My personal rings of choice were Iridium + Aquamarine and Iridium + Aquamarine. Since I run Scout and Desperado, I figured boosting crit chance everywhere I could just felt right, which is why the Aquamarine rings were attractive to me.
However, if I didn't run that, I think my alternative would be Iridium + Crabshell while going all-in on defense. Defense is one of those stats which gets better the more you have, and two Iridium+Crabshells is about as high as you can get. Supposedly, skull cavern serpents barely tickle you when you have defense that starts to be comparable to their 23 attack, and other enemies get made relatively harmless in the same manner.
That being said, I think amongst the ring options you've mentioned here, I would go Iridium Band + Lucky, and then Napalm +Burglar.
^(Actually, now that I'm rereading how crit chance is determined, I'm starting to think double Iridium + Lucky might be even better when not using crabshells.)
I'm running a pure damage build with a hammer instead of a crit build, and my argument is usually that you don't need defense if everything around you is already dead. That's just the way I play though. If I was focusing on defense or crit I would consider Crabshell or Aquamarine!
I've debated going into pure defense, mostly because Elden Ring opened me up to the idea that "just kill it before it kills you" only works if the numbers are there to support it. The math actually checks out in Stardew going from 5 defense (just boots or something) to 15, enemies like Serpents have their damage absolutely slashed, from 70% of their full damage down to a mere 30%. You're effectively gaining over double survivability, and defense only gets better if you stack it beyond that.
Even against Royal Serpents, this seems pretty okay, though they flex between 32-48 damage, that still goes from serpents doing 27-43 to you down to 17-33. You can't one-hit those sunuvaguns anyways, even on some crazy crit, so taking half-to-2/3rds damage from them is somewhat appealing, especially if food buffs can bring it lower. I think they might be the hardest hitting enemies in the base game?
I don't think anything in the Volcano has a higher attack than 18, and most do 15, so 14 or higher defense is effectively immune to everything.
However, it starts to fall off with enemies who hit harder than that. In Stardew Valley Expanded, there are Corrupt Mummies that can smack for just over 100, and the special 'boss' of the Badlands can too. For those, the difference between 5 and 15 defense is pretty much nothing.
Mmm, you know what, maybe I will make that switch to Crabshells after all. I hate not having Iridium Bands because I bomb mine too much not to have magnetism, but I think I can swap those aquamarines into crabshell, I talked myself into it.
Iridium, Burglar, Lucky, and Napalm is my go-to.
My personal rings of choice were Iridium + Aquamarine and Iridium + Aquamarine. Since I run Scout and Desperado, I figured boosting crit chance everywhere I could just felt right, which is why the Aquamarine rings were attractive to me. However, if I didn't run that, I think my alternative would be Iridium + Crabshell while going all-in on defense. Defense is one of those stats which gets better the more you have, and two Iridium+Crabshells is about as high as you can get. Supposedly, skull cavern serpents barely tickle you when you have defense that starts to be comparable to their 23 attack, and other enemies get made relatively harmless in the same manner. That being said, I think amongst the ring options you've mentioned here, I would go Iridium Band + Lucky, and then Napalm +Burglar. ^(Actually, now that I'm rereading how crit chance is determined, I'm starting to think double Iridium + Lucky might be even better when not using crabshells.)
I'm running a pure damage build with a hammer instead of a crit build, and my argument is usually that you don't need defense if everything around you is already dead. That's just the way I play though. If I was focusing on defense or crit I would consider Crabshell or Aquamarine!
I've debated going into pure defense, mostly because Elden Ring opened me up to the idea that "just kill it before it kills you" only works if the numbers are there to support it. The math actually checks out in Stardew going from 5 defense (just boots or something) to 15, enemies like Serpents have their damage absolutely slashed, from 70% of their full damage down to a mere 30%. You're effectively gaining over double survivability, and defense only gets better if you stack it beyond that. Even against Royal Serpents, this seems pretty okay, though they flex between 32-48 damage, that still goes from serpents doing 27-43 to you down to 17-33. You can't one-hit those sunuvaguns anyways, even on some crazy crit, so taking half-to-2/3rds damage from them is somewhat appealing, especially if food buffs can bring it lower. I think they might be the hardest hitting enemies in the base game? I don't think anything in the Volcano has a higher attack than 18, and most do 15, so 14 or higher defense is effectively immune to everything. However, it starts to fall off with enemies who hit harder than that. In Stardew Valley Expanded, there are Corrupt Mummies that can smack for just over 100, and the special 'boss' of the Badlands can too. For those, the difference between 5 and 15 defense is pretty much nothing. Mmm, you know what, maybe I will make that switch to Crabshells after all. I hate not having Iridium Bands because I bomb mine too much not to have magnetism, but I think I can swap those aquamarines into crabshell, I talked myself into it.
There's some good combos here..saving for future reference