Archaeology Guide

[Alison]

Introduction

Congratulations, you are going to follow Mr. Indiana Jones in his archaeology study, find some relics of the pasts, or simply spend a lot of time flying around and watching your favourite TV show, yes it takes about 30-35 hours to max it, and like 2/3 of that time you will be flying. Blizzard still haven't implement daily quests, so this guide only covers basics of archaeology, as well as shows diffeent artifacts.

Archaeology and how it works

Archaeology is a secondary profession like fishing or cooking. Training services are being offered by Harrison Jones himself in Stormwind Keep, or his antagonist Rene Belloc. Also you should know that level 20 is the minimum for learning this profession.
Now in the profession tab you'll have archaeology and special ability called Survey, also your map now shows you various dig sites, four per continent.


After landing at nearest dig site you are pressing Survey and...theodolite appears. It shows you direction, where you have to move, and flashing lamp warn you if your goal is near, red light and long flashing intervals mean your goal is far away, yellow light and medium flashing intervals mean its nearby, green light and short intervals mean you are standing right near it.

Or your finding might look like this.


At each digsite you can dig up three findings, each of them consists of several archaeology fragments. There are nine races, so there are nine digsite types. Also you can find special relic - keystone. You can use these keystones to boost your solving process. Each keystone equals twelve fragments, and maximum of 3 keystones can be used in solving process. Generally it is a great way to level up archaeology by inserting all possible keystones, which results in less fragments required to finish artifact.

Archaeology is not only flying around the world gathering fragments, it is also about solving the use of artifact. All fragments you've found are being placed in their race sheet.


After you gathered required amount of fragments the solve button becomes active. Pressing it transforms fragments in something special. Unfortunately you cannot decide what artifact to make up, its absolutely random and all about luck and your skill level.


Side note about keystones, they are not bind on pickup and can be traded or sold. Also there are eight types of keystones, only fossils don't have them. Except using them to boost solve process you can spend them to get special zone buff in dungeons, usually the quest tomb is located near entrance.

1. Grim Batol - 5% crit - 1 Dwarf Rune Stone
2. Halls of Origination - increased running speed - 1 Tol'vir Hieroglyphic
3. Lost City of the Tol'vir - +10% damage against Neferset - 1 Tol'vir Hieroglyphic
4. Vortex Pinnacle - periodical mana/hp regen - 1 Tol'vir Hieroglyphic
5. Stonecore - physical damage reduced by 5% - 1 Dwarf Rune Stone
6. Throne of the Tides - +10% damage against - 1 Highborne Scroll
7. Blackrock Caverns - elemental damage reduced by 5% - 1 Dwarf Rune Stone

So you've gathered fragments and it is time to make your first artifact. It goes right into your bag, and its description is shown in special artifacts sheet. There you can read little story about it, sometimes it pretty interesting, for example this one uses old Salem chest story.
There are two things to remember, after you pressed solve button all your unused fragments will transfer to next artifact, so as i said before try to always stack keystones, and second thing - you are getting five skill points per artifact, but if it is rare or epic artifact you will recieve fifteen skill points, that's the only way to level this profession after 100. You can consider levelling to 100 by gathering fragments and only then solve everything you gathered


As i mentioned there are nine races, each of them have their very special artifacts, while uncommon are mostly vendor trash, epic ones are desireable by everybody.


There are four restrictions, you can't dig up in Outland until 300 skill level, in Northrend until 375, and in Uldum until 450, also you are not going to get digsites in cataclysm locations until level 81. I'm pretty sure you want to get fragments of only one race, which has the artifact you do want. But digsites are absolutely random and you can spend a lot of time digging dwarf fragments only because there is no other choice. On the other hand, following example, you can stack those dwarven fragments while using troll's or fossil to level up skill. Following pattern can be used to determine how often and where you may find desired race. Order is descended of course.

Eastern Kingdoms - troll, dwarf, fossil, night elf.
Kalimdor - night elf, fossil, troll, dwarf, tol'vir.
Outland - orc, draenei.
Northrend - Vrykul, troll, nerub, night elf.

Boubouille's and Simca's compiled list of the distirbution in a nice table, original data is mostly from Wowpedia's list of Dig Sites



Artifacts

There is no point in describing common artifacts, lets concentrate on rare and epic ones.

Dwarf

Epic
Staff of sorceror-thane Thaurissan - Great example of caster staff.


Rare
Chalice of the mountain-kings - Short scripted event


The innkeepers daughter - Same cooldown as your hearthstone, but after use daughter's ghost will follow you for a short time.


Pets
Clockwork gnome


Draenei

Rare
The last relic of argus - Randomly teleports you, this thing can be used in combat, and can be used to escape, like old bubble+hs macro.

Arrival of the Naaru - Short scripted event


Fossil

Epic
Fossilized raptor


Pets
Fossilized hatchling


Night Elf

Epic
Tyrandes favourite doll


Queen Azsharas dressing gown


Rare
Highborne soul mirror - Creates a copy of you, for some reasons this one can be used in arena, some people i played agains in fact did waste their cooldowns trying to stun/fear this image, most probably it'll be fixed, but still its fun.

Druid and priest statue set - Green beam, nothing special

Kaldorei wind chimes - Short chime is playing.


Wisp amulet - Transforms you into wisp, pretty big one.


Bones of transformation - Transforms you into Naga, unfortunately male one.


Nerubian

Epic
Puzzle box of yogg-saron - Lemarchand's box, this one is really interestin artifacts, of course you can't open it, and each time you fail lockbox whispers you, some of them are pretty creepy.

The fish know all the secrets. They know the cold. They know the dark.
The tortured spirits of your ancestrs cling to you, screaming in silence. Apparently they are quite numerous.
Look around. They all betray you. Flee screaming into the black forest.
There is no sharp distinction bewtween the real and the unreal.
Do you dream while you sleep or is it an escape from the horrors of reality?
What can change the naure of a man?
At the bottom of the ocean even light must die.
Even death may die.
Open me! Open me! Open me! Then only will you know peace.
You will all be alone in the end.
In the land or Ny'alotha there is only sleep.
You resist. You cling to youe life as if it actually matters. You will learn
It is standing right behind you. Do not move. Do not breathe.
The silent, sleeping string houses in the backwoods always dream. It would be merciful to tear them down.
The drowned god's heart is black ice.
The stars sweep chill currents that make men shiver in the dark.
The giant rook watches from the dead trees. Nothing breathes beneath his shadow.
All places, all things have souls. All souls can be devoured.
The void sucks at your soul. Is is content to feast slowly.
Have you had the dream again? A black goat with seven eyes that watches from the outside.
In the sunken city, he lays dreaming.
Y'knath k'th'rygg k'yi mrr'ungha gr'mula.
Ny'alotha is a city of old, terrible unnumbered crimes.
There is a little lamb lost in dark woods.

Blessing of the old god - Transforms you into silithid, shame you can't be mounted.


Orc

Epic
Headdress of the first shaman


Tol'Vir

Epic
Scepter of Az'aqir - You failed to open Anh'Qiraj gates, now you have a chance to obtain this ultramarine battle tank. Ride it, feel the bug.

Scimitar of the Sirocco

Staff of Ammunae - Another caster staff, healer's one.

Ring of the boy-emperor - Excellent caster ring.
Pendant of the scarab storm - Summons a dozen of scarabs, quite funny.

Canopic jar - this one isn't rare or epic, but inside you can find very special Recipe: Vial of the Sands, of course you must have Alchemy, otherwise recipe will not be shown in loot.

Pet
Mummified monkey paw - Video can be found here



Troll

Epic
Zinrokh - destroyer of worlds - Dream of all paladins and deathknights, but it is really rare.


Vrykul
Nifflevar Bearded Axe


P.S.
This guide was made by me during Cataclysm beta, and originally was written in russian, so it could be found at 2 web sites (both of them showing me as author), but a chance to win some great prizes forced me to make a translation, i realize there can be syntactic/spelling mistakes or sometimes sentence is looking way too complicated. Feel free to correct me. And yes, english is hard ^_^
P.P.S.
Unfortunately Tol'Vir artifacts are very rare and i didn't complete most of them, thats why mmoc screenshots were used.

Sincerely Alison of Гордунни EU