Stardew Valley - Tools

Tools do the farm work: the hoe breaks ground, the axe fells trees, the pickaxe breaks rock, the watering can keeps crops alive and the rod catches fish. Clint upgrades each one through copper, steel, gold and iridium, and every tier covers more ground for less energy.

Tool Groups

Fishing gear sorted by kind.

Overview

Tools are what the farmer actually spends the day holding, and the branch is really a long argument about energy. Every swing of the hoe, axe or pickaxe costs two points at the start of a save, and the whole ladder of upgrades exists to get more work out of the same breakfast. A better pickaxe does not swing for less, it simply breaks the rock in one hit instead of three, and a better hoe opens eighteen tiles for the cost that a starter hoe charges for one.

Five of them climb a ladder of four rungs at Clint's forge, each rung asking for five bars of the next metal and a sum of gold: two thousand for copper, five for iron, ten for gold and twenty-five for iridium, with the trash can discounted along its whole length. The rungs have to be climbed in order, and each upgrade takes the tool away for two days. The practical shape of that is one evening's drop-off, one day without it, and a walk back to the blacksmith on the third morning.

The rest of the branch is bought outright rather than upgraded. Willy sells the rods and the first pan, Marnie sells the animal tools, Pierre sells the backpack, Joja sells the machine that pets the animals, and two scythes are handed over as rewards for getting somewhere rather than for paying anything.

Groups

The field tools are the heart of it. The hoe widens from a single tile to a line of three, then five, then a three by three block and finally a six by three sweep, and the watering can follows the same pattern while its tank grows from forty charges to a hundred. Those two are the farm's working pair, and their upgrades save hours rather than energy.

The breaking tools climb differently, by what they can hurt. A copper axe can take a Large Stump and a steel axe a Large Log, which is the only route to hardwood. A steel pickaxe is needed for the boulders sitting on the farm and for the barrier that blocks the way to the Dwarf, a gold pickaxe cracks a meteorite, and an iridium one breaks Skull Cavern stone and gem nodes in a single swing.

The scythes are a short ladder of their own that Clint has nothing to do with. The starter scythe turns grass into hay half the time, the golden one found at the statue at the bottom of the Quarry Mine manages three times in four and hits far harder, and the iridium one earned by mastering farming never misses the hay and will also harvest crops, garden pots, spring onions and wild food within its swing.

The pan is the oddity. It appears once the glittering boulder west of the mine entrance is gone, which happens either through the Fish Tank scrolls or through a twenty thousand gold payment on the Joja form, and Willy comes down to the stream to hand over his spare. It costs no energy at all, each ore panned pays mining experience, and it can be worn on the head as a hat while staying a working tool, which is a free inventory slot for anyone short of them.

The animal tools are a flat group with no ladder. A pail and a pair of shears cost a thousand gold each at Marnie's and always cost four energy to use. A heater keeps a barn content through Winter. A hopper and an incubator come built into the buildings themselves. The two expensive machines automate the morning: one grabs every product in a barn or coop and holds thirty-six stacks of it, the other pets everything in the building.

Four rods and a Crab Pot sit in the branch as well, though the fishing side has a logic of its own: what a rod changes is how many attachments the line will carry.

Order

A first year is paid for in copper. Two thousand gold is a serious sum in Spring, so the usual order is a copper axe first, because large stumps are the fastest wood on the farm, then a copper watering can and a copper hoe as the fields grow. The backpack jumps the queue for many farms: two thousand gold at Pierre's adds twelve slots, and no tool improvement matters as much as not walking home with a full bag.

Iron is the stage where the mine opens up. A steel pickaxe clears the boulders blocking the farm's own corners and breaks the wall in front of the Dwarf, which starts a whole chain of its own, and a steel axe turns every Large Log in the forest into hardwood.

Gold is bought with mine money in a second year, and iridium belongs to a farm that has already reached the Skull Cavern, since iridium bars are what the cavern is for. The full iridium set costs a hundred and twenty-five thousand gold and twenty-five bars, which is why most saves finish the hoe and the can first and leave the trash can for last.

The deluxe backpack at ten thousand gold, the pan upgrades, and the two automation machines all belong to the same late stretch, by which point gold has stopped being the limit.

Best

The iridium watering can is the most valuable single upgrade in the branch, because it waters eighteen tiles for ten energy where the starter can charges two for one tile. Everything else in the branch saves minutes; this one saves whole mornings before sprinklers arrive.

The iridium pickaxe is the one that changes where a farm can go. One-hit stone in the Skull Cavern is the difference between reaching the fiftieth floor and reaching the hundredth, and gem nodes falling in a single swing pays for the upgrade in amethyst alone.

The iridium hoe is the artefact hunter's tool rather than the farmer's, especially once the archaeologist enchantment doubles its chance at artefact spots. Among the cheap purchases, the copper axe and the first backpack are the two that repay themselves fastest.

The Golden Scythe deserves a mention of its own, because it costs nothing but a walk to the bottom of the Quarry Mine and improves both hay gathering and the damage a farmer can do with a swing while holding no weapon at all.

Prices

The gold cost of the branch is front-loaded badly for a new farm and trivial for an old one. The first copper rung is a week's income in Spring; the iridium rung is an afternoon's income in a third year. Materials work the other way round, since five iridium bars are harder to find than twenty-five thousand gold ever is.

The trash can is the cheapest ladder and the one whose value is easiest to miss. Each rung returns a larger share of a deleted item's worth, from fifteen per cent at copper to sixty at iridium, and professions that raise sell prices raise that refund too.

Strategy

Time the upgrades around the weather and the week. Handing in the watering can the evening before rain is forecast costs nothing at all, since the sky does the watering, and handing in the pickaxe on a day meant for the fields is free in the same way. The trash can is the exception that can be given up any time, because the old one stays in the bag while Clint works.

Enchant late and enchant deliberately. The forge inside the volcano takes a Prismatic Shard and twenty cinder shards to put a random enchantment on an axe, hoe, pickaxe, watering can, pan or rod, and the one every farm wants is bottomless water, which removes refilling from the day entirely. Efficient removes the energy cost of a tool, reaching widens a hoe or can to five tiles square, swift speeds every swing by a third, and powerful adds a level of force to an axe or pickaxe. An upgrade keeps whatever enchantment is already on the tool, so enchanting a gold tool and then taking it to iridium loses nothing.

Let the skills do the rest. A tool's energy cost drops by a tenth of a point with every level of its matching skill, and a buff that pushes the skill past ten carries on lowering it, which is why a farmer eating the right dish can swing a pickaxe all day on one meal.

Notes

A Hay Hopper in a deluxe barn or coop fills the feeding bench by itself, which also stops hay being withdrawn by hand. Hay can still be put in, and a chest full of hay is a perfectly good store for it as long as one ordinary barn or coop has a bench with space.

The machine that harvests a barn automatically costs the farmer the friendship that milking or shearing by hand would have earned, and animals left entirely alone slowly lose goodwill even while fed. Pairing it with the petting machine cancels that out, though hand-petting still earns nearly twice the friendship the machine gives.

An egg put into an incubator cannot be taken back out while the coop has room, and a coop that is already full simply holds the egg until a space appears. Walking into the building then hatches it at once. The Coopmaster profession halves every incubation time.

Pans, scythes and weapons cost no energy whatever the skill level, which makes a scythe the right tool for clearing a field on a morning when the energy bar is already low.

All Tools

Every entry in this group, with its key details.

Name	Image	Cost
Advanced Iridium Rod		25000g
Auto-Grabber		25000g
Auto-Petter		50000g
Axes	-	-
Bamboo Pole		500g
Fiberglass Rod		1800g
Golden Scythe		-
Hay Hopper		-
Heater		2000g
Hoes	-	-
Incubator		-
Iridium Rod		7500g
Iridium Scythe		-
Milk Pail		1000g
Pans	-	-
Pickaxes	-	-
Scythe		-
Shears		1000g
Training Rod		25g
Trash Cans	-	-
Watering Cans	-	-