2 points to note:
1. Mantid Artifact Sonic Locator is ... well, it's interesting.
it doubles the number of locations, but, it resets the locations when you enter/leave a zone in EK/Kalimdor, and again when you enter/leave a CRZ zone. so 4x.
it does not work well with ArchBuddy, as Archbuddy will not re-check the digsites until it arrives. finds nothing there, then heads back. there could be a plugin to support this if all it needs to do is check and reset the digsite locations every 30 seconds or so.
manually, stop/starting hb every 10 minutes, yeah. it's manageable.
i'd think it needs support in the bot, just to handle AB blacklisting areas that change when you change zones, when the item is in your inventory.
by updating the locations as you change zone areas, it will re'nav more frequently than it does now.
this also affects pandaren zones, it will reset sites in the zone in pandaria as well as EK/Kalimdor.
2, for pandaria, it increases the number of active zones in pandaria, to mantid areas (as it says on the tooltip), it's a much faster grind once you get to 600
probably best to farm the mantid areas as tank, or with plate, you can get knocked back while surveying in the shadow-pan dailies area, and there's groups of 4-8 mobs to kill.
3. why is this good ?
i'm in two minds about this, A, it's easier to collect the crates and change them over, B, it's good for resetting a location like tol'vir in uldum, which needs 100 to 1500 solves to get.
the distances and rewards from pandaren content are easier, but it takes 3x longer to grind with mantid and the MASL
even if it takes 6 crates for 1 tol'vir solve, and you need (approximately)
+ ~3-5 minutes per crate or so in pandaria, less if you get the pristine quest items, ~5 solves/hour, ~8 crates/hour.
+ 5-9 crates per tol'vir solve.
+ vs ~8-12 minutes per solve in uldum, ~5 solves/hour vs 1 solve/hour via mantid & crates.
+ between 100 and 1500 solves to get the 6 epic tol'vir items, (or 6 solves, if you're exponentially lucky)
collecting 50 to 15,000 crates for a battle pet or a mount ... YMMV.
