THE OUTLAND LOOPHOLE

I remember the first time I got bored in Outland. Interestingly enough, it was the first time I was in Outland.

I was trying as best as I could to grind my way through in order to reach Level 68. It was the required level to reach in order to train Cold Weather Flying, the (quite essential) ticket to accomplishing quests in Northrend.

The point of this post, is that there is always a loophole in WoW; something that has not been discovered that is in a yet-to-be-nerfed state, where, the WoW gamer can profit and benefit greatly by taking advantage of this loophole.

As Cataclysm dropped in December 2010, at long last, I found my first “loophole” discovery!

Archaeology was the brand new profession, inspired by the cataclysmic upheaval of the terrain of Azeroth. I decided to check it out because of the allure of rare loot I could sell for gold, as I was just learning to build my bankroll and at that point, knew essentially nothing.

As I flew away from Ironforge, a newly trained archaeologist at Level 65, I ventured into my first dig site a well-rested DK. When I found my first artifact, I was pleasantly surprised to see myself earn 10K exp for the ONE dig!

Wait a second… I’m going to get three artifacts per dig; that’s 30K exp when I’m rested?! Holy crap, this is better than leveling via quests!

I threw on my iPod, rocked the soundtrack to DJ HERO, and went Indiana Jones for the next few hours.

I found plenty of artifacts, rune stones/tablets/scrolls, and newly discovered lands for even more exp. The common artifacts, I sold for small amount of gold (rares sell for more, obviously). I had recently ventured into the world of the AH—this was shortly after “The Nethergarde BitterExperience”—so I decided to throw the rune stones on the market.

The Dwarf Rune Stone and Highborne Scroll sold extremely well with the Troll Tablet selling the best since everyone was farming Archaeology looking for Zin’rokh. I sold them at different rates, depending on the going rate of the market, but was able to rake in almost 8K gold in four days. It was my first huge rake—almost 2K a day for four days—and it wasn’t long before everyone had their hand in the market.

In one week’s time, I grew my bankroll from 500G to 8000G and leveled well into Northrend without stepping foot onto the frozen soil. I accidentally gained enough gold to finance my future flight licensure, and also to start my savings off strong now that I had eclipsed the 1000G barrier.

Shortly thereafter, with hotfixes and patch updates (4.1), archaeology slowly got nerfed a bit in the experience area. It can still, however, be a great way to level out of Outland (or some other region/zone you’re despising) as you can discover new lands you have not been to before, and grind out the profession for gold.

The overall lesson to take from this post is to ALWAYS PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR SURROUNDINGS. Had I not, I would not have noticed that I was coupling (a) exp gained by exploration, (b) exp gained by archaeology digs, and (c) exp gained by monsters killed while digging to sum up into one HUGE leveling experience in a short amount of time (while rested). I also would not have thought to take a brief moment, fly over to the AH, and check and see if anyone was selling these rarities on the AH. It was because I took the time that I noticed some sold for between 200-800G/per—and that was my goldmine.

I tested this the other day with my Level 65 Paladin and was gaining between 6-8K experience per dig (while rested) and between 3-4K exp otherwise. Since my Pally is a new archaeologist and I only spent a few hours leveling the profession, I have yet to find many tablets/scrolls/rune stones. I have a feeling I’m going to keep ahold of the tablets, though.

I’d love to get Imperiexo a Zin’rokh!