Today I would like to show you how to maximize your gains from excavating. The materials from excavating are mainly used in making fusion crystals or maps as well as some battle items. So you will not worry about spending Lost Ark Gold to buy battle items. That's why it's important to get as many as possible. So let's get into it.

 

 

Requirement

The first thing you want to have is at least level 20 Excavating; this is because the skill unlocked at level 20 is crucial for maximizing gains.

 

 

This unlocks a minigame for you once you harvest five nodes. It's just a game where you time your Space Bar to land on the square.

 

You also want to have a good shovel for this. To extend the longevity of the tool, it's recommended to use a normal shovel to build stacks and then swap to your minigame shovel.

 

 

How It Works

Now let's get into the method. While doing excavating, you'll only run into two types of gathering nodes: common green nodes and purple epic nodes. Now the trick here is to build up five stacks to unlock the minigame on your next harvest and to use this minigame on a purple node for maximum gain. Once again, you should use a normal shovel while digging instead of your actual good shovel; typically, you should dig up any common nodes while leaving the purple nodes where they are, so you can come back for them later for the minigame. Although I will say that if you are in a contested zone, the chances are that node is probably already gone, so keep that in mind. Once you have five stacks, try and head to a purple node if you can.

 

 

If you really can't find any, then just work with any nodes; you'll want to achieve a perfect score on the minigame. If you mess up, then you can easily press escape, back out, and then try again as long as you finish it within the time frame of the stacks.

 

 

Good Shovel, Modifiers

So what makes a good minigame shovel? When you craft a shovel, it will randomly gain a number of modifiers depending on the rarity of the tool. For example, legendary tools always roll with 4 modifiers and relic rolls with 5 modifiers. Since we're only interested in a minigame shovel, we're only looking for the last two modifiers here that affect the minigame.

 

 

But if you have a purple or higher tool that can roll more modifiers, you can also try for the increased chance of special rewards and reduced chance of tool durability for the legendary. Don't worry about the super armor on the tool; you get invulnerability anyways while in the minigame. So it's kind of a waste if you happen to roll one.

 

 

Extra Tips

Next, I'll briefly cover some tips. While using a Potion of Leap sounds like a time-saver, I don't think it's worth it, especially if you're trying to loot from the minigame as much as possible. This is because your energy will deplete faster, and you'll basically have less minigames overall; typically, when crafting a shovel, try and go for at least a legendary tool for more chances at good modifiers.

In the end, it is RNG when it comes to crafting. But the more modifiers, the better. When it comes to excavating, the nodes are always in static spots, meaning they won't randomize all over the map. You can open up excavating maps online and just check the same spots over and over again, but anyway, that's it about maximizing excavating gains.

 

 

Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJsZqLvTXSI