Azerothian Archives - New World Event in Patch 10.2.5

By Neryssa Last Updated: 2024/02/29 Changelog Patch: 10.2.6

Table of Contents
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Why Should I Help the Azerothian Archives?no player powerAzerothian Archives Location and IntroductionTo the Archives!Excavation 101Technoscrying 101The Big Dig: Traitor's RestIs the Azerothian Archives Intro Account-Wide?Yes, everything unlocked by the Azerothian Archives introductionArchives World Quest BasicsExcavation 101Technoscrying 101seven

In Technoscrying world quests, we will use specialized goggles that will help us track ancient findings by either giving us a tracker to find them, or observe events from the past.

In Excavation world quests, we will use elemental totems to unearth relics by using temperature changes and terrain manipulation to ease our digs.

In Research world quests, we fly around the area looking for clues highlighted by ghostly companions!

Mysterious FragmentBig Dig Event BasicsMysterious Fragment

Uncommon: Dusty Centaur Tome, Dusty Djaradin Tome, Dusty Dracthyr Tome, Dusty Drakonid Tome, Dusty Niffen Tome

Rare: Preserved Djaradin Tome, Preserved Dragonkin Tome, Preserved Isles Tome

Epic: Immaculate Tome

Mysterious FragmentMysterious FragmentsMysterious FragmentProvisioner AristtaArchivist World Quests

500-800 Mysterious Fragment per World Quest completion - Once all intro questlines are done, two World Quests will be available every 3 days and 12 hours.

Big Dig events in Azure Span

100-120 Mysterious Fragment for defeating the final boss in Big Dig events;

80-100 Mysterious Fragment from opening items discovered through the event such as Crystal Scrying Bowl;

5000 Mysterious Fragment every week for completing the weekly Big Dig quest, The Big Dig: Traitor's Rest
This quest only gives 5000 fragments ONCE per week - Completing it on one character flags the quest so the 5k fragments are not given to multiple alts.

Opening an Uncommon tome gives 40-60 Mysterious Fragment;

Opening a Rare tome gives 100-120 Mysterious Fragment;

Opening an Epic tome gives 280-320 Mysterious Fragment.

Mysterious FragmentPriceless ArtifactProvisioner AristtaMysterious FragmentMysterious FragmentMysterious FragmentAzerothian Archives ReputationAzerothian Archives

Junior - 0/10500

Capable - 0/10500

Learned - 0/11500

Resident - 0/9500

Tenured - Max Rank

150 Reputation per introduction quest, for a total of 1800 Reputation.

Archivist World Quests

300 Reputation per world quest completion - Once all intro questlines are done, two World Quests will be available every 3 days and 12 hours.

Big Dig events in Azure Span

50 Reputation for defeating the final boss in Big Dig events;

3000 Reputation every week for completing the weekly Big Dig quest, The Big Dig: Traitor's Rest

Opening tomes from Big Dig page bar completions:
Opening an Uncommon tome gives 25 Reputation;

Opening a Rare tome gives 50 Reputation;

Opening an Epic tome gives 100 Reputation.

Azerothian Archives RewardsAzerothian Archives MountsMysterious FragmentProvisioner AristtaExplorer's Stonehide PackbeastProvisioner AristtaMysterious FragmentA true explorer never stays in one place for long. Having a reliable packbeast with a strong back and sturdy legs is essential for travel.Clayscale HornstriderNamed for their dusty-red appearance, clayscale hornstriders can be found tearing across the muddy hills of the Ohn'ahran Plains.Azerothian Archives PetsHap'heFinally At RestIt is bewildering how the most arrogant and stuck up of the Azerothian Archivists can't help but create the most adorable arcane familiars. Perhaps Nirobin does have a soft side...ReeseJust One More ThingEven Nirobin, a self-proclaimed genius of the highest caliber, could not deny the cuteness of his arcane creation.Azerothian Archives Achievements

Achievement

Reward

Requirement

The Archives Called, You Answered

Title:

Complete all the achivements below.

Tenured Archivist

Earn max reputation (Tenured) with the Azerothian Archives.

When a Rock is Just a Rock

During Excavation World Quests, gather 10 Just a Rock.

Goggle Wobble

During Technoscrying World Quests, /dance with Zenata while wearing the Technoscryers in all 3 locations: Igira's Watch, Dragonskull Island and Concord Observatory.

Clued In

During Research world quests, located buried artifacts to spawn Infomation-Stuffed Clues 10 times.

Relic Rescuer

During Big Dig events, recover relics for Eadweard by digging near him while awaiting for orders.

Tome Comber

During Big Dig events, recover tomes by filling bar pages by digging for relics and completing orders. The tomes awarded are random.

Finally At Rest

Hap'he

Acquire the story surrounding Traitor's Rest by completing the Weekly quest The Big Dig: Traitor's Rest six times.

Just One More Thing

Reese

Acquire the story surrounding all 7 solo dig sites by completing Azerothian Archives quests at each location a number of times. Current number is currently unknown.

Azerothian Archives TransmogsArchivist's Buckled Cap

Ensemble: Renowned Explorer's AttireHistorianMysterious FragmentProvisioner Aristta

Belt, Gloves, Boots: 0 Mysterious Fragment each;

Pants, Chest: 0 Mysterious Fragment each;

Back, Helm: 0 Mysterious Fragment each.

ExcavatorProvisioner AristtaMysterious Fragment

Archivist's Reading Spectacles - Helm
Cost: 12000 Mysterious Fragment

Archivist's Rose-Tinted Glasses - Helm
Cost: 12000 Mysterious Fragment

Provisioner AristtaMysterious Fragment

Archivist's Elegant Bag - Back
Cost: 15000 Mysterious Fragment

Provisioner AristtaMysterious Fragment

Archivist's Magnifying Mace - One-Handed Mace
Cost: 10000 Mysterious Fragment

Archivist's Rockpuller - One-Handed Sword
Cost: 10000 Mysterious Fragment

Archivist's Pathfinder - Staff
Cost: 10000 Mysterious Fragment

Archivist's Stone Chisel - Dagger
Cost: 10000 Mysterious Fragment

Archivist's Improvised Cudgel - Two-Handed Mace
Cost: 10000 Mysterious Fragment

Archivist's Extravagant Lantern - Off-Hand
Cost: 10000 Mysterious Fragment

Archivist's "Light Touch" - Gun
Cost: 10000 Mysterious Fragment

Archivist's Spelunking Torch - Two-Handed Mace
Cost: 10000 Mysterious Fragment

Archivist's Sturdy Hook - One-Handed Mace
Cost: 10000 Mysterious Fragment

Archivist's Mining Pick - One-Handed Mace
Cost: 10000 Mysterious Fragment

Archivist's Super Scooper - One-Handed Mace
Cost: 10000 Mysterious Fragment

Coiled Archivist's Rope - Off-Hand
Cost: 10000 Mysterious Fragment

Full List of Vendor RewardsProvisioner Aristta

Item

Cost

Use

Priceless Artifact

0 Mysterious Fragment

Use to receive 1000 Mysterious Fragment. Used to transfer Mysterious Fragments to alts and vice-versa.

Historian's Utility Belt

0 Mysterious Fragment

Archaeologist-themed Belt transmog.

Historian's Fingerless Gloves

0 Mysterious Fragment

Archaeologist-themed Gloves transmog.

Historian's Striders

0 Mysterious Fragment

Archaeologist-themed Boots transmog.

Historian's Trousers

0 Mysterious Fragment

Archaeologist-themed Legs transmog.

Historian's Fitted Vest

0 Mysterious Fragment

Archaeologist-themed Chest transmog.

Archivist's Magnifying Mace

0 Mysterious Fragment

One-Handed Mace transmog that looks like a magnifying glass.

Archivist's Rockpuller

0 Mysterious Fragment

One-Handed Sword transmog that looks like a cliff hanger.

Archivist's Pathfinder

0 Mysterious Fragment

Staff transmog that looks like a shovel.

Archivist's Stone Chisel

0 Mysterious Fragment

Dagger transmog that looks like a chisel.

Archivist's Improvised Cudgel

0 Mysterious Fragment

Two-Handed Mace transmog that looks like a candelabra.

Archivist's Extravagant Lantern

0 Mysterious Fragment

Off-Hand transmog that looks like a lantern.

Archivist's "Light Touch"

0 Mysterious Fragment

Archaeologist-themed Gun transmog.

Archivist's Spelunking Torch

0 Mysterious Fragment

Two-Handed Mace transmog that looks like a standing torch.

Archivist's Sturdy Hook

0 Mysterious Fragment

One-Handed Mace transmog that looks like a grappling hook.

Archivist's Mining Pick

0 Mysterious Fragment

One-Handed Axe transmog that looks like a mining pick.

Archivist's Super Scooper

0 Mysterious Fragment

One-Handed Mace transmog that looks like a scooper.

Coiled Archivist's Rope

0 Mysterious Fragment

Off-Hand transmog that looks like a bunch of rope.

Archivist's Reading Spectacles

0 Mysterious Fragment

Helm transmog that looks like a lower half-rimmed glasses with gray frames.

Archivist's Rose-Tinted Glasses

0 Mysterious Fragment

Helm transmog that looks like glasses with rose-tinted lens.

Archivist's Elegant Bag

0 Mysterious Fragment

Back transmog that looks like a Reliquary-themed backpack.

Historian's Hefty Habersack

0 Mysterious Fragment

Back transmog that looks like an Explorer League's themed backpack.

Historian's Dapper Cap

0 Mysterious Fragment

Helm transmog that looks like a fedora cap.

Explorer's Stonehide Packbeast

0 Mysterious Fragment

Tan Packbeast ground mount.

Comments

Comment by Toenail

i got the quest the big dig: traitor's rest by algathar. i see others outside using pickaxes and wearing goggles. i didn't get either, and see no npcs outside or quests available.

Comment by Razorgrin

I don't understand how to do either of these things. The goggles don't stay on and don't seem to change anything? And the totem/elemental/chest thing is frustrating at best, but I can't figure out how to change the fire/water balance because there are no water resources around?

Is it just typical patch-day jitters, or is this whole thing just deeply cumbersome and unfun?

Comment by Exodor

Event seems to work OK if you can do it on your own but the moment some one else starts the whole thing breaks

Comment by Ronasaurus

Appalling. these quests are so Bugged. absolutely terrible game play. stuff not spawning, no one able to complete quests. all these need to be usable all at once. anything else is abysmal design. how disappointing of a patch when the game is at it most boring near the end of the expac. not like there isnt a PTR to test this on. oh wait........

Comment by Incrediblz

Just another mindles brain numbing event like the others which are considered "content". OOH TRANSMOG's. That is all this Expansion has come too. We don't have any other Ideas othe than 3 raid tiers which coincedentally was the same that WoD had but for the most part WoD did it better and before you Yawn and roll your eyes I will just cut you right off. WoD was not bad by Design and quite Honestly by choice We all Know why WoD is considered bad and that all boils down to the Person who was in charge Before the Current well lets just say Brain deficient Leader who somehow qeasled into the Company and then proceeded to Scrap WoD content for Legion focus (I give this same person 0 credit for every pixel of Legion). And what do we have now WoD 2.0+ and it shows.

If you look on the forums its filled with similar stuff my favourite being Dragonflight Being a Filler Expansion while they actually put all the effort an Actual Believeable Storyline over whatever you can Call Dragonflight's. Oh well hopefully this is the last Event focused Patch this game ever gets because quite frankly they have all sucked.

Comment by ketchup2

Why can't the rewards be BOA. Do we really have to do this on all alts as well?

Comment by Sklet

Am I the only one who thought this was gunna be related to the lore of Azeroth…? wtf even is this? Not at all what I was thinking of when they talked about “Azerothian Archives” *rolls eyes* complete waste of time.

Comment by Sklet

You know…I’m starting to really second guess their whole “oh look we’re putting out so much content now!” With crap like this. Oh look guys we’re making the same quality of content from shadowlands but we’re giving you more to make it seem like there’s so much content!

Comment by MongYii

Do dwarves get increased fragments becuase of
Their racial? Or was that overlooked?

I am kind of bitter how useless that racial is ...

Comment by chungachanga

Hey, i was wondering, does anyone know what about alts and the world quests of Azerothian archives?
I Mean i finished all the prerequisite quests, unlocked all the world quests on my main. Now my alts can see the world quests on the map but when i go to the zone to complete it , i dont get the goggles or the elemental or the squirrel.
Anyone knows if we have to unlock world quests on all of the alts?

Comment by Veilor

Is this the "ingame lore thing" they mentioned at blizzcon or around it when they were asked about ingame lore instead of relying heavily on books? I am sorry, but this is not what people asked for. Sure a cool off time thing, but in no way was people asking for this when that question was asked.

Comment by Maizou

Once I completed one world quest, the other 2 quests changed to Gold rewards, no longer granting Fragments.

EDIT: They seem to have fixed this, as the past 2 WQ rotations have all granted Fragments.

Comment by Incandio

Blizz put a quest to the Big Dig in the Adventure Journal which you can take directly to the Big Digs. But, you will have no clue what to do when the event starts. So, make sure you do the proper intro quest chain first.

Comment by Exodor

When doing the Big Dig event I keep getting assigned tasks that can't be completed. I'm tasked with clearing X number of bushes but only X-3 are spawned. I have to wait several minutes before more spawn so I can complete the task and get the pages.

It's really annoying

Comment by Cross1776

My first impression of the big dig is that it is confusing and not intuitive. There were many glowing things to click on, npc's, boxes. I could not easily determine what my task was. One task was 1 big relic and 5 normal relics (something like that). No info on where to go, what to do with them. Weird stuff

Comment by Incrediblz

Ugh another filler Event, what is that now 5 or 6 time wasters for casuals?. Hardly worth of its own patch imo.

Comment by Robotusch

Some back-of-the-napkin math would suggest this is going to be a rough grind to get through, if you're after all of the rewards.

Buying all of the rewards will cost 233,00 fragments, with roughly 9,000 fragments "guaranteed" per week (5000 from the weekly big dig quest, ~3000 from the 4 world quests, ~500 from the tasks you complete during the big dig + the final boss, with a couple of hundred added as RNG cushion). Everything other than that is going to come from grinding events during the Big Dig, unless I'm missing something.

Edit: It's similar to the Time rifts, but at least in that case the items you could buy could also drop during the event, which naturally wittled down the number of flakes needed to buy the remaining items.

Comment by drpimento

so far a couple of quests were bugged and frustrating for me. Big Dig is total chaos. I hate housework, but I'd rather dust than do this. And I'm wondering - is this how they're bring Archaeology back into the game?

Comment by JElmore

Here's a quick summary of the Big Dig event, with some other notes:

The Big Dig is similar to the Community Kitchen in that you complete tasks to make progess towards earning the rewards. There are a couple of differences:

When you aren't doing tasks for Eadward, you can excavate the dirt piles around him to contribute pages to the event. The more people present in the event, the longer a pile takes to complete (but players can team up excavate faster).
The progression of the rewards isn't green -> blue -> purple; each tome you work on is random. Different shards have different tomes; I was able to switch shards by grouping with a friend who was working on an Immaculate Tome.
Any of the tomes can contain the parts of the Excavator's transmog set or the Clayscale Hornstrider. I got my mount out of a green tome; I presume higher-quality tomes have a better drop rate. Killing Doomshadow has a chance to drop any of the items as well.

Many of the events are easy to figure out if you look at your minimap, which outlines the area of the task and highlights the stones, runes or NPCs to interact with. Some of the tasks require you to talk to Eadward or another NPC to get a thing to courier to an NPC (or back to Eadward), which isn't obvious. It's also worth noting that the goggles don't work the same as in the intro questline or World Quests; you just get an extra action action which you use to mark the rune or relic you're interacting with. A couple of the quests have you pull weeds and sometimes there weren't enough of them. They respawned after a couple of minutes, so I guess someone else had just done that task. I just went back to digging piles until they returned.

It seems like others can help complete some tasks. I've had a task complete while I was in the middle of it, which I assume was because someone else pulled weeds or handed out hats or whatever. Which ones can be grouped up on doesn't seem to be consistent. Maybe two or more people have to have the same task assigned? Anyone can stomp the bugs, though—every time I got that task it completely almost instantly.

I was able to start a Big Dig with only one other person present so I can report that tasks award 50 pages, with bonus pages when there are fewer people in the event. My first task awarded an extra 70 pages, and fell off to a bonus of 12 pages as more people joined. When I was the only person working on a dirt pile at the start, it took about 10 seconds to complete and I got 30 pages out of it. As more people joined and more people were working on the dirt piles, I got 5 pages from later dirt piles (but I assume everyone working on the pile got the same amount). So completing tasks is the faster way to earn pages by far.

EDIT: It doesn't look like the group size affects the number of pages you get from completing a dirt pile; I've gotten anywhere from 5 to 18 pages with roughly the same size group. The group size will affect how quickly you finish the dirt pile, but I've seen smaller groups finish dig piles at almost the same rate as a larger group with the same number of players. I think it's just a filler activity so people can earn pages while waiting for tasks.

NOTE: You get credit when dig piles are completed even if you don't finish the pile. Since dig piles Mysterious Fragment as well as pages, if you want to increase your fragment gain make sure you contribute to every active dig pile; I just moved to each new pile as it came up or I was assigned a task.

You can continue to dig dirt piles when the event moves to killing Doomshadow, though he doesn't stay up terribly long. Best to finish your dirt pile, then move to the NPC. Someone said they didn't get credit for the weekly quest because they didn't tag Doomshadow during the fight; I assume you can't loot him either.

UPDATE: I was able to do a Big Dig mostly by myself late last night. The bonus pages from completing events varied widely, between 125 and 270 pages. The number of pages I got for finishing a dig pile stayed in the 5-25 range, so completing tasks quickly should be the priority to maximize earning pages. A couple of people showed up near the end, so the bonus dropped to around 45 pages per task, and Doomshadow's health was scaled so that we could easily kill him.

When we killed Doomshadow I got a quest item, Waterlogged Ledger, which gave me Curious Find: Waterlogged Ledger. There are two other quests so far, Curious Find: Hole-Punched Bakar Tooth and Curious Find: Dragonhorn Flute, that can also come from items obtained during the Big Dig.

I like the scaling; it makes the event manageable when there are fewer players (which will help once DF is no longer the current xpac). I'd like to see them do something similar with the Community Kitchen so people have a chance of getting a Legendary feast with smaller groups. The downside is that people who are away from keyboard count when it comes to bonus pages for completing tasks, so moochers actually reduce the number of tomes you can earn during an event.

Comment by Pyrelivia

This is most definately not account-wide unlock my alts see NO WQ related to the azerothian archives and on my main the quest rewards change from giving mysterious fragments once you complete one of them to rewarding gold for the rest so how are we suppose to get the 500-800 mysterious fragments per WQ it says were suppose to get ?

Comment by Lornaa

Once I've got the second pet, and the Packbeast mount, I'm quitting this sh*te if they can't even make it award the fragments properly

Comment by CognateClockwork

Correction to this guide: Currently it says "Once all intro questlines are done, two World Quests will be available every 3 days and 12 hours" but it's actually been three world quests for me - three at the start of the week once I finished all the intro quests, and another three yesterday.

Comment by barbasol

There's some really strange design decisions here. Some obvious fixes:
- The task area should say something like "Dig near Edweard while waiting for a task" so everyone realizes how it's supposed to work.
- Hand out more tasks to people. It's very weird you get like one task in 6 minutes compared to Cooking and Time Rifts. It's not like digging for 6 minutes is very engaging either.
- Spread out the dirt piles and make them bigger. If there are going to be dozens of people on the same pile, why not make them 5 times as big so we aren't standing on top of each other?
- Why no vendor available after the dig to spend your loot?

Comment by KikiyoDragon

Just did my fifth or so Big Dig this week and did not receive a single tome from it. I was active the entire time, doing tasks and digging. Is there supposed to be a weekly cap on tomes? At least Doomshadow dropped some junk.

Edit: Did a few more today. Still not looting any new tomes, but I can confirm at least that Doomshadow, at this point for me, is still dropping the transmog (and presumably could drop the mount) for me. Still, would like confirmation if there's some sort of cap on the tomes.

Edit 2: Seems to be a total crapshoot whether or not I get tomes during a Big Dig. Doesn't seem tied to weekly reset either. I logged it as a bug in-game, but doubt Blizzard will do anything about this, seeing as they've not done much else for this event since it went live.

Comment by Toenail

got 3 world quests when i finished the various quest chains. that was wednesday and i haven't seen another quest since. :(

Comment by Fynedge

Is there a reason to increase rep with these guys? I mean, other than completionist type things. Does it count toward total number of max rep achieves? Are there mog/pet/mount rewards? Just hit "Capable" and not sure what it did for me.

Comment by Cronikai117

Did all the intro quests between last tuesday and wednesday. It's been almost a full week with today being the 3rd WQ reset and I have not seen a single WQ for the Archives yet AT ALL. I have not even bothered with doing the intro on alts. I've not seen a single bluepost confirming if this is a known issue, if its being fixed, its literally luck of the draw on WQ, no idea.

Comment by Raynuru

how often to these WQ pop upp, i was able to do them once and then never again since the Patch launched.

Comment by Katamai

Since patch launched, i've only been getting 1 world quest. And occasially, i would open a green tome and get... nothing. This is one of the buggiest events they ever did.

Comment by Nerothos

You can send fragments between alts. Just figured cus I was missing 2k on my hunter to get the mount. You buy 1000 and send 1000 at the vendor

Comment by Azulia

I`ve just completed world quests for additional fragments like described. I have gotten zero fragments so just wondering if it might be bugged?
And yes I`ve done the intro properly.

500-800 Mysterious Fragment per World Quest completion - Once all intro questlines are done, two World Quests will be available every 3 days and 12 hours.
Literally copied from the above article, This article needs a clean up or the digs need a hotfix. Very frustrating >.<

Comment by Dianora

Blizzard finally added anti-griefing mechanism as of February 10. Once the event starts, the dig zone (within the staked rope area) cannot be mounted.

Comment by DianeG

I am still mad and will die mad about this not linked to my Archaeology profession.

Azerothian Archives - New World Event in Patch 10.2.5

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