Should You Pick Fighter or Scout in Stardew Valley?

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Decide whether to take the Fighter or Scout profession

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About Fighter

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About Scout

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Which one is better?

If you've been playing Stardew Valley for a bit and have been exploring the mines, you've likely leveled up your combat skill quite a bit. Once you reach level 5 in any skill you can choose between two professions, but deciding which profession to pick can be a difficult choice. If you're wondering if you should select Fighter or Scout for your level 5 combat skill in Stardew Valley, keep reading this article to learn which is the best choice.

Things You Should Know

The Fighter profession gives you a 10% damage increase and increases your health by 15 points.
The Scout profession gives you a 50% increase to your crit chance, which for most weapons increases it from 2% to 3%.
Most players will benefit from selecting Fighter to make early game combat a bit easier.

Section 1 of 3:

About Fighter

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1
Fighter increases your attack damage and overall HP. If you select the Fighter profession, all of your attacks will deal 10% more damage. You also get 15 HP added to your total HP, which is a great boon if you've been struggling with staying alive in the mines.^{[1]XResearch source}
- Each weapon in Stardew Valley does a different amount of damage. To determine how much damage your weapon will do with the Fighter profession, find your weapon on the Stardew Valley Wiki and multiply the damage numbers by 1.1.
Brute gives you a further 15% damage bonus (that stacks with the 10% from Fighter, increasing your damage by 25% total). Defender gives you an additional 25 HP. Either one of these options are a great choice, but you can only unlock them by selecting Fighter as your level 5 profession.

Section 2 of 3:

About Scout

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Scout increases your critical strike chance by 50%. You don't get an HP increase with Scout. It should be noted that the 50% increase in crit strike chance is multiplicative, which means you would take the base crit chance score and multiply it by 1.5 to get your new crit chance.
- Most weapons have a critical strike chance of 2%. If you only have the Scout profession with no additional items or buffs to increase your crit chance, your crit chance will only be 3% for most weapons.^{[2]XResearch source}
Acrobat cuts the cooldown on special moves in half, and Desperado doubles the damage you do when you hit critical strikes. If you do decide to get the Scout profession, Desperado is the better level 10 choice due to drastically increasing your critical hit damage.

Section 3 of 3:

Which one is better?

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While you can increase your critical hit chance quite a bit by the time you get to endgame gameplay, most players will benefit from the increased damage over an additional 1% of critical hit chance. The extra HP from the Fighter profession will also help you stay alive longer when you explore the mines.
If you like the idea of making a special combat build to increase your critical hit chance, Scout would be the best choice for you. You can drastically increase how much damage you do if you select Scout (and further on select Desperado at level 10 combat) with the right build that focuses on increasing crit.
You can pick whichever level 5 profession for combat fits best with your playstyle. And if you're not happy with your choice, once you unlock the Sewers, you can change your profession for 10,000 gold at the Statue of Uncertainty.^{[3]XResearch source}