Lost Ark Excavation guide – How to unlock, crafting tools, more

Lost Ark’s Trade Skills provide players with the perfect distraction, away from combat, to master various life skills. Once acquired, the rewards can be incredibly beneficial to your character and your Stronghold ranging from valuable upgrading materials, resources and potions, to name.

Excavation is one of six trade skills you can learn and master, focusing on locating and digging for treasure. This guide explains what you need to know about Excavation, including how to unlock, skills you can acquire and more in Lost Ark.

What is Excavation in Lost Ark?

Excavation is a trade skill in Lost Ark, allowing you to gather upgrading materials and resources used in the crafting process. Additionally, this trade skill can grant you the skills required to discover ancient items or relics.

Excavation is also the most physically demanding Trade Skill to utilise. Unlike the other trade skills, Excavation relies on active abilities that assist you in searching and locating buried treasure in marked areas.

Once you have located it, you can collect the materials and resources from the buried treasure you have dug up. All materials and resources acquired will have a Common rarity; however, there are chances of getting either Uncommon and Rare materials and resources.

This is dependent on your current Trade Skill level, which will increase your chances of getting higher rarity items. Additionally, excavation tool bonuses and excavation locations can also contribute to acquiring higher rarity items.

How to unlock Excavation in Lost Ark?

Unlocking the excavation trade skill can be achieved by completing the dedicated questline attributed to trade skills. Starting with the Crown of Lakebar Guide Quest, progress through this chained questline until you’ve reached Helmon Castle Ruin, thus unlocking Excavation among other trade skills.

During this quest, which begins at Battlebound Plains, you’re tasked with searching for treasure, culminating in excavating a specific area to acquire the treasure. Using the Sonar and Relic Search skills found in the Trade Skill Hotbar, the Sonar uses sound to locate treasure within the area while Relic Search reveals its location.

Some enemies spawn in the surrounding areas, making Excavation much more challenging to complete. We recommend that you deal with the enemies and complete the Battlebound Plains quests before returning to excavate.

How to craft Excavation tools in Lost Ark?

To excavate a specific area, you’ll need to proper tools to uncover what’s buried beneath you. Excavating tools can be purchased through vendors, received as rewards, completed activities or through crafting.

Having the proper tools will contribute to levelling up your Trade Skills, thus allowing you to use them successfully. Once you have acquired or crafted a tool, each comes with a unique bonus that grants various buffs when in use. 

• Lost Ark dev addresses Tytalos Guardian Raid issue
• Lost Ark Lagoon Island – Location, Island Boss quest and rewards
• Lost Ark Asura Island – Location, co-op quests and rewards
• Lost Ark Could Not Connect To Game error – How to fix

These buffs, however, are not fixed based on the tool’s rarity, as you can have similarly named tools and rarities that offer different buffs. Furthermore, the bonus rate these buffs can grant will be at random.

These are the tools and the materials required to craft excavating tools:

Novice Excavating Tool:

• Novice Craft Kit x1
• Rare Relic x15
• Ancient Relic x30
• Gold x5

Apprentice Excavating Tool:

• Apprentice Craft Kit x1
• Tool Crafting Part x3
• Rare Relic x15
• Ancient Relic x24
• Gold x30

Adept Excavating Tool:

• Adept Craft Kit x1
• Tool Crafting Part x8
• Strong Iron Ore x 15
• Rare Relic x15
• Ancient Relic x24
• Gold x100

Expert Excavating Tool:

• Expert Craft Kit x1
• Tool Crafting Part x28
• Strong Iron Ore x30
• Rare Relic x20
• Ancient Relic x32
• Gold x250

Master Excavating Tool:

• Master Craft Kit x1
• Tool Crafting Part x82
• Strong Iron Ore x40
• Rare Relic x80
• Ancient Relic x128
• Gold x500

Excavation tool bonuses in Lost Ark

Depending on the tool and its rarity, these are the bonuses you can obtain which can be granted at random:

• Super Armor which decreases your chances of Paralysis
• Gathering Speed increased
• Basic Reward drop rate increased
• Rare Material drop rate increased
• Chances for Special Rewards to be dropped increased
• Excavation tool durability loss decreased
• Decreases excavation minigame difficulty
• Excavation minigame rewards increased
• Excavation skills in Lost Ark

Excavation Trade Skill active abilities in Lost Ark

As you continue using your excavation tools and abilities in searching and locating treasure, you can level up the trade skill to unlock more abilities. While you’ll receive the Sonar and Relic Search after completing the Guide questline, the remaining skills will unlock at Levels 10, 20 and 30, respectively.

• Sonar (Level 1): When active, a blue meter appears above your character that uses sound to alert you to treasure nearby
• Relic Search (Level 1): Marks a radius within an area that reveals uncovers the whereabouts of buried treasure when activated
• Loot Hunter (Level 10): This passive ability allows you to stand a better chance of treasure chests appearing after locating treasure
• Excavation (Level 20): Another passive ability where after excavating five pieces of treasure, a hidden piece of treasure can also be uncovered
• Sniffer Dog (Level 30): When active, you can send a sniffer dog to locate valuable materials and resources, which boosts its drop rate by 180 seconds

Additionally, there are a few Mastery Skills associated with the Excavation trade skill that you can specialise in. You can become a master Relic Appraiser, Digger or Archaeologist when upgrading the Excavation trade skill.

As you increase your proficiency in the Excavation trade skill, these Mastery Skills will increase as such. It will also inform you of its next level-up based on the next skill level-up.

We like to thank the YouTube channel Kibbles – Video Game Databank for the complete tutorial on Excavation, how to unlock, and more in Lost Ark.

Featured image courtesy of Smilegate / Amazon Games.