Stardew Valley - Slingshots

A slingshot fires whatever ore or seed is loaded into it, and the ammunition decides the damage.

Overview

The slingshot is the valley's one ranged weapon, and it works on a principle nothing else in the game uses: the weapon itself does no damage. What a slingshot does is throw whatever has been loaded into it, and the ammunition decides everything. The same sling that bruises a Cave Fly with a turnip will take a serpent apart with a handful of iridium, and the difference is in the bag rather than in the hand.

That makes the branch an inventory decision rather than a combat one. A slingshot is a multiplier applied to a resource, so the question it asks is what the farm is willing to fire into a wall and lose. The cheap answer is a pocketful of stone, which costs nothing and never runs out. The expensive answer turns the most valuable ore in the game into a projectile.

The branch is small and it is not optional. Flying monsters, the serpents of the desert cavern and anything standing across a chasm are all easier to handle at a distance, and a sling is the only way to reach them.

Groups

Three slings exist and two of them are the same weapon at two power levels. The plain one is the entry point, and the master version doubles every damage figure, top and bottom, for every kind of ammunition. The third is a curiosity: a galaxy sling sits finished in the game's own data, matching the galaxy weapons in look and name.

The ammunition is where the real grouping lives, and it sorts into four bands. Produce, meaning any fruit, vegetable or egg, barely scratches anything. Timber and stone are the free band, picked up by the hundred and fired without a thought. The ores are the serious band, climbing from copper through coal and iron to gold, each roughly doubling the one below, and iridium stands alone at the top.

Explosive ammunition is its own category and is not really a weapon. It comes five at a time from an Iron Bar and a pair of coal, and it exists to clear rock rather than to kill.

Order

A farm meets the first sling about forty floors into the mine, in the chest on the landing there. That is roughly the depth at which bats and the first flying nuisances start arriving in numbers, so the weapon shows up on the floor where it becomes useful.

The master version waits thirty floors further down, in the chest on the seventieth landing. Reaching it takes a decent sword and a few stacks of food, and by then a farm usually has ore to spare, which is when a doubled multiplier starts to matter. Both are available from the guild counter east of the mine once the matching chest has been opened, and explosive ammunition unlocks at the eighth point of combat skill.

Best

For general use, stone is the correct answer and it is not close. It is free, it stacks to a full slot, a farm has hundreds of it without trying, and it hits hard enough to finish the flying monsters a sling is actually for. Everything above it in the table is better ammunition and worse value.

Among the ores, iron is the sensible ceiling. It doubles stone's damage several times over and a farm reaching the lower floors has iron to spare, while gold and iridium both have better uses waiting in a furnace. Iridium is the most powerful projectile in the game and firing it is almost always a waste, since the same bar becomes a sprinkler, a tool upgrade or a ring.

Coal deserves a specific mention, because it sits higher in the table than copper and is easier to come by than any of the metals once a row of charcoal kilns is running on the farm. For a farm that burns wood into coal as a matter of habit, it is the best value in the whole ammunition list.

Explosive ammunition is the best thing the branch does, and it is a mining tool. It punches a two-tile blast and clears stone instantly, which makes a descent through the desert cavern dramatically faster than a pickaxe ever manages. Its damage to monsters is modest, and it is as happy to catch the farmer as the target.

Uses

The honest job of a slingshot is reach. Bats, the flying insects of the middle floors and the serpents that swarm the desert cavern all close the distance quickly and land hits a melee weapon cannot prevent, and a charged shot is the answer to each of them. It also handles something across a gap, since a shot travels until it meets a wall, a monster or water.

The second job is movement. Explosive rounds fired at a wall or a monster detonate where they land and take the surrounding rock with them, so a farmer descending the desert cavern can blast a path without swinging a pickaxe at all.

One use is best left alone. A shot aimed at a villager or a child costs a substantial slice of friendship with them, while firing at the farm pets earns a bubble of dislike and nothing worse.

Prices

The two usable slings cost a modest sum from the guild counter, and the second costs double the first. Both are trivial amounts by the time a farm is deep enough to have opened the matching chest, which means the weapon is never what this branch actually costs.

The cost is the ammunition, and the way to judge it is what else the material would have become. Stone and wood have almost no alternative value. Copper, iron and gold each have a furnace waiting, so every shot is a fraction of a bar given up, and iridium is the most expensive thing a farm can throw. Explosive rounds price out well on that measure, since an Iron Bar and two coal buys five of them and five clears more rock than the same iron ever would as part of a pickaxe.

Strategy

Load before the lift rather than in the fight. Loading is done by selecting the ammunition and using the action button on the sling, and the count then shows on the weapon in the bag. Doing it mid-fight means standing still while something hops at the farmer.

Hold the shot rather than tapping it. A press and hold draws the sling back and puts a target marker on the ground showing where the stone will go, and releasing fires it. The aim follows the marker, so a moment spent lining up beats three hurried shots.

Carry two kinds of ammunition on a serious trip. A stack of stone for the flying monsters and a stack of explosive rounds for the floors is the loadout that makes a desert cavern run fast, and neither competes with the other for the slot the sling occupies.

Keep the sling on the hotbar beside the sword rather than instead of it. The sword clears a corridor and the sling handles whatever is circling out of reach, and switching between them is quicker than repositioning.

Notes

A slingshot shot ignores most of the scenery. It passes through rocks, loose items and buildings too small to walk into, and it only detonates or lands when it meets a monster, a cave wall, a ladder or water. That is why the explosive variety is aimed at the far wall rather than at the rock in the way.

A Warp Totem used while the sling is in hand produces one of the valley's stranger moments. The character model breaks and the farmer can walk about for a few seconds before the warp takes hold, and drawing the sling back before the teleport lands cancels it outright.

Produce works as ammunition, which is worth knowing for one reason: a farmer out of stone on a deep floor can fire a turnip, and the knockback still buys a step backwards.

All Slingshots

Every entry in this group, with its key details.

Name	Image	Type	Level	Damage
Galaxy Slingshot		Slingshot	-	Depends on ammo used
Master Slingshot		Slingshot	-	Depends on ammo used
Slingshot		Slingshot	-	Depends on ammo used