Make a good profit levelling Archaeology!

[Bandefaca]

Alright, many people don't really understand how archaeology works, which has led to a great market to profit from; Keystones. That is, the Highborne Scrolls, Dwarf Runesticks, Troll Tablets, etc. Their droprate is somewhat rare, which allows be to sell them on the AH for anywhere between 80g-400g for the lower-tier races. What a lot of people don't realize is that they keystones are required for rare recipes; many people just use them on any common item they can, and once they reach a rare, are overcome by how close it is, and desperate to pay a lot of gold for one.

It really varies, all based on luck, but some days, I've been able to get 7 or 8 keystones in simply 4 hours of farming (with the odd battleground or dungeon mixed between) on my goblin warrior. This has been great for leveling, because between him and my bank alt, I have about 4500g, and I have yet to hit 85.

[sients]

I just realised these wern't soulbound.

[Vixxi]

Clarify something for me, do you actually need keystones to complete a rare archaeology find or can you complete it by getting the ~130 fossils required? I would assume it's the latter.

[DeathComesForU]

Fossils don't have these keystones, but yeah if it's anything else you can complete it without keystones.

Keystones just make it a ton easier.

[Bandefaca]

Clarify something for me, do you actually need keystones to complete a rare archaeology find or can you complete it by getting the ~130 fossils required? I would assume it's the latter.

For most rares, you do need a keystone to finish it. However, a lot of people use keystones on common artifacts just to boost it so they can gather a few less nodes.

[joachim12]

Ok maybe I miss something apart from the selling keystone thing. What the heck is wrong with using the keystones on common projects? When you are leveling archeology it goes faster that way and when you are farming for a certain rare item it goes faster too. It realy doesn't matter if you use them on a common or a rare project.

In fact all you say is that you need to sell your keystones.

[jazman84]

I usually trade them for keystones I want over /2. I guess the same could be done to get keystones that are worth more.

[luddo9]

pspspsp.. i'm one of those that buys keystones , Bad luck in finding them @ skill 525 & farming zin'roth.. sadly only digspots for dwarf / fossil atm

[DeathComesForU]

For most rares, you do need a keystone to finish it.

This is wrong, you don't NEED keystones at all. You can just get 130 whatever fragments manually and be done with it.

[bobdibop]

All the keystones I' ve seen on AH have stayed there for days. They just don' t sell (on myserver anyway).

[Bandefaca]

Look at it this way; each keystone is 12 fragments. Each digsite is 9-15 (12 on average) fragments. Basically, is a single digsite worth 80g (minimum)? I think it's a great opportunity that, for a while, will make a ton of money. Not to mention, all keystones from outland, northrend, and tol'vir are usually up only one or two at a time. I've made a good 3k from purely keystones over the past few days.