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Brute and Defender Skills in Stardew Valley
Leveling up your combat skills in Stardew Valley gives you specific items as rewards and incentives for grinding the skill. However, reaching certain levels will let you pick between two professions. Combat skill level 5 gives you an option of a fighter and a scout. Consequently, maxing up your combat skills to level 10 gives you another two choices for your specialization.
After picking the fighter profession at level 5, you will be left with the choices of brute and defender as you reach the max level. Since most players are having trouble deciding on which specialization is better, here is a quick Brute or Defender Stardew Valley guide to help you pick the most suitable skill for you!
What are Combat Skills in Stardew Valley?
Stardew Valley is a real-life farming simulator game that relies on your skills in order to keep the progress of your living and in order to make doing specific tasks easier for you. Be it farming, fishing, foraging, combat, etc. – all skills have to be upgraded.
When we say upgrading skills in Stardew Valley, this refers to the increase of skill experience points by doing basic tasks related to the skill. For example, in the context of combat skills, every defeated enemy or monster grants you additional experience points. As you gain experience points and increase your combat level, you will receive an additional 5 hp (health points). Aside from these health point increments, there are also specific crafting recipes and items that you can receive on each level up.
Level 1: Sturdy Ring, Bug Steak
Level 2: Life Elixir
Level 3: Roots Platter
Level 4: Warrior Ring
Level 6: Slime Egg-Press, Oil of Garlic
Level 7: Ring of Yoba, Thorns Ring
Level 8: Slime Incubator, Explosive Ammo
Level 9: Iridium Band, Squid Ink Ravioli
However, for levels 5 and 10, your rewards are the freedom to choose between two professions, as well as two specializations anchored in your level 5 choice.
Reaching level 5 gives you the options of fighter and scout. Picking the fighter profession gives you other choices at level 10 which are the brute and defender. However, selecting the scout at level 5 gives you the acrobat and desperado choices at level 10.
Nonetheless, the fighter tree will be the focus of this Brute or Defender Stardew Valley guide. Find out more about the profession and its specializations to help you decide between the two.
Fighter Profession
Picking the fighter as your chosen profession gives you a damage buff of 10%. It means that the damage you deal with the enemy has greatly increased. This choice puts you on the upper hand during combat. Aside from the 10% additional damage, choosing this also gives you an additional 15 hp. Thus, as you become more offensive, your defense becomes stronger as well. Although a 15 health point increase may sound a little, it still matters especially if the enemy deals a critical strike. This additional 15 hp may save you from reaching 0 hp immediately.
As you continue grinding and increasing your combat skills experience points, you will be given another two options for your specialization as you max up your level. In level 10, you will be asked to choose between the brute and the defender. In this area, the choice will be crucial.
Brute
If you enjoy the damage buff you received from the fighter perks, then you should consider picking brute as your specialization.
With brute, you deal 15% more damage to your enemies. Not only that, but it also stacks with the damage buff you received from the fighter perk. All in all, you will have a total of 25% additional damage if you chose this path for your combat skills.
The only drawback of this option is that it doesn’t give you additional health points. It only focuses on your offense and not the defense.
Defender
Now, if you want to be more on the defensive side, the defender will be the choice for you.
Choosing the defender specialization gives you an additional 25 health points – take note that it isn’t an additional 25%, but a fixed 25 health points. This is a good stunt if you want to have that tanky characteristic during combat. You won’t get easily defeated even if the enemy deals with a critical attack. On the contrary, you will not receive any additional damage buff. But you can still enjoy the additional 10% damage that you gained from choosing the fighter profession.
Brute or Defender: Which is Better?
After learning all the perks that you can get from all the given choices under the fighter tree, it can be easily judged that the brute is way better than the defender. The brute’s large damage boost gives you an advantage over your opponents. Take note that there is also a thing in Stardew Valley that we call a critical strike – combining all these, you can easily take down enemies in just a few attacks.
Although the defender also gives you an advantage when it comes to your defense, it is still relatively less impressive than the brute.
