Should You Choose Botanist or Tracker in Stardew Valley?

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Decide if you want to be a Botanist or Tracker

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About Botanist

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About Tracker

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Which should you pick?

If you selected Gatherer as your level 5 Foraging profession in Stardew Valley, you may be wondering what profession you should take at level 10. You can choose between Botanist and Tracker, and while both have their uses, Botanist is the best choice for most players. In this article we'll explain what each profession gives you and why Botanist is the best choice, as well as how to change your profession if you've decided you're not happy with your selection.

Things You Should Know

If you take the Botanist profession you'll always find foraged items of the highest quality, which is iridium quality for most items.
Tracker will show you the location of all forageable items in an area, including artifact digging spots.
Botanist is the best choice for most players as it can get you more gold and be helpful in creating friendships with other people in town.

Section 1 of 3:

About Botanist

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For most forageables, this is iridium quality. This can get you a lot of money, as iridium-quality items sell for the most money.^{[1]XResearch source} You can also use these forageables as gifts (for villagers that like them) and gain even more friendship points for each gift.

Section 2 of 3:

About Tracker

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Tracker knows the location of forageable items in an area. An arrow will appear on the edge of the screen pointing you in the direction of a forageable. This can include seasonable forageables as well as artifact spots.
- If there's no arrows on the side of your screen when you load into an area, there are no forageables available to be picked up.

Section 3 of 3:

Which should you pick?

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Choosing Botanist will net you the most gold, and has quite a bit of use as you can sell the items you find or give them as gifts. However, finding high-quality forageables will not increase the quality of your artisan goods as ingredient quality doesn't increase the end item quality.
With Tracker you'll never miss another artifact spot, and it'll take less time to find any forageable items on the map. You may want to select Tracker if you're looking to complete your Museum faster.
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If you end up not liking the profession you chose, you can change it in the sewers. After donating 60 items to the Museum, you'll get the Rusty Key. This can be used to unlock the Sewers. In the Sewers is the Statue of Uncertainty, with which you can change your profession.^{[2]XResearch source}
- You must pay 10,000 gold to change your profession at the Statue of Uncertainty.