This guide was last updated on April 23, 2023, and is fully compatible with the current 0.215.2 version!

Welcome to the The Complete Written Valheim Mistlands Guide! This is a comprehensive walkthrough of each biome of the game, including how to survive, progress, defeat the bosses, and unlock all content within the game; including the new Mistlands expansion.

Color Coding: I tried to streamline the colors in this guide. Green is for information. Light Blue is for resource reference. Red is for important/alert information or enemy definition. Purple is for item reference. Dark Blue is for location tags. Orange is for action references.

For those who want to jump straight to the Mistlands portion of this guide, click here.

INTRODUCTION

Valheim originally entered public test in February of 2021. We’re now approaching nearly two years of this amazing game, and the developers have finally released the first major Biome upgrade, the Mistlands expansion. And to say it’s brutal is an understatement. The expansion brings an entirely new play style to the game with Magic, which takes the form of Fire, Frost, and Blood (Protection and Necromancy). There is also a new neutral race, the Dvergr, new dungeons, and deadly enemies. The Mist mechanic is also a new design of barrier, making venturing through the new Biome more dangerous than any previous one. Fishing has been redesigned, and there are numerous other changes that also impact the other (earlier) biomes, so I decided to write a complete guide rather than one addressing just the expansion. As such, many players will opt to start a new world rather than continue an old one.

Seeds

While most players use random seeds, the reality is it’s very easy to get a “really bad” world where it’s nearly impossible to find the Trader, or the biomes are so spread out that it’s more tedious than fun to play. For this reason, I do have a collection of seeds I can recommend as “great” seeds. This is probably my favorite seed of them all: Sr5NK3FHqr. These seeds are also top notch: NzqDF4RhWC, 0nnWxQmASR, YnLwEg3ljN, and VGlFilWv2B. And finally, if you want a seed with everything on the same large continent (except the Mistlands and Queen Spawn), these two are for you: T5DRLYJR7E and WBFzViM6sG. This seed has Eikthyr, Elder, Bonemass and Moder all in close proximity on the same island: halos084.

Mods

There are numerous mods that enhance the QoL of Valheim without acting as any type of cheat. I have broken the recommended mods into two categories: Core and Enhancing. Core mods are those I feel are a requirement for enjoying the base game and really don’t provide any advantage other than refining existing mechanics. Enhancing mods are those which can enhance the game to make it a bit easier, but in my opinion, also more enjoyable.

All of the mods I use are available via https://valheim.thunderstore.io/ except for Willybach’s HD Valhiem (the High Definition Texture Pack), which must be manually installed; I included a link below. I also recommend using the Thunderstore Mod Manager as it beautifully manages different profiles and seamlessly installs and upgrades mods.

For those who want to create a Thunderstore Profile based on my recommended collection of mods (which will auto-download all of the ones I recommend, except for WillyBach’s HD Valheim), you can use the following key: 0187ae8d-64e0-2560-06a7-314dfc7cb70d. I find the collection of mods from this key to be the best overall fun factor and balance for the game. To use this key, start the Mod Manager and on the profile selection page, click “Import / Update” then “Import New Profile” and then “From Code”. Enter the above code, name the profile, and the system will download the mods automatically. You can now use this profile every time you want to pay. Caution: if you play with the extended skills and character slots, do not play a character you’ve used the mods with in vanilla mode or you will lose all of the mod special enhancements.

I am listing all of the mods I use (or have used) below. While this may appear to be a sizeable list, all of the mods work together in perfect synergy without conflict and fundamentally enhance nearly every aspect of the game without cheating. If you are re-playing Valheim again, these mods will make the game feel completely different, and better.

Core Mod List

1. EquipmentAndQuickSlots – A must have; puts armor and such in custom slots, freeing up inventory.
2. CraftFromContainers – Another must have, allowing for characters to craft based on materials in nearby containers.
3. AzuMapDetails – Highlights structures and ships, etc. on map
4. AzuClock – Always good to have a clock.
5. AzuAreaRepair – Automatically repair everything in the targeted area.
6. UseEquipmentInWater – Use equipment… In water!
7. Aedenthorn_Instant_Monster_Loot_Drop – Mobs drop loot immediately
8. MassFarming – Plant multiple crops and quickly harvest
9. SpeedyPaths – Move faster on paths
10. PlantEverything – Unlock the ability to plant and grow most anything
11. BetterLadders – Makes ladders easier to climb
12. Minimal_UI or Auga – Custom game UIs (minimal vs. asthetic)
13. Render_Limits – Allows for enhanced graphic limits (use only with powerful card)
14. SmarterContainers – Auto-deposit of items to specific containers on ctrl-click
15. TargetPortal – Allows the player to teleport to any portal via map click
16. AutoRepair – Automatically repair all items when a station is used
17. FuelEternal – All fire/burning/light sources burn indefinitely and don’t need fuel
18. Digitalroots_Slope_Combat_Assistance – addresses the sloped combat issues
19. Max_Dungeon_Rooms – Makes dungeons larger, which is just more fun.
20. ImFRIENDLY_DAMMIT – Ballistas won’t target you or your tamed animals
21. DeezMistyBalls or MistBeGone – Extend the Wisp fog clear range in Mistlands or remove the mist entirely.
22. Willybach’s HD Valheim (HD texture pack – needs to be installed manually, not in Thunder Store)

Enhancing Mod list

1. Jewelcrafting or EpicLoot – Socket and enhance your weapons and armor with crystals, or get Diablo-style drops (each is incompatible with the other, so can only choose one)
2. Better_Trader_Remake – Enhanced trader with hundreds of items to buy and sell
3. AutoPicker – Automatically pick up items you walk across
4. Sailing – New Skill – sail faster and build more durable boats
5. Blacksmithing – New Skill – adds durability to equipment
6. Cooking – New Skill – Increases food bonuses
7. Ranching – New Skill – Tame animals and reproduce them faster
8. Lumberjacking – New Skill – Chop faster, harvest more wood
9. Mining – New Skill – Mine faster, more yield
10. Building – New Skill – Increase durability of built pieces/structures
11. SteadyRegeneration – Regenerate progressively
12. Tenacity – New Skill – increases damage resistance as you take damage
13. PackHorse – New Skill – Increase max carry weight over time
14. Pathfinder – Increase minimap discovery radius

As of 0.215.2 and April 30, 2023, all of these mods are compatible.

Mod Configuration

Below is an overview of the adjustments we want to make to the mods so we have a more balanced gameplay experience. We also enhance our rendering distance so we can see further!

DeezMistyBalls or MistBeGone

I’ve done two complete playthroughs of Mistlands, and my favorite mod is MistBeGone. The Mistlands is such a beautiful design, you can now see the Biome in all of its glory, and I didn’t find the removal of the mist to make it any easier. It just made the experience much more majestic and enjoyable.

For those who still want the mist, but want to increase the Wisp’s fog clear radius, use DeezMistyBalls. I recommend setting the clearing range to 25.

Jewelcrafting

The only thing we do here is adjust the chance of socketing our items. The default 50% for the first socket can be horrible once you get into Silver; I’ve had 4 silver swords fail in a row, requiring additional runs to obtain limited resources.

With this we change the Socket Adding Chances to 100/90/80/70/60.

Sailing

The default exploration radius is too big. We want to lower it. Change Exploration Radius Factor to 3.0.

Pathfinder

The default exploration radius is too big. We want to lower it. Change LandExploreRadius to 100.

Render Limits

I run a 3090 RTX, so my system can handle pretty good render limits. These changes are only for people who have systems that can push high FPS.

1. Active Area: 3
2. Clutter visibility: 80
3. Distant Area: 7
4. Loaded Area: 4
5. Lod bias: 7
6. Real Terrain visibility: 250
7. Spawn limit: 0

Let’s get started!

PART I – THE MEADOWS

Starting out for experienced players is rather easy; the most challenging thing is getting a lay of the land and deciding where to build a main base.

Phase I – Establishing your Temporary Base

When you start the game, depending on the world layout, you’ll probably spend your first few nights (or more) in a temporary location; usually a prebuilt structure that you repair. This is where one usually builds their first covered workbench, bed, campfire, food cooking stilts, etc.

1. When you start the game, get the location for Eikthyr at the starting Sacrificial Circle, and make sure you get the mushrooms and berries behind the boss stones (and eat them).
2. Eat the mushroom and berries and gather enough wood and stone to make a hammer and campfire to get your starting rest bonus.
3. Examine your map and decide on a direction to go! Our goal is to find a location on the water near black forest so we can quickly farm and refine copper and tin to bronze.
4. Build a hammer. If you come across a structure and it’s before 1pm on the time, go ahead and build a workbench and disassemble it (to get the wood). This is also how you can get Queen Bees without a bow.
5. While exploring focus on gathering stone and wood to craft a stone axe. Pick up any berries, mushrooms, and dandelions.
6. Mark berry patches on your map.
7. Mark Oak Trees on your map.
8. Make sure you mark your base(s) on the map so if you change your bed you don’t lose the locations of other bases.
9. Craft and use a Club for combat since we want to raise our mace skill.
10. Gather Flint as soon as possible on the shore of water.
11. You can cook boar, neck and deer meat on an open flame by quickly crafting a cooking station over your campfire. This meat gives a great bonus to health and stamina.
12. I also like to work on my Sneak; getting it to 9 or so ensures you can sneak up on Deer.
13. Keep a lookout for the Runic Stones for Boar. These are great places to gather leather scraps and Boar Meat, and do respawn. I mark them on my minimap as “pig rock”.
14. Mark any abandoned towns on your map; they’re good for boar and berries.
15. Once afternoon approaches, look for an abandoned building in a good location with lots of boar and deer around. Next (or close) to water is also a good idea. Stay away from the Black Forest.
16. Establish a temporary base of operations. Build a workbench, a flint axe, gather wood, repair the structure, build a bed (claim it), campfire, cooking stations, and such. Cook any meat you have.

NOTE: I recommend keeping all of the Tree Seeds you find so you can replant the forests you cut down later on!

Phase II – Scouting for your Main Base

With nearly all games, you will be able to find a location on your starting island that serves as the main base for your entire game, but depending on the seed, this can require quite a bit of exploration.

Make sure any body of water you come across isn’t a huge lake; so many times players build bases and ships on a large body of water only to find it’s a large lake and they can’t get anywhere.

I recommend slot layout of: Bow, Club, Shield, Hammer, Hoe, Axe, Pickaxe, and Stagbreaker.

1. Always make sure you have a rest bonus. If necessary, drop a fire down and sit for 15 seconds to get it.
2. You do NOT want to be caught outside at night.
3. Start exploring and gathering resources to upgrade your Workbench so you can make a bow and fire arrows. Your main focus is killing Boar so you can make a bow, and to get 10 flint for the Chopping Block (which unlocks fire arrows).
4. If you are using the Autopicker mod, at some point you’ll want to turn it off for grabbing stones; to do this press ESC then F1. Click AutoPicker and under Stone unclick Enabled. Click anywhere outside of the settings UI to make it disappear.
5. As soon as you craft a Bow, start hunting Deer for meat and hide and Seagulls for feathers.
6. You’re looking for a location on the water (ocean) that is close to black forest.
7. Craft a Leather Chestpiece, Legs and Helmet.
8. Make sure you cook the deer and boar meat you find.
9. While running around look for bees nests and get those Queen Bees!
10. As soon as you can craft your bow and at least 40 fire arrows, you are ready to kill Eikthyr. You’ll need 2 Deer Trophy heads.
11. Kill Eikthyr as soon as possible; you can easily do this once you have Leather armor and Fire Arrows, but you can do it as soon as you can craft 40 fire arrows. The goal is to get the pick to help with adjusting the ground when you find your new base location. Hang his head at the Sacrificial Circle and activate the power!
12. Just run Eikthyr around the center pillar, dodging left/right or back based on his special attacks. Ultra EZ.
13. Craft a Wood Shield. Upgrade your Shield, Crude Bow, Hammer and Hoe +1.

The Ekthyr ability is perfect for scouting; take high stamina food (berries, honey) and run as far as you can. Just make sure you don’t get caught away from your base during the night!

Phase III – Moving to and starting your Main Base

Once you’ve found the location for your main base, on the water and within sight of Black Forest, but not so close as to generate aggro from Black Forest spawns (especially a Troll), it’s time to pack up your temporary base and move!

1. Your main base only needs to be at least 7×7 in size to start, but 9×9 is fine, too.
2. It’s worth upgrading Flint Axe to +2 for treecutting speed.
3. To find the proper angle that will match when you dig moat base defenses, dig a slight trench along the coast so you can see where the straight line is and build the foundation from that point (at the right angle).
4. You’re looking for a location on the water (ocean) that is close to black forest.
5. Kill all the deer you can; we need their trophies to craft Stagbreaker!

PART II – THE BLACK FOREST

The Black Forest is the first biome where the players must be cautious. It’s here we will gather Surtling Cores, Mine Copper Ore, Smelt Ore, Make Bronze Weapons and Armor, and upgrade our gear!

At this point, I’m going to start listing the Additional comfort items for each biome. You’ll want to build these at your main base to increase your rest bonus. Below is our starting list from the Black Forest: Bed, Campfire, Banner, Deer Rug, Chair, Table, and Armor Stand. Yule Tree for Christmas time. Maypole during the Summer (or if found).

This is where the game starts to get challenging, and we encounter the first true nemesis of every player – the Troll. This guide actually does not focus on killing trolls and using their armor; but you are welcome to if you would like. The only issue is if you kill just one troll, “The Ground is Shaking” event unlocks and can be triggered any time. As such, do not kill a troll until you have dug a trench around your base! It’s the most devastating attack at the beginning of the game because two trolls can obliterate your base. I kite the Trolls and pull them away from my base. That’s the best way to handle it until you can tank them with maxed Bronze Weapons and Shield. So for the most part, I ignore trolls until I have full Bronze Gear and Armor. Then I can easily kill them as I come across them.

Remember to kill all deer you come across. You’ll need their trophies and hide to upgrade Stagbreaker and build ships later!

I like to make paths to all of the points I go to. With the path mod, we can run 15% faster as we return into areas like the black forest. Plus it’s just fun to define where you’ve been!

The FuelEternal mod makes it so any light source you build doesn’t require refueling. This is very cool because you can now create lit paths that will forever stay lit. Feel free to throw down campfires and standing wood torches!

Phase I – Core Wood for Stagbreaker

Recommended Food: Deer Meat, Boar Meat, Berry/Yellow Mushroom.

Your first goal is to find Pine Trees and cut a few down to get some Core Wood so you can run back and make a Stagbreaker. This is the best weapon in the game for Crypts (Black Forest and Swamp). This takes 5 Deer Trophy, 2 Leather Scraps and 20 Core Wood. You’ll want to upgrade it +1 as well.

Note the Stagbreaker is also a great small bush/tree clearing tool. Walk in the middle of those pesky vision-blocking little trees and smash away.

Phase II – Scouting for Crypts and Copper Ore

Start scouting the Black Forest. Mark the Copper Nodes and the Crypt entrances. Be especially careful of 2-star Skeletons, especially the archers. The best way to protect yourself from the archers is to put an object between you when they shoot. For 1-2 star Melee skeletons, just walk backwards while they swing; you’ll be just out of range. Then hit them with your club or Stagbreaker.

Grab all the Carrot Seeds, Blueberries and Thistle you see!

Phase III – Crypt Running

You have to run crypts to get the Bone Chips you need to upgrade your armor and Stagbreaker, and the Surtling Cores required to build a Kiln and Smelter. Every Crypt is different. One may give you all 10 cores while another may only have 1 or 2. Either way, you’ll need to run as many crypts as necessary to secure 10 Surtling Cores. Once you have 10 cores, you don’t need to upgrade your leather armor because we can build Bronze Armor without having to run more crypts.

While you’re in the Crypts, make sure you loot all of the treasure you can (Amber, Rubies, Pearls and Gold). You’ll need all of this to it get Meginjord Belt from the Trader later on, and we’ll have to do crypt runs later just for the gold. Ultimately, we’ll need additional cores to build the portals we’ll use to travel between locations, but for now, only 10 are necessary to begin refining Copper and Tin into Bronze.

While in the Crypts, be sure to get all of the Yellow Mushrooms you can for food! They replace the Berries we were eating earlier for Stamina.

Make sure you click on any Red Rune in a crypt you come across so you can get the location of the Elder!

As mentioned above, I recommend making paths for you to follow as you venture into the Black Forest.

Kill any Greydwarf Spawners you find because you’ll need 3x Ancient Seed to summon the Elder later on. Once you have 3 seeds, don’t destroy any other spawners, because they can function as good farming locations for Greydwarf Eyes and Wood.

Phase IV – Mining & Upgrading Gear to Bronze

Once you have your cores, build the Smelter and Charcoal Kiln on top of the smelter, and you’re ready to go!

The first thing you want to do is mine Tin. Run along the shore of the Black Forest and get as much as you can carry. Go back to your base and start refining it.

Now it’s time to head out to the Copper nodes you found. I recommend making a path to them as you’ll be running back to your base a lot.

I prefer to run back to my base (since I built it close to the black forest and the copper nodes) to repair because I can then re-stock the smelter and such when I come back to repair. This ensures the copper and tin are refining while I’m off doing my next round of mining. However, if your node is too far, just build a covered workbench by the node and as soon as you get 1 copper, run back and make 1 Bronze bar, then 20x bronze nails, and build yourself a cart you can load up by your repair station.

Always make sure you have a rest bonus while mining!

Place Campfires around the node (I usually put 4-5) to prevent spawns.

The best way to mine Copper is to find the edges of the node and dig as deep as possible around the edges, then move inward. You can then 1-shot the entire node if it’s not too deep, cutting down on time.

Be sure to keep all the stone you mine and store it at your base. You’re going to need it!

You need 36 Copper Ore and 18 Tin Ore to make the Bronze Axe and Bronze Pickaxe. But we also need 6 Copper Bars to make the Forge, so we need 42 total Copper Ore to really get things started.

As soon as you craft the Bronze Axe, start cutting down Birch Trees for Fine Wood.

Below is the recommended Crafting Order.

• Bronze Axe
• Finewood Bow
• Bronze Pickaxe
• You can build a Cultivator at this point if you want to start farming Carrots.
• Build Anvils to upgrade your Forge.
• Upgrade Bronze Pickaxe to +2.
• Build an Adze to take your Workbench to level 4.
• Build a Cauldron so you can make more food.
• Bronze Armor (Chest, Pants, Helm)
• Bronze Mace
• Bronze Buckler
• Build a Forge Cooler to upgrade your Forge.

Ultimately, you want 2 smelters and kilns, and we have portals to build, so while you’re running additional crypts, focus on getting those additional Surtling Cores while you loot all of the treasure you can for when we meet the Trader.

I build my base close to black forest and nodes so I can run back and forth; many players build a repair station by the mine, but the reality is we want to manage our kiln back at our base so it’s producing as often as possible, so I find once your bronze axe breaks or you get full of ore, just run back to your base and restock your kiln(s) and repair, then run back.

I prefer to mine while wearing leather because I can run it back to my base much quicker.

Make the following additional upgrades:

• All Bronze Armor (+3)
• Bronze Mace (+2)
• Bronze Buckler (+2)
• Finewood Bow (+4)
• Stagbreaker (+3)
• Hoe (+3)

With these upgrades, you’ll be ready to fight The Elder!

Phase V – Garden (Carrots)

Time to build our first garden! You should have found Carrot Seeds by now. Build the Cultivator at the Forge.

Make a 6×9 or 6×12 plot, surrounding it with a short raised wooden border (to prevent animals from getting in) and plant away!

Phase VI – Base Defenses & Dock

As mentioned, the moment we kill our first troll, it unlocks the troll event. This can be devastating to a base. For this reason, we need to dig our base defenses before we really start running crypts and encountering trolls.

Time to dig a moat! We want our entire base to be surrounded by a moat. You can use horizontal wooden beams (from Pine or normal wood) to act as a sort of Cattle Guard, which allows us to cross over the moat with ease, but monsters won’t be able to do it.

This is when you also want to build a basic Dock. Core Wood is almost always required because of the vertical length of the poles which you’ll need to secure deep in the water to get far enough out where a boat doesn’t have an issue running aground.

Phase VII – Portal

You only need one portal at your base because of the mod we’re using which allows us to portal between any portals. I call my base portal… BASE!

Phase VIII – Preparing for the Swamp

Before we go and kill The Elder, it’s time to craft a Fermenter, and start making Poison resistance potions. Do this and have one Fermeting while we go and kill the elder.

We also need a total of 6 more surtling cores. These are for portals at the Elder, the Starting Circle, and the Swamp.

Phase IX – Killing The Elder

Food to use: Minced Meat Stew, Deer Stew, Carrot Soup. Make sure you have rest bonus.

You should have located the Elder with your crypt runs. You’ll need 3 Ancient Seeds to summon him.

When it comes to the location of the Elder, it can be difficult at this stage in the game to know whether or not he’s on another island. For this reason you want to stock up on materials that allow you to create a Workbench, boat and Portal. Also take at least 80 Fire arrows. With a +4 bow, you should make short work of the Elder. Unless you know the map, there could be a lot of water between you and the elder location.

When you find his spawn location, set up your portal behind a rock or something so the Elder’s attack’s can’t destroy it. I name all of my boss portals… the name of the boss!

Scan the surrounding area before you summon to make sure there’s no Trolls, Skeletons or Greydwarf Spawners that might aggro you during the fight.

Use Fire Arrows and hide behind the pillars. When he does his vines attack, stand still behind a pillar until the vines are complete and then run to the next pillar. If you run while they are spawning, they will appear in front of where you are going.

Once you kill the Elder, put the Swamp Key in your X slot (since you never really use X), go back to your base, get enough resources to build another portal, and run to the Circle to hang the Elder’s head, but do NOT activate his special power.

Set up a portal and name it CIRCLE for future boss head-hanging visits. It’s also a good place to come to farm wood if you don’t want to deforest around your base too much.

Phase X – Boat & Trader

Check on your Poison Resistance Potions, and if one set is complete, ferment another.

If you haven’t crafted Bronze Nails yet, you’ll need to do this to craft the Karve.

Before we head to the swamp, we want to find the Trader. Note you can skip this step if you have the Packhorse mod (by now it’s probably enhanced our carry weight to the point of having a Meginjord). Regardless, the Megingjord Belt will increase your carry weight another 150.

If you didn’t already do this for the Elder, it’s time to build your first Karve! That is unless you know you can run to the Trader on your land. Either way, you’ll need a Karve to go to the Swamp (more than likely).

When you head out to find the trader, take materials to create a Workbench and Portal. Once you locate him, build a portal. Go back to your base and get all of the gold and jewels you’ve collected and sell them to see if you have enough for the belt. If you don’t, you can run additional Crypts in the Black forest, or just head to the swamp and get the loot from running Sunken Crypts.

Remember to destroy your Karve in SHALLOW water when you land at your destination so you can rebuild it at your home base dock again to head to the swamp.

PART III – THE SWAMP

This is the first real dangerous area the player enters. Poison and ranged Draugr are the most dangerous things as getting shot in the back by a 2-star Draugr can kill your character with one hit, and poison without resistance can easily result in death.

Additional Comfort Items: Dragon Bed, Lit Hearth, Stone/Raven Throne.

We also have the Abomination. The good news is your upgraded Axe and Shield can handle it just fine. Simply stand underneath it, block its downward attack and swing away!

Don’t go into the swamp without Poison Resistance Potions. Without them, one bite from a Leech can kill you.

Now that we’re finally sailing around the world, make sure you mark any Leviathans you come across in the ocean – you’ll need the Chitin on their backs later on if you want to craft a Abyssal Harpoon!

Phase I – Finding Swamp and Establishing Portal Base

Make sure you have the materials to build a workbench and portal. Also have a full stack of Fire Arrows. Right before you land in the swamp drink a Poison Resistance Potion.

When you first find the Swamps, sail a bit and make sure they are sizeable, and choose a landing point that’s within visual range of a Crypt.

As soon as you land, clear the area, build your workbench and portal, and go back to your base. Get materials to make another Workbench and Standing Torches (Wood and Resin). We are going to craft these as we path through the swamp so we can more clearly see where we’ve been and where we need to go.

One of the most important things you are looking for next to Crypts and Iron Ore are Turnip Seeds. They are very rare. You must find these before you head to the next Biome, so keep your eyes open! If you do find the seeds, go back to your base and plant them immediately (but do not use them; instead replant them).

If you encounter Flame Geysers, mark them on your map and dig them out so they’re surrounded by water. This will cause the Surtlings to automatically die when they spawn, and it makes a great Surtling Core farm you can revisit later.

Kill all of the Leeches you find, which is very easy with the Stagbreaker. We need their Bloodbags for food!

Stay away from the Plains, which will often edge the Swamp. A single Deathsquito will kill you in one hit at this point.

About Turnip Seeds

Turnip Seeds are one of the most important food progression items in the game. They are required to craft the next tier of food. The good news is they are in the Swamp. The bad news is it’s possible for an entire swamp biome to not have a single one. They are very rare, and there are cases where I haven’t seen a single one between two large swamps. But there are other times where I’ve come across a patch of 3 in a small Biome. It’s all very random, but can also be very frustrating.

Once you find these seeds, go back to your base, plant them, and when the 3 seeds grow into Turnips, plant those 3 to get more seeds. After that process you will have enough turnips and the ability to plant and grow more seeds to unlock the required crafting station defined below in more detail.

Phase II – Sunken Crypts

Make paths from your portal to the crypts so you create a mini-road network in the Swamp. This will make for easier travel and ensure leeches don’t get you as the ground is very easy to raise.

You need to gather at least 128 Iron from your first run to craft all the base Iron gear to start.

Stagbreaker is king in the Crypts. Whack the ground when you’re halfway through a muck pile; that will kill whatever is on the other side (within proximity) including the Draugr spawn piles and Slimes. Use your Mace+Shield for 1v1. Use Stagbreaker for groups. Grab all precious jewels (Amber, Pearls, etc.) you find. Ignore Ancient Bark for now as it will just weigh you down, and it’s very easy to acquire later on. Grab all the Iron Scraps and Chain you find, and 10 Withered Bone, but no more than that.

Your Karve can hold 4x stacks of 30 iron ore. Your character should be able to carry at least 30 more by this point as well. Sail back home for your first Iron run!

Phase III – Base Iron Gear

Time to upgrade our gear! It’s going to take some time to smelt the Iron, so you can do things around you base while you wait for it to process. I recommend farming wood and fine wood.

Craft order: Iron Chest > Pants > Helm > Banded Shield > Mace > Pickaxe.

Upgrade Order: Chest (+4) > Legs (+4) > Helmet (+4) > Shield (+3) > Pickaxe (+2) > Mace (+3) > Axe (+2).

You can also craft a few of the new Reinforced Chests if you need more storage space, but don’t build too many because our goal is to get our iron armor up to the point where our survival is a ton better the next time we’re in the swamp.

Do not craft a Huntsman bow – we don’t need it!

Don’t forget to tend to your carrots. And if you found Turnip Seeds, plant them, and remember to re-plant the first harvest of turnips into more seeds. The goal is to craft the Spice Rack, but we want to be able to plant and replant turnips so soon we have more than we need.

You can now craft the Stonecutter! Build one and you can start building with stone around your base! Put a roof over it so you can craft a single Grinding Stone. This will unlock the Grinding Wheel upgrade for the Forge. Go ahead and build it near the forge.

Phase IV – Scouting, Crypts and Turnips

Build Forge Bellows and Smith’s Anvil to get your forge to Level 6.

If you see Guk, mine it. We’ll need it for the Draugr Fang bow once we start smelting Silver. When you’re done upgrading all equipment, you should have 61 Armor. A +3 mace is fine, we don’t need +4.

If you need more chain, you can hunt for Wraiths at night to get Chain (needed for the Plains-tier shield).

Start making Frost Resistance potions!

If you have the gold, buy the Dverger Circlet and Thunder Stone from the Trader. The circlet helps with building and gathering resources at night, and the Obliterator gets rid of unwanted items.

By this point, if you haven’t found Turnip Seeds, you’ll need to focus on finding them because we really need the upgrade provided from Turnips. Once you have 3 Turnips and more seeds planted, build a Spice Rack near your Cauldron so you can craft the new food: Sausage, Black Soup, Muckshake and Turnip Stew.

Phase V – Bonemass

The food you want for this fight is: Black Soup, Sausages and Muckshake.

You should have received the location of Bonemass running the Crypts. If not, you need to run more crypts to get it!

Once you find his location, load up on the materials to make a workbench and portal and head out! When you get to his spawn point, build a Workbench and Portal a fair distance from where he’ll spawn, and name it properly.

It’s my opinion that next to Elkthyr, Bonemass is the easiest boss in the game. Our +3 mace destroys him. Block his easily telegraphed attacks to gain the extra parry damage, run when he spews, and kill his adds as he spawns them.

Before you summon him, run around and make sure there’s no mobs or abominations that will aggro you during the fight. Level out the area if there’s lots of water around. Make sure you take 10 Withered Bone to summon him. Don’t forget to use your Poison Resistance Potion! With a +3 mace and shield, I can kill Bonemass in as little as 3 minutes, often getting 6 swings in between each of his attacks.

When he’s dead, hang his head in the circle and ACTIVATE THE BONEMASS SPECIAL. It’s the best in the game!

Don’t forget to craft iron nails to unlock a bunch of new things to build.

Before we go to the Mountains, it’s time to craft an Iron Atgeir. Upgrade it as high as you can. This is our wolf killer, and it replaces our Stagbreaker. It is also our first step in leveling up our Polearm skill. Make sure you keep your mace and shield as you’ll need them to deal with Stone Golems, but the middle-button attack of the Atgeir will stagger anything less than a 2-star wolf.

You can start building stone structures now if you want to take a break but we’re going to get a TON of stone from our mining in the mountains; it’s up to you!

PART IV – THE MOUNTAINS

Welcome to the frosty fun zone of wolves, drakes, golems, caves of cultists and silver veins!

Additional Comfort Items: Red Jute Carpet.

First, let’s discuss the You are being Hunted event, which is the most dangerous event in the game and activates after you kill your first wolf; and once activated, it can trigger anywhere. Having this event trigger when you’re in the mountains still in Iron gear can lead to certain death unless you act quickly. First, I recommend taking a stack of Ooze Bombs (crafted at the Workbench with Swamp materials) with you when you first venture into the mountains. Throwing 3 of these will melt a wolfpack, but be warned, it takes time, so it’s only effective if you can use it while standing on a structure or jagged rock where the Wolves can’t reach you. If you are caught in the open when this event happens, the best reaction is to activate your Bonemass special and dig down with your pickaxe; deep enough to where the wolves can’t directly reach you. Then you can pickaxe one section at a time, which will bring 2-3 of them as they fall down. You can also use Ooze Bombs from within the pit, throwing them up and melting the wolves. Unless you are in a position to continually fight, you generally don’t want to kill the wolves until The Hunter is Over appears.

Phase I – Scouting & Wolf Cape

Make sure you have Bonemass as your special before going into the mountains!

Remember that Frost Resistance Mead we put in the Fermenter? Time to tap it and get those potions! Depending on your map, if the mountain with Silver requires a boat to reach, you generally want to build a portal at the base of the mountain closest to the sailing route back to your base; this is where you need to get your ore to from the top of the mountain to transport it. The reason you want a portal here is because when you sail back to your base, you’ll want to destroy your ship and use the portal to build it at the mountain water base. It’s much faster than sailing it back.

Make sure you are loaded on Food and Rest before heading up into the mountains, have your Bonemass special ready, and a stack of Ooze Bombs.

Once in the mountains, equip the Wishbone you got from Bonemass and use it to locate Silver Veins, mark them, and kill both Drakes and Wolves. Silver veins begin at the level where you encounter Drakes. Hunt Wolves for their Pelts and Trophies, and mine Obsidian to make the new arrows. Your Iron Ategir will easily stun them with the special attack. Also open chests in structures to see if you can find Onion Seeds. If you find them, get them planted as soon as possible back at your base and start replicating them as you did with Turnips.

When you first enter the mountains, you should probably avoid Stone Golems, but if you’re experienced in fighting them, you can kill them with the Mace and Shield we used in the swamp, but it requires precise parry blocking and dodging. Additionally, if you have trouble with a Stone Golem, you can activate your Bonemass ability; but be aware if you get the hunted event while it’s on cooldown you can be in serious trouble. Ultimately, it’s best to wait until you get Mountain Armor before you take on Golems. Also note they respawn in the same area, so if you want to farm them for their shards (which are used to build glass) you can mark them on your map.

Kill every Drake you see; we’ll need Frost Arrows in the Plains and Mistlands, and we need 2 trophies to make the Mountain tier Helmet.

Find a good place for your first Mountain Portal base and build the portal and a chest.

The first thing you want to do is mine the closest silver vein that you can CARRY back to your ship. We do this because we need to craft the Wolf Fur Cape as soon as possible so we don’t have to use potions anymore. To do this you need 6 Wolf Pelt, 1 Wolf Trophy, and 4 Silver. Farm wolves until you get the Trophy.

We don’t need to build our transport path yet; just worry about getting the first load of silver you can carry back to your ship and base.

If you don’t get the Wolf Pelt and Wolf Trophy needed to craft a Wolf Fur Cape, you’ll need to keep hunting the wolves. Don’t transport the first load of silver back to your base until you have the other items to craft your Wolf Fur Cape.

Once you have the first load of Silver you can carry back at your base, craft a Wolf Fur Cape and a Draugr Fang Bow. You may have to go back to the swamp and farm some Guk to craft the bow. Upgrade it as high as you can.

Phase II – Transport Path from Mountaintop

Now that we scouted the closest mountain with Silver, it’s time to figure out how to get a cart full of nearly 2000 in weight of silver safely down the mountain and to your camp and loaded on your ship. Since every game and map is different, planning and pathing is usually required. You generally want to take the shortest route to either a shipping base at the bottom of the mountain, or route directly to your base. Most games will require you to use a boat to transport your silver, so this means carting the load down the mountain to your base.

If you have a steep incline mountain with no major obstructions, you can often just push the cart down the mountain and watch it roll to the bottom. Even if it breaks, the containers will remain intact. Just make sure it doesn’t fall into the ocean!

You can pull the cart safely straight down a steep mountain without issue; the only problem is if you encounter large rocks. It’s never worth crafting a switchback down a mountain unless you have to go at an angle to get to your base. Verify and/or build this path before you really start mining Ore.

Phase III – Mining Silver and Transporting

Silven veins are easy to 1-shot. Just dig around and underneath them and a final “whack” causes them to explode in stone and silver goodness. Run the stone and silver back to where you built your mountain portal, put the silver in a chest, and stack the stone in piles. The average silver vein yield is ~80 and takes 5 minutes to dig out.

Try to keep cart under 2000lbs if you have slight hills on way back. Under 2200 if no real hills.

Ultimately, you’ll need to dig up and make 3 full trips of 2000 weight in silver from the Mountains to your Base. This will get you the upgraded gear, covered below.

Phase IV – Mountain Gear

Craft and Upgrade order: Wolf Armor Chest > Legs > Helm (if you have Trophies) > Silver Sword.

If you want you can craft a Silver Shield, but I find the +3 Banded Shield works fine until we get our Blackmetal Shield in the Plains.

When you get your Silver Sword, retire your Ategir. Keep the Sword and Shield on you, and retire your Stagbreaker for the Iron Mace to use against Stone Golems. We’ll be using the Sword to whack down Wolves, the baddies in the Frost Caves, and even Moder. Raise your sword skill as much as possible – you’ll need it against Moder.

When I get back to my base and start smelting the Silver, I usually go out and chop down trees to farm Wood and Fine Wood..

You may need to revisit the Swamp to obtain more Guk to craft and upgrade your Draugr Fang bow. You can get 20+ Guk from a good tree.

If a 2-star wolf comes after you, it’s a good idea to immediately activate the Bonemass special.

Phase V – Upgrading Mountain Gear

We’re only going to upgrade our Armor to +3 because the cost of silver is so high to get to +4, but we will want to upgrade our Draugr Fang Bow and Silver Sword to +4 for fighting Moder.

Phase VI – Mountain Caves

Caves don’t have anything in them we need to defeat Moder or proceed to the plains, but the caves provide materials to unlock some new crafting items, weapons, and Fenris Armor, which provides a movement buff (and is used by many people in the Plains and Mistlands). The good news is a Silver sword wrecks everything in caves. The bad news is the Caves can be quite dangerous without Fire Resistance, and since we don’t have access to Fire Resistance Potions yet (and the Cultists have fire attacks), it can be quite risky to run caves at this time. I personally recommend waiting to run the Caves until after we’ve defeated Moder and entered the Plains (where we unlock the ability to craft Fire Resistance potions with Barley and Cloudberries).

Phase VII – Moder

Once you’ve upgraded all of your gear, it’s time to take the big dragon down! Make sure you have 200 Obsidian Arrows.

The best food to use: Sausage + Turnip Stew + (Carrot Soup/Onion Soup)

Once a player is decked out in +3 Mountain gear (and a +4 Draugr Fang and +4 Silver Sword), Moder is actually pretty easy; it just takes a fair amount of time (6-10 minutes depending on melee vs. ranged).

The key to surviving this fight is building a stone terrain pillar at least 8 meters high; this will block the damage from his most dangerous breath attack (while he’s flying). While melee is the quickest (you can kill him in around 6 minutes) the reality is due to his AI and the constant flying and landing in areas you can’t reach, it often requires the player to shoot him down with Obsidian Arrows and a +4 Draugr Bow unless the terrain is flat; in that case, melee is the best option.

I also recommend building numerous Campfires/Workbenches around the area you are going to fight him to prevent spawns. I’ve had multiple Golems, Drakes and Wolves spawn during my fight with him, and such adds can quickly end in death.

If you find yourself in trouble as you’re fighting him, you can activate your Bonemass Ability to lower the amount of damage his melee attacks do, but it’s pretty easy to dodge his breath, swipe and bite attacks (which are all telegraphed by sound and animation).

When he’s dead, grab the Tears and his Head, hang it at the circle (but don’t activate it) and build the Artisan table at your base!

Phase VIII – Frostner

By defeating Bonemass, we’ve unlocked Ymir flesh at the Trader. While Frostner is optional for this guide (I’ve played through without it, using the Ategir and Porcupine), it is the best 1v1 melee weapon for Mistlands against Seekers and Seeker Soldiers prior to the new Tier 6 weapons. Plus, it’s very effectiive to chill your enemies, and also works great in the Plains against Fulings. To craft and get this weapon to +4 (which is where you want it if you’re going to use it), you will need 5 Ymir Flesh (600 gold), 120 silver, 10 ancient bark, and 5 freeze glands.

PART V – THE PLAINS

Welcome to the Plains! Our goal is to unlock the new foods, obtain the materials to craft the next tier of armor, and farm Blackmetal from Fulings. This requires raids on camps. We’ll also be cleaning out Tar Pits, and shooting the Growths from afar.

Additional Comfort Items: Lit Hot Tub, Round/Long Heavy Table.

This is a very good time to take a breather and do some base building. Remember all the stone we gathered mining Silver? If you haven’t already, get all of that back to your base and start building stone walls, paved roads, and whatever else you’d like! At this phase I often expand, making new gardens, places for tamed beasts, and just growing the base as a whole, often in a grid fashion surrounded by moats. Valheim isn’t just about exploration, combat, and upgrading your equipment. It’s also about building amazing bases.

By defeating Moder, we have unlocked the “Horde” event where your base can be raided by Fulings. The good news is a moat prevents them from getting into your base, but the spear throwers and Shamen can execute ranged attacks that can damage and destroy not only parts of your base, but your tamed animals.

By building the Artisan Table, we unlocked the Stone Oven. Go ahead and build one, as we’ll need it to make Lox Pies, Bread and other things. Go ahead and also build a Butcher’s Table.

Never go into the plains without a full stack of arrows. It’s very easy to aggro a ton of mobs, and the only defense you have is to jump on top of a rock and shoot them. There are situations that can arise where you are stuck on the rock, being attacked by multiple lox and fulings, and the only way you can kill them is with arrows.

Don’t engage Lox until you get a Porcupine and Blackmetal Shield.

Phase I – Establishing a Foothold

The first thing to do find your initial Plains Landing spot. Generally you want it in a safe area (no Lox around) that is within walking distance of one or more Fuling camps.

As soon as you land, build your base. Put down a workbench and portal and go back to your main base and get plenty of wood so you can build the walls. Clear an area of 9×9 and set up a Stakewall with a wood gate (just one side) on the sides where you want entry. Make your portal “base” enclosed. You will be growing Flax and Barley in it.

Kill every Deathsquito you see; we need those Needles!

Phase II – Tar Pits

These nasty recent additions provide great resources for some of the best looking end-game buildings, but are also extremely dangerous. Even the most experienced player decked out in the best gear can quickly find themselves victim to just a couple of these nasty black growths.

Strategically, the best approach to clear out Tar Pits is to shoot the blobs from afar. Getting aggro from more than one can be fatal, so it’s very important to control any combat with them.

Once a tar pit is clear of these little bastards, build a workbench at the edge of the Tar and then start digging the draining river so you can retrieve the sticky goodness.

Phase III – Fuling Villages

These little green goblin homesteads provide our final resources for making the next tier of gear and food in the game: Blackmetal Scrap, Flax, and Barley.

While we’re still in Mountain Gear, we need to be very careful while raiding these villages. If we shoot one (and even kill it with a critical hit), all of the Fulings around it will aggro and come after you. One of the best techniques is to get close enough to have just 1-2 of them gain enough interest to start coming in your direction, but not directly aggro you, and then to shoot them (to guarantee they aren’t in the middle of a larger group).

Shamen are especially dangerous as they will not only shield other Fuling, but also shoot devastating fire projectiles that can easily cause you to catch fire and die. The good news is they are often killed with just one surprise crit arrow hit.

We can block and parry base Fulings, base Berzerkers, and 1-star Fulings; but not 1-star Berserkers or 2-star anything. At this point, the only way to safely kill 2-star (anything) is to shoot them from on top of a rock where they can’t reach you – either that or use Bonemass and try dodging their attacks, striking when you can.

You can opt to build a spire, like we did with Moder, but this time with a ladder so you can stand on top and shoot Fulings from afar. This technique works well if there are no large stones that provide higher ground to shoot from.

Once you’ve cleared a village, you should find Flax and/or Barley patches along with chests containing Blackmetal and other treasure. You will also come across Fuling Totems. We need 5 of them to summon Yagluth later on, the Plains Boss.

Keep an eye open in the stone structures for the Yagluth location.

Tar Pit with Growths close to a Fuling Village? Shoot an arrow over the village into the tar pit and watch the growths come towards you, but engage the Fulings in the village instead!

Fuling Buildings are one of the best sources of Deer Hide; destroy them to stock up!

Phase IV – Plains Food & Equipment

One of the first things you’ll want to build when you refine Blackmetal is the Pots and Pans upgrade. This will unlock your Cauldron to level 4 and allow you to make Bread, Lox Pie, Blood Pudding and Fish Wraps.

Next you’ll want to craft 2x Spinning Wheels. This is what you’ll feed your Flax into in order to make Linen Thread. To finalize our gear, we will not only need Linen Thread and Blackmetal, we also need an abundant amount of Iron. This usually means revisiting the swamps!

Time to craft Padded Armor! To make the Chest, Pants and Helmet, it will take 55 Linen Thread and 30 Iron. Even more to upgrade.

Next you’ll want to make the Porcupine and Blackmetal Shield. After that, the Blackmetal Ategir and Blackmetal Axe. Put your +4 Silver Sword in storage for now; we’ll use it to kill Yagluth. But now, you’ll be using the Ategir to kill Fulings (it can handle groups with the special) and the Porcupine/Shield to kill Lox.

At this point, you will probably have to return to Swamp to get Chain, Iron, etc.

Start fermenting a batch of the Fire Resistance Barley wine.

Phase V – Fishing

Mistlands brings with it the new fishing system, and because it requires so much stamina, I recommend starting to fish after you’ve unlocked Bread and Blood Pudding (which combined gives us 145 Stamina). Head to the Trader to buy your Fishing Rod and starting Bait and have at it! If you’re new to fishing and want to learn about it, you can watch the below Video which covers the new fishing system.

Phase VI – Alotta Lox & Taming

Now that we have a Porcupine and Blackmetal Shield, it’s time to go Lox Hunting. You can shoot just one in a group, and only that one will aggro. Don’t try to do two at once. Parry block their attacks and use the middle mouse special attack of your Porcupine and you’ll drop them quickly. Obtain the skins to make Lox Cape, and the meat to make Lox Pie (or just plain Cooked Lox Meat).

We can also tame Lox and ride them! You can do this two ways:

• Dig a deep trench (at least 5 units deep and 10×10 in size) with a ladder, craft an Abyssal Harpoon (which is unlocked when you mine Chitin from a Leviathan), harpoon the Lox and drag it into the pit. Once it’s in the pit, toss in a bunch of Cloudberries and engage in the standard taming process.
• Build a Stone Enclosure and do pretty much the same as defined above.

Once the Lox is tame, you can build a ramp out of the pit, craft a Saddle, and begin to ride it! Lox are great at killing Fulings and are the best tree farmers in the game. Ride and use their immense size to knock over, trample trees and smash everything in sight!

If you want to take it to the next level, you can even Breed Lox.

Below is a recent video covering the Taming and Breeding of everything in Valheim, including the new Chickens added with Mistlands.

Phase VII – Base Defenses for Mistlands Raids

Update: Patch 0.212.9 removes this event from the Meadows, Swamps, Mountains or Oceans. Why Black Forest was omitted is not known (it could be a typo) but the good news is this event won’t impact your bases in the mentioned zones once this patch goes live.

The new “They Sought You Out” Seeker raid event unlocks as soon as you defeat Yagluth. I want to cover this before we take him out because this new event requires additional defenses to survive, especially since the event can take place before we’ve even entered the Mistlands biome and learned how to fight the mobs. Moats on their own won’t help as the Seekers can fly over them and begin to destroy a base in a matter of minutes. I’ve actually had this event trigger while I was relaxing back in my base and crafting food, all minding my own business.

The best defense against this raid is to build stone walls at least 4x in height on the inside of your base along the moat walls. The seekers will try to fly into your base, but won’t be able to make it over the walls, and will fall into the moat. You can also double the width of your moat as well. Note any “cattle guards” you have over your moat (where there won’t be Stone Walls) should have Iron Doors installed. Also note a Seeker can break through an Iron Door pretty quick, so if they are trying to get in, they will, and you’ll have to fight them.

The best weapon against Seekers (at this point) is your Blackmetal Ategir. You can stun them and hit them hard. Use your dodge abilities to avoid attacks.

Phase VIII – Yagluth

It’s finally time to take on the Plains Boss, Yagluth. Make sure the area around his altar is clear. If there’s tar pits or lox spawn points, you’ll want to clear them out and build workbenches. A single lox or tar spawn can often cause death and failure for the Yagluth fight.

Make sure it’s not Raining. Below is a breakdown for the process of killing Yagluth:

1. Make sure you are loaded on Food (Fish Wraps + Lox Meat Pie + Bread), rested, it’s morning, etc.
2. Get that Fire Resistance potion from the Fermenter!
3. You will use your +4 Silver Sword. It’s the best weapon against him since he’s undead.
4. Grab your 5 Fuling Totems and head to the Altar. Place all 5 totems, but don’t summon yet.
5. Verify there are no Fulings, Lox, Deathsquito or Growth mobs anywhere around the altar.
6. Activate your Fire Resistance Potion.
7. Summon him! Note if you stand and attack when he’s summoned, you can get a good 12+ free hits in before he starts attacking.
8. He has 3 attacks: the meteors (which he raises his hand for and calls out), the beam of death, and the explosion. You need to sprint run (in a circle around him) for the meteors and do the same while moving perpendicular to his beam of death. You can take the explosion and blue aura damage without a problem. You’re going to melee him; don’t worry about blocking with your shield. Just whack the hell out of him with your +4 silver sword and run accordingly when he does his meteors or beam of death.
9. He’s quite easy once you get the cadence down. There’s just a lot of running around.
10. Once he’s dead, take his head and the Torn Spirits that drop.
11. Go back to base, take portal to the Circle, and mount Yagluth’s head! But don’t activate his special.

Once you defeat Yagluth, Fulings can now spawn anywhere at night, including the Meadows!

PART VI – THE MISTLANDS

Welcome to the deadliest and currently the final active biome of the game. No other biomes come close to the Mistlands in danger and challenge. Because exploring, establishing, and progressing in the Mistlands is rather entwined with resources from other sources, many parts of the below guide need to be read in full before beginning your journey.

Equipment Preparation

After running the Mistlands multiple times and learning from some of the top players, it’s my opinion the below is the best overall collection of equipment a player can have when they enter the Mistlands. Note the Root Harnesk gives us Pierce resistance. Our Blackmetal Ategir and Frostner (or Porcupine)/Blackmetal Shield can manage most everything we’ll encounter (from a melee perspective). Note all weapons and armor should be upgraded to +4. Also remember you must have a Blackmetal Axe in order to cut down Yggdrasil Wood. You’ll need 22 Root, 40 Ancient Bark and 2 Deer hide to craft and max out the Root Harnesk. If you haven’t gathered enough Root, head to the swamp and hunt those Abominations!

• Armor: Root Harnesk + Padded Helmet + Padded Legs + Lox Cape
• Weapons: Frostner (or Porcupine) + Blackmetal Shield + Draugr Fang + Blackmetal Ategir
• Potions: Ooze Bomb (x20) + Fire Resistance (optional Medium Stamina & Healing)
• Food: Bread + Baked Lox Pie + Blood Pudding
• Arrows: Frost arrows (x100).

While this will only give you 82 armor, the resistance against Pierce makes a huge difference when fighting seekers. It’s better than a full padded set.

What’s Up, Gjall?

I want to mention this now just so the player is aware. This is the second raid event that unlocks after you’ve defeated Yagluth. Thankfully, it can only happen in the Mistlands. But this means any base you build in the Mistlands can be targeted by two Gjall that spawn with the event. The best defense against this is to have your Mistlands base in a Dvergr tower you took over, because you can kite the Gjall around it while you shoot them down. You can also set up Ballistas, but you’ll need either the recommended mod or a Gjall trophy to target train them without risking being shot yourself. While this is a very rare event, be prepared it can happen.

Barrier to Entry Overview

The Mistlands has a different and much more difficult Barrier to Entry relative to unlocking and crafting the next tier of gear than any other biome.

The first barrier is obtaining the Extractor, which is how we get sap. This requires we steal from the Dvergr, which can be very risky and difficult. But even when we acquire the Extractor, which we place on roots to get Eitr, it must be refined. I cover this process below.

The second barrier is obtaining Black Cores, which is how we craft the Eitr Refinery and Tier VI stations (Forge and Galdr Table). These are found in the new Dungeons (Infested Mines). This is often a brick wall that many people encounter because dungeons are hard to find, very difficult to clear, and some dungeons can have anywhere between 0-3 cores, requiring the player to discover and explore multiple dungeons just to get the base crafting stations up and running. It’s just like getting a bad crypt in the Black Forest when looking for Surtling Cores… but a lot tougher.

The good news is the Mistlands is full of Iron and some Copper. This is intentional because the new biome is designed for players to build a base in the Mistlands (or on the border). All the player needs to do is have the Surtling Cores to build a Smelter and you’re in business. The problem can be getting Blackmetal to your Mistlands base. Mistlands are usually next to Plains, so we have two choices. We can either transport a volume of Blackmetal on our ship as we find and establish a foothold, or we can build a Blast Furnace in a small base where the Plains and Mistlands border each other, and then go Fuling hunting. It’s up to you.

When it comes to the new crafting stations, this is the recommended build Order:

1. Extractor (10 YWood, 5 Blackmetal, 1 Extractor)
2. Eitr Refinery (20 BMarble, 5 Blackmetal, 10 YWood, 5 Black Core)
3. Galdr Table (20 YWood, 10 Blackmetal, 5 Black Core, 5 Refined Eitr)
4. Black Forge (10 BMarble, 10 YWood, 5 Black Core)
5. Black Forge Cooler (5 Iron, 5 Copper, 4 Marble)
6. Rune Table (10 BMarble, 5 YWood, 10 Refined Eitr).

The new Armor only requires materials from the Mistlands, including Iron. The new Ategir (Himmin Afl) requires Silver. Krom requires Bronze (20). Everything else requires Mistlands-specific components.

I cover progressing in the above-mentioned fashion in detail below, but wanted to provide an introduction to what we’ll be doing.

Phase I – Wisplight and Chickens

The first thing you want to do is build 3 Wisp Fountains at your base with the Torn Spirts you acquired from Yagluth. They must be built outside in an open space. Once night falls, it will attract numerous wisps, which you can grab. I recommend getting 20-30 of them because you’ll want to build the wisp torches that help remove the mist as you explore. Also, you’ll want to create your Wisplight, which is a requirement for exploring and surviving the Mists. Go to your Workbench and craft it for 1 silver and 1 wisp. Note this will take the place of your belt.

Next, go to the Trader and buy two Eggs for 3000 gold. These were unlocked when you killed Yagluth. If you don’t have 3000 gold, you can either choose to run some crypts or wait until later to purchase the eggs as they aren’t a requirement to explore the Mistlands. When you are able to purchase your eggs, build a small enclosure with a fireplace and drop the egg next to the fire. It will take about 10 seconds to go from “too cold” to “warm”. These will hatch and lay more eggs, which will also hatch. Soon you’ll have a coven of Chickens! You can throw Barley down for them to eat.

Phase II – Building Materials

As covered above, the Mistlands is designed for you to have a new base within the new biome. The best choice is to find an abandoned Dvergr structure and start building there, because it’s made out of Black Marble. Once you get the Kiln up, you can farm Iron Scrap and then build a Stonecutter, which will allow you to repair the base. With a little work, you can have a beautiful Black Marble tower as a new base of operations.

When you set sail from your primary base to find the Mistlands, it’s recommended you take the following:

• 2 Surtling Cores, 20 Fine Wood, 10 Greydwarf Eyes, 10 Wood (Portal)
• 30 Blackmetal Bars (For extractors, Refinery and Table). If you have it and can transport it, try to take 60, or at least have it on your ship so you can easily run it back to your base. If you don’t, you will probably have to make multiple trips.
• 10 Silver to craft and upgrade Himmin afl.
• 6 Copper Bars so you can build a forge and disassemble structures for their Iron.
• 2 Iron Bars for the Stonecutter.

While Iron is abundant in the Mistlands, and you can also find Copper, I find taking these bars on your first sailing trip to save time so you can quickly build a portal to get the other materials necessary in order to tear down structures and obtain their materials.

Make sure you have at least 25 Blackmetal Bars at your main base so as soon as you unlock the Blackmetal Pickaxe, you can portal back and make it. We can’t do it with our sailing load because the forge needs to be upgraded.

In the end, we are going to have one primary base in the Mistlands where we build all of the new crafting stations, but we’ll still have our main base where we do everything else. Even if we have to go to different Mistlands locations, we can transport Black Cores and other materials back to our main Mistlands base.

Phase III – Foothold & Main Mistlands Base

The first thing we’re going to do after discovering which Mistlands biome we want to explore first is to build a protected portal NEAR the Mistlands biome, but in another biome. The reason is because it’s very easy for your Mistlands foothold (portal, etc.) to be destroyed by Gjall and Seekers. Plus, if you die, you may lose your portal, so have a standby base/dock in a nearby biome where you can regroup.

Generally, you will be sailing to the Mistlands. It is possible to find a Dvergr dock; if so, you can use that to enter the area – just don’t attack the Dvergr unless you are certain you can defeat them (and have fought them before). If not, build a portal nearby.

Your first portal in the Mistlands will probably not be your main base. I call this the temporary Foothold portal. Because of how random the generation of Biomes is, this initial foothold will be different for everyone. Ultimately, you want your first Mistlands portal to be in a good spot where you can explore and return/escape if necessary.

Phase IV – Exploring & Establishing a Mistlands Base

The Mistlands is not only unforgiving, it will destroy you like no other biome if you are unprepared or just have bad luck. Two key recommendations to keep in mind:

1. Never explore the Mistlands without full Rest Bonus.
2. Do not explore the Mistlands at night unless you know what you’re doing and are properly equipped.
3. Sound is critical when exploring the Mistlands. Hearing your enemies first can make all the difference. Also, try not to run. You want to retain your stamina. Many people turn the music off altogether so they can more easily hear things around them.

The very first thing you’ll do is cut down a few trees to get Yggdrasil Wood. You need these to make the Wisp Torches and Blackmetal Pickaxe. As soon as you cut down your first tree, go back to your base and craft the Blackmetal Pickaxe (3 YWood, 20 Blackmetal). With this, you can mine any of the Ancient remains you come across.

You can place Wisp Torches without a workbench; do this as you explore to mark where you’ve been and also provide a light map of escape in case you have to run from an encounter. You can also place Campfires to prevent spawns. Ultimately, you can take over the Mistlands in a slow progressive way over time, which is very cool. The cadence to Mistlands is simple if you want to survive: slow and steady.

One of the key things you’re looking for are large fogless clearings in the Mistlands, which are shown on the minimap as dark sections. These areas are clear of mist and are the best places for you to build a base.

Mark these on your map:

• Ancient Roots
• Ancient Structures (Swords, Armor, Bodies)
• Petrified Skull
• Dverger Structures / Excavation Sites (occupied and Abandoned)
• Dungeons

Remember to keep an eye open for an Abandoned Dverger Structure where you can build your base. If you find one in a part of the Mistlands where the mist is cleared, that’s the best.

Note you can build a shelter inside bones, including a bed!

Grab the Jotun Puffs and Magecap you come across. You can mark their spawn points, but they’re so abundant, I didn’t find it necessary.

Kill all of the Hares you come across for their Scale Hide and Hare Meat.

If you come across a Petrified Bone of a skull, dig into the Skull to get Soft Tissue. This is required to make Refined Eitr. You’ll also unlock Black Marble the first time you start chipping away at an ancient body. This unlocks the Mortar and Pestle Cauldron upgrade, which will allow you to make new food. You can get around 70 Soft Tissue from each Skull you harvest.

This guide assumes you’ve secured a base in an abandoned Dvergr tower. When you’ve finally secured your primary base and have your new Mistlands Base portal up, I recommend breaking down a Smelter and Kiln from your main base and building them at your new Mistlands base (usually outside). Don’t forget to have at least 30 Blackmetal Bars at your new base. Since Wood is hard to come by in the Mistlands, bring a number of stacks through the portal and place them in storage near your Kiln. If you didn’t bring Copper or Iron, you’ll need to smelt it to make a Forge and Stonecutter.

Build your stonecutter and repair the structure. This is very important due to how much damage a Gjall can do to Black Marble.

Make sure you have at least 20 Ooze Bombs on your character for when you begin to explore dungeons (covered below).

Phase V – Fighting the Mistlands Enemies

First rule of fighting in the Mistlands; try not Sprint while you’re in combat. This will waste your stamina and is rarely necessary to evade attacks. Instead, use your dodge and strategically walk in circles around your targets.

Mistland Enemies have weak spots; for Seekers it’s their backside, and for Gjall it’s the pink underside. Hit these areas for extra damage.

Seekers are the new primary enemies, and once you get down how to fight them, it’s not too difficult as long as you can stun them in an AoE attack with your Blackmetal Ategir. All seeker attacks can be blocked and parried with a fully upgraded blackmetal shield, including those from a 1-star seeker. If fighting just 1, use your Frostner/Porcupine and Blackmetal Shield; when you parry, attack with the middle-mouse button, and you’ll kill a Seeker in 2 hits. You can use the same technique with Seeker Soldiers; their attacks can all be parried as well. When you parry, do the special whack with your Mace; rinse and repeat. The most dangerous Seeker attack is the flying lunge, which allows them to fly to you and attack as they land. A 2-star seeker will 1-shot you if this happens from behind. As such, listening for them is critical. Both Seekers and Soldiers can knock you back quite a distance. For this reason do not fight them where they can either knock you off a cliff or into the water (which is a death sentence). You can use Frost Arrows to slow them. As mentioned, you can use Porcupine for 1v1 combat, but Frostner is the best. For groups, you’ll use the Blackmetal Ategir.

The hardest part of dealing with Seekers is when they’re in groups, and they usually spawn in pairs. More than once I’ve had 5 Seekers and 1 Soldier aggro me. Believe it or not, walking in circles is often the best method of grouping them up and stunning them with your Ategir special attack. Just make sure you dodge any leaping seekers, or parry/get away from a Soldier’s AoE attack. If you have a group of Seekers and a Soldier on you, kill the Seekers and 1v1 the Soldier as your Ategir special will not stun the Soldier. It all takes time and patience, just keep running them in circles, using your Ategir special to stun them, and sooner or later you’ll be able to kill all of the Seekers so you can take care of the Soldier (in this example).

If you encounter a 2-star Seeker or Soldier and can’t handle it due to environment or other factors, I recommend activating your Bonemass special.

When it comes to Gjall, the best approach is to fight with your bow (Frost Arrows) from a distance, or kite them around a tower. It’s actually pretty easy to dodge their projectile attack once you understand its speed. It’s best to use a Fire Resistance potion the second you believe you will engage a Gjall for the first time. This can mean the difference between life and death. If you aren’t in a controlled area that you know and are ready to engage, as soon as you hear that ominous foghorn sound (which means it has aggor’d you), the best action is to run away.

Note you can turn off your Wisplight to prevent a Gjall from seeing you!

Ticks are easy; just use your Ategir Special attack and it will 1-shot all of them in radius, including any that have attached to you. You can also dodge roll to get them off of you. Same with the Broodlings in the Dungeons. Note Ticks drop Blood Clots, which are used for crafting equipment and food. Yuk!

Luring Seekers and Gjall to a Dvergr tower is always a great choice as well because you’ll get the resources, and after a period of time, if the Dvergr are all killed, you can take the tower over!

Kill Hares to unlock rug and uncooked meat platter. They also drop Scale Hide, which is needed to craft numerous Tier VI items. Trouble catching them? Throw an Ooze Bomb!

The Dvergr are the most dangerous of all targets in the Mistlands because of their mages. While the Rogue Arbalest attacks can be blocked, a Fire or Frost mage will make very short work of you. Because we have to steal an Extractor (covered below) if you do want to engage their mages, you will want to activate the Yagluth special ability, which will give you resistance to the elements. Ultimately, I recommend not engaging the Dvergr. It’s strategically better to have them alive and around to help with the Seekers and Gjall than it is to kill them for Soft Tissue, which can easily be acquired through other means.

Phase VI – Stealing the Extractor

Note it’s been recommended by numerous players that one has the option to trade and/or purchaase the Extractor from the Dvergr so the player never has to engage with them. I personally support this idea, and while Iron Gate may not add this enhancement, I’m pretty sure somebody will make a mod that allows you to purchase one from the Trader. I’ll post here if such a mod becomes available.

An Extractor is required to harvest Sap. This will begin the process of unlocking the Tier VI crafting stations and Tier VI equipment. Unfortunately, the Extractor must be stolen from the Dvergr, which means engaging them; and stealing the extractor while surviving can be a difficult task. The problem is if you shoot just one Dvergr, all of them will come after you. While the rogues aren’t too difficult to handle, the Mages will destroy you. Below are the 3 options currently available.

1. Smash and grab. This is easiest at Archeological sites where you can break the container on the wagon and jump over the fence and run. Just make sure you have a clear and long line of running. Also note the Dvergr at the site you steal from will always be hostile to you.
2. PREFERRED. Bring enemies (Seekers, Gjall, etc.) to a Site and let them kill the Dvergr. If you keep doing this over time, the Dvergr will die. For towers where the Extractor box is in the basement, if it’s guarded by mages, just use Bile Bombs, but make sure you stay at the top of the stairs, or they will destroy the wood stairs and 1-shot you in close proximity.
3. Snipe the Dvergr from a distance. This only works in clear areas where they can’t reach you. Find a jagged peak to stand on top, and like taking out a Fuling village, start picking them off.

Just a quick note that you can raise Sneak around the Dvergr without risk. It’s a great way to get that ability up!

Phase VII – Setting up Extractors

Once you get your first Extractor, it’s time to set it up on a root, preferably near your new base. When you get your first load of Sap, this will unlock the Eithr Refinery. Build that as soon as possible and start refining the Sap with Soft Tissue; this is best acquired through the skulls of fallen ancients, which is covered above.

Note that roots glow based on the amount of Energy in them, and they will deplete over time. I found cycling a single extractor between 3 roots is a good process. Wait until one dries up, go to the next, and once the 3rd is dry, go back to the 1st.

Phase VIII – Infested Mines

Infested Mines are the new dungeons in Mistlands, and they are both very cool and brutal. I would say next to the bosses, they are the hardest content in the game, especially for new players who haven’t geared up and are new to the Biome. There are two types of entrances:

1. At the bottom of a staircase of an abandoned Dvergr tower.
2. Up a grand flight of Black Marble stairs, with a single blue light at the beginning of the stairs, which is easy to see.

It’s been my experience an entrance with the big stairs going up is always in a fog-clear area while the abandoned tower is usually in the mist.

It’s a good idea to set up a portal outside of the entrance of a Dungeon in case you die; this will allow you to quickly regain access to fetch your body.

When you start running these dungeons for the first time, Ooze Bombs are your best friend. They work against Seekers trapped behind doors and the slime barriers without destroying them. 1 Ooze Bomb will kill all Ticks and Broodlings, and 3 Ooze Bombs will kill all seekers. They aren’t very effective against soldiers, but if you kill the seekers and are only left with a Soldier, it’s pretty easy to take them out.

If you’ve killed a Gjall and acquired its Bilebag and also Sap with an Extractor, you can build a Bile Bomb, which is even more powerful, acting as an AoE attack that will burn your enemies to ash. Ultimately, Bile Bombs are the best weapon to use when exploring Mistlands dungeons.

The main items you’re looking for are Black Cores. 5 of them are required for each crafting station, with the Eitr Refinery being the first one you must build, so to really get started, you need 10 Black Cores (this allows you to build the Refinery and your first crafting station). In the end, 25 Black Cores are required to have all the new stations up and running at the same time, but as covered below, you can swap stations due to limited cores.

The dungeons also have Royal Jelly, which is used to create new food and potions.

There are also Seal Fragments, which are required to gain entry to the new Mistlands Boss. Just grab those when you see them.

Once again, Slow and Steady is what will help you survive. Try not to aggro too many mobs when you first enter. The good news is most dungeons have a large room very close to the entryway, so a strategic approach to the first group of monsters you encounter is to lure them into the large room and use your Ategir to stun them.

Phase IX – Black Marble Farming

You can farm massive amounts of Black Marble by locating an abandoned structure, building a Stonecutter and breaking the building down. Some of the structures will even have Iron parts, which you can use a Forge to break down into Iron and Copper Bars. The repair state of a structure doesn’t impact the return on materials.

Phase X – Farming and Food

It’s very important to keep your Barley Farm going while you’re exploring and growing in the Mistlands because it’s not only the perfect chicken food, it’s also a key ingredient in many of the foods we will be using in the Mistlands.

We can also start a farm of Jotun Puffs and Magecap in the Mistlands, but it’s important to protect it. I found it easy and safe to start a farm in a fog-clear area of the Mistlands with a Stakewall, which protects it from Seekers. I never had a Gjall come into this area, so it was easy to grow my crops.

Phase XI – Building the new Crafting Stations

After you begin to acquire Black Cores, you’ll want to build the new Crafting stations. Note the initial station doesn’t unlock until you acquire your first Sap from the Collector. Because of the difficulty in finding dungeons and Black Cores, you can craft one of the stations, use it, destroy it, and craft the other. You can even destroy the refiner to build support stations for the other base stations. This will allow you to craft all Tier VI items you want with just 10 Dark Cores before you’re able to secure all of the cores necessary to have the stations and their upgrades all up at the same time.

I also want to comment that you can build these stations in your main base; it’s just a lot easier to get Iron in the Mistlands; but if you have a solid Iron and Blackmetal supply at your main base, you’ll need to transport enough Black Marble to build an enclosed section of your base (which is probably stone or wood) to protect it while the Eithr Refiner is running. Plus, it’s just fun to have a Mistlands base.

The first thing you must craft is a Eitr Refinery (20 marble, 5 Blackmetal, 10 YWood, 5 Black Core).

Important note: you want the Eitr Refinery to be surrounded by Black Marble. The reason is the Eitr that comes out emits random sparks that will damage everything they come in contact with. This is why it’s a good idea to set up a Mistlands base, especially since the new forge, etc. don’t require any of the previous stations. They can be built and upgraded separately.

Once the Refinery is built, you can start refining Sap and Soft Tissue to create Refined Eitr, which is necessary to build the new Forge and Table, and craft most Tier VI items.

After that, you can choose between:

1. Black Forge (10 Marble, 10 YWood, 5 Black Core)
2. Galdr Table (20 YWood, 10 Blackmetal, 5 Black Core, 5 Refined Eitr)

The forge is for melee weapons, and the table is for magic items (such as the new staffs). You can also use the Galdr table to craft the Feather Cloak, which will let you glide down from tall peaks without taking damage. I cover the recommended steps for progression below.

Phase XII – Mistlands Gear Progression

The addition of magical Mage gear in Mistlands fundamentally changes everything, mainly due to the addition of the Protection staff and the Dead Raiser staff, which summons skeletons. On top of that, the Fire Staff is devastating, completely destroying groups of seekers in just a few hits, and the Frost staff does high single target damage while also slowing the target. Even cooler is the fact the player can mix things up by using all of these staffs in a single loadout; as such, we can summon skeletons, put up a protective blood shield, and then use either the Fire or Frost staff while our little buddies attack our enemies.

The following part of this guide focuses on becoming a Mage, using the new Elemental and Blood Magic skills.

The transition to this new build is substantial, and requires not only an investment into the new crafting tables, but also investment into new food that provides Eitr (mana) to the player.

Many players are unaware the Staff of Protection can parry any attack; even a 2-star Seeker or Soldier. With quick reflexes, a player can block with their Staff of Protection, switch to the Staff of Embers, score a Parry hit, then switch back to the Staff of Protection to parry the next attack. This cadence is the strongest in the game.

Generally, the first Tier VI item a player wants to craft is the Feather Cape, which is done through the Galdr table. It costs 10 Feathers, 5 Scale Hide, and 20 Refined Eitr. With this cape, you can jump off high cliffs and land safely.

Below is a breakdown of our Beginning Mage build:

• Eitr-weave Robe (20 Linen Thread, 20 Refined Eitr, 10 Feathers, 5 Scale Hide)
• Eitr-weave Trousers (20 Linen Thread, 20 Refined Eitr, 10 Scale hide)
• Eitr-weave Hood (15 Linen Thread, 15 Refined Eitr, 2 Iron)
• Staff of Protection (20 YWood, 4 Blood Clot, 16 Refined Eitr)
• Staff of Embers (20 YWood, 4 Surtling Core, 16 Refined Eitr)

Total Mage Starter Kit: 40 YWood, 55 Linen Thread, 87 Refined Eitr, 10 Feathers, 15 Scale Hide, 2 Iron, 4 Blood Clots, and 4 Surtling Cores.

Once you get your Staff of Embers up and running, killing Hares is cake.

On top of that, we’ll need to switch our food out, finding a balance of Hits, Stamina, but mostly focused on Eitr. Credit to Scarlet for this Mistlands Food Breakdown Sheet.

It is recommended you don’t go down this path until you have the materials to craft everything; to have a solid chance of survival, you’ll want both the Staff of Protection and the Staff of Embers.

At this point, you want to make sure you have a Magecap and Jotun Puffs farm going because you’ll need to sustain your food.

I find the easiest balance starter food as a Mage is: Lox Pie / Misthare Supreme + Stuffed Mushroom + Seeker Aspic.

To finalize our Mage build, we’ll want to craft the Dead Raiser staff and upgrade the others:

• Dead Raiser Staff: 20 YWood, 10 Bone Fragments, 16 Refined Eitr, 4 Skeleton Trophy.
• Staff of Protection Upgrade: 10 YWood, 2 Blood Clot, 2 Refined Eitr.
• Staff of Embers Upgrade: 10 YWood, 2 Cores, 2 Refined Eitr.
• Dead Raiser Upgrade: 10 YWood, 4 Fragments and 2 Refined Eitr.

If you want to focus on melee, you can upgrade to Carapace Armor and Shield. The Arbalest is also a great sniping weapon, able to do massive damage to Gjall with sneak attacks to its underside. Himmin afl is a lot of fun to use with the electrical damage and AoE. The Mistwalker sword does both Slash and Frost damage. I find Krom to be clunky, but it looks cool and its special attack stabs quite well. Skoll and Hati can be fun for those who like to stealth and 1-shot pounce on their targets. The Demolisher is great for the AoE, but the reality is the Ategir is much better because it doesn’t have a long spin-up time like the Demolisher does (which can get you hit by multiple enemies before you bring it down). Ultimately, I find Magic to be the best end-game weapon combination, capable of killing the Queen in under 10 minutes (solo) when played properly. Plus, once a player raises their Elemental and Blood Magic, the damage increases substantially, and the burn DoT also melts targets, especially seekers.

The best way to level up your Blood Magic is to camp a Draugr spawner in the swamp with your minions. Raise the ground over the body piles with your Hoe to prevent them from being destroyed, and use your Staff of Protection to bubble your buddies and block all attacks. For each level gained in Blood magic, the protection of your bubble goes up by 5 (it starts at 200). This means level 50 Blood Magic will grant an additional 250 protection, more than double the starting value. Having Blood Magic at 100 provides 700 total protection (200 + 500). The damage from your minions also increases with the skill level.

Phase XIII – Traps and Ballista

You can build Mechanical Springs at the Artisan Table, but note they cannot go through a portal. These are used to build Traps and Ballista. Personally, I find both to be pretty much useless in their base design. Traps are just “meh”. And even with the 213.4 update allowing the player to define specific targets with a trophy, the best solution is still to use the recommended mod that simply disables friendly fire and has them target all enemies equally.

Traps can catch the elusive Hares, but once you get a Staff of Embers, the ranged AoE attack easily takes them out.

Phase XIV – The Queen (Final Mistlands Boss)

The Queen is undoubtedly the toughest boss in the game, and the best way to deal with her is with melee. The weapons and armor are: Carapace Helmet, Root Harnesk, Carapace Leggings, Feather Cape, Mistwalker Sword, Carapace Shield and Demolisher. The food is: Meat Platter, Misthare Supreme, and Salad. Potions are: Poison Resistance, Major Healing, and Minor Stamina. Surprisingly, using Eikthir as the special during the fight allows for downing the Queen in under 5 minutes, as this video shows. Note that video uses the Double Power Attack, which you can learn how to do here.

While some players also prefer to take down the queen as an Ember Mage, the reality is melee is hands down the best, fastest and safest way to do it.

Mistlands Conclusion

The Mistlands brings with it a combination of great features, visuals, challenges and exploration paired with frustration and brutal difficulty many players will have difficulty with. I personally believe more tweaking should have been made before Iron Gate released it after only two weeks of testing with only one real update. The number one complaint is the Wisplight doesn’t move the fog back enough, which I agree with. The beauty of this new biome can be seen in the clear areas, but for the most part, the Mistlands echoes more of a horror experience than the standard open beautiful world exploration we have grown accustomed to with Valheim. I believe the perfect design would have been to allow players to take over Lighthouses or something similar to slowly drive the mist away, thus conquering the zone.

The uselessness of Ballistas is a problem, and the fact the Tier VI armor is hardly any better than Padded is very disappointing. But as mentioned, many of the new weapons are great and fun. Ultimately, Mistlands brings a whole new level of challenge to the game, and I’m sure Iron Gate will be publishing updates based on player feedback now that the expansion is live.

I hope this guide helped everyone who has decided to jump back into the game!

PART VII – END GAME

Congratulations. You have completed all of the core content available in Valheim; however, you probably haven’t scratched the surface of building and skill improvement for your character. And make no mistake, raising the skill levels of your character makes a big difference for damage, run speed, and other factors.

Building

This is one of the greatest features of Valheim, and the majority of players only scratch the surface. Players have the ability to completely transform the world they are playing in. Build castles, paved roads, docks for ships, defensive structures, and more.

Replanting trees with the seeds you picked up is an essential part of the game. You can quickly plant a forest of stacked lumber that, when cut, falls like dominoes.

Also, remember all of that stone you piled while mining Copper and Silver? Just take the portals, grab the stacks and bring it back to your base for some great stonework building.

Trying all Weapons & Improving Character Skills

Have you 1-shot backstabbed a Troll? Snuck into a Fuling camp? How about trained in Polearms and learned to properly kite tough mobs without parry/block, but used the Atgeir spinning attack? Have you crafted a +4 version of a Blackmetal Knife or Sword? Craft different weapons and see how you like the adjusted play styles; also, build your main character. Skill points make a huge difference in damage, movement and other factors. Improve those Block, Running, Jumping and Sneak skills!

Playing with ValheimRAFT

This mod fundamentally changes the game as it allows you to build a town that can sail around the world, which means you can move your base between points as you progress. Definitely try a playthough with this mod!

Trader Enhancement, Bounties and Treasure Maps

The Epic Loot mod adds Trader Bounties and Treasure Maps to the experience, and Better Trader Remake adds the ability to buy and sell more than 300 items.

Playing with No Map

Want a totally different experience? Grab that mod that removes the map and minimap! Building structures and bonfires now becomes a standard requirement in order to track where you are and where you have been, also requiring complete exploration to locate the bosses.

Multiplayer & Dedicated Servers

Think Valheim is fun playing solo? Try playing with friends; even better, play with other people on a dedicated server where everyone is constantly building and changing the world. While there is the option for PvP (which is really most useful for raising skills like Shield Block), the game isn’t really designed for PvP; it’s designed for collaboration. It’s awesome to log out of your server and come back in the next day and see one of your friends started building a huge new castle in that field you once hunted deer in.

Animal Taming

You can not only tame Wild Hogs, Wolves, and Lox; you can actually craft a saddle and ride tamed Lox! There are numerous guides on how to do this, and it can be fun having these creatures casually running around your base and even defending you and your area when it falls under attack.

Helping Others

If you join a Discord community and get to know other players, many people often need help recovering their bodies or with boss fights. There’s even a Discord group that specializes in helping people recover their bodies. If you build a character up (legit) and have great skills and gear, you may be perfect for helping other people in bad situations.

Never Cheat

To truly enjoy Valheim, never cheat. Always play per the game’s rules. This is much more satisfying than using cheat codes to faceroll the game.

BONUS FUN – SERPENT HUNTING

Want a segway from the normal gameplay? Enter Serpent Hunting!

Here’s a video of how to solo hunt Serpents.

Some players even drag the Serpent into an enclosed water area next to their base to trap it as a pet! Just don’t try to pet it.

CONCLUSION

Thanks to the team at Iron Gate for making one of the best games ever! I hope this guide was helpful, and if you have any recommendations for enhancements or changes, please leave them in the comments below. Happy Hunting, Vikings!

External Resource List

• Unofficial Valheim Map Generation Tool.
• Complete Valheim Food Chart (Dec 2022).
• Valheim Terraforming Guide (Dec 2022).
• Complete Taming and Breeding Guide (Dec 2022).
• Mistlands Mountain Mage Tower Build Tour (Dec 2022).
• Complete Mistlands Farming Guide (Dec 2022).
• Complete Valheim Comfort Guide Level 23 (Dec 2022).
• Mistlands Fishing Guide (Dec 2022).