How many dedicated Archaeologists are out there night after night surveying their hearts out for that one rare project? Many have set there eyes on Zin’Rokh because of it’s nearly BiS placement.

I think that you can compare the rare artifact grind to farming old ZG mounts grind or even MC grind for a legendary (like Thunderfury). A big difference between though is that you are no longer held back by a raid lockout timer. Instead of killing a boss once and then having to wait a week/4days, Archaeology is setup so you can just keep surveying non-stop. So the time spent on surveying can greatly exceed the time it would take you to kill an older, farmable boss. With bosses you’re limited to however many kills in certain time peroid the raid system allows but dig sites are always active.

As Wowhead put it, Archaeology was added as the ultimate “time-waster” of the expansion, offering no substantial monetary gain and no promised immediate reward, such as being able to cook a certain type of food at a certain skill level, or craft a certain item.

Time spent trying to obtain those certain rares does not phase some archaeologist. These players are caught in the grips of the most powerful entity in the World of Warcraft, the RNG boss. Never faced off with this boss you say? Sure you have! Whenever you do a /roll or /random that’s RNG incarnate.

What is RNG technically? Random number generators are algorithms used in computing when an outcome needs to be as random as possible. A computer can’t generate completely random numbers on its own, so it uses a complex algorithm designed to get as close to random as is practical. ¹

Many have argued just how not random this system is, the community site forums are almost always amiss with posts QQing about it. What some do not realize is that getting those rare artifacts/projects is luck of the draw unfortunately. This is why some archaeologists have 2 rares at skill 525 and some have almost 8-10 rares completed by then. (It does help to aim for races with higher amounts of rares, simple logic.)

Just like those 0.01% drops in the game, certain archaeology items can be frustratingly difficult to obtain. It’s understandable that just like any other RNG based grind you need a bit of lady luck on your side. When it comes down to it, there is no fast-path to guarantee your artifact appears but that’s all just part of the game! At the end of the day, it’s still just a secondary profession in the World of Warcraft… or is it?