Cataclysm Classic Epics Farming Guide: Best Way To Get Lvl 85 BiS Epics in Prepatch

Archaeology is now available in the WoW Cataclysm Classic pre patch and this includes multiple level 85 items that are pre-rating best in slot. More specifically, there are four of these items currently available. Here's a Cataclysm prepatch epics farming guide, we break down the best way to get Lvl 85 Epic items.

Cataclysm Epic Items

1. Zin'rokh, Destroyer of Worlds (A two-handed strength sword)

2. Extinct Turtle Shell (A strength tanking Shield)

3. Staff of Sorcerer-Thane Thaurissan (This has stats primarily aimed at caster DPS)

4. Tyrande's Favorite Doll (A strong trinket for both casters and healers)

How to get BiS Epics in Cataclysm? 

These archaeology wards are all 359 item level which makes them equivalent to drops from normal difficulty raids in Cataclysm. They're also all bound in account, meaning you can farm it on your main and then mail the items to other characters. These items are considered to be rare artifacts. Whenever you solve the relic that is currently in your Journal, there is a small chance for the next one to be rare. However, not all rare solves have an equal chance of appearing and you'll need to reach 450 archaeology before any of these level 85 gear pieces have a chance at showing up. These epic items are difficult to obtain in Cata but there are still a few strategies you can use to improve your odds.

One little quirk in the archaeology system is that you're guaranteed to have a rare artifact appear in your Journal within your first 10 solves for each race. After that, everything is up to chance. But by manipulating this guaranteed rare artifact, you're able to massively increase your chances of finding level 85 gear. Since these gear items are impossible to find until you reach 450 skill, you'll want to hold off on solving any artifacts for whatever race drops the item that you want. To be clear even though, the strategy didn't work out. There is absolutely no downside to trying it. Best case scenario you get your epic gear right out of the gate. At worst, you've caused the grind-up to 450 skill to take a tiny bit longer. However, this is where you need to make an important choice.

You can choose to repeat this process on multiple different characters in an attempt to get the level 85 item as your initial rare. The benefit of this is that across a longer period of time, it'll likely be a much faster method to obtain your desired item. Since all of the gear is a combined account, it doesn't matter which character earns the item. Since you can mail it to whomever you want once it's crafted. That being said, this process can still fail no matter how many characters you perform it on. We only recommend doing this if you have a ton of alts.

There are also a few level 85 items that may be worth farming depending on your class including another intellect staff, an intellect ring, and a one-handed agility sword. If you're interested in farming one of these items, there is something you can do before launch to improve your chances of getting it. That is to complete every single rare artifact for dwarves, trolls, night elves, and fossils. Whenever you've solved every single artifact for a given race, the chances for their dig sites to appear are cut in half. If you want to efficiently farm to your archaeology, your goal should be to have as many dig sites as possible popping up within old Doom. The more races you 100% complete before Cataclysm launches, the higher chances your dig sites will be to make the grind considerably easier. Obviously, it's easier said than done to completely finish all four races. But even if you've only managed to 100% one or two of them before Cataclysm launches, it'll still improve your odds.