Stardew Valley - Swords

Swords swing in a wide arc and suit most fights underground. They have the broadest range of any weapon type.

Overview

The sword is the valley's default answer to anything with teeth. A swing covers an arc in front of the farmer rather than a single square, the delay between swings is short, and the branch holds no genuinely bad weapon above the first few floors. That combination is why almost every save spends its whole run with a sword in the second slot of the backpack, whatever else is in the first.

The secondary move is a shield rather than an attack. Holding the right button puts the farmer into a blocking stance that soaks up damage instead of taking it, deals a little back to whatever ran into the blade, and knocks flying monsters away. Nothing else in the game does that, and it changes how a crowded floor is handled: a sword user walks into a room, blocks, and lets the bats bounce off, where a club user has to keep swinging and a dagger user has to keep retreating.

This is also the largest of the three melee branches, and most of it is met underground rather than bought. The mine drops blades from containers and monsters at every depth and keeps specific ones in its reward chests, Marlon's shelf unlocks a new blade each time the shaft gets deeper, two come out of volcano chests on Ginger Island, two more sit on friends' stalls at the spring Desert Festival, one washes up in a fishing chest, and one waits behind a puzzle in the Wizard's cellar.

Groups

Three shapes run through the branch, and the speed figure is what separates them. The light blades give up damage for swing rate: a Bone Sword, a Steel Falchion, the Holy Blade and the Galaxy Sword all swing four points faster than normal, which suits a farmer who intends to keep moving. The broadswords go the other way, trading speed for weight and defence, and the claymore, the Iron Edge, the Tempered Broadsword and the Dark Sword all slow the hand noticeably in exchange for pushing monsters back and absorbing hits. Between the two sit the plain working blades, the cutlass, the Obsidian Edge and the Yeti Tooth among them, which ask for no particular style.

Two swords stand apart because they arrive already enchanted, which no other weapon in the game does. The Dark Sword comes off a Haunted Skull carrying the vampiric effect, so a share of every kill comes back as health. The Holy Blade, found in the deep mine, carries crusader, which adds half again to damage against mummies, ghosts, skeletons and void spirits and lets mummies be finished without bombs.

The oddity is a cat-faced blade from the Wizard's basement, placed there by setting a Far Away Stone on the plant pedestal. It deals exactly the same damage on every single swing, which nothing else does, and monsters killed with it burst into rainbow sparks.

Order

Marlon hands over a Rusty Sword at the mine entrance and the branch starts there. The first real improvement is usually found rather than bought: a Forest Sword out of a container between the twentieth and sixtieth floors is quicker and tougher than anything on sale at that stage, and the chest on the twentieth floor holds a Steel Smallsword outright.

The Adventurer's Guild then opens in steps tied to depth. Reaching the twentieth floor adds a Silver Saber, the twenty-fifth a cutlass, the thirtieth a pirate's sword, the forty-fifth a claymore, the fifty-fifth a templar's blade, the seventy-fifth a Bone Sword and the ninetieth a Steel Falchion. Clearing eighty cave insects for the eradication board earns an Insect Head, which doubles damage against the things that drop it and can be bought again afterwards for ten thousand gold.

The bottom of the mine is the branch's first milestone. Reaching the hundred and twentieth floor puts the Lava Katana on Marlon's counter, and twenty-five thousand gold buys the first weapon in the game that genuinely outclasses the mine's own drops. Most saves fight the whole Skull Cavern with it.

After that the branch waits on a Prismatic Shard. Carrying one into the centre of the three pillars out in the desert, a place the dwarvish headstone in the graveyard hints at, turns it into the Galaxy Sword, and that single act also puts the Galaxy Hammer and Galaxy Dagger on the Guild's shelf. The island closes the sequence: volcano chests yield the Dwarf Sword and the Dragontooth Cutlass, and the forge on the dungeon's tenth floor turns the Galaxy Sword into the Infinity Blade with three galaxy souls and sixty cinder shards.

Best

The Infinity Blade is the end of the branch and the strongest sword in the game. It keeps the galaxy sword's swing bonus, adds two points of defence on top, and reaching it earns its own achievement. Three galaxy souls are the whole cost, and a farm planning to fight in its late years should set them aside for this rather than spend them elsewhere.

One tier down the choice is genuinely open. The Dragontooth Cutlass carries fifty points of critical power and the highest ordinary damage in the branch below the Infinity Blade, which rewards a farmer wearing critical gear. The Dwarf Sword gives up that power for four points of defence and a slight speed gain, which suits a farmer who would rather survive a serpent room than clear it quickly. The volcano supplies both, so most farms end up carrying each and picking by floor.

The Lava Katana remains the most important sword in practice, because it needs no luck. A single good Summer pays for it, and it covers everything between the mine's bottom and the island.

For a farmer who fights without buying anything, the Steel Falchion and the Yeti Tooth are the picks. The falchion is light and carries twenty points of critical power, and the Yeti Tooth is the most defensive blade the mine gives up, which makes it the safest weapon for the floors around the eightieth.

Locations

The Mines supply the bulk of the branch, and the depths are reliable: the Forest Sword and the Iron Edge in the forties and fifties, the Obsidian Edge in the chest on the ninetieth floor, the Yeti Tooth and the Tempered Broadsword in the eighties and nineties, the Holy Blade from the eightieth down, and the Steel Falchion from the hundredth onwards, with the Skull Cavern and the Quarry Mine supplying it as well. A save using remixed mine rewards reshuffles which blade waits in which chest, so the Ossified Blade may appear where the Obsidian Edge usually sits, and mystery boxes at the blacksmith hold it too.

The Guild east of the mine entrance is both the shop and the only counter in the valley that buys swords back. The desert holds the three pillars and the festival stalls, where Haley and Leah each sell a blade for seventy calico eggs that matches the Obsidian Edge exactly. Haunted skulls in the Quarry Mine and the mine's own dangerous floors drop the Dark Sword, and a fishing Treasure Chest occasionally gives up Neptune's glaive to a farmer who stays above ground.

Prices

A sword's resale value is simply its level multiplied by fifty gold, which is why a festival souvenir and a mine find of the same level fetch identical sums. Because the mine keeps dropping the same handful of blades, a long stretch underground fills a chest with duplicates whose only purpose is Marlon's counter, and the money involved is small.

Buying is the expensive direction. A Galaxy Sword replacement costs fifty thousand gold, the Lava Katana twenty-five, the Insect Head ten, and Marlon's cheaper shelves a few hundred each. The rest is found underground, so most of this branch is paid for in floors.

Strategy

Learn to block rather than to outrun. Monsters that fly cannot be knocked back by an ordinary swing, and a block throws them clear, which turns a corridor of bats from the worst fight in the mine into a manageable one.

Forge before upgrading. Any sword can be improved three times at the forge, one gem at a time: a ruby adds a tenth to damage at each level, an aquamarine adds flat critical chance, a jade adds critical power, an emerald adds speed, a topaz adds defence and an amethyst adds knockback. A diamond fills every remaining level at once for the cheapest Cinder Shard cost, which makes it the sensible choice for a blade that is not meant to be optimised.

Choose the enchantment for the floor. Crusader on any sword lets mummies be killed outright and cuts through the void spirits of the deep mine, while bug killer doubles damage on the insects of the mutant lair and allows armoured bugs to be hurt at all. Those two between them answer the mine's two most annoying monsters, and both can be rolled onto an ordinary blade long before an infinity weapon exists.

Notes

Innate enchantments, which add defence, attack, critical stats or swing speed on top of an ordinary enchantment, can only be put on weapons of level ten or below. The Lava Katana sits exactly on that line and the galaxy and infinity blades sit above it, which is one quiet argument for keeping the katana in the bag even after better swords arrive.

The Galaxy Sword survives a trip to the bottom of a health bar: it is never among the items lost when a farmer passes out underground. A second Prismatic Shard will not produce a second one, so a sold or lost blade has to be bought back from the Guild.

All Swords

Every entry in this group, with its key details.

Name	Image	Type	Level	Damage
Bone Sword		Sword	5	20-30
Claymore		Sword	5	20-32
Cutlass		Sword	3	9-17
Dark Sword		Sword	9	30-45
Dragontooth Cutlass		Sword	13	75-90
Dwarf Sword		Sword	13	65-75
Forest Sword		Sword	3	8-18
Galaxy Sword		Sword	13	60-80
Haley's Iron		Sword	6	30-45
Holy Blade		Sword	7	20-27
Infinity Blade		Sword	17	80-100
Insect Head		Sword	6	20-30
Iron Edge		Sword	3	12-25
Lava Katana		Sword	10	55-64
Leah's Whittler		Sword	6	30-45
Meowmere		Sword	4	20-20
Neptune's Glaive		Sword	5	18-35
Obsidian Edge		Sword	6	30-45
Ossified Blade		Sword	6	26-42
Pirate's Sword		Sword	2	8-14
Rapier		Sword	4	15-25
Rusty Sword		Sword	1	2-5
Silver Saber		Sword	2	8-15
Steel Falchion		Sword	8	28-46
Steel Smallsword		Sword	1	4-8
Tempered Broadsword		Sword	7	29-44
Templar's Blade		Sword	5	22-29
Wooden Blade		Sword	1	3-7
Yeti Tooth		Sword	7	26-42