start with each character at Acherus. I then put each one of them on to a flight path taking them to the nearest point to a digsite. Now, I specifically do NOT go after the Night Elf digsites. There's only two on the entire continent of Eastern Kingdoms and you're likely to only complete one or two of their projects. There's one in the north/center of Eastern Plaguelands and one in the center of Duskwood. Just don't do those digsites.

Whoever lands first I fly to their digsite and dig it up. Then I cast Deathgate while I look at the map and determine which flight point they're going to next--As soon as they get back to Acherus they're on the flight path to wherever. I then swap to the next character that has landed and then continue this until my brain turns to mush :)

Using this method I'm able to *usually* keep 2 guys on the flight path while I dig with another guy. It's not near as efficient as doing one character solo, but I'd say it's somewhere around 40-50% as efficient. That's good enough for me considering all the rewards are BoA. Also, a few notes for the intrepid Archaeologist:

If you're JUST going after Zin'Rokh, DO NOT COMPLETE ANY TROLL PROJECTS. Just gather the fragments from the troll sites and leave them in your bank. You can't get assigned Zin'Rokh until you're at 450 skill, so any fragments you use will be wasted--The time sink to this isn't getting to 450 skill, it's completing the average of 30 projects you'll need in order to get assigned Zin'Rokh. In this way you'll only be completing Fossil and Dwarf projects. Yes, it's ridiculously slow to level at first, but the payoff is thus:

Once you're 450 and can get assigned all the epic projects, all of the Cata zones get opened up and will have digsites in them. This means that while you're digging around Eastern Kingdoms for troll fragments trying to get your Zin'Rokh you're going to get--That's right, you guessed it--Vash'jir as a zone where you'll have digsites. Vash'jir is the worst zone in the game for Archaeology. So, do yourself a favor and just save your 1500 troll fragments you should have hitting 450 just doing Dwarf and Fossil projects.

In the end you should basically take an extra 40% more time not completing troll projects but then as soon as you hit 450 you'll A) immediately skillup to 525, and B) in the 30-40 troll projects probably get assigned Zin'rokh.

Questions? :)

[Supasnake]

I like this above mentioned strat and I def agree with the Night Elf part...its just not worth it. I'll be sure to save up the troll fragments
because I want to spend as little time as possible in Vash.

On a side note, when will mmo developers learn underwater levels are a terrible idea.

[Mosg2]

I just logged in to the game and started my day of Archaeology...

Only to discover that Blizz buffed Archaeology!

Now you get between 3 and 5 fragments per piece instead of just 3. This is a huge buff :)

[BrothelMeister]

I just logged in to the game and started my day of Archaeology...

Only to discover that Blizz buffed Archaeology!

Now you get between 3 and 5 fragments per piece instead of just 3. This is a huge buff :)

Incorrect : **You can also dig 6 times at a site instead of 3 now, so be sure to try it!!! ** Incorrect

As far as assuming that the 30-40 projects pot 450 will give you the weapon, I would say that this is very bad logic.

From what I've read the drop rate is under 1%, meaning that you should be expecting to do 100 on each character; and considering a random spread, you could expect to get 1 or 2 swords early, and not get the last sword until 200-300 projects completed on the last toon.

This still seems to be a very great amount of time spent on something that could instead be used for farming heroics/
BGs, or practicing arena.

[Kedash00]

You can also dig 6 times at a site instead of 3 now, so be sure to try it!!!

I was doing it last night and wasen't able to dig more than 3 times, you sure there wasen't 2 dig spots on top of each other?

[BrothelMeister]

I was doing it last night and wasen't able to dig more than 3 times, you sure there wasen't 2 dig spots on top of each other?

I double checked the info I had read, and you are correct, I just misread the first time.