Archaeology is the new secondary profession added to World of Warcraft in the Cataclysm expansion. Some people may like doing it for the lore aspect of learning more about the history of the Warcraft universe, but some people will only be interested in the good items you can get from it. If you lean more toward the latter, then this article is for you. I will outline a strategy to maximize your results so that getting the good items from the Archaeology profession is less of a grind.
What Good Items Can Be Gained From the Archaeology Profession?
Most of the artifacts that you complete will be useless gray items that you sell to a vendor. There are, however, a few good rare items that you can obtain, including the Zin’Rokh two-handed sword that has a whopping 623 damage per second, two epic staves that have around 2000 spell power, a few epic trinkets, and a Fossilized Raptor mount. The best part is that the equipment is bound to your account, so you can send the items to your alts if you want. The only catch is that the chance of these projects showing up for you is quite low, and the grind might be very long to acquire them.
Beginning Strategy
If you are just starting out in raising your Archaeology skill, you should wait to complete any of the projects until you have reached a skill of 100. This is when you will stop gaining skill points from gathering fragments. After this point you can only gain skill points by completing projects, with common ones giving you 5 skill points, and rare ones giving you 15 skill points.
Number of Fragments Per Dig and Keystones
It may seem like leveling your Archaeology skill will take forever since you only get 2 fragments per dig at the start, but the number of fragments gained per dig goes up to a possible maximum of 6 at level 375. You will also get keystones on occasion which count as 12 fragments. I would recommend using your keystones as you get them instead of saving them, so that you can raise your skill faster and hit the higher maximum fragments per dig sooner.
Speed of Travel is Key for Efficiency
Archaeology is best done with maxed Riding skill, and with a class that can move around the continents quickly. Mage is far and away the most efficient class to level Archaeology with because of the ability to teleport. Death Knights and Druids are attractive alternatives if you don’t have a Mage, with their teleport spells to Eastern Plaguelands and Moonglade, respectively. The bulk of the time spent doing Archaeology will be traveling all over the continents many times, so any way to speed it up is good.