Excavation hotspot

Not to be confused with Excavation site.

Excavation hotspots are gathering nodes at Archaeology dig sites where players can use a mattock to excavate materials, soil, and artefacts. Whilst excavating, a progress bar appears above the player's head and will fill by a small amount each time experience is gained. Each hotspot type has set amount of "hitpoints", similar to how different mining rocks have different durability. Portion of the bar filled with each experience gain is dependent on precision of a mattock used (it can also be affected by a number of buffs, one example being Flow State power). Once the progress bar fills completely, the player will receive one of the damaged artefacts available at that location. There is no limit to the amount of players that can train at the same hotspot, as excavation hotspots do not deplete (similar to ore rocks with Mining). Material caches, however, are shared by all players and can deplete, similarly to trees when woodcutting.

Excavation hotspots feature a mechanic akin to rockertunities called time sprites (albeit with more continuous effects), that provides a range of benefits such as increased experience gain and boosts to mattock precision while excavating at hotspots inhabited by the sprite; these benefits increase in potency as higher thresholds are reached through sustained interaction with the mechanic.

Soil may be screened at the Archaeology Guild via screening stations located on the eastern side of the site near the water. While screening, players will commonly receive materials (and rarely artefacts) based on their Archaeology level. With at least level 67 Invention and the Associate qualification, players can create and make use of the Auto-screener v1.080 to automatically screen gathered soil whilst it is active and in the player's inventory, draining 3.33 energy from the player's charge pack for each soil screened. Note that unlike screening stations, which can yield any material available at the soil's respective dig site according to the player's level, the auto-screener will only yield materials that are obtainable from the hotspot being excavated.

Players can use signs of the porter, including those used by the grace of the elves and the premier artefact's sign of the porter perk, to send gathered materials straight to the material storage container whilst both screening soil and excavating hotspots and caches.

Update history

This information has been compiled as part of the update history project. Some updates may not be included—see here for how to help out!

• patch 22 June 2020 (Update):
  • To help reduce misclicks on mobile, a Makeshift Pie Oven archaeology excavation in the Warforge has been moved away from the furnaces in the area.

• patch 27 April 2020 (Update):
  • A floating bibliotheke debris excavation point has been lowered.

• patch 14 April 2020 (Update):
  • A warforged bronze material cache has been moved slightly so that it doesn't appear to stick out the top of a tower.

• update 30 March 2020 (Update):
  • Added to game.