Would it be possible to get rich in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm using Archeology?

Hello everyone and welcome to another Vikingsguides article!

First off I want to start this by saying that this is not a guide. It is more of a case study to test out how much money making potential was in Archeology in it's early days. Since World of Warcraft introduced Archeology as a seconday profession in Cataclysm, I went back and did a study on how much gold could this profession get you.

I am not expecting a tremendous amount of gold but there are some artifacts that can give quite a bit. You can check all the drops if you follow this link and do a search. Note that you would need to look the item first in your Atlas loot addon and enter the exact name to find the exact version of how that item was during World of Warcraft : Cataclysm and how it is found on the server I am doing the test on.

Statue of Liberty in World of Warcraft

Before we begin let me start by pointing out a few key factors about  WoW:Cataclysm 4.3.4 Archeology:

• It is really easy to get into as there are no actual requirements for it, other than doing your digging in digsites that spawn randomly on the world map.
• It gives XP so you could, in theory, level up a character using ONLY Archeology.
• It has some rare drops that get bound on your account so you can use them whenever you make a new character.
• It also holds a big part of World of Warcraft lore which is always captivating and great to look into.
• The way it works is you find a digsite on the map, you go there and use your Survey ability which will point the general direction and proximity of a find.
• Once you get a "find" you can get a few fragments of an artifact from a certain race (depending on the digsite);
• Just like any other profession, it has some rare drops that consist of "Keystones" - these are different for all 9 categorys of artifacts but they work in the same way - one Keystone can be used to save artifact fragments when combining them to create an artifact.
• In  World of Warcraft: Cataclysm patch 4.3.4 which is the one I am doing this test on , there is a cap on how many fragments of a certain race you can have on you at any given time and that cap is set at 200 fragments.
• There are a total of 8 Races that have artifacts made available through Archeology and they consist of Dwarf, Draenei, Night Elf, Nerubian, Orc, Tol'Vir , Troll and Vrykul. Aside from these 8 races , you can also form Fossil Artifacts.
• World of Warcraft  is divided into 4 major Archeological zones and these are : Outland (with Orc and Draenei digsites) , Northrend (predominant Vrykul and Nerubian digsites with a few Night Elf and Troll), the Eastern Kindoms ( Troll and Dwarf digsties with a few Fossil digsites) and last but not least Kalimdor which holds mostly Night Elf , Tol'Vir but quite a few Fossil digsites also)

Because of how it works as a profession there was no other real way of gauging what it can do in terms of gold income but to get ALL 9 Categories up to maximum amount of fragments and then see what we come up with after combining all the artifacts we can!

So I went and did just that : In the course of 13 hours of playtime I managed to get all 9 races at 200/200 fragments. In order to achieve this , I had to of course combine a few artifacts to avoid reaching the maximum on a certain race too soon. This happened because for example Northernd and Eastern Kingdoms both have Troll digsites so it was practically impossible to not get above 200 fragments for the Troll race.

For anyone out there who would like to replicate what I did here are the pre-requisites : 

• Archeology Skill level 525
• Master Riding Skill
• Hearthstone set in Dalaran for quick access to Tanaris and Orgimmar teleports.
• I did this on a Death Knight so I was also able to use Death Gate as a teleport whenever digsites were mostly in that area
• 13 hours of playtime available 

So let's check the results:

After reaching the cap but before combining all artifacts , I was looking at a total of 37 Keystones spread across all races , an epic trinket called Tyrande's Favorite Doll  and 13 common artifacts that are basicaly vendor fodder so exactly what we are looking for - gold!

After using all the fragments , here's what I got: A total of 60 Artifacts that I can vendor , one Recipe which can bring between 40k to 50k gold on the auction house due to the rarity. Also , in the archeology tab not yet complete Destroyer of worlds which my retrubution paladin will enjoy using because it is bound on account and I can send it to it!

Your character can turn into a rideable flying mount with the Vial of the Sands

Final Tally: 13 hours spent flying around and digging resulted in an income of 46239 gold ( most of it from the Vial of the Sands , 1239 gold from actual vendoring relics)

Final impresisons about Archeology in World of Warcraft : Cataclysm :

Is it boring?  Yes it is and it will drive you nuts if you are trying to get a certain item.

Is it lucrative? Can be if you get lucky : in the test I did for this article it went up to 3556 gold per hour because of the vial of the sands drop.

Is it worth doing? Certainly! Why not go dig around while waiting for a dungeon queue to pop or a battleground queue to pop? You have only to gain! And if you pair it up with Exploration achievements (provided that you are into that kind of thing) you can forget that time in queue even exists! 

Image of Zin'Rokh , Destoryer of Worlds

What about you? What are you experiences with Archeology and if you did try my little test what were the results! I would love to read the different answers so we can compare results and reach a more accurate result!

Thank you for your time and make sure to follow on social medias, share this with your friends if you found it fun and informative and until next time!