"Your skill in Archeology has increased to 7"...

[Slickrock]

Well, this is gonna take a while, but it's still better than camping rares and having them killed at the other spawn point...

[Saturo]

It's definitely too slow, yes. Piece of advice: Don't assemble any artifacts until you hit skill 100. Up until 100 you get skill from every node, but after you only get it from assembling.

[Azunara]

My mom just got my brother to do her archeology for her. >.<

I went up to 10, sat there, and went to play my lock instead. XD

[Nia]

Having already leveled Arch to 525, and going from 81-84 on my Paladin in the process. I love Archaeology, it's a pretty fun alternative to doing the new zones. It also gives the chance of 85 BoA Epics as well as Vanity Items.

I would say the speed of it is fine. The worse part was 95-100 for me. Because I got a skill up every like 5 sites, and I gave up and just made an artifact at 97.

[Lupis]

I just made artifacts whenever I could, not thinking...
I'm at 325 so far.

[Felidire]

If you're after the Vial or the Uldum rare items, my advice would be "do not touch this profession with a 10-ft pole." I regret ever learning it, let alone spending 130-140 hours leveling it up and farming endlessly for nothing but greys and NE fragments! =P

You could get luck and pick up the good epics quickly.. or you could be stuck farming 10 hours a day for 2 weeks straight and start to gradually give up; just play that you don't get the latter. X3

--

I also heard from someone that they're buffing the profession so that you gain +15 instead of +5 each time you "Solve" something.. I never confirmed that, but if they intend to (or already have) it might be a good idea to level it to 100 and then just wait for the change.

[erwil]

Did I read wrong, or did they get rid of those dig sites in Vash'jir? O_O I might actually go to Eastern Kingdoms and hunt me some dwarf and troll rares now.

And Felidire, I completely agree with you about the Tol'Vir ones. >_> 4000 Night Elf fragments say hi.

[Felidire]

And Felidire, I completely agree with you about the Tol'Vir ones. >_> 4000 Night Elf fragments say hi.

I know, that's precious time that could've been better spent drawing.
Did you ever end up getting your vial recipe? =/

Edit: Well.. I guess we're all set if they ever decide to add new Fossil/Night Elf rares for lvl 90's in the next expansion? >.>;

[erwil]

I know, that's precious time that could've been better spent drawing.
Did you ever end up getting your vial recipe? =/

Edit: Well.. I guess we're all set if they ever decide to add new Fossil/Night Elf rares for lvl 90's in the next expansion? >.>;

I've been pondering the exact same. -_- I took a holiday break from pretty much all my graphical work, but I really need to get back to it after New Year. And I'm really glad both Jadefang and the drake are no longer on my list of "WANT NAO".
And I never got lucky with the darn pattern. ;^; Keep building sand castles, but I suppose 11 empty jars is enough until Bliz makes some changes to the profession.

And the next expansion's server first Archaeologist will be reached within a minute if they leave the profession as it is. xD

[Tsiya]

I hit 525 today, having tons of fun still, and I'll hit 85 from it tomorrow. I make the stuff on the spot because I have 0 patience for anything but pets lol.

[ummeiko]

It's fun if you're just looking to kill time and maybe get some random flavor items. If you look for something specific, be it the recipe, staff, trinkets, zin'rhok, etc... then it will be hell.

[Felidire]

Yeah.. it's so hell, infact, that I randomly got [Zin'rhok] made from the handful of troll sites in Kalimdor while trying to farm for the Vial Recipe.. I made the dwarf hearthstone from the 1 single dwarven digsite in kalimdor, and every fossil/NE rare/epic...

At this rate i'll have every single Uldum rare made by the time I even find that recipe.. I'm already HALF way through the tol'vir epics!! and I'm due for my next one very soon.. T_T;

[cowmuflage]

I like the new skill :S

[Slickrock]

I think it will be fine.. it will just take a while. Since it's about the only "independent" thing in the game, you can go at your own pace, which is nice.

And yeah, I won't solve anything until I absolutely have to. I've heard you can go to about 150. And also to save keystones for rare items, at least at lower levels.

Sadly, there aren't any hunter loot items, but there are two cool mounts. The sword would be great for my DK, and no, I'm only doing it on one toon...

[Slickrock]

And I think I discovered something else to do.. getting all the new flightpoints as you go through a zone can help make your routes a lot faster..

[Sarayana]

I absolutely love archeology as a relaxing time-waster (so much better than fishing in that regard!) but I agree that you gotta stop doing it "for" an item. Instead, saying that you'll get it if you get it will make the profession more fun.

That said, of course I'm hoping to get one of the two staves, the ring, the trinket, and well... this guy. The caster stuff would make my disc priest giggle with glee and the mount would make Sara a very happy girl indeed. Just sayin'. *nudges RNG*

[Setanta]

I like it more than fishing as well. But they could do well to buff the amount of Uldum sites or at least their rate. My patience only has so much tolerance for farming Night Elf and Troll fragments instead of Tol'vir and Fossil.

Also, there are still some buggy sites that lead to nothingness because they're out of the digsite, and you can't get to them. Nor will the site go away as being completed so it sits there taunting you when you're trying to get new sites.

I will say that the one time I had all four EK sites in the same zone was lots of fun though.

[Ket Shi]

Another tip I can offer is getting the addon Archy. It tracks digsites and assemblies much more intuitively.

[Felidire]

I'd kinda like an addon that shows a red circle on the floor where you looted an artifact, as i've looted somewhere between 1000-2000 digsites and noticed that many of the artifacts were in the exact same location. That way I could just fly to a red zone when the surveying equipment points me in that direction. (that's kinda what I do, and half the time I land smack right on target, it's kinda sad....)

[Skyshot]

Another tip I can offer is getting the addon Archy. It tracks digsites and assemblies much more intuitively.

^This^
I can't stress how easy this addon made leveling archeology for me.
The profession can still put me to sleep but this has made those cat naps more infrequent.