What's the best way to obtain archeology collectibles?

[Deleted]

I've never done archeology and I would like to max it out, or at least collect all the toys, mounts and pets. Regarding the older content, is it more worthwhile to go back to the old zones and solve puzzles there or should I just stick to the Legion zones and exchange crates for old fragments? Which one will be quicker?

[yogus]

I find doing pandaria digsites to be most worthwhile. You can focus on mantid alone using items from the seat of knowledge, and then turn those completed artifacts in for the pre-MoP stuff.

[Deleted]

Sorry I haven't played during MoP, how does the seat of the knowledge work?

[yogus]

It's a location above the Siege of Orgrimmar and Mogushan Palace entrances. There's a vendor in there that exchanges crated artifacts for a variety of other fragments, as wel as a few items that can help you isolate only mantid digsites in pandaria.

[Rivellana]

I recommend the mantid method as well, but I believe you need to have archaeology high enough first to be able to do Pandaria digsites (around 500 or so?). You have to get exalted with Lorewalkers (which is fairly easy, takes about an hour if you have max flight speed, you can find guides on the internet), and then you can buy the item from Seat of Knowledge to turn all digsites in Pandaria into mantid digsites for 24 hours. It costs two crated artifacts.

After you get that, you just use those digsites to get crated artifacts and use those to buy whatever kind of fragments you're looking for. Mantid digsites only spawn in Townlong Steppes and Dread Wastes and are usually pretty small areas that aren't too far apart. This is why it works so well.

[DeicideUH]

Draenor is just as fine as Pandaria, don't have minimun required level, and you can crate the findings to trade with vendor in Ashran just as well. Just be aware that boxes bought this way may have minimun Archeology requirements to be opened.

[Delaios]

If you're starting from absolute scratch:
- do the Legion bi-weekly quest whenever you get a new one (you can look up the quest to see if it awards something you don't want)
- do Draenor until you get the rares there
- if you are at 350 skill at this point (very likely) do Northrend until you get all of the Vrykul rares, prioritizing Nerubian digsites when they pop up
- do Outland until you've gotten all the rares there
- do Kalimdor/EK until you've got all the rares for Night Elf, Fossil and Troll
- do Pandaria for it's rares
- do Pandaria using the Mantid Locator to finish the races you haven't completed

Even after the supposed reduced spawn chance for races you've already completed, stuff like Dwarven, Nerubian and Tol'vir still doesn't spawn frequently enough to warrant targeting those races directly. They simply don't have enough digsites available between them and it just sucks traveling up and down Kalimdor/EK. Digsites also tend to span very large areas in those zones.

[S7orm]

If your goal is to complete everything related to Archaeology, you should follow this priority:
1. Legion quests (biweekly, couple hours tops to completed)
2. Outland, Northrend, Eastern Kingdom and Kalimdor until you got all rares from Dwarf, Fossil, Night Elf, Troll, Draenei, Orc, Nerubian, Vrykul (aka everything but Tol'Vir)
2a. Use Restored Artifacts you'll get from the next steps to buy Tol'Vir fragments until you have completed the collection (if you are alchemist, there's a recipe dropping from Canopic Jars for the Vial of the Sands also)
3. Draenor until you completed the achievements/rares
4. Pandaria until you completed Pandaren and Mogu achievements/rares
5. Pandaria using Mantid Artifact Sonic Locator


Buy all the cheap keystones you can find on the AH, they'll save a ton of time for relatively little investment

[Deleted]

I, like many others in Cata, went head over heels into Archaeology to get those few items for raiding, mainly the Tyrande Doll and ofcourse that Troll Blade.

God I still want that blade, I don't even mind the pixels.