Stardew Valley - Equipment

Equipment is everything worn rather than held. Rings grant a bonus each and two can be worn at once, boots add defence and immunity, and hats, shirts and trousers are for looks. The Forge combines rings, and the sewing machine makes clothing out of cloth and almost any item.

Equipment Groups

Equipment sorted by the slot it fills.

Overview

Equipment is the half of the inventory screen that does its work quietly. Hats, shirts, trousers, footwear, a trinket and a pair of rings each have their own slot in the player menu, and once something is dropped into a slot it keeps working without being held, selected or recharged. Four of those slots change what happens in a fight. The rest change what the farmer looks like while it happens.

The branch is enormous because of the hats. More than a hundred of them exist and almost none are bought outright: they are prizes, museum rewards, achievement souvenirs, fishing accidents and festival trinkets, and the mouse living in the ruined house south of Cindersap Forest adds one to its shelf for every achievement the farm earns. That shop is the closest thing the valley has to a trophy cabinet.

The rings are the half of the branch that decides how a cavern run goes. Thirty of them exist and each grants one standing effect, from a circle of light to a tenth more damage on every swing. Two can be worn at once, which sounds generous until the farm owns a dozen worth wearing, and that pressure is what makes the Forge on Ginger Island matter so much.

Boots carry defence and immunity and nothing else, which makes them the most honest items in the branch: a better pair is simply a better pair. Trinkets are the newest slot and the strangest. Each one fights alongside the farmer in its own way, summoning a companion, firing ice or arrows, or handing out coffee, and most of them carry a rolled number that can be gambled on again at an Anvil.

Groups

Five kinds of thing sit under this heading, and they are earned in five different ways. Rings come from crafting recipes unlocked by combat levels, from the Adventurer's Guild counter, from monster eradication goals and from chests in the volcano. Boots come almost entirely out of the ground. Hats come from achievements and festivals. Trinkets come from monsters, crates and treasure rooms once Combat Mastery has been claimed. Shirts, trousers and skirts come from the Sewing Machine.

Within the rings there are two clear families. The gem rings are bought, each one adding a flat tenth to a single combat statistic, and they are the straightforward ones. The earned rings work on the world instead of on a number: they make slimes harmless, make monsters explode, drop coffee, return energy, pull items across the floor or stand the farmer back up after a knockout. Those are the ones worth planning around.

Order

A farm meets the branch in the first fortnight underground. Slimes on the shallow floors drop small glow and magnet rings, barrels break open with the larger versions inside, and the floors hand out starter boots at the same time. All four of those are worth equipping the moment they appear, because light and reach cost nothing and defence softens every hit.

The Adventurer's Guild opens next. Finishing its initiation puts two cheap gem rings on the counter, and forty floors of depth adds the critical rings while eighty adds the attack and speed rings. Crafting runs in parallel: the first combat level teaches a ring that halves the length of every debuff, the fourth and seventh teach three more, and the ninth teaches the Iridium Band, which is the single most useful crafted item in the branch.

Monster eradication goals are the slow track. Gil in the Guild's back room pays out for killing enough of a particular creature, and those payments are the only route to the rings that charm slimes, double loot, heal on a kill or make corpses explode. Each one needs hundreds of kills, so they arrive across the second and third years rather than in a burst.

The island closes the branch. Volcano Dungeon chests hold four rings and two of the three best pairs of boots, its dwarf shop sells another pair for Cinder Shards, and the Forge at its top is where two rings become one. Trinkets begin dropping as soon as Combat Mastery is claimed, which places them firmly in the late game as well.

Best

The Iridium Band is the branch's answer to the two-slot problem, because it does the work of three rings on its own: light, item attraction and a tenth more attack damage. It is crafted rather than found, so any farm with iridium bars and a stock of essences can simply make one, and from that point the second slot is free for something situational.

What goes in that second slot depends on the week. A farm hunting drops wants the burglar's ring, which rolls the monster's loot table twice. A farm on the slime floors wants the slime charmer, which makes an entire category of monster harmless. A farm diving the Skull Cavern wants the Lucky Ring, because a point of luck shows up in ladders, treasure rooms and chests all day long. The Crabshell Ring is the quiet pick for anyone who keeps dying, carrying five points of defence in a slot where most rings carry one.

The Forge dissolves the argument. Twenty Cinder Shards combine any two rings into a single item that keeps both effects, which means a late farm can wear four effects instead of two. An Iridium Band welded to a burglar's ring, paired with a Lucky Ring welded to a Crabshell Ring, is about as much as the branch can give.

Among the boots, the volcano's three pairs stand clear of everything the mine produces, and immunity is the number that ages best, because the debuffs in the deep caverns cost more minutes than their damage costs health. Among the trinkets, the paw that shrugs off every debuff is the one that changes a run; the quiver and the Ice Rod are the ones that do the killing.

Locations

The Mines are the branch's main supplier. Floors one to forty shed glow and magnet rings along with the starter footwear, the middle floors hand out the better boots as random drops, and the landmark chests on floors ten, fifty, eighty and one hundred and ten each hold a pair. Deeper still, the hundredth floor and the Skull Cavern drop the Immunity Band and the Lucky Ring as special items.

The Guild hut beside the mine entrance is both shop and buyer. It stocks gem rings and most of the mine's boots, pays out the eradication rings, and takes anything from this branch back at the counter, which is where the duplicates go.

Ginger Island holds the top end: four rings and two pairs of boots in the Volcano Dungeon's chests, a third pair in its dwarf shop, the Forge for combining, and the Anvil for rerolling trinkets. Alex sells the one trinket that is bought rather than found at his Desert Festival stall.

Strategy

Keep two loadouts rather than one best set. A mining loadout wants light, reach and luck, because the job is covering ground and spotting ladders. A fighting loadout wants damage, defence and whatever answers the monster of the week. Swapping between them takes a moment in the player menu and saves far more time than it costs.

Spend the eradication goals deliberately. Each one asks for hundreds of kills, so the sensible approach is to let the goals follow the farm rather than lead it: a season in the Skull Cavern clears the serpent goal on its own, a season in the mines clears dust sprites and bats, and a Slime Hutch on the farm clears the biggest goal of all without a single trip underground.

Notes

Glow and magnet effects stack with themselves, so two magnet rings pull from further than one and the Iridium Band adds its own reach on top. Most other ring effects simply apply once.

The same trinket can be found many times over, and the Guild pays a thousand gold for each spare, which makes them a steady late income on top of being equipment. The Anvil rerolls a trinket's rolled stat for three iridium bars, so a weak roll is a setback of a few bars rather than a dead item.

Combat levels raise health as well as unlocking recipes, and the professions chosen at the fifth and tenth levels change which rings are worth wearing: a farmer who took the critical path gets far more out of the aquamarine and jade rings than one who took the damage path.

All Rings

Every entry in this group, with its key details.

Name	Image	Price
Amethyst Ring		100g
Aquamarine Ring		200g
Burglar's Ring		750g
Crabshell Ring		1000g
Emerald Ring		300g
Glow Ring		100g
Glowstone Ring		100g
Hot Java Ring		100g
Immunity Band		250g
Iridium Band		1000g
Jade Ring		200g
Jukebox Ring		100g
Lucky Ring		100g
Magnet Ring		100g
Napalm Ring		1000g
Phoenix Ring		100g
Protection Ring		100g
Ring of Yoba		750g
Ruby Ring		300g
Savage Ring		750g
Slime Charmer Ring		350g
Small Glow Ring		50g
Small Magnet Ring		50g
Soul Sapper Ring		100g
Sturdy Ring		750g
Thorns Ring		100g
Topaz Ring		100g
Vampire Ring		750g
Warrior Ring		750g

All Boots

Every entry in this group, with its key details.

Name	Image	Stats
Cinderclown Shoes		Defense (+6); Immunity (+5)
Combat Boots		Defense (+3)
Cowboy Boots		Defense (+2); Immunity (+2)
Crystal Shoes		Defense (+3); Immunity (+5)
Dark Boots		Defense (+4); Immunity (+2)
Dragonscale Boots		Defense (+7)
Emily's Magic Boots		Defense (+4); Immunity (+4)
Firewalker Boots		Defense (+3); Immunity (+3)
Genie Shoes		Defense (+1); Immunity (+6)
Leather Boots		Defense (+1); Immunity (+1)
Leprechaun Shoes		Defense (+2); Immunity (+1)
Mermaid Boots		Defense (+5); Immunity (+8)
Rubber Boots		Immunity (+1)
Sneakers		Defense (+1)
Space Boots		Defense (+4); Immunity (+4)
Thermal Boots		Defense (+1); Immunity (+2)
Tundra Boots		Defense (+2); Immunity (+1)
Work Boots		Defense (+2)

All Hats

Every entry in this group, with its key details.

Name	Image	Location
??? (hat)		Volcano Caldera
Abigail's Bow		Desert Festival
Arcane Hat		Adventurer's Guild
Archer's Cap		Abandoned House
Beanie		Tailoring
Blobfish Mask		Tailoring
Blue Bonnet		Abandoned House
Blue Bow		Desert Festival
Blue Cowboy Hat		Skull Cavern
Blue Ribbon		Abandoned House
Bluebird Mask		Island Trader
Bowler Hat		Abandoned House
Bridal Veil		Tailoring
Bucket Hat		Trout Derby
Butterfly Bow		Abandoned House
Cat Ears		Abandoned House
Chef Hat		Abandoned House
Chicken Mask		Abandoned House
Cone Hat		Night Market
Cool Cap		Abandoned House
Copper Pan (hat)		Copper Pan
Cowboy Hat		Abandoned House
Cowgal Hat		Abandoned House
Cowpoke Hat		Abandoned House
Daisy		Abandoned House
Dark Ballcap		Desert Festival
Dark Cowboy Hat		Skull Cavern
Dark Velvet Bow		Desert Festival
Delicate Bow		Abandoned House
Deluxe Cowboy Hat		Island Trader
Deluxe Pirate Hat		Volcano Dungeon
Dinosaur Hat		Tailoring
Earmuffs		Abandoned House
Elegant Turban		Abandoned House
Emily's Magic Hat		Emily's 14-heart event
Eye Patch		Abandoned House
Fashion Hat		Tailoring
Fedora		Stardew Valley Fair
Fishing Hat		Tailoring
Flat Topped Hat		Tailoring
Floppy Beanie		Tailoring
Forager's Hat		Tailoring
Frog Hat		Ginger Island
Garbage Hat		Garbage Cans
Gil's Hat		Desert Festival
Gnome's Cap		Abandoned House
Goblin Mask		Abandoned House
Goggles		Tailoring
Gold Pan (hat)		Gold Pan
Golden Helmet		Golden Coconuts
Golden Mask (hat)		Tailoring
Good Ol' Cap		Abandoned House
Governor's Hat		Abandoned House
Green Turban		Desert Trader
Hair Bone		Tailoring
Hard Hat		Adventurer's Guild
Hunter's Cap		Abandoned House
Infinity Crown		Abandoned House
Iridium Pan (hat)		Iridium Pan
Jester Hat		Abandoned House
Joja Cap		Desert Festival
Junimo Hat		Abandoned House
Knight's Helmet		Adventurer's Guild
Laurel Wreath Crown		Desert Festival
Leprechaun Hat		Cindersap Forest
Living Hat		Weeds; Wilderness Golems; Iridium Golems
Logo Cap		Tailoring
Lucky Bow		Abandoned House
Magic Cowboy Hat		Desert Trader
Magic Turban		Desert Trader
Mouse Ears		Abandoned House
Mr. Qi's Hat		Qi's Walnut Room
Mummy Mask		Desert Festival
Mushroom Cap		Mushroom Trees
Mystery Hat		Mystery Boxes; Golden Mystery Boxes
Official Cap		Abandoned House
Pageboy Cap		Abandoned House
Panda Hat		WeGame exclusive
Paper Hat		Abandoned House
Party Hat (blue)		Tailoring
Party Hat (green)		Tailoring
Party Hat (red)		Tailoring
Pink Bow		Volcano Dungeon
Pirate Hat		Tailoring
Plum Chapeau		Abandoned House
Polka Bow		Abandoned House
Propeller Hat		Tailoring
Pumpkin Mask		Tailoring
Qi Mask		Tailoring
Raccoon Hat		Giant Stump; Raccoon Wife's Shop
Radioactive Goggles		Tailoring
Red Cowboy Hat		Skull Cavern
Red Fez		Traveling Cart
Sailor's Cap		Festival of Ice
Santa Hat		Abandoned House
Skeleton Mask		Adventurer's Guild
Small Cap		Island Trader
Sombrero		Abandoned House
Sou'wester		Abandoned House
Space Helmet		Abandoned House
Sports Cap		Mayor's Manor; Abandoned House
Spotted Headscarf		Tailoring
Squid Hat		SquidFest
Squire's Helmet		Metal Heads; Hot Heads; Metal Head (dangerous)
Star Helmet		Tailoring
Steel Pan (hat)		Steel Pan
Straw Hat		Egg Festival
Sunglasses		Tailoring
Swashbuckler Hat		Tailoring
Tiara		Abandoned House
Tiger Hat		Tiger Slimes
Top Hat		Casino
Totem Mask		Tailoring
Tricorn Hat		Desert Festival
Tropiclip		Abandoned House
Trucker Hat		Abandoned House
Warrior Helmet		Tailoring
Watermelon Band		Abandoned House
Wearable Dwarf Helm		Tailoring
White Bow		Abandoned House
White Turban		Tailoring; Skull Cavern
Witch Hat		Tailoring