Complete Excavating Guide - Lost Ark (2024)

1. Introduction To Excavating in Lost Ark

Excavating is one of the 6 Trade Skills in Lost Ark. It is arguably the most useful and the most profitable. The other 5 Trade Skills are very typical of an MMO, and excavating stands out as something special! You can dig up relics and materials that you can later use to craft treasure maps to find very valuable rewards. You can then either sell these rewards or use them for yourself. Let’s dive into more about Excavating.

2. Excavating Skill Level Milestones

• Lv. 1: Sonar – Use sonar to locate relics. With sonar active, the closer you get to a relic, the faster it will beep.
• Lv. 1: Relic Search – Once your sonar is beeping very quickly and turning purple, use Relic Search to reveal nearby relics to dig up.
• Lv. 10: Loot Hunter: Adds a chance to dig up treasure chests while Excavating. More on this later.
• Lv. 20: Excavation: Increases movement speed after each successful Excavating Activity. Stacks up to 5 times, +25% Movement Speed. Upon reaching 5 stacks, trigger a mini-game.
• Lv. 30: Sniffer Dog: Summon a sniffer dog to locate hidden relics. Increases Rare material drop rate. Sniffer Dogs last 180 Seconds. Cooldown 5 Minutes.

Mastery Skills of Relic Appraiser, Master of Digging, and Master of Archaeology also level up as you level your excavating. These are not active skills and simply just improve your efficiency as you level up.

2.1. Lv. 10 Loot Hunter Skill Explained

With the Loot Hunter perk, you will have a chance to dig up treasure chests while Excavating in Lost Ark. These chests can obtain treasure maps which will bring you to hidden 1 player dungeons. From these dungeons, you can obtain key materials such as Craft Kits so that you can craft new excavating tools with even better perks.

2.2. Lv. 20 Excavation Skill Explained

This is a passive skill that you do not need to activate. When you move around and dig using the excavating skill, you will be granted a stack of the buff called Archaeological Senses. Each stack of this buff will increase your movement speed by 5%. It can stack up to 5 times, then you will be granted with an Excavating Minigame!

2.3. Lv. 30 Sniffer Dog Skill Explained

The dog will follow you around for 3 minutes when he is activated. While he is active, he may find relics for you on his own and dig them up for you. Each time he successfully digs, he will consume 62 Life Energy.

3.1 How To Craft Excavating Tools

1. Talk to Jeniff in your Stronghold
2. Purchase craft recipes for Excavating Tools. You will need to navigate the UI as there are multiple pages of goods to purchase. These will cost Adventurer’s Seals.
3. Craft the tools in your Stronghold in the Workshop. As noted in the Loot Hunter Skill Explained section, you will need materials and Craft Kits to craft these.
4. Crafting higher rarity tools will give a better chance at good perks.

3.2 Crafting Excavating Tools – Material Sources

The following materials are required for various crafting recipes for Excavating Tools. Each of these items will be linked to our source page for where to find or farm these materials. If there is no link, we are working on getting that page up and running so please come back soon and check again!

• Crafting Kits
• Tool Crafting Part
• Strong Iron Ore
• Rare Relic
• Ancient Relic

It is also worth noting that within the Crafting UI in the Stronghold Workshop, you can control + right-click the material and say “Search Market” if you want to see if there are any on the Auction House that you can simply buy for gold.

3.3 Excavating Tool Bonuses / Perks

When crafting Excavating Tools, they all have the possibility of rolling special bonuses or perks that are helpful to you. For this reason, you may choose to craft more than one of the same tool until you get the desired bonuses you are looking for!

The higher the rarity, the more bonuses you can obtain on one tool. Here are the amount of bonuses available:

• Rare: 2 Bonuses
• Epic: 3 Bonuses
• Legendary: 4 Bonuses
• Relic: 5 Bonuses

Here are the list of bonuses, all very straight forward:

• Super Armor (immunity to Paralysis)
• Increased Gathering Speed
• Increased Basic Reward drop rate
• Increased Rare Material drop rate
• Increases chance for Special Rewards
• Reduced chance of tool durability loss
• Reduced minigame difficulty
• Increased minigame rewards

The best Excavating Tool Bonuses are arguably Basic Reward Drop Rate, Rare Material Drop Rate, and Increased Chance for Special Rewards. These 3 bonuses will net you the most additional resources for your efforts.

There is also something to be said about Super Armor. This bonus is incredibly convenient because it means you will be able to dig without worrying about getting hit by enemies. If you get hit, it will not interrupt your casting while out in the wild. This may also save you time so that you don’t need to clear out all enemies in the area before you dig.

If you are looking for an excavating tool specifically to equip when you have 5 stacks of the Excavating buff, to use for the minigame, then you should look for Reduced minigame difficulty and Increase minigame rewards.

4. Excavating Mini Game Explained

The Excavating Mini Game has been mentioned a few times in this Complete Lost Ark Excavating Guide. So… what it is and how does it work?

When the Mini Game starts, you will see a Space Bar button and a meter above it on your screen. Your goal is to press the space bar exactly when the Orange Arrow is in the Small Blue sections of the meter.

IMPORTANT: You do NOT need to hit the space bar on the first pass of the arrow. You will have 15 seconds to hit the space bar 3 times. If you do not use all of your hits, the arrow will come back and pass by again. Just try to make sure you use your 3 attempt within the 15 seconds allowed. You have approximately 4 full passes of the orange arrow before the time runs out!

TIP: If you make a mistake while attempting the minigame, you can press escape to leave the minigame. As long as you still have your 5 stacks of the Excavating buff, you can wait for the relic to disappear, then dig at the same spot again to re-trigger the mini game!

4.1 Excavating Mini Game Rewards

The rewards for the Mini Game are the typical relics that you have a chance to obtain from whichever relic you dug up that caused the mini game. The difference here is that you will get much more quantities of these materials if you are successful at the mini game.

If you are lucky and have used a Leap’s Essence to double trade skill games, you will earn even more rewards in the mini game!

5. Best Excavating Areas

5.1. Best Excavating Route Tier 2 – Azure Wind Island

Azure Wind Island provides Tier 2 Excavating materials. Here there are so many spawns, and no enemies to fight off. Feel free to follow this island route to your heart’s content:

5.2. Excavating Route Tier 1 – Arid Path

You can always find out if you are able to excavate in a region by looking at the in game map, and seeing if a relic is shown on the map. When we show you the picture of the Arthetine Excavating Route below, you will notice the grey relic rune in the top right corner. this indicates there are relics available in this area.

If you are still leveling or in Tier 1, we suggest Arid Path, located in Arthetine. This area is usually empty in terms of other players competing for relics. There are also a ton of spawn points, so you will be endlessly digging. You will definitely need to be ready to kill off any enemies in the area, but it is well worth it.

5.3. Best Excavating Route Tier 3 – Punika

If you are looking for Tier 3 special materials through your Excavating, you can check out Punika. Make sure you are already at least item level 1100 before you can unlock the Punika areas. We have covered both maps that have relics:

5.3.1. Tikatika Colony Relic Farm – Punika

At Tikatika Colony, you will find tier 3 special materials through excavating. Many players use the Secret Forest, so Tikatika Colony may be less busy.

5.3.2. Secret Forest – Punika Relic Farm

The popular Secret Forest relic farm is shown here. This is a good place for tier 3 special materials, but it can be hot with competition from other players.