Originally posted by Macdallan:

Originally posted by Koda:

The main thing that i wanted to point was to avoid hiting the floor. :)

Haha, yeah. I tend to have trouble with mining giving me low damage from time to time. It almost seems like it matters where you stand and what angle the pick is hitting the rock or ore. Maybe it's hitting two things even though I'm only seeing one damage number.

Definitely how you stand in relation to the ore makes a big difference.
Also where on the ore you hit. I seem to see bigger numbers on average hitting near the edge of a chunk as well as standing directly on top or hitting directly overhead. Top is typically better though.

That said, I think it is vastly better to hit multiple things at one time if you can. Typically adding the damages together will be for more than a single hit on one. Also the amount of damage can be more efficiently applied by splitting the damage depending on how much wasted damage from over damage. <ie item takes 45 damage to break and only needs 5>

Of course one of the main benefits of hitting multiple items is multiple xp gains on one swing. XP is allotted per hit. So hitting multiple targets ranks up your skills faster.

Considering the benefits hitting the ground a few times isn't a big trade off.

But yeah even lower level optimizing your swing arc to avoid the ground for single items is good.

Seems like they upped the pickax damage to tree stumps to make those easier to remove rather than trying to dance around it trying to find the sweet spot with an ax.