Ranking Mastery Skills

[Crater]

https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Mastery_Cave

Maybe I'm not seeing the utility in some of these so please spell it out if I'm missing something:

S: (Should always be first) Mining
Saving you on coal while you smelt is a godsend (scale keg empire, smelting iridium to sell, etc).

The statue is great: 3 / 5 buffs make Skull cavern runs more worth it (bombs not damaging you, faster ladders / shafts, +1 ore). The coal buff is okay. The geode buff is meh.

The perk for the mining mastery is meh.


A (Good, worth having)
Farming
The best bonus here is the scythe which lets you harvest all crops. On the flipside, once you build junimo huts this thing use goes down - but it still helps with greenhouse and ginger island.

The statue is okay, only 3 of the 7 buffs are really useful (Luck, Speed, Crit chance). The rest are very weak.

The cracker is okay I suppose if you have animals, but if you're into the end game your money is probably coming from kegs.

Combat:
Mostly for the trinket. The mini-forge is disappointing because it doesn't even let you bypass the volcano. If you unlock mastery BEFORE the CC, you might think "sick I can get enchants before ginger island" - sadly the recipe requires something from the volcano itself.


C: Fishing
The bonuses are the best among the 5 choices, in the sense that they elevate the skill in question (fishing) the most. It lets you wildly scale up Gold per day of fishing. Double tackles and most importantly the challenge bait sends fishing to the moon. The problem is that in practice, as you get to the end game you probably want to automate / scale your farm. Fishing just doesn't let you do that. Smoker is cool, but I just don't see most players spending their entire days and weeks in one minigame.


F: Foraging

What the heck lol

This is the bonus:

1) You unlock a recipe
2) For a seed you then plant and wait
3) For a tree you then have to tap and wait
4) To make a totem which gives you 16 artifact spots
?????????????????????????

Gold treasure box: small chance to get a box, which you have to manually bring to clint to open, to get something from a loot table that contains items such as a quality sprinkler. The only item worth it from the table is the magic rock candy.

[Anzaman]

With Heavy Tapper, Mystic Tree produces Mystic Syrup basically 2 batches every week, which you can use to make Blue Grass starters. If your farm has animals, then they are going to love that.

Mini-Forge is basically just QoL that lets you perform enchants without having to run all the way to Volcano, which is quite big in terms of saved time. Especially early on when you don't have Island Obelisk built.

Infinite Energy -buff is also pretty handy for both fishing, and Skull Cavern -trips, especially if you use Fairy Box -trinket, as it keeps your health permanently full with constant healing. Tho, if you go heavy bombs, energy won't be that big factor then.

Eg. once your farm is fully operational, going all day fishing with infinite energy could bump up the daily income quite noticeable. Overall fishing seems to be quite reliable source for Golden Animal Crackers to boost up your animal production.

[Crater]

Originally posted by Anzaman:

With Heavy Tapper, Mystic Tree produces Mystic Syrup basically 2 batches every week, which you can use to make Blue Grass starters. If your farm has animals, then they are going to love that.

Mini-Forge is basically just QoL that lets you perform enchants without having to run all the way to Volcano, which is quite big in terms of saved time. Especially early on when you don't have Island Obelisk built.

Infinite Energy -buff is also pretty handy for both fishing, and Skull Cavern -trips, especially if you use Fairy Box -trinket, as it keeps your health permanently full with constant healing. Tho, if you go heavy bombs, energy won't be that big factor then.

Eg. once your farm is fully operational, going all day fishing with infinite energy could bump up the daily income quite noticeable. Overall fishing seems to be quite reliable source for Golden Animal Crackers to boost up your animal production.

1) Okay I grant the blue grass bit, but animal husbandry really doesn't keep up with wine in the late game. I end up with a barn / coop, max heart animals, never bother to sell them. I get that it has a use case.

2) Mini forge is QoL I agree, I'm just saying it would have been nice if it gave you a shortcut for the enchants. It saves you time for enchanting, true.

3) Hard disagree because by this point energy simply isn't an issue - for any activity.

[Anzaman]

Originally posted by Tabasco:

1) Okay I grant the blue grass bit, but animal husbandry really doesn't keep up with wine in the late game. I end up with a barn / coop, max heart animals, never bother to sell them. I get that it has a use case.

Mhm. Tho, I usually get too attached to my animals and never sell them. But looking at the used space and weekly income from both Ancient Fruit -wine and sheep. Animals, especially sheep, aren't that bad (anymore).

Take area that is 21x24 tiles.

You can house 9 pressure Iridium Sprinkers and 3 big sheds for the production machines. Sell your regular Ancient Fruit -wine each week with Artisan -profession perk, you get ~950k.

Meanwhile you can have 6 Deluxe Barns, could squeeze 9 or even 12, depending how cruel you want to be, with some outdoor area for them within the same area.

6 Barns could house 72 sheep. Each sheep produce 2 wool daily, near all of them being Iridium level, if you have Shepherd -profession perk. Iridium wool has 100% chance of outputting 2 Cloth.

72 sheep = 144 wool daily ~= 288 cloth daily, which is 564g each with Rancher. 658 if you have Artisan (multiplayer?). You would get 2016 cloth each week, resulting in 1.137.024g or if you have Artisan, 1.326.528g on weekly basis. Tho, you'd need to reduce slight amount given of currency, that small amount of wool would come out as gold quality, having 50% chance for double cloth.

Both routes are quite viable nowadays, albeit you do need to catch some Golden Crackers for your animals. But if you actively do other activities, then they should show up at quite nice pace.

Originally posted by Tabasco:

3) Hard disagree because by this point energy simply isn't an issue - for any activity.

Even at fishing level 10, each cast will cost you 7 energy, 508 max. energy is enough for 72 casts. You can actually burn through that pretty fast if you actively fish.

Especially depending on the location. Take Laval Eel cave at level 100 mines, given the low catch rate of the Eel, you will catch a lot of different instant catch junk along the Cave Jellies.

[Crater]

Originally posted by Anzaman:

Originally posted by Tabasco:

1) Okay I grant the blue grass bit, but animal husbandry really doesn't keep up with wine in the late game. I end up with a barn / coop, max heart animals, never bother to sell them. I get that it has a use case.

Mhm. Tho, I usually get too attached to my animals and never sell them. But looking at the used space and weekly income from both Ancient Fruit -wine and sheep. Animals, especially sheep, aren't that bad (anymore).

Take area that is 21x24 tiles.

You can house 9 pressure Iridium Sprinkers and 3 big sheds for the production machines. Sell your regular Ancient Fruit -wine each week with Artisan -profession perk, you get ~950k.

Meanwhile you can have 6 Deluxe Barns, could squeeze 9 or even 12, depending how cruel you want to be, with some outdoor area for them within the same area.

6 Barns could house 72 sheep. Each sheep produce 2 wool daily, near all of them being Iridium level, if you have Shepherd -profession perk. Iridium wool has 100% chance of outputting 2 Cloth.

72 sheep = 144 wool daily ~= 288 cloth daily, which is 564g each with Rancher. 658 if you have Artisan (multiplayer?). You would get 2016 cloth each week, resulting in 1.137.024g or if you have Artisan, 1.326.528g on weekly basis. Tho, you'd need to reduce slight amount given of currency, that small amount of wool would come out as gold quality, having 50% chance for double cloth.

Both routes are quite viable nowadays, albeit you do need to catch some Golden Crackers for your animals. But if you actively do other activities, then they should show up at quite nice pace.

Originally posted by Tabasco:

3) Hard disagree because by this point energy simply isn't an issue - for any activity.

Even at fishing level 10, each cast will cost you 7 energy, 508 max. energy is enough for 72 casts. You can actually burn through that pretty fast if you actively fish.

Especially depending on the location. Take Laval Eel cave at level 100 mines, given the low catch rate of the Eel, you will catch a lot of different instant catch junk along the Cave Jellies.

Regarding the energy: everything from purple mushrooms to energy drinks from iridium bats to magma caps, spicy eels, and a myriad of other things you have by the time you get masteries makes the energy buff superluous.

In contrast your calculation for the wool seems interesting, I will look into that further.

[maestro]

Not every player eats, drinks, and sleeps min-maxxing.

Not every player fills their farms with ancient fruit + wine setups.

Some players like to do a variety of things in the game even if it isn't optimal.

All of the masteries are decent at what they do -- buffing their corresponding skill and/or providing items that make performing said skill better.

Some might make money more than others, but eventually no matter what, you're going to run out of things to buy, even after spending the some ~15 million to buy everything imaginable that has any cost to it.

What really matters, is that you had fun on the way there, and I can understand doing a run or two of min-maxxing to see what's possible, but I imagine that min-max play is very boring as you're doing the same thing over and over again, which doesn't change unless the game has a major update.

If you don't click the SKIP button when you make a new save, you might see (or maybe remember from that one time you did watch it) that the player character is trying to escape a doldrum life of cubicle work for Joja. Putting the farmer into a box of max profits only seems like they escaped cubicle work just to go into..... well, work that is akin to a cubicle job, slaving away for profit instead of just enjoying life.

EDIT: TBH, I think CA should implement some sort of mechanic, where if you ship multiple varieties of items, you get a bonus for diversifying, though it'd have to be a certain amount, instead of just shipping a single fish or what-not.

[Crater]

Originally posted by maestro:

Not every player eats, drinks, and sleeps min-maxxing.

Not every player fills their farms with ancient fruit + wine setups.

Some players like to do a variety of things in the game even if it isn't optimal.

All of the masteries are decent at what they do -- buffing their corresponding skill and/or providing items that make performing said skill better.

Some might make money more than others, but eventually no matter what, you're going to run out of things to buy, even after spending the some ~15 million to buy everything imaginable that has any cost to it.

What really matters, is that you had fun on the way there, and I can understand doing a run or two of min-maxxing to see what's possible, but I imagine that min-max play is very boring as you're doing the same thing over and over again, which doesn't change unless the game has a major update.

If you don't click the SKIP button when you make a new save, you might see (or maybe remember from that one time you did watch it) that the player character is trying to escape a doldrum life of cubicle work for Joja. Putting the farmer into a box of max profits only seems like they escaped cubicle work just to go into..... well, work that is akin to a cubicle job, slaving away for profit instead of just enjoying life.

EDIT: TBH, I think CA should implement some sort of mechanic, where if you ship multiple varieties of items, you get a bonus for diversifying, though it'd have to be a certain amount, instead of just shipping a single fish or what-not.

Since when is kegging min maxing?

"All of the masteries are decent at what they do"

I literally said this for each of the 5 except foraging.

[BahamaLlama]

Foraging, it's more to do with the golden mystery boxes. If you're able to max all your skills early on (Most good players can have all 5 skills maxed by the end of Fall with enough min-maxing. I know I do anyways. Sometimes it takes till Winter, depends on how long it takes for Combat lol), it gives you a higher chance of getting farm warping totems. Having enough of these can easily keep you going until you get the teleport rod.

The treasure totem is VERY useful for the museum. Especially when it comes to finding the artifacts that can only either be found in a specific place, or troves. Say, for instance, Town. There are a few artifacts that can ONLY be found in town, and spots in town are pretty rare (Unless it's Winter). Having the totem to instantly summon a load gives you plenty of chances to complete the museum, or get to the sewer.

The animal one is VERY useful, even if you don't do many animals. It makes animals almost viable rather than it just be pigs. I mean, sure, you can just plant 1000+ crops and then keg them all, which takes a LOT of work and a LOT of setup. OR, you have a barn with 4 Cows, 4 Sheep and 4 Goats that can make you around 10-15k a day. Add that to the pigs which can make 25k+ a day, and the coop which does about 10-15k too once they've all been crackered, and you're getting 45k+ a day, for minimal effort.

The mining one I wouldn't put so high to be honest. Sure, the furnace itself is game-changing. But, by the time you get to that point, unless you rarely ever go farming for coal, it's not exactly needed? It just speeds up your bar production with less machinery, nothing more.
The statue, for it's cost, is almost lackluster. Finding ladders faster is helpful, I suppose. So, is the +1 ore. But, again, once you're able to craft the statue and you're at that point, unless you've been purposefully ignoring mining for ores, you're normally swimming in them. Even Iridium. I'd say the statue that gives you luck, or faster friendship, or infinite energy is much better. But, this also costs a LOT to make.

The fishing one, it's more to do with the rod giving you 2 tackles and the golden treasure chests. This again makes getting artifacts a lot easier, and makes getting gems a bit easier as well.

My ranking would be:

1st - Combat - There's a trinket you can get which makes you immune to EVERYTHING. My biggest annoyance in this game is the slow from slimes. There's also the trinket that heals you, and the one that has a high chance to give you gold, anywhere from 250-1500, which doesn't sound like a lot, but, it adds up pretty quickly.

2nd - Farming - The Iridium Scythe makes farming SO much easier and so much quicker, plus gathering hay is a lot less painful. The Statue of Blessing, in my opinion, is the better statues of the 2 because the perks it gives is a lot better. There's even one that gives you a special butterfly that, if you find it, gives you a Prismatic Shard.

3rd - Fishing - Double tackles is seriously strong, the Challenger Bait makes fishing a lot more viable and makes completing some quests a LOT easier (Fish 10 of a certain fish etc), and the golden chests can drop some pretty insane things. It makes getting actual treasure chests easier, pearls easier etc.

4th - Mining - Mainly because of the Heavy Furnace and the gems giving you 2. I normally go for the +1 ores and more coal skills, so, getting double gems for me is pretty nice. As I said, the statue itself is "kinda" lackluster. It's buffs CAN be helpful, sure, but, it's not like people were seriously struggling getting down farm in Skull Cavern already. I'd normally hit 150+ most runs once I have my Iridium pick. Plus, we have the Jade-Staircases already, which becomes easier to set up.

5th - Foraging - Even though I rank this one last, it's only because it's uses become limited once you find all the artifacts. If it came with a bit better crafting recipe, then it'd be above Mining for me, simply because of the golden mystery boxes. Being able to stockpile free warp totems, quality fertilisers, speed grows etc is VERY useful and saves you money, especially early on.

Each mastery does what it aims to do, enhance each of the 5 different skills. You may personally think that foraging is useless, but, the treasure totem can make clay farming so much easier, since you have a good chance of getting clay from dig spots. As someone mentioned above too, the Blue Grass starter is very good for animals too, it gives a good boost to their hearts, meaning you get the better quality stuff from them quicker.

As someone mentioned above, it's fine to min-max. I do it too, in pretty much all of my saves. But, I also know how strong the other 4 masteries are. NONE of them are useless. NONE of them are "just decent at what they do", they seriously enhance all 5 of the skills.

In all honesty, if Mining didn't have the Furnaces, that'd be the one at the bottom for me and I'm guessing most people. Mining for ores has NEVER been a problem. Spend a day in the mines and you get 200+ of the ore you're farming, or have a burglar ring and farm Dust Sprites for a day and you have 80+ coal a day. The problem with mining is the time it takes to smelt the bars you need, unless you went heavy on the amount of furnaces you crafted. That's no longer a problem, thanks to Heavy Furnaces. But, getting the ores, or getting down far in Skull Cavern, or farming for Geode's has never really been a problem.

Gems too. Even with me only getting 1 per node, I was still stockpiled 20+ gems by the end of the first year, because I was finding that many whilst farming for ores.

So, to me, without the Furnaces, the mining one is "pretty useless", because the things it buffs, never needed buffing unless you almost ignored farming for certain things, like the ores or coal. At least the treasure totem helped alleviate some of the RNG aspect of 100%ing the game (Artifacts).

[Crater]

Originally posted by BahamaLlama:

Foraging, it's more to do with the golden mystery boxes. If you're able to max all your skills early on (Most good players can have all 5 skills maxed by the end of Fall with enough min-maxing. I know I do anyways. Sometimes it takes till Winter, depends on how long it takes for Combat lol), it gives you a higher chance of getting farm warping totems. Having enough of these can easily keep you going until you get the teleport rod.

The treasure totem is VERY useful for the museum. Especially when it comes to finding the artifacts that can only either be found in a specific place, or troves. Say, for instance, Town. There are a few artifacts that can ONLY be found in town, and spots in town are pretty rare (Unless it's Winter). Having the totem to instantly summon a load gives you plenty of chances to complete the museum, or get to the sewer.

The animal one is VERY useful, even if you don't do many animals. It makes animals almost viable rather than it just be pigs. I mean, sure, you can just plant 1000+ crops and then keg them all, which takes a LOT of work and a LOT of setup. OR, you have a barn with 4 Cows, 4 Sheep and 4 Goats that can make you around 10-15k a day. Add that to the pigs which can make 25k+ a day, and the coop which does about 10-15k too once they've all been crackered, and you're getting 45k+ a day, for minimal effort.

The mining one I wouldn't put so high to be honest. Sure, the furnace itself is game-changing. But, by the time you get to that point, unless you rarely ever go farming for coal, it's not exactly needed? It just speeds up your bar production with less machinery, nothing more.
The statue, for it's cost, is almost lackluster. Finding ladders faster is helpful, I suppose. So, is the +1 ore. But, again, once you're able to craft the statue and you're at that point, unless you've been purposefully ignoring mining for ores, you're normally swimming in them. Even Iridium. I'd say the statue that gives you luck, or faster friendship, or infinite energy is much better. But, this also costs a LOT to make.

The fishing one, it's more to do with the rod giving you 2 tackles and the golden treasure chests. This again makes getting artifacts a lot easier, and makes getting gems a bit easier as well.

My ranking would be:

1st - Combat - There's a trinket you can get which makes you immune to EVERYTHING. My biggest annoyance in this game is the slow from slimes. There's also the trinket that heals you, and the one that has a high chance to give you gold, anywhere from 250-1500, which doesn't sound like a lot, but, it adds up pretty quickly.

2nd - Farming - The Iridium Scythe makes farming SO much easier and so much quicker, plus gathering hay is a lot less painful. The Statue of Blessing, in my opinion, is the better statues of the 2 because the perks it gives is a lot better. There's even one that gives you a special butterfly that, if you find it, gives you a Prismatic Shard.

3rd - Fishing - Double tackles is seriously strong, the Challenger Bait makes fishing a lot more viable and makes completing some quests a LOT easier (Fish 10 of a certain fish etc), and the golden chests can drop some pretty insane things. It makes getting actual treasure chests easier, pearls easier etc.

4th - Mining - Mainly because of the Heavy Furnace and the gems giving you 2. I normally go for the +1 ores and more coal skills, so, getting double gems for me is pretty nice. As I said, the statue itself is "kinda" lackluster. It's buffs CAN be helpful, sure, but, it's not like people were seriously struggling getting down farm in Skull Cavern already. I'd normally hit 150+ most runs once I have my Iridium pick. Plus, we have the Jade-Staircases already, which becomes easier to set up.

5th - Foraging - Even though I rank this one last, it's only because it's uses become limited once you find all the artifacts. If it came with a bit better crafting recipe, then it'd be above Mining for me, simply because of the golden mystery boxes. Being able to stockpile free warp totems, quality fertilisers, speed grows etc is VERY useful and saves you money, especially early on.

Each mastery does what it aims to do, enhance each of the 5 different skills. You may personally think that foraging is useless, but, the treasure totem can make clay farming so much easier, since you have a good chance of getting clay from dig spots. As someone mentioned above too, the Blue Grass starter is very good for animals too, it gives a good boost to their hearts, meaning you get the better quality stuff from them quicker.

As someone mentioned above, it's fine to min-max. I do it too, in pretty much all of my saves. But, I also know how strong the other 4 masteries are. NONE of them are useless. NONE of them are "just decent at what they do", they seriously enhance all 5 of the skills.

In all honesty, if Mining didn't have the Furnaces, that'd be the one at the bottom for me and I'm guessing most people. Mining for ores has NEVER been a problem. Spend a day in the mines and you get 200+ of the ore you're farming, or have a burglar ring and farm Dust Sprites for a day and you have 80+ coal a day. The problem with mining is the time it takes to smelt the bars you need, unless you went heavy on the amount of furnaces you crafted. That's no longer a problem, thanks to Heavy Furnaces. But, getting the ores, or getting down far in Skull Cavern, or farming for Geode's has never really been a problem.

Gems too. Even with me only getting 1 per node, I was still stockpiled 20+ gems by the end of the first year, because I was finding that many whilst farming for ores.

So, to me, without the Furnaces, the mining one is "pretty useless", because the things it buffs, never needed buffing unless you almost ignored farming for certain things, like the ores or coal. At least the treasure totem helped alleviate some of the RNG aspect of 100%ing the game (Artifacts).

These are good points, the fishing making the quests easier is actually a great point. The foraging part about the worms is fair too.

[GeminiEclipse]

One point about foraging is that the mystic trees increase purple mushrooms from mushroom logs.

[Lady Snaccident]

Originally posted by maestro:

Not every player eats, drinks, and sleeps min-maxxing.

What really matters, is that you had fun on the way there, and I can understand doing a run or two of min-maxxing to see what's possible, but I imagine that min-max play is very boring as you're doing the same thing over and over again, which doesn't change unless the game has a major update.

TBH, I think CA should implement some sort of mechanic, where if you ship multiple varieties of items, you get a bonus for diversifying, though it'd have to be a certain amount, instead of just shipping a single fish or what-not.

I agree! Or have some random event that happens every year/season that changes the economic dynamic of supply/demand, such as an increase in demand for wool or a decrease in demand for artisan goods. In the 'real world' if you sold hundreds and hundreds of bottles of ancient fruit wine (assuming you more than met demand) the cost would decrease due to overflooding the market.

[Volfogg]

I think I found rather niche use for Treasure Totem. Using it on Calico Desert and having read Treasure Appraisal Guide can net some gold from selling golden masks and relics, need to test it further though. I suspect it's a very luck-based tactic. At least Mystic Syrup sells for 1.000g, so it's not that bad idea to save heavy tappers for that.

EDIT. Too random to be profitable, too much clay and bones.

[Včelí medvídek]

What I also like on mining the bonus stack with geologist too - not exactly gamebreaking but getting often 4 gems per node is not bad at all and for more valuable it is even decent profit for mine trips.

[Harald]

For me personally the order to unlock would be (I already had perfection before 1.6):
Farming: Iridium Scythe is sooo good, farms everything quickly even in the Green House. Statue of Blessings is really strong, and having the ability to farm Crackers passively means you get more of them sooner. They are also really good for ponds.
Fishing: Callenge Bait is really good for all the quests in town and also really strong for the two new fishing events.
Combat: Only for trinkets. Magic Quiver is so good at crowd controll.
Mining: Makes mining and smelting more efficient, but not really flashy. With tons of money, less coal means nothing to me.
Foraging: Treasure Totem is maybe great, if you don't already have the museum finished. Blue Grass helped me a bit because I ignored all my animals for quite some time. Golden Mystery Boxes are pretty meh

[Mr.Ficarazzi]

assuming you don't have disposable income and thus you can't buy any skill book (which provide the same 250 exp but toward masteries instead) to reach 25k exp (100 books, 600kgp) asap, I'd go with either of the two:

Farming - if your crops are labor intense (e.g. summer's hop bonanza)
Combat - if you enjoy delving into dungeons, trinkets help really a lot.

3d one i'd get fishing because of the double tackle (really QoL stuff) but more importantly the treasures, which will contribute toward your museum completion (and Perfection)
4th and 5th are kinda on the same level of usefulness, so pick which one you'd enjoy more. I personally will get foraging for the extra treasure spots, which will help toward the museum collection (after that it will become redundant though)

[Gam]

I have found that the treasure totems has got to be the best way to farm for qi beans. I think end of day 1 I had 50 planted. It's definitely a niche use, but definitely a positive for the forgery mastery.