The Sumeru desert expansion is here, and players are struggling to locate the elusive Genshin Impact Scarab beetles. Here are our suggestions: including a scarab farming route you can take to hopefully track down a bunch of these things between the respawn time.
No desert or Egyptian-influenced area would be complete without scarab beetles, and Genshin Impact 3.1 added them as an essential upgrade material for some characters. Right now, they're needed as an ascension material for the new 5-Star Cyno. Expect some future characters to need them as well.
Now that version 3.1 is here, we've got Cyno and Candace, and can farm for their materials in the desert region. Check out Cyno and Candace's build guides too, to properly equip them if you pull them!
All Genshin Scarab locations
Generally speaking, the new Genshin Impact Scarab beetles can be found in sandy areas of the Sumeru desert, where they will be pushing along a ball of sand.
They will hide if attacks are performed near them, but they don't scurry away at the sight of a player like other wildlife. They're very similar to the Onikabuto of Inazuma and just as elusive to find. We'll point out the best spots that we've found the bugs in below.
Note that unfortunately, the Scarabs do not have a sparkle to them like every other harvestable material. This may be an oversight on Hoyoverse's part, and hopefully will be rectified soon. Then we can stop mistaking tumbleweeds for the Scarabs.
Genshin Scarab spawn time - When do scarabs respawn?
The scarab beetles take the standard 48 hours to respawn. This means you'll have to wait a couple of days to be able to grab enough for Cyno's ascension. Unless you're able to get into someone else's world and run the scarab farming route before them, that is.
Best Genshin scarab farming routes
Some players (like twitter user GT_Eon) have found the best Genshin scarab farming routes already, and with a lengthy cooldown in place for the spawn times, you'll want to follow their lead.
To make the hunt easier, bring along Tighnari if you can. His passive ability will make the scarab farming routes much faster just by putting the creatures on the minimap as you approach the area they're found in.
Further to this, consuming stamina-reducing food, bringing two Anemo characters, and either Kaeya, Kazuha, or Razor along will reduce your stamina usage even more, helping you sprint longer and speeding things up even more.
What we recommend is testing some routes for yourself, as there is a large, underground area in the desert that spawns these beetles - but they show up on the overworld interactive map.
The underground area is locked by a quest, and we suggest taking your time with this instead of rushing it to get the bugs.
Here are some areas we've reliably found Scarab beetles in:
- Teleport to the Land of Lower Setekh waypoint, to the right of the Sobek Oasis, and cross the bridge across the valley towards the other waypoint. There are about five Scarabs on this path.
- Head to the Land of Upper Setekh waypoint - to the left of the ruin golem in the Valley of Dahri - this area has a few Scarabs around the teleporter.
- The teleport waypoint on the left-hand side of Eye of the Sands allegedly has a bug near it, but there are two enemies here that scare it off. Head south along the path and there will be a couple on a ledge to the left.
- Scarabs generally appear above ground around the mausoleum, but very sparingly. Most on the interactive map are actually underground.
We also have some areas that we recommend you don't look in; the path towards the Dune of Elusion, and areas around the other Dunes too, are filled with Eremites and scorpions, which cause the Scarabs to hide underground. Similarly, Dar Al-Shifa is also crawling with Eremites, so the bugs don't appear here either.
Other than that, these areas seem to be reliable for your bug catching, though it took longer than 12 minutes:
The land of Sumeru is plentiful and is giving us even more as the updates go by. Next up is Nilou, then characters like Dehya and Alhaitham. Check out the banner schedule for who's coming up, and our tier list to check where your team ranks.