Brighter Shores Woodcutter Profession guide: How to chop wood, leveling route, and more
Hopeforest is the woodlands where Brighter Shores's second episode takes place, so it makes sense that Woodcutter is one of the main Professions there. This is the most self-explanatory Profession in this episode, but it also has one unique quirk where all active Woodcutting nodes have their own built-in passive activity to lop branches, which does not unlock until the later levels.
In this beginner-friendly Brighter Shores guide, we'll explain everything there is to know about the Woodcutting Profession.
How to chop wood in Brighter Shores
To start chopping wood in Brighter Shores, you'll need to get a Hand Saw. You can buy it from Maurice the Hatchet Man, who can be found in Timberwell Greens, the logging site in southern Hopeforest.
After you get the tool, it's all a matter of clicking on the tree that's accessible at your current Woodcutter level. In the first two levels, that's just the Ash Trees, although you unlock newer trees for chopping as you level up, including higher-level variants of already unlocked trees replacing their original spot.
The use of the wood you just chopped is twofold. You can sell the logs at Gwen's Lumber next to Timberwell Green, or you can use them as raw material for Carpentry, which also has a workshop adjacent to Timberwell Green.
Brighter Shores Woodcutter leveling guide for early-game
Timberwell Green will be the first place you'll have to reach to start your Woodcutting journey, as you will get your tools here. However, this logging site is also the main hub of the entire Profession for two reasons.
Firstly, you want to level Woodcutter and Carpenter together. The obvious strategy is to get a full inventory (24 logs) and then batch-process them into planks and poles at the Circular Saw in the Carpenter workshop next to Timberwell Greens.
Secondly, without leveling Woodcutter, it's unlikely for you to reach Carpenter lvl 32, which means no universal banking (through the Spider's Nest quest). At this point, your only two storage sheds for the chopped logs are the Timber Bank in Timberwell Greens or the Lumber Bank in the Carpenter's Workshop.
Due to this, the best strategy for maximizing profits while leveling efficiently is to chop Ash logs till you have a full inventory, and then stash them in the Lumber Bank.
Lvl 1 - 10
The higher-tier trees provide you way more profit and rate of XP per tree, but the trip back to Timberwell Green means you either drop wood manually to potentially waste it, or spend a long time backtracking. Therefore, it's best to keep leveling by chopping Ash Logs till you're lvl 10.
Note: At lvl 4, you unlock Pine trees, which are close to Timberwell Greens. However, the XP differential isn't high enough to make it any more efficient than Ash logs when you account for the trip back. Nevertheless, you can mix things up by grabbing two Pine logs from Mine Road East when you wait for Timberwell Green Ash trees to respawn.
Lvl 10 - 20
At lvl 10, you gain access to Juniper Logs. At this point, the efficient route is rotating between Tree Lined Trail and Tree Lined Track till you get a full inventory, at which point you'll be required to head back to bank the logs.
At lvl 16, you can shift gears to buy a Two-Person Saw for 65 Silver. This lets you chop Yew Trees. Yew Trees take longer to chop, but they provide more XP and sell for quite a lot. The XP is barely worth it for the trip, but the money is good enough to consider it. If you go for this route, you have to head over to Leafy Lane up north and rotate between Leafy Lane, Leafy Junction, and Bear Clearing.
Do this for two levels till you reach lvl 18, which unlocks Rugged Ash Log. This is a major upgrade over the dinky regular Ash logs and will turn into your mainstay for a while.
At lvl 20, you unlock access to AFK-farming Woodcutting through lopping Hickory Branches. Hickory can be found in the North Central Path, two rooms away from the Hopeforest portal. You'll also need a Knowledge Point to unlock the activity and buy a Tree Lopper (72 Silver).
Bramble farming: An alternative
If you're not too eager to make money or get first-hand material for Carpentry, you can try farming Woodcutting XP via Bramble mazes. For this, you want to have lvl 14 Woodcutting to gain access to both Brambles and Suave Trees. Afterward, just cut Brambles in Shortcut (next to Stumped Path) and collect Suave logs occasionally for a huge amount of XP per bank visit.
Check out our other guides on the game:
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