ding 525 :p

And man...I really didn't think there was anything that would make me fondly reminisce about just how much fun fishing was!

Now to get that damn Vial of Sands and hopefully a staff and trinket. :p

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

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hoping to do the same by this coming Friday so i can enjoy the holiday, gratz!

Archaeology is a nice way to spend the 45 mins between queues, at least. It's ok.

Yeah I'm kind of messing w/this while waiting on dungeon queues and wow......it's boring.
*fly 10 minutes in one direction..digdigdig*
*fly 10 minutes in one direction..digdigdig*
*fly 10 minutes in one direction..digdigdig*
*you get [2silvervendortrash]*

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Larreth Wolfsong (long retired)
Lanys T'vyl, Everquest

Zinky, Lvl 60 Warlock
Thunderhorn, WoW

I dunno, I sort of like it. =P

It's definitely better than fishing. At least fishing you can now just do the daily in Stormwind and you'll be maxed out in 525 days!

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

Better to do it at 60 or 70 in Eastern Kingdoms. Save all the troll fragments and tablets. Get to 450 skill and chain skill up off them. Get Zin'rokh, fuck bitches.

Gotta disagree. Fishing gives me stuff I can use and stuff I can sell. Archaeology largely gives me greys that sell for about 28 gold after several hours and the occasional rare item that usually turns out to be some gimmick toy (shape change for 20 seconds, fountain of light, a "mirror" image that just stands there...)

Honestly, if someone isn't chasing the trinket, the staves, or the sword, or even in my case the Vial of Sands recipe... they should stop after they get the fossil raptors (mount and pet) which are hands down the coolest items from it but easily obtained in Kalimdor before 300 skill.

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You forget about the bug mount, sir.

I'm not sure what class you play, but there are also some other nice items besides the ones you mentioned (like a 462 dps 1-hand sword or a 359 iLevel caster ring). I agree archaeology could probably be better, but I'd take those items over fishing up a volatile water any day of the week.

Plus the stuff binds to your account, so if you can't use the items, perhaps one of your alts (assuming you have alts) can.

These are from Tol-vir Archaeology:

Scepter of Azj'Aqir
3 sec cast
The aqir were a race of incredibly evil, expansionistic insects who battled the troll empires for thousands of years. Eventually, the great Azj'Aqir civilization split in half, with Azjol-Nerub in the north, and Ahn'Qiraj in the south. The night elves were able to contain the qiraji for many years until they were awakened again by the Old God C'thun.

Scepter of Azj'Aqir
Binds when picked up
Unique
Mount
Requires Level 40
Requires Riding (150)
Item Level 40
Use: Teaches you how to summon this mount.


Ring of the Boy Emperor
3 sec cast
Little is known of Emperor Ninjter. His coronation was a time of great celebration among the tol'vir, and a long and prosperous rule was foretold. The emperor died very young, before much of his great destiny could unfold.

Ring of the Boy Emperor
Binds to account
Unique-Equipped
Finger
+286 Stamina
+190 Intellect
Requires Level 85
Item Level 359
Equip: Increases your haste rating by 127 (0.99% @ L85).
Equip: Increases your mastery rating by 127 (0.71 @ L85).



Staff of Ammunae
3 sec cast
Ammunae is one of the guardians of the Halls of Origination. Like the other constructs within the halls, Ammunae was created to protect the powerful device capable of resetting all life on Azeroth. Each of the keepers has a sphere of influence. Isiset presides over magic; Ammunae, life; Setesh, chaos; and Rajh, the sun.

Staff of Ammunae
Binds to account
Two-Hand Staff
443 - 666 Damage Speed 2.40
(231.2 damage per second)
+512 Stamina
+341 Intellect
+247 Spirit
Durability 120 / 120
Requires Level 85
Item Level 359
Equip: Increases your critical strike rating by 194 (1.08% @ L85).
Equip: Increases spell power by 1955.
"Achusenmen osadi djahi kahun Ammunae"


Scimitar of the Sirocco
3 sec cast
This weapon was once a set of scimitars forged by the renowned Ramhaken bronzesmith Irmaat. Each was designed to represent one of the djinn lords of the Four Winds. All four scimitars were thought lost, but if this one could be reconstructed, maybe there is hope for the others.

Scimitar of the Sirocco
Binds to account
One-Hand Sword
841 - 1563 Damage Speed 2.60
(462.3 damage per second)
+146 Strength
+219 Stamina
Durability 105 / 105
Requires Level 85
Item Level 359
Equip: Increases your critical strike rating by 111 (0.62% @ L85).
Equip: Increases your haste rating by 74 (0.58% @ L85).
"The wind in the desert has a name..."

Don't get me wrong, the items in the rares for tol'vir, night elf, and dwarven are very nice (can't speak to the sword). That isn't in question at all. I want that dwarven staff.

It is how fucking rare they are going to be. I've spent the better part of 2 days trying to just get a COMMON tol'vir item (canopic jar). Tol'vir dig sites come up around once every 15-25 dig sites. Each dig site is a 3 spot dig. Each artificat at that level of skill requires 45 for common items and 100-150 for rares. So the ability to put together enough tol'vir items to be able to GET a rare? That's the really, really boring part and unless the RNG is on your side a whole lot....well, good luck. Like I said, I'm not even chasing a rare right now. Just a common level item from the tol'vir loot table. And man, it is like pulling teeth to get tol'vir dig sites to appear and it takes at least 2-3 trips to a tol'vir dig site to combine any 45 or high combine item.

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good, finally something in WoW that doesn't happen within the week.

I think anyone that thinks that clearly hasn't gotten to 525 yet and seen how it actually functions. But by all means, good luck to you when you get there because for me, once I get this stupid "common" item, I won't be bothering with the huge waste of time archaeology is as it stands.

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Nobody is forcing you to play the game or do the mundane trades in it. Fishing is not "fun". Alchemy is not "fun". Tailoring is not "fun". Enchanting is not "fun". Archaeology is not "fun". In the end, it's just 'more shit to do.' If you don't like it, don't do it. It isn't like it will impact how your character performs in groups or in raids, so it is 100% unnecessary to do any of it, whereas some other tradeskills are actually semi-important to improving your character.

I really can't think of a better way to handle Archaeology than how they do it now. It's a pain, but what is the alternative? Would you rather be able to pick exactly where your dig site was and what you were digging up? Would you rather everyone just power straight to the mounts, swords, and walking hand pets without any sort of challenge? Sure sounds like it.

I'd like to be able to exclude certain races from my list of potential digsites.

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

Of course, but then why not exclude every race other than Fossil or whatever has the item you are going for? Or maybe they can just mail people the mount.

Someone has been patrolling the wow forums a bit much lately. It be rubbin' off on ye, lad! Begorrah!

Archeology isn't terrible but it IS terribly boring and is the one secondary skill that produces nothing to sell. Fishing does, cooking does..etc so that leaves archeology and it's eleventybillion vendor items by itself. At the least they could have it randomly produce volatiles or gems, misc ore or herbs...since you *are* digging.

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Larreth Wolfsong (long retired)
Lanys T'vyl, Everquest

Zinky, Lvl 60 Warlock
Thunderhorn, WoW

I just want to eliminate troll digsites from popping up, I don't care about anything from them =p

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

I actually agree with Neesha here. Archaeology is basically fine the way it is, and is exactly what the game needed. Something silly that you can do to waste time, get some cool stuff and isn't mandatory for your progression by any means.

Don't like it? Don't do it. Don't have the time? Don't do it. Want one of the items because it's cool? Congratulations, now go goof around until you get it.

Let me try to put it another way.

No other trade skill requires you to continue to farm level 1 worthless items while you try to gain the higher level items you actually want. It'd be like (in northrend) farming peasebloom for 3 hours just to get 1 frost lotus. People would be howling. You can't use, nor do you particularly want, the peasebloom. This is the only tradeskill that functions like that. Hell, even trying for that stupid rare daggerfish thing in Northrend gave me fish I could cook useful stuff out of. I never got what I was going for (damn RNG), but the time spent wasn't a total waste of time.

I guess I just see that there's a lot of fun that can be had with the rewards from this rather than a "spend hours hoping the RNG rewards you and if it doesn't, you've got nothing". I see the start of an idea that could be interesting, just with bad implementation.

My two cents. Now forgive me, I'm going to go dig through another 50 fossils and 40 night elf spots hoping for one tol'vir. :p

edit: Wanted to add.....



When I first saw the achievement lists for archaeology, I thought they were going to do a level/story based kind of trade. "Collect the items in this race's 10-20 zones to learn the story behind X lore". "Collect the items in this race's 60-70 zone to learn the story behind Y lore". This would allow you to still have the level appropriate rare items, but also allow you to "tick things off" in such a way that when you got to 525, you didn't need to be farming fossils (completely useless to you by the time you get to 525) just to be able to have a shot at the items, collections, and dig sites you actually want.

Maybe have a way to "go back and research" if you missed items or are a completionist and want to get all the rares for a specific level range, etc.

I dunno. Just kind of what I thought I was looking at before I began doing the trade. And functionally, it is a little strange that the "dig sites" pick themselves, not the archaeologist picks what he wants to study.

At 525, you'd still have multiple races/locations to deal with, and the RNG is already doing a pretty damn fine of keeping the rares rare, so I don't see the point of keeping completely useless spawns in the mix.

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But it's not a tradeskill, it's a secondary skill and a game, basically. You don't farm herbs with it for flasks, you don't need it for any sort of progression, it's really not part of any economy, it's basically just a mini-game with some silly rewards.

Could it be better? Yeah. But it's meant and designed to be a total silly timesink and it does that just fine.

You should try putting it yet another way because I don't think you get archeology.

Perhaps I don't.

Ring of the Boy Emperor while still looking for the canopic jar. At least my shammy is getting a nice ring out of this. :p heh

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I take it back. Archaeology has turned out to be a surprisingly good bank roll trade for me. People are paying insane amounts for the tol'vir hieroglyphs. I've made a minimum of 1k each off of them rather than using them myself. That has added up to chaching! for me. :p I know it won't last, but man it is nice right now.

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I got my 5 man Cata Glory drake and said fuck the Alchemy one...after I had run through an empty Canopic Jar and 2 Tolvir Rares. Just not willing to do it atm.

Yeah, I find it funny I've gotten Ring of the Boy Emperor and Tyrande's Favorite Doll both before I've gotten a canopic jar. heh. Ah well, I'll keep at it because I've easily made 25k off archaeology this week alone. May as well keep it up for as long as the money keeps coming in. Makes it feel like much less of a time waste. :p

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So, roughly 3 weeks, 32k gold, 12 rares later...I get the vial of sands recipe. Irritating as it was, when I look at what I accumulated, I have a hard time saying it wasn't worth the time spent. Then again, I can say the same thing about EQ...so perhaps the frustration level of archaeology gave a better feeling of accomplishment when you actually finally got the damn thing. heh. The only thing I am missing from the loot tables I am interested in is that dwarven staff, but I am probably taking a break before I return to archaeology.

Any alchemists looking for the Vial of Sands pattern? Wait til you are 525 at both alchemy AND archaeology before you do the completion of the canopic jar pattern. Tol'vir sites are very rare, so if you get it, there's no sense wasting your chances on skill that may be too low to get the item. (I don't know if 525 is required, but better safe than sorry).

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Truth

What time between queues? I hit "Join Queue" and the popup is immediately there with a group for me. Though, I suppose I tank and cheat.