It is understandable that there are a lot of things that must be done on your farm in Stardew Valley – gather resources, craft items, and grow your income. To ensure these things, the first you must do is explore and enhance your foraging skills.
Among the six skills you can learn in Stardew Valley, the foraging skill is the most essential to have, especially in gathering resources, including chopping down trees and harvesting crops that grew from the Wild Seeds. It is one of the most used yet least appreciated abilities in Stardew Valley.
Just like the other skills, there are also requirements to level up the foraging skill experience. If you want to increase your foraging skill exp, you should plant trees, cut down trees, logs, and stumps. The trees you planted can also be cut down once it’s fully grown making it a win-win situation for you as you gain foraging skills exp from both ends.
As you grind more and approach later games, you will receive rewards for leveling up.
For levels 1 to 4 and 6 to 9, these are the rewards that you can obtain:
Level 1: Wild Seeds (Sp) and Field Snacks
Level 2: Survival Burger
Level 3: Tapper
Level 4: Charcoal Kiln, Wild Seeds (Su)
Level 6: Lightning Rod, Wild Seeds (Fa), Warp Totem: Beach
Level 7: Wild Seeds (Wi), Warp Totem: Mountains, Tree Fertilizer
Level 8: Warp Totem: Farm, +1 Wild Berry harvesting
Level 9: Rain Totem, Cookout Kit
On the other hand, you can choose a profession once you reach level 5. You can choose from the two professions namely the forester and gatherer – the decision is all yours!
While the max level allows you to enhance the profession you chose by giving you another two choices of specialization depending on what profession you chose. If you picked the forester, you can choose from either a lumberjack or a tapper. On the other hand, the gatherer offers a botanist and a tracker.
To help you decide, here’s a more detailed explanation of the two professions and their specializations!
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Forester or Gatherer Professions in Stardew Valley
If you’re stuck between choosing the Forester or Gatherer Profession in Stardew Valley, always go with the Forester profession first. The Forester profession is better at the beginning because you can farm lots of wood for the rest of your playthrough and then swap professions to the Gatherer later.
You can swap professions at the sewers by using the Statue of Uncertainty.
Choosing the right profession is crucial to reaching your goals and achieving your objectives in the game. Although both forester and gatherer professions have their own advantages, it is still important to weigh things down in order to come to a more efficient combination of perks.
Forester
Basically, choosing the forester profession allows you to obtain an additional 25% wood when you chop trees, large logs, and stumps. Even at first glance, this already does sound good especially when you are about to craft an item that requires a large amount of wood for its recipe. Cutting down one tree gives you enough wood for 1.25 trees already if you choose the forester. If you think of it, it is already a big help knowing how hard it is to forage in Stardew valley.
Gatherer
On the other hand, the gatherer profession increases the chance of a doubled harvest of foraged items. Imagine getting two grapes in one go? This perk helps you big time in collecting items as well as storing more foods to be consumed at the later part. Not only that, but it will be easier and more convenient for you if you happen to be short on crafting materials – that gatherer profession cuts down the time of foraging because of the chance of a doubled drop.
Forester Profession
Now that you already know that reaching the max level of forester grants you another chance of choosing between the two specializations – lumberjack and tapper. We all know that choosing between these two choices is one of the toughest parts of playing Stardew Valley. But to somewhat lessen your stress on choosing, here is an explanation of what choosing them means.
Lumberjack
If you are the type of player who always comes prepared for what will the future brings, this could be a good choice for you.
Lumberjack is a good stunt in obtaining hardwoods, as it increases the chance of dropping a hardwood when you cut down any type of tree. In case you are not aware, hardwood is a highly-needed resource in the late parts of the game. In other words, upon choosing the lumberjack skill, it is guaranteed that you have a source of hardwood as long as there are trees around you. It also saves your time from going to hardwood spawn areas.
Tapper
Tapper, on the other hand, increases the value of syrups by 25%. That being said, it is a good choice for you to increase your profit. At first, this might not seem like much, but an increase is still an increase. But if you think about it, you can actually tap as many trees as you want. Having said that, for every 4 tapped trees, you can collect syrup that is equivalent to five trees.
Gatherer Profession
Maxing up the level of your gatherer profession lets you choose between a botanist and a tracker. Generally speaking, these perks are all inclined to the quality and state of the foraged items. Here is the elaborated definition of both specializations to help you decide which to choose.
Botanist
Choosing the botanist is actually one of the best decisions you will make throughout your life playing Stardew Valley. By having this skill, your foraged items will always have the highest quality. As easy as that, your inventory can be easily filled with gold and iridium items. Aside from that, it also poses an edge when it comes to selling items since quality is also an essential aspect of the game.
Tracker
If you really enjoy walking and wandering around the map, this may be a good choice of skill for you. The tracker specialization allows you to know exactly where the foraged items are located – you just have to walk around and find them.
If you look at the map, you can see arrows as indications that there are forgeable items around the area. This is actually also a good help if you are always having a hard time looking for artifacts spot.
