What's the point of the shovel?

[Queer Jelly]

Fairly new to the game, so don't judge. I'm not sure what the shovel does exactly, it says digging but all it seems to do is move leaves very inefficiently. Along with the cooldown, I just can't seem to rationalise using it over literally anything else, unless there's something I'm missing? Tried searching for "shovel" in discussions but nothing useful that I could see came up. Thanks in advance!

[Silberfuchs]

The shovel can basically dig up everything you have already unlocked.

This is pretty nice, but only becomes REALLY nice with gem shop updates down the line (aka with super fast auto digging).

Shovels and trouts aren't meant to blow leaves, shovels dig and trouts slap enemies (<-- not important for you right now).

[Daunmi]

It digs up items for you. Anything from leaves and flasks to scrolls, Leaf Tower equipment, seeds, etc. It helps increase your damage and your flask maximums.

If you collect gems through trading/daily rewards you can make it automatic by getting the Auto Dig Bot upgrade from the Gems Shop (and also have everything it digs get pulled towards you, making it completely hands free).

Basically, at some points of the game, depending on what you're doing actually blowing leaves is pointless for you (and even if you want to blow leaves all your ALBs will handle it for you anyway). So you might as well get free other stuff by using the shovel.

[Queer Jelly]

Thanks peeps ^.^ I probably won't worry about using the shovel rn

[Daunmi]

You can pretty much hold off until you get the Nuclear Shovel. That's (more or less) around the time you start ignoring leaves at various points.