Prismatic Shard

FilthyGorilla

Local Legend
You can get unlimited, some of the steps I would recommend trying to get one if you do not excel at skull caverns are:
1. Get to the bottom of the mines (if you haven't already) this will make all monsters have a new small chance of dropping items upon death, one of which is the prismatic shard.
2. Getting a burglar ring, it's an adventurers guild monster slayer goal for killing 500 dust sprites, while that may seem like a lot it only takes a few days of dedicated farming, it rerolls most drops a second time allowing for a practical double chance of drops on average. This cannot reroll the bottom of mines drops sadly due to a bug where it only rerolls from the drop table and the additional chance for the shard is accounted elsewhere in the code
3. Killing shadow monsters, such as shamans and shadow brutes in the lower levels of the mines (80+) they have an inherent chance to drop a prismatic shard which is doubled by the burglar and added upon by reaching the bottom of the mines for a total of a (practical) .15% chance per kill.

If you do wish to try your luck at skull caverns I would recommend the same strategy on the easy skull caverns monsters like slimes by constantly resseting the first skull caverns levels, with your burglar ring you will also accumulate a small amount of iridium which can be used for on your pickaxe to make the skull cavern considerably faster.
If you want to get better at skull caverns overall I would definitely recommend reading some of the short (and long) guides and paragraphs about how to best traverse into it's depths.
I wish you good luck.
 

MissDandy

Farmer
This is a big spoiler so watch out, but...
Once you reach the forge in the Volcano Dungeon for the first time, there is one Prismatic Shard waiting for you in a chest there. This only happens once per file, though, but it's guaranteed to be there. I'm not sure if you're able to reach the island yet but if so, I would go there.
 

FilthyGorilla

Local Legend
This is a big spoiler so watch out, but...
Once you reach the forge in the Volcano Dungeon for the first time, there is one Prismatic Shard waiting for you in a chest there. This only happens once per file, though, but it's guaranteed to be there. I'm not sure if you're able to reach the island yet but if so, I would go there.
I was thinking of mentioning that but took into consideration that if you are struggling with skull cavern, the volcano is going to be much harder.
 
I was thinking of mentioning that but took into consideration that if you are struggling with skull cavern, the volcano is going to be much harder.
I disagree about the volcano being harder. There's only a few levels, and you can literally walk across each level from entrance to exit; there's no need to break stones to find a ladder. At worst, you might need to break a two or three stones that block your path across the floor. Using the Slime Charmer Ring means tiger slimes won't hurt you or slow you down, so you can just walk through holding a stack of food, and eat when necessary if other monsters attack you.
 

FilthyGorilla

Local Legend
I disagree about the volcano being harder. There's only a few levels, and you can literally walk across each level from entrance to exit; there's no need to break stones to find a ladder. At worst, you might need to break a two or three stones that block your path across the floor. Using the Slime Charmer Ring means tiger slimes won't hurt you or slow you down, so you can just walk through holding a stack of food, and eat when necessary if other monsters attack you.
I agree from my standpoint but there is also the human factor and many people are scared of just the possibility of dying and encountering monsters instead of the factual ease of a certain thing in their path to progression
 
I've had prismatic shards drop from slimes in the secret woods and even found them in the quarry! Rainbow trout in a fish pond have a small chance of giving one as well. But the skull cavern is the most reliable. The lava katana will help.
 

Sigrah

Farmer
I found one gave it to the library not realizing I needed it I have now spent most of summer and 20days into winter mining in the hopes to get another one. Do you get another one?
If you have access to the quarry and have a Mystic Stone, you can save scum for a prismatic shard by going to the quarry at the start of the day, mining it to see if you get one, and if you don't, restarting the day and trying to mine it the next day, repeating the process until you get one. Mystic Stones like this:


Otherwise, your next best chance is finding them from iridium nodes in Skull Cavern. You might get lucky and get one from a monster drop in the mines, but they are EXTREMELY rare drops. You could also try to get one from an Omni Geode, but getting one this way is EXTREMELY rare as well, and the contents of all geodes are determined at the start of a new game based on the seed number your save receives (meaning, RNG is not a factor once the game starts). Finally, as someone mentioned already, there is a guaranteed prismatic shard in a chest at the top of the volcano dungeon on Ginger Island, but just getting there requires the following:

1) You've completed the Community Center or bought every Joja Mart development project. This unlocks the option to fix Willy's boat.

2) You've donated everything to fix Willy's boat. To repair it, you will need:
- 200 Hardwood
- 5 Batteries
- 5 Iridium Bars

3) After you've fixed Willy's boat, you have to travel to Ginger Island and unlock the path to the volcano dungeon itself by visiting Leo's hut. You can find a complete guide to Ginger Island at: https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Ginger_Island

FYI, the Volcano Dungeon can be harder than Skull Cavern. It's only 9 levels, but the catch is that some levels are puzzle levels that require you to press one or more switches to unlock the gate to the next level. Word of warning, Level 9 is *ALWAYS* one of these puzzle levels. Another factor is that you will need to carry your watering can with you in order to cross lava rivers and lakes. Lastly, there is a particularly nasty monster on levels 6 thru 9 called the Magma Sparker. What makes them especially dangerous is that they fly, they can charge you, and they can give you a nasty debuff called Burnt that lowers your attack, defense, and movement speed for 6 seconds. This can really put you in a bind if you're up against several monsters at once in a narrow area of whatever level you're on, so be aware of that. On a more positive note, though, you can find iridium nodes in the Volcano Dungeon like in Skull Cavern, but they are rare.

Anyways, hope this helps. Good luck in finding one if you haven't already.
 

qaija

Sodbuster
I found one gave it to the library not realizing I needed it I have now spent most of summer and 20days into winter mining in the hopes to get another one. Do you get another one?
This happened to me in one of my earlier games and when I found out I had lost out on a Galaxy sword I was so pissssed I deleted the game and started another one.

If you have repaired the bridge, it is possible for a mystic stone to spawn. If you break it open there is a 25% chance it will give you a prismatic shard. If you go up there first thing in the morning and break it open and do not get the prismatic, you can restart the game, leave the mystic stone alone and try again on the following day. Rinse and repeat until you get your prismatic shard. (What you get when you mine the mystic stone changes each day so if one appears, eventually you will get your prismatic).

When I need a prismatic shard I will usually mine all the nodes that appear each day. I don't know if this will help a mystic stone spawn, but I do it anyway.
 

FilthyGorilla

Local Legend
This happened to me in one of my earlier games and when I found out I had lost out on a Galaxy sword I was so pissssed I deleted the game and started another one.

If you have repaired the bridge, it is possible for a mystic stone to spawn. If you break it open there is a 25% chance it will give you a prismatic shard. If you go up there first thing in the morning and break it open and do not get the prismatic, you can restart the game, leave the mystic stone alone and try again on the following day. Rinse and repeat until you get your prismatic shard. (What you get when you mine the mystic stone changes each day so if one appears, eventually you will get your prismatic).

When I need a prismatic shard I will usually mine all the nodes that appear each day. I don't know if this will help a mystic stone spawn, but I do it anyway.
Prismatic shards aren’t that rare though.
 
The mystic stone in the quarry is by far the easiest method, would recommend. It would be odd to me if you had easy access to the volcano one but didn’t already have one, but that’s a fine option too. I will say though, my first 3 in any given play through are almost always from purple slimes in the skull cavern after reaching the bottom of the mines.

It’s only .05% chance. Way lower than an iridium node or treasure chest (supposedly 4% though my observations don’t support that, just saying, they drop for me at a much lower rate than that). Much lower than an Omni geode or mummy. But it’s the massive number of chances at it you get from the “asteroid style” slimes which makes them in practice my most frequent source. So while waiting for a mystic stone to show up, if you don’t have access to the volcano, slimes slaying would be my recommendation.
 
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