Tool Upgrade Order

[Snowy Sprout]

In what order do you like to upgrade your tools? Does it change according to playthrough, or do you have one particular upgrade order you like best?

[Snowy Sprout]

Watering can and hoe are the weird ones for me. I mean, you kind of HAVE to upgrade your axe and pick as soon as possible to get rid of stumps and boulders on your farm. But the only real "need" to upgrade your can is to cross lava on Ginger Island. And is there any solid "need" to upgrade the hoe at all? Other than convenience?

Yet I'm thinking, with my first bit of iridium ore, that maybe the hoe is the first thing I might upgrade to iridium, because being able to hoe a lot of ground at once will help me find the two dwarf scrolls I still need. Plus it'll help till ground around trees in my tree farm so they don't get clogged with seeds/saplings.

IDK though. The iridium pick doesn't seem to work much better than the gold pick. But the iridium axe does in three chops what it takes a gold axe six chops to do, so that's a HUGE advantage! Destroying forests in three chops each is sooooo much fun! It's hard to choose.

[nanami]

i get sprinklers so fast i usually never upgrade my watering can or hoe. if i am on the forest farm i would go for axe first then the mining pick other wise i would upgrade the mining pick first to get more ore. you could upgrade your watering can in winter or near the end of the day before one of the events. or you could do a run where you do no farming in spring to get a gold can before summer?

[NBOX21]

I always make it a priority to upgrade my watering can as much as possible during Winter as that's when growing crops is next to impossible, especially during Year 1 when most playthroughs won't even have the greenhouse unlocked yet. If I have the iridium to upgrade from a gold watering can, I won't hesitate to do so.

The pickaxe is actually a decent second pick for me as by then I'll have unlocked access to the skull cavern which contains stronger rocks that require two hits with a gold pickaxe to break but the iridium pickaxe can break in one, saving a lot of time in the process.

But pretty much everything else I tend to upgrade in whatever order I feel like, save for the trash can which I almost always save for last as it's not as important as the other tools. The iridium axe is definitely great for chopping trees for extra wood, however.

[graalGGTV]

Originally posted by nanami:

you could upgrade your watering can in winter or near the end of the day before one of the events. or you could do a run where you do no farming in spring to get a gold can before summer?

I don't understand the point of upgrading the day before one of the events. It's my understanding that you still need to water plants on event days, just like any normal day. I thought the rule of thumb was to upgrade it when the weather forecast says it'll rain the next day.

[Coffee Addict]

i always upgrade my axe first to clear the logs off my farm and so i can access the secret woods for the hardwood which i use in the wood chipper since wood is needed alot and is hard to find

2nd upgrade i focus on is the pickaxe so i can mine ore faster and also to break meteors if any fall on my farm

i use the tractor mod so the hoe/watering can doesnt mean alot to me so i upgrade them when i have the resources/money to spare which is usually in the winter

[Snowy Sprout]

Originally posted by NBOX21:

I always make it a priority to upgrade my watering can as much as possible during Winter as that's when growing crops is next to impossible, especially during Year 1 when most playthroughs won't even have the greenhouse unlocked yet.

Do most people not unlock their greenhouse in first fall? I thought that was standard, because everything it asks for is available by then, with a little hustle. Other rooms require stuff that isn't available till winter or maybe even second year, but the greenhouse is pretty straightforward.

Maybe my ideas of what is standard vs. advanced practice might be a little skewed.

[CozyZebra]

I always prioritise the pickaxe to make it easier to get lower in the mines for more ore, particularly for sprinklers and kegs.

[Lil brekky]

With some fishing luck I'd really like to have copper or steel pick by day 5. Then get the pick to gold. For all of these Im buying material from Clint if I have to.

Then the pick is the gateway to getting materials for the other upgrades, which for me are generally axe->gold and hoe->gold. Pick is also the first to go iridium for the simple reason that it gets every other upgrade faster. But the benefit is so marginal that it doesnt come until other tools are steel or gold.

Exception is beach farm where any significant amount of crops needs the watering can... I try to get that dropped off for upgrades the afternoons before rainy days. The energy savings on aoe watering is huuge

[Phirestar]

In my current game, I went in this order:

1. Copper Axe
2. Copper Pickaxe
3. Copper Watering Can

And then the same order again for Iron. I don’t know why I chose to upgrade the watering can last, or why I waited so long to do it - literally set it in to Clint’s on the 26 of Winter to get the iron upgrade - but that’s how it happened.

I also haven’t done the hoe yet, because… why? I only need to use it like one time per season, usually. And now I have the Greenhouse, so I can start doing a lot of crops there and not have to ever re-hoe the ground.

[Dimensional Traveler]

Since I tend to focus on farming I think I usually upgrade my watering can first and hoe second. But I don't follow some laid out plan, I just kind of bumble along playing as I feel like.

[Phirestar]

If you’re curious why I went with the axe first, it’s because I was focusing on chopping trees and selling the wood & sap for money early on, in Spring and somewhat in Summer. I went for the profession that gives +25% wood, too.

They only sold for 1g each, but playing on lower profit margins means there aren’t a lot of ways to make a significant portion of money at the very beginning of the game. It took me two seasons to reach 20K total profit.

[graalGGTV]

Originally posted by Phirestar:

If you’re curious why I went with the axe first, it’s because I was focusing on chopping trees and selling the wood & sap for money early on, in Spring and somewhat in Summer. I went for the profession that gives +25% wood, too.

They only sold for 1g each, but playing on lower profit margins means there aren’t a lot of ways to make a significant portion of money at the very beginning of the game. It took me two seasons to reach 20K total profit.

I'll be honest, that sounds like one of the worst ways to make money in Stardew Valley I've ever heard. You might as well just have gone to the mines around floor 20 to cut grass for those kinds of returns. Not to mention wood will always be necessary in large amounts, and you have to wait a long time for more to grow.
Besides, I really doubt you actually got 20k total wood+sap in 2 seasons, given how many trees are initially available and how long they take to regrow, so I'm guessing you are also including profits from other sources, which makes those profit numbers even worse.

Back on topic, though, I would agree with most people that either pickaxe or axe first makes the most sense, unless I am playing in the beach farm. Usually by the time I am upgrading tools, I'll have sprinklers, and missing out on a day of watering to upgrade the watering can when it isn't raining feels wasteful anyway, so getting pickaxe to mine ores faster or axe to get wood and be able to chop logs usually feel like the best idea to me. Hoe just seems really useless to upgrade early on, as I'll likely only need to use it a lot on season changes, so getting it to copper by spring 28th should be plenty, and only if I plan on doing lots of farming during summer at that, otherwise I don't even bother upgrading it until I have plenty of extra resources and money.

[Phirestar]

Originally posted by graalGGTV:

Originally posted by Phirestar:

If you’re curious why I went with the axe first, it’s because I was focusing on chopping trees and selling the wood & sap for money early on, in Spring and somewhat in Summer. I went for the profession that gives +25% wood, too.

They only sold for 1g each, but playing on lower profit margins means there aren’t a lot of ways to make a significant portion of money at the very beginning of the game. It took me two seasons to reach 20K total profit.

I'll be honest, that sounds like one of the worst ways to make money in Stardew Valley I've ever heard. You might as well just have gone to the mines around floor 20 to cut grass for those kinds of returns. Not to mention wood will always be necessary in large amounts, and you have to wait a long time for more to grow.
Besides, I really doubt you actually got 20k total wood+sap in 2 seasons, given how many trees are initially available and how long they take to regrow, so I'm guessing you are also including profits from other sources, which makes those profit numbers even worse.

You’re right, I didn’t make that 20K solely off of chopping trees. I said that there weren’t “a lot” of ways to make a big profit in early-game. The reason for that is because I’m playing with the custom game option that lets you scale the profit margins of items, and I have it set to 25%, meaning all items sell for a fourth of their original value in the normal game.

In response to your other comments, I did it this way for more purposes than just the profit. I don’t recall the exact numbers off the top of my head, but I believe I put around 1,200 wood and 500-600 sap in the shipping bin all together, which means about 10% of my gold from Spring and Summer was from trees. Not a lot, but effectively making my axe pay for its own copper upgrade.

Along with that, I also focused on chopping down trees to gather both wood and foraging experience, so that I could have plenty of wood to craft things and level up foraging as much as possible, given that it’s a relatively slow skill to train. In my newer playthroughs, I choose to take advantage of the abundance of empty space and pre-existing trees on the farm by cutting them down and replanting the seeds all over (effectively turning the farm into a forestry business, at the beginning).

So no, I didn’t make money purely off wood and sap. That’s just what got me to initially focus on upgrading my axe before any other tools, which was the point I was looking to make with that comment.

[Maya-Neko]

In a money focused game, i'm not upgrading anything until i got to buy strawberries and after that, i focus on getting the iron watering can before summer, as that makes the time before getting sprinklers way more bearable.

More often than not i'm getting copper axe and pickaxe at some point and after that i get the iron pickaxe in soloplayer or the iron axe in multiplayer (as my brother takes the pickaxe first then) and the other one after that. And then it's a golden pickaxe next, then a golden axe and once i've got my hands on some iridium bars i finish my main upgrade order with an iridium pickaxe.

After that it is mostly just about getting everything to max level over the course of year 2 or early year 3, but i often don't focus on getting it fast, since there's usually not that much gain anymore except for the iridium axe.

For a casual run with a lower crop count however i rather upgrade the watering can earlier and then keep the pickaxe up-to-date to not deal with the annoying parts of the mines (most notably not doing the iron levels with a normal pickaxe^^) and i might upgrade the hoe earlier before year 2 or maybe even before year 1 fall.

Originally posted by Snowy Sprout:

Do most people not unlock their greenhouse in first fall? I thought that was standard, because everything it asks for is available by then, with a little hustle. Other rooms require stuff that isn't available till winter or maybe even second year, but the greenhouse is pretty straightforward.

Maybe my ideas of what is standard vs. advanced practice might be a little skewed.

For players who work efficient it is definitely standard to get it before winter, however most players don't really plan 2 month ahead and might not have the animals bought, artisan product makers build or fruit trees planted before fall. Ant the barn animals and fruit trees in particular are quite a high investment for someone, who might only have like 30 crops planted at the same time, maybe even not having sprinklers at that time.

[Matatabi]

My orders usually are:
Pick —> copper
Pick —> steel (until mine level 80)
Axe —> copper
Axe —> steel
Pick —> gold (not much difference with iridium imo, so I keep at gold until end game)
Axe —> gold
Axe —> iridium
I only upgraded hoe and watering can on winter. Even copper is enough but having gold really convenient