Weapon Upgrades - Stardew Valley

Hi there!

Today we're going to look at the various weapon upgrades that are available in Stardew Valley. They come in two parts: gem upgrades and enchantments. You can mix and match up to three gem upgrades from your choosing and one enchantment selected randomly at the Volcano Forge.

There's six different gem upgrades. The first one costs 10 cinder shards, the second one 15 cinder shards and the third one 20 cinder shards.

Damage upgrade

+10% damage per upgrade. Requires a ruby gem.

An easy pick. You get +30% damage when you stack them and it makes a huge difference. Offense is defense, kill the monsters before they hurt you. It affects both min damage and max damage.

Critical hit damage upgrade

+10% critical hit damage per upgrade. Requires a jade gem.

I'm not quite sure why you would want this one as the damage upgrade is also 10%. By increasing your base damage with the ruby gem, you also increase your critical hit damage. As well as your non-critical hit damage.

Sounds like a pass to me.

Critical hit chance upgrade

+4.6% critical hit chance per upgrade. Requires an aquamarine gem.

This one could work well with the Iridium Needle weapon. The wiki says it can reach a 42% critical hit chance that deals 14x damage per hit. I'm guessing the +4.6% critical hit chance upgrades are a key to achieve this.

Knockback chance upgrade

+1 knockback per upgrade. Requires an amethyst gem.

I'm not a big fan of knockback myself but some people like it. I think this upgrade would be best used with weapons that already have high knockback like the Galaxy Hammer or the Crystal Dagger.

Defense upgrade

+1 defense per upgrade. Requires a topaz gem.

Not sure why you'd want to stack defense. Better more damage and get hit less.

Attack speed upgrade

+2 speed for the first two upgrades and +3 for the last one. Requires an emerald gem.

That's a good one for a strategy where you just spam the attack button quickly. Put monsters into a corner and lock them there with quick attacks, preventing them from attacking back.

Enchantment upgrades

In addition to the three gem upgrades, you can also apply an enchantment upgrade. The main problem is the enchantment is randomly selected.

The other problem is it is quite expensive as it requires 20 cinder shards and one prismatic shard. Therefore, I would suggest to wait after the gem upgrades to get it. The enchantment you get might be useless. More damage on your weapon isn't.

The five enchantment upgrades are:

• Artful: 50% cooldown reduction on special moves.
• Bug Killer: 100% more damage to the insects.
• Crusader: 50% more damage to the undead.
• Vampiric: 9% chance to heal HP.
• Haymaker: collect more weed and hay.

Vampiric works better with fast weapon as the heal depends on the enemy's max HP and not on the damage you deal. Bug Killer and Crusader make a huge difference but only in certain areas. Artful and Haymaker are meh.