Combat

Combat is the skill associated with fighting monsters in The Mines, The Skull Cavern, or on the Wilderness Farm.

During the first few days in Stardew Valley, the mines are closed due to an accident by Joja Corporation. On or around day 5, the player will receive a letter in the mail from Joja Corp, explaining that the landslide blocking the mines has been cleared, and the mine entrance will be open. At this point, combat becomes available to players who have not chosen the Wilderness Farm.

Combat is increased by killing monsters. Each increase in Combat Level adds one or more Crafting or Cooking recipes and may add HP (health points) to the player's health meter.

Experience level is increased immediately upon slaying a monster, but the "level up" window doesn't appear until the player sleeps (or until all players sleep in multiplayer).

Combat Skill

Level 1	Level 2	Level 3	Level 4	Level 5
Crafting Recipes:	Crafting Recipes:	Cooking Recipes:	Crafting Recipes:	Choose a Profession:
Sturdy Ring Bug Steak	Life Elixir	Roots Platter	Warrior Ring	Fighter All attacks deal 10% more damage. (+15 HP)	Scout Critical strike chance increased by 50%. (+0 HP) (Note that the increase is multiplicative. The formula is: critChance = critChance * 1.5)
Level 6	Level 7	Level 8	Level 9	Level 10
Crafting Recipes:	Crafting Recipes:	Crafting Recipes:	Crafting / Cooking Recipes:	Fighter:	Scout:
Slime Egg-Press Oil of Garlic	Ring of Yoba Thorns Ring	Slime Incubator Explosive Ammo	Iridium Band Squid Ink Ravioli	Brute Deal 15% more damage. (+0 HP) (Stacks multiplicatively with Fighter)	Acrobat Cooldown on special moves cut in half. (+0 HP)
				Defender +25 HP.	Desperado Critical strikes are deadlier. (+0 HP) (2x Critical strike damage)

Choosing the Scout Profession increases Critical Strike chance by the following formula: critChance += critChance * 0.5. In fact, all critical strike chance bonuses are multiplicative, not additive. Even with all possible bonuses, it's around 5-10% crit. chance at best, so even with the Desperado Profession it can be difficult to justify over the flat damage increases of the Fighter branch.

(Tested crit chance with Scout skill and two +10% crit chance rings. Chance to crit is multiplicative not additive: around 5-10% depending on your weapon [base * 1.5 * 1.1 * 1.1] with all boosts, not 50% + 10% + 10% = 70%).

The max crit chance is 10.89% which can be achieved with a Wicked Kris, an Aquamarine Ring in each ring slot, and the Scout Profession.

Desperado increases the damage of critical hits from roughly x3 to approximately x21. With the required Scout skill, characters crit roughly 2% of the time, resulting in approximately 42% extra damage in the long term. This is, however, not entirely accurate, as critical strikes will be virtually guaranteed to do more damage than targets have remaining health.

Experience Points

The following table lists the experience points gained for killing the indicated monster. (This data can be found in Data\Monsters.xnb as well as the constructors for Grub and Fly in the game code. In the Quarry Mine and dungeon floors of the Mines, monster data are set by MineShaft.getMonsterForThisLevel and the constructor for Bat in the game code.)

Monster	Experience (XP)
Green Slime	3
Dust Sprite	2
Bat	3
Frost Bat	7
Lava Bat	15
Iridium Bat	22
Stone Golem	5
Wilderness Golem	5
Grub	2
Fly	10
Frost Jelly (i.e., Blue Slime)	6
Sludge (i.e., Red, Purple, Copper, or Iron Slime)	10
Ghost	15
Duggy	10
Rock Crab	4
Lava Crab	12
Iridium Crab	20
Squid Kid	15
Shadow Brute	15
Shadow Shaman	15
Skeleton	8
Metal Head	6
Bug	1
Mummy	20
Big Slime	7
Serpent	20
Mutant Grub	6
Mutant Fly	10
Pepper Rex	7
Haunted Skull	15

Stat Bonus

Consuming certain foods or drinks, wearing particular Footwear or Rings, and choice of Weapon can all give Stat Bonuses that affect the player's Combat ability.

Attack affects how much damage the player does with each weapon strike.

Crit. Power adds additional damage when hitting a critical strike.

Defense affects how much damage the player takes from enemy strikes.

Immunity affects the chance to be afflicted with certain debuffs.

The Weight of a weapon affects how far an enemy will be knocked back when struck with the weapon.

Weapon Speed and Player Speed are also a factor in successful Combat.