A quick guide to archaeology on the Pandarian continent
Archaeology on Pandaria starts out much like you'd expect. At around 525 archaeology, you'll start seeing dig sites appear on Pandaria, 4 of them spread out over the continent. You'll head to each one, start surveying, and get some archaeology fragments. Sometimes, you will get a Pandaren Pottery Shard or Mogu Statue Piece, which serve as the keystone for those race's projects and can be used to solve a piece faster.
Things change a little bit when your digging digs up an Ancient Haunt. This is a Sha mob that sometimes spawns when you successfully dig up some fragments. If you kill it, you'll be able to loot more fragments.
The real fun begins once you solve a common artifact. Instead of creating grey vendor trash, you'll create one of two things with a common solve. The more rare version is a pristine version of the artifact, such as a Pristine Terracotta Arm. This item starts a quest to display the item at the Lorewalker's base, which is the Vale of Eternal Blossoms above Mogu'shan Palace (You have to fly there, or you can get Mishi to fly you there from your faction's shrine). Once you do that, it will not only be permanently on display, with a nameplate with its flavor text, but you will be rewarded with a Mogu or Pandaren keystone and a number of Restored Artifacts. If your solve is just a common artifact, you can right click it to turn it into a single Restored Artifact.
Restored Artifacts are used as currency to buy items from the Lorewalkers. If you have 600 archaeology, you can buy a set of artifact shards of any race from Brann Bronzebeard. Never got that Crawling Claw? Now you have a second chance without the need to go back to the old world. Turn in crates and see if you get lucky.
If you're exalted with Lorewalkers from reading all the scrolls out in the world, Brann will also sell you a Lorewalker's Map, which randomizes your dig sites in Pandaria, and the Lorewalker's Lodestone, which teleports you to a random dig site in Pandaria. Unfortunately, both have restrictive cooldowns, but if you don't really need any old world artifact shards, they're a good use for your Restored Artifacts.
Finally, there are rare items to be excavated on Pandaria. You can dig up the Spear of Xuen, an agility polearm perfect for monks or druids. You can get the Umbrella of Chi-ji, a caster offhand with an incredibly beautiful, unique look. Both of those items can be equipped at level 85, making them great twink gear and great heroic dungeon gear at the same time. Those are both Pandaren projects. From Mogu projects, you can get a Quilen Statue, which can be just the ticket for boosting your item level to allow entry into heroic dungeons, if nothing else. Mogu projects also let you get an Anatomical Dummy, which when used, sets up a Pandaren training dummy that taunts you when you attack it.
It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
