Are you trying to decide between Forester and Gatherer in Stardew Valley? Let’s go through what they offer and which one is better.
While both can be useful, the best option is Gatherer since it can be combined with the Level 10 Botanist skill and help you get multiple highest-quality forageable items.
Let’s go through everything in detail.
What Does the Forester Profession Do?
The Forester skill in Stardew Valley can be selected once you reach Level 5 Foraging. It will increase the amount of wood you get from Trees, Stumps, and Logs by 25%. This is a flat bonus and isn’t based on chance.
Since you need a lot of wood to craft various buildings on your farm, the 25% bonus can be helpful.
Once you reach Level 10 Foraging, you can select the Lumberjack skill that causes all trees to have a small chance of dropping Hardwood. Combined with Forester, trees will drop even more Hardwood whenever that chance triggers.
What Does the Gatherer Profession Do?
On the other hand, the Gatherer skill is your second alternative once you reach level 5 Foraging. You can either get Gatherer or Forester, not both.
Gatherer will grant you a 20% chance of receiving double the products when harvesting forageable items.
During the early game, this isn’t much of a bonus since you’ll mostly get normal-quality forageable items.
However, during the late game, after you unlock the Level 10 Foraging skill Botanist that causes all forageable items to be of Iridium quality, you’ll be consistently getting two Iridium items instead of one.
The best part is that this skill also applies to Truffles, which are one of the best items for making money in Stardew Valley.
Related: Stardew Valley Fighter vs Scout guide
Forester vs Gatherer in Stardew Valley
Based on everything mentioned above, in the Forester vs Gatherer debate in Stardew Valley, the Gatherer is the better choice.
It will be significantly more profitable once you unlock Botanist at level 10 and allow you to make a lot of money through foraging.
However, this doesn’t mean that Forester is a bad choice. It can be helpful in the early game as you upgrade the farm.
One useful strategy here is to select Forester at level 5 and once you reach level 10 and unlock Botanist, use the dog statue in the Sewers to change Forester to Gatherer.
This way, you’ll get the late-game bonus of Gatherer+Botanist, while also getting the early-game wood bonus of Forester.
For more similar content, here’s our Rancher vs Tiller guide in Stardew Valley.
Wrapping up
To wrap up the Forester vs Gatherer debate in Stardew Valley, the Gatherer is better for making money in the end-game and should be selected in combination with the level 10 skill Botanist.
However, during the early game, you can select Forester to get some extra wood and replace it later on through the dog statue in the Sewers.
Which skill did you select? What do you think about the level 10 foraging skills? Don’t hesitate to share your thoughts in the comments below.
Before leaving, if you want to add a new twist to your game, check out our list of the best Stardew Valley mods in 2024.
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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