If you’re trying to decide between the Brute and Defender skills in Stardew Valley, you’re in the right place. Let’s go through both skills.
In short, both skills offer fairly weak buffs but the Brute is slightly more useful since you’ll be able to kill monsters faster.
Let’s explain how each skill works in turn.
What Does the Brute Profession Do?
The Brute skill in Stardew Valley increases your total damage by 15%. This stacks with the Fighter bonus, which is 10%, and thus grants you a total of 25% increased damage.
While this isn’t a large increase, it will make it easier to kill monsters in the mines and allow you to progress to deeper levels, especially in the desert mines.
What Does the Defender Profession Do?
The Defender skill in Stardew Valley grants you a flat bonus of +25 HP. While some extra defensive stats can seem useful, the 25HP is way too small to make a noticeable difference.
At best, it will allow you to survive one extra hit from a slime and won’t make any difference against tougher enemies. You’ll have a better chance of surviving if you can learn enemy attack patterns and bring some extra food than by selecting Defender.
Related: Best Stardew Valley mods in 2024
Brute vs Defender in Stardew Valley
As a result, the Brute is better than the Defender skill in Stardew Valley because the latter is extremely weak and borderline irrelevant.
Defender won’t make a big difference in terms of defensive stats and survival and thus you have no reason to select it.
While Brute isn’t the best skill overall, it will allow you to kill enemies in one less hit, which is a helpful effect.
For extra defensive stats, bring better food and use rings that increase your health while also learning enemy patterns. Once you become familiar with the game’s combat, you will be able to dodge most enemy attacks with ease.
If you want to focus on money-making skills instead, check out our guide on Forester vs Gatherer in Stardew Valley.
Wrapping up
To summarize the Brute vs Defender debate in Stardew Valley, both skills are fairly weak but the Brute is slightly better since you’ll need one less hit to defeat most monsters.
The 25 HP from Defender is only enough to survive one extra attack from a slime. As a result, the bonus is extremely underwhelming and not worth selecting.
How much HP should Defender grant you to be worth considering? Which foods are you using to increase survivability in the mines? Feel free to share your go-to loadouts in the comments below.
If you chose the wrong skill or made a decision you now regret and want to go back in time, here’s how to go back one day in Stardew Valley.
He has a Master’s Degree in Philosophy, which allows him to always come up with a fresh approach to solving in-game puzzles and challenges, but also to create content that’s to the point, clean and easy to follow.
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