The Complete Valheim Written Guide

A new guide has been written for the latest Mistlands release. You can access it here.

Welcome to the The Complete Valheim Written Guide! Whether you are a new or experienced player, this guide will show you step by step how to have one of the best starts in the game. This includes: progressing the player through each Biome, defeating all of the bosses, learning combat & core mechanics, cooking, building, farming, harvesting, and even hunting sea serpents. We also build roads, use carts to transport ore, set up a portal network, sail between islands, and craft the best equipment in the game.

This guide is also Hardcore viable. It specifically focuses on maximizing defensive and offensive equipment prior to progressing to the next biome.

First, this guide is quite large; but so is the game. The size of this guide is an indication of how many great features and the sheer volume of content Valheim has to offer. I estimate it will take the average player more than 50 hours to follow the guide if they don’t get distracted with building; and for those who want to build more while following the guide, there’s easily more than 100 hours of gameplay experience wrapped in this overview.

03.22.2021
ADDITIONAL ADJUSTMENTS
Added a few new tips and made additional adjustments and corrections.

03.14.2021
MINOR ADJUSTMENTS
Many minor adjustments correcting some typos, values, and other minor errors.

03.07.2021
INITIAL RELEASE
While the core guide is complete, I will continue to make adjustments to the content, updating links and refining the guide. If you see any errors or have recommendations, please leave a comment!

One of the key reasons I built this written guide is while there are numerous videos online that are solid guides to certain features, mechanics or boss fights. The reality is the game is so large, it would be near impossible to make an instructional video guide covering all content that people could watch from beginning to end. This guide includes every step necessary to get from starting the game to building a base and living in the Plains with the best gear currently available, all while exploring every feature Valheim has to offer. There is a lot of content, but if followed in order, I believe readers will quickly find the steps to be clear, highly efficient and effective. Once the guide is complete, there is also an End Game section for readers to review and follow.

Each section has been defined by Part, Phase and Number. This way, you can quickly mark where you left off and return at any time. There is also a detailed Table of Contents below, which has active links to each section of the guide.

DISCLAIMER! This guide uses a static world seed. I highly recommend players use this seed; not just because it’s a great world layout, but because the guide revolves around learning the game based on the provided world, biomes and locations. By using this seed, everything in this guide will be in the exact same place for you as it was for me. Also, as this guide progresses, it does less handholding.

For Experienced Players: There is content within this guide that will be very useful to those who aren’t starting a new game. Check out the Table of Contents below and browse the materials to see if anything jumps out at you. Part VII has detailed information on end-game play and farming techniques.

For New Players: Valheim is a very large and complex sandbox survival and exploration game. Even with this guide, the game may seem overwhelming because there is so much to do and understand. Don’t worry; everyone goes through this process. It takes a few days to really start understanding the mechanics, interface and overall breadth of what the game has to offer. It’ll all be worth it in the end.

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.

New Players: I recommend watching these two videos before you start. It’s a lot of information, but great for reference as you begin to play the game:

PART I – THE MEADOWS BIOME (TIER 1)

What we’ll accomplish: Starting out, Building our first camp, getting Leather Armor, a Crude Bow, and preparing to venture into the Black Forest. New players will also learn the core mechanics, basic building, and basic combat.

Phase I – Establishing your Starting Base

Create your character. If you plan on following the recommended guide map, you will need to create a new world. I called it “GuideWorld”. Use the seed of dvFDqtV7D9. Make sure you entered every character properly, or you will have a completely different world! Once the world is created, press Start.

Before we begin, many experienced players disable the visuals for ground Vegetation when starting a new game. This makes resources on the ground (Rocks, Sticks, Mushrooms, etc.) much easier to spot. If you wish to do this, go to: Game Menu > Settings > Graphics (Tab) > Set Vegetation Quality to LOW. Players generally turn it back on when they move to the Black Forest (second) Biome.

1. Talk to Hugin (Press E).
2. Approach the red runestone that says “Vegvisir Eikthyr” and press E. This will reveal the spawn location of the first boss. You don’t have to worry about that for now, it was just marked on the map.
3. Talk to Hugin again.
4. When we flew in, it actually revealed the location of the pond we’re going to. You can see this by pressing M. Following the below map, head South, Southwest; you can bring up the map as you’re running to make sure you’re going the right direction.
5. You can middle-click the location on the map and it will show in-game, allowing you to quickly know what direction to head!

6. As you run, gather all of the Wood, Stone, Berries, and Mushrooms you come across (by pressing E). Punch small bushes (left-click) and trees to obtain wood and raise your unarmed skill. Also, punch any Greylings or Boars you come across. Your character will automatically pick up the items they drop once they “explode”. You can ignore Deer (you won’t be able to catch/kill them yet).
7. You’ll notice the yellow “Stamina” bar at the bottom as you Run, punch trees, Greylings, and Boars. Learn to manage your stamina because it’s a key mechanic to playing the game and engaging in combat.
8. Once you’ve gathered 5 wood and 4 stone, press Tab, select Stone Axe and Craft. This should go in your #2 hotbar slot. Press #2 to equip the axe.
9. Talk to Hugin as he appears.
10. Keep heading towards the pond and pick up every stone you see and cut down all of the small trees and bushes you come across. Ignore large trees for now.
11. Kill all of the Boars you see and collect their Leather Scraps.
12. Keep heading South, Southwest (checking your map to ensure you’re going the right direction) until you reach the clearing and pond defined on the guide map (and seen below). We’re going to build on the north side of the pond.

13. Talk to Hugin anytime he appears.
14. Once you arrive at the location shown in the guide map picture, press TAB, select hammer and click Craft. This will unlock Workbench, Campfire, and Cooking Station and put the hammer in your #3 slot. (3 Wood, 2 Stone)
15. Continue to gather wood and stone. You’ll need 5 stone and 22 wood for the next step.
16. Eat any berries or mushrooms you come across to regenerate your health. To do this hit TAB and right-click on the berries or mushrooms. You will see whatever you selected appear in the lower left corner and your health will slowly regenerate.
17. Find a flat spot on the north side of the pond to build our first camp and press 3 (select your Hammer). Right click to bring up the hammer build menu, and click on the Crafting tab. Now click on Workbench and place it on the flat ground. This will cause a ton of items to flash across the screen because it unlocks building mode. (10 wood)
18. You don’t want to place the workbench in the middle of where you’re going to build your first house, so build it to the side!
19. Next we need to enclose the Workbench so we can use it to craft (it must be sheltered to actually use). To do this, we’re going to construct 4 surrounding walls and 2 “roof” pieces. To do this, select your Hammer (by pressing 3), right-click, select the Building tab, and the Wood Wall (4th) selection. Start by placing 2 walls behind the workbench as seen in the below photo. (4 wood)

20. Next put a wall on each edge, as seen below. Use the middle mouse scroll wheel to rotate the pieces accordingly.

21. Next select either 26° or 45° thatch roof and place two roof pieces over each section as seen below.

22. You now have your first functional Workbench! Congratulations! The first thing we’re going to do is repair our items. To do this, select the Workbench (E) and click on the hammer icon hanging from the left of the Interface. Keep doing this until it becomes greyed out.
23. Next we’re going to mark the map. To do this, press M and use the mouse wheel to scroll in. Left click on the white house icon in the lower left and then double click on your cursor. This will place the icon on the map at your location. Type in “Starting Base” and press enter. The map is now marked so it will be easy for you to return to your base if you run too far away gathering resources for the next step.
24. See the little hanging hammer icon on the left? That’s the Repair icon. It will auto-repair any items that can be repaired at that station by clicking on it. The general rule of thumb is when it’s available to click, just keep clicking it to repair everything in your inventory until it’s disabled. Repairing your gear doesn’t cost anything.
25. Before we can build our first structure, we need to gather more resources. We need 5 stone and 60 wood. Remember you can return to your workbench at any time to repair your axe if the durability gets too low.
26. Cutting down and up an entire Beech tree gives 20 wood.
27. Ignore the white (Birch) trees. Those are for cutting down later with a Bronze axe. You will get a “too hard” message with your current axe.
28. Once you’ve gotten 5 stone and 60 wood, head back to your workstation. Select it and craft a Hoe. To do this click on Hoe in the Workbench craft menu and craft it (5 wood, 2 stone). This will put it in your #4 slot and unlock a collection of actions such as clear ground. Now it’s time to clear the ground to build our first camp.
29. Select the Hoe (4). By default, Level Ground is selected. This is what we want. Turn around, and clear a good section of land next to the Workbench.
30. The hoe levels the ground to the level of your feet. Use it in a circular fashion around you to get the best results. If the ground won’t level, it’s too high or too low – focus on ground that’s similar in level and keep hitting it.
31. If it starts getting dark while you’re out gathering resources, you can equip your torch to see better!
32. Try to get the ground looking similar to the picture below.

33. Now we’re going to build a very small house that contains only a fire and bed. The first thing we’re going to do is define the layout with floor pieces, but we must keep one of the floor pieces empty in order to build a campfire (which can only be built on the ground).
34. Select your Hammer, right click- and select “Wood Floor 2×2” and create 15 floors pieces in a square as seen below leaving one space empty for a fire. (30 wood)

35. Next, right-click, select the Misc tab, select Campfire, and place it where the 9th floor piece would be. (5 stone)
36. Now place a doorway in the corner of our structure on the opposite side of the fire by right-clicking (while the Hammer is active) and selecting Building and the Wood Door piece. Use the mouse wheel to rotate it properly. Note as you try to position the door, it will allow you to snap on the outside, inside, or center. Make sure you snap to the center. (2 Wood)

37. REMEMBER! You can middle-mouse click any building object to destroy it and recover materials; this is very useful if you accidentally placed an item in the wrong place or at the wrong angle.
38. Now surround the structure with 15 Walls. (30 wood)
39. Next we’re going to install vertical Wood pole 1m (the shorter ones) posts in each corner and one in between each corner. (8 wood)
40. You might have to jump on the roof of the Workbench or get on a slope to position all 4 posts. If that doesn’t work, simply construct a Wood Ladder in the right location, climb up on it, and finish the post positions.

41. If the “you could eat another bite” message comes up, eat another berry or mushroom to keep your stamina regeneration up.
42. Next we’re going to install the horizontal beam structures to connect the four corners. This will serve as the connection points for our roof. Select the horizontal Wood beam 2m and start connecting the four posts, rotating the pieces with the mouse wheel for each side. (32 wood)

43. Time for the Roof! We’re going to use the Thatch Roof 26° as seen below. Each side takes 4 pieces. To properly align the pieces from one side to another, simply rotate them 180′ with the middle mouse wheel. Note the easiest angle to place the roof pieces is from underneath (as seen below). (32 wood)

44. We’re almost done! Now we need to place a bed. With your hammer active, select the Furniture tab and click on Bed. Place it next to the fire in the middle of the building.

45. Our first little house is almost complete! You can set the bed as a spawn point by selecting it (E).
46. You should now have a Rested buff of 11 minutes! This makes a huge difference and prepares us for the next stage!
47. This house design allows the smoke from the fire to escape without killing you, but to make it more efficient in discarding the smoke, we just change the one roof tile over the fire and angle it upward. To do this, craft a ladder to get on the roof, walk next to the tile you’re going to replace (that’s over the fire). Make sure you aren’t on top of it. Have your cursor over the tile and hit the middle mouse button to destroy it. Now select the Thatch Roof 26°, rotate it accordingly and place it to meet the below image.

48. This keeps the fire covered (if it’s not covered and it rains, the fire will be put out) and allows the smoke to escape more efficiently.
49. The final step before we begin the next phase is to build 3 cooking stations over our fire for cooking the meat we’re going to farm. To do this, with the Hammer active, select the Crafting tab and Cooking Station, and place 3 of them over the fire as seen below. (6 wood)
50. If it is almost night time, or the middle of the night, Sleep in your bed by first claiming it (E) and then selecting it again.

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

Phase II – Hunting and crafting Weapons and Armor

1. Repair everything!
2. Time to make a Flint Axe. See the little pond next to your base? Run around and pick up all the Flint. There’s also some you can get by swimming a bit. While doing this, kill any Neck lizards that you see to get their Neck Tail meat. You should have at least 6 flint when you’re done. Note this also unlocks the Chopping Block improvement for the workbench, but we aren’t going to make that just yet.
3. Go to your Workbench and craft a Flint Axe. (4 wood, 6 flint)
4. Replace your Stone Axe (Slot #2) with the Flint Axe by pressing tab and dragging slot 5 to slot 2. Time to toss the Stone Axe. To get rid of it, run out of the distance of your Workbench, click on it in your inventory and then click anywhere on the screen that’s not part of the UI. This will cause your character to toss it. The reason we do this away from your workbench is so it will despawn. If you toss the item in proximity of your workbench, it will stay around as long as the workbench is around. This is how you get rid of items in your inventory.
5. Did you kill some neck and get Neck Tail? If so, go into your house and cook the meat by repeatedly pressing E while the cooking stations are selected. The meat will be tossed over the fire and you need to wait until you hear the “sizzle” sound (and you’ll see it visually change). once this happens, press E again (one time for each piece) to take it off the station and gather it. Once you’ve got the Grilled Neck Tail, eat a piece.
6. It’s possible an event will take place where boars and necks come out of the woodwords, and it says “Eikthyr rallies the creatures of the forest”. If this happens, simply run around and kill the boars and neck and take their meat and hide!
7. It’s time to hunt! Our target? Boar. They’re all around us in the clearings and forest, so they won’t be hard to find. Slash them down with your handy Flint Axe and gather their Leather Scraps and Meat.
8. As you explore, you will come across abandoned buildings. Many of them have chests that contain useful resources. Be sure to loot these! You can also construct a workstation and break them down (with middle mouse button) to obtain additional resources.
9. Once you have at least 8 Leather Scraps, head back to camp. make sure you have at least 26 wood. If not, cut down trees with your handy Flint Axe.
10. Craft a Crude Bow (10 wood, 8 leather scraps) and 60 Wooden Arrows (24 wood). Press TAB to open your inventory and right-click on the wooden arrows to equip them.
11. Don’t forget to Repair!
12. Let’s arrange our hotbar items really quick. Put Bow in #1, Axe in #2, Torch in #3, Hammer in #4 and Hoe in #5.
13. Make sure your Rest Bonus is active! If your fire needs wood, be sure to put it on. Have raw meat? Cook it over the fire!
14. Build a Chest in the corner of your house for storage. (10 wood) I recommend putting stone, trophies and extra flint in there.

15. If it’s close to night time, Sleep.
16. When ready, Equip your bow. Note the beginning Crude Bow has terrible falloff for its arrows, so it takes a bit of time to adjust to. To properly fire the bow, hold down the left mouse button and aim above your target depending on distance. Release only when the circle is as small as it can get. Make sure you have sufficient stamina to do this, as running out will cancel your draw. Note you can right-click while drawing to cancel your bow release without losing an arrow.
17. Our next goal is to Upgrade our Workbench. To do this, we need 25 flint, 20 Leather Scraps, 20 Wood and 23 Deer hide.
18. You should be eating Grilled Neck + Cooked Meat + Berries by now, for a total of 95 health.
19. The first thing we need to get is the Flint. To do this, we head to the ocean shore, Southwest of our base. You should be able to gather 25 flint in just a few minutes. When you’re done, run back to your base and renew your rest bonus. Make sure you have at least 40 arrows. If not, cut down a tree and craft them.
20. Warning! The below image shows a small patch of Black Forest by the ocean near our base. This is just a “sliver” of terrain (this happens often during world generation), but you can see it’s very different from the Meadows by the trees. Tougher monsters will spawn here, and my friend even had a Troll spawn here in his first playthrough of this map (as he was running around in a loincloth gathering wood). Be cautious whenever you see these trees and stay away from any Fir/Pine style trees this early in the game.

21. Put any extra items like Resin or stacks of meat greater than 5 into your Chest. You can split items by holding down Shift and clicking on them.
22. Now, we are going to learn how to Hunt Deer. The best way to properly hunt deer is to use sneak, and the best way to increase our Sneak skill is to do it around either Neck or Boar. We have Neck right next to our base, and Wild Boar are all around in the clearings. Plus it’s always good to get Neck Tail Meat and Leather Scraps, which we do need to upgrade our workbench.
23. Find a few Neck and/or Boar that are fairly close and press Ctrl to enter Sneak mode. Sneak back and forth at a distance, and you should see your skill increasing. You can tell how effective your sneak is by the size of the eye; when it’s a straight line, you can’t be seen. When it’s open, you’ve been seen. As your stamina is approaches 0 simply stand still and wait for it to refresh (while still being in sneak mode). Do this a few times and you’ll quickly get to level 10. Once you’re level 10, take out the neck/boar and we’re almost ready!
24. Shoot birds when you can to gather feathers! It’s best to hunt birds at night or during storms as they tend to stay on the ground more often.
25. Before we hunt deer, if you run east from your base, you will see a small shack (below). Within this shack is a bee hive. Don’t go inside or they will sting you. To safely shoot down the hive, shoot from the angle seen below. Once it’s shot, go inside and you will get both Honey and a Queen Bee. Don’t eat the Honey! Save it! We’ll build a Beehive when we return to our base from hunting.

26. Whenever I come across an abandoned house, I dismantle it. I place a workbench next to it and use the right mouse button to tear it down, gather the resources, and then take down my workbench. This is a great way to get wood.
27. Make sure you read any runestones you come across!
28. Listen for Deer. They make a distinct sound. Some may be in clearings, and others may be in the woods. When you hear them, enter sneak mode and head in the direction of the sound. When you’re ready, make sure you have enough stamina to pull your bow and shoot an arrow properly. It’s also important to note Wind is a factor; if you are up wind from deer, even in sneak mode, you’ll spook them. So try to always be downwind from any deer you’re hunting! You can tell the direction of the wind by the wispy lines that appear on the screen.
29. If you see a deer with antlers that’s a 1 or 2-star deer, and it will give more meat and hide!
30. Our goal is to get 2 Deer Trophies and 5 Deer Hide. You could get this with just 2 deer, or it may take 4 or 5.
31. Once you have 2 Deer Trophies and 5 Deer Hide, we need to focus on getting the 20 leather scraps. Hunt boars (and raise sneak if you want) to do this. Another thing you can practice is Sneak Attacking. Sneak up behind a boar and whack it.
32. Want to run faster? Press R to sheathe your weapon. When you’re ready to take it out, press R again! Also works with 1H Weapon/Shield.
33. You may need to return to your base to make more arrows or renew your rest bonus, or sleep when nightfall comes.
34. Want to get rid of Wet without waiting for it to countdown? Just jump in and out of a fire!
35. Once you have 25 flint, 20 Leather Scraps, 20 Wood and 23 Deer hide, head back to your base and level the terrain around your workshop with the hoe to prepare for placing your two upgrades.
36. Use your hammer and craft a Tanning Rack and Chopping Block. Note you will want to place these next to the Workbench. I recommend putting one on either side.
37. The Tanning Rack unlocks Leather Armor (Chest, Legs, and Helmet), and Fire Arrows. The Chopping Block just raises the Workbench Level from 2 (from the Tanning Rack) to 3.

38. Now, craft Leather Tunic, Leather Pants and a Leather Helmet (18 Deer Hide). Equip them and we should have 6 armor! It’s a good start!
39. Remember that Queen Bee we got? Time to make a Beehive! You can craft it under the Crafting menu. I recommend putting it a bit of a distance from the Workbench. You can now farm Honey from the beehive, up to 4 every 2 days, and you can create multiple hives based on the extra queens you find as you adventure through the meadows. Note Honey is the key ingredient in crafting potions!

Phase III – Upgrading Weapons and Killing the First Boss

1. Now it’s time to upgrade our Flint Axe, Crude Bow, and craft a Wooden Shield (and upgrade that) so we can prepare to explore the Black Forest. First we need to learn how to use an Axe and Shield, so we need to gather 10 wood, 4 resin and 4 leather scraps. After that, we’re going to upgrade our Crude bow to +2, which takes 5 wood, 4 leather scraps and 1 deer hide, and finally we’ll upgrade our Flint Axe to +2, which takes 3 flint and 2 leather scraps.
2. Hunt for Birds while you’re out – we’re going to need at least 10 feathers!
3. Head back down to the shore to the southwest of our base and gather around 10 more flint, then head back into the woods towards the clearing and start farming boars for leather scraps. Hunt any dear you come across, try to sneak attack boars, and work on refining your combat techniques.
4. We need a total of 9 Flint, 26 Leather Scrap, and 25 Wood. When you’ve gathered these resources, upgrade your Flint Axe and Crude Bow and craft and upgrade a Wooden Shield.
5. When you craft your shield, put it in slot #3. You can toss your torch (don’t need it).
6. Now is the time to start learning how to block damage with a Shield. Try it with Greylings and Boars. Equip your Axe and Shield (2 & 3) and right-click to block. You parry (cause the target to stagger and do extra damage) if you synchronize your block in the middle of their attack. Learn to properly block and parry!
7. We’re about ready to go after the first boss! To do this, we want to craft 60 Fire Arrows (24 Wood, 24 Resin, 6 Feathers).
8. When crafted, right-click the arrows in your inventory to equip them.
9. Make sure you have 2 Deer Trophies in your inventory. Also make sure you have 2 Cooked Meat, 2 Neck Tail and 4 Berries.
10. Repair your gear, and sleep if it’s evening.
11. Time to head to the first boss! Press M to bring up the map, and you should see the marking for Eikthyr to the west of your starting point. If you want to see where this is in-game, hover over the point, press the middle mouse button and press M to see the point in-game.
12. Head to the Altar of Eikthyr! On your way there don’t waste your Fire Arrows on any targets; we need them for the boss.
13. When you get to the Altar, make sure you eat Cooked Meat + Neck Tail + Berries. Then place the 2 Deer Trophies in your #8 hotbar, highlight the Altar and press 8 to summon the boss.
14. The fight is very easy with Fire Arrows. You just Kite him. Get behind the stones when he reers up to do his electrical attack. I was able to do him with 22 arrow hits.
15. When he’s dead, run over his body to pick up his head (a trophy). Make sure you have room in your inventory.
16. Now we run to the place we started the game at; the boss trophy altar. It’s just to the east of the Eikthyr fight. When you get there, walk up to the stone that has the image of the deer on it, mouse over the hook and select Attach Item to the Trophy Hook. Next, while you have the stone highlighted, press E to activate Eikthyr’s power.
17. You now have the Power of Eikthyr selected in the lower left. To activate this power (don’t do it yet!) press F. It’s a 20 minute cooldown, and the power lasts for 4 minutes.
18. It’s time to run back to our Starting Base. When you get there, go to your Workstation, Repair all, and craft the Antler Pickaxe. Put it in your #6 slot.
19. Sleep, because tomorrow is a big day and we need the entire day to do what’s next!

PART II – THE BLACK FOREST BIOME (TIER 2)

What we’ll accomplish: Start our new Main Base, Explore the Black Forest, Gather Surtling Cores, Mine Copper Ore, Smelt Ore, Make Bronze Weapons and Armor, and upgrade our gear!

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 after the Elder, “The Ground is Shaking” event unlocks and can be triggered any time. 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.

Phase I – Running to and Starting our New Main Base

1. It’s time to leave our beloved Starting Base and move to the location where we are going to build our main base.
2. The first thing we’re going to do is take the important resources we need to rebuild what we have at our new location. Just a heads up; you are going to leave a number of items behind. Don’t worry.
3. Items you are going to leave behind (in the Chest): Trophies, Seeds, Uncooked Meat (more than 20), Stone (more than 5).
4. What you are taking: Deer Hide, Leather Scraps, Resin, Arrows, Feathers, Berries/Cooked Food, Greydwarf Eyes, Queen Bee, Honey, Hard Antler, Uncooked Meat (only up to 20), Stone (only 5).

5. Repair your gear!
6. Now we’re going to break down our Beehive, Chopping Block, Tanning Rack and Workbench (equip your hammer and use the middle mouse button to destroy them). Don’t worry about the enclosure around the workbench. Make sure you pick everything up. You should have 25 flint, 40 wood and one queen bee from dismantling the rack, block, hive, and workbench. Your weight should be under 300 (~250). If it’s above 300, you may have too much stone or something else not in the list.
7. The Black Forest is very dangerous because it’s the first Biome where the player can be attacked not only by groups of tough monsters, but Trolls as well; and a Troll will generally 1-shot your character at this point.
8. Ready to run through the Black Forest? We’re going to use the power of Eikthyr to make the journey as quick as possible! Press F and follow the route on the map below. You’ll hug the eastern side of the island, running south along the ocean once you come across it.

9. Mark Copper deposits on your map as you run!

10. Pick up Thistle and Blueberries! Run away from Trolls!
11. See the below picture and map location for our new base. As you can see, it’s on a corner of land, and the land is raised well above sea level. This is our new home. Make sure you build a few layers up from the shore so we don’t have water coming into our house during storms.

12. Use your Hoe to Level the Ground and build your Workbench and enclose it. Now build the Chopping Block and Tanning Rack as you had it at your previous base. You can put the Beehive down as well.

13. As you can see, we have rocks in the way. Well, we have a pick now! Select the Pickaxe (#6) and get rid of those rocks! Make sure you don’t accidentally pick into the ground, which will “mine” the ground and lower the level. If you accidentally do this, switch to your hoe and try to level it back. If you can’t, you can select the Hoe, right-click and select the Raise Ground option, and raise the ground to where you need it to be.
14. Clear the area so we can put the foundation for our new home down!
15. We need a total of 322 Wood and 8 Stone to build our home. You can either go out and gather all of the wood at once and pile it at the build site, or gather, then build, then gather again, then build some more. It’s up to you.
16. The foundation takes 12 1m Wood Poles (12 wood) and 28 2m horizontal Wood Beams (56 Wood).
17. When you used your pick on the rocks, you picked up a lot of stone. If you have a stack of 50, you can craft (from the Misc tab) a stone pile. If it’s less than 50 just craft a chest next to your workbench and put the stone there.
18. Now we’re going to raise one section of the ground up so we can build a campfire on it because our building is raised. Make sure you have 8 stone, and select a center side area of your building and raise it twice. It should look like the below.

19. Switch your Hoe back to Level Ground so you don’t accidentally select it and raise ground somewhere you don’t want to.
20. Now to put the 23 floor boards down, leaving the space above the raised ground open. (46 Wood)
21. Now put the Campfire on the raised ground. Don’t worry about it being perfectly level with the floor boards.

22. Next, we build the wall supports with 10 vertical 2m wood poles (20 wood).

23. Next, we build the walls and doors. I put in 4 doors and a total of 16 walls (40 wood).
24. Now, place 8 vertical wood pole 2m for support. (16 wood)
25. Ladders can be quite useful if you’re having trouble placing the poles – just build them against the walls and run up to the top for better placement on top of the wall segments!
26. Next, connect the vertical poles with 2m horizontal poles (20 total). (40 wood)

27. Time for the roof! Select the 26° thatch roof and have at it. Don’t forget to ventelate the area above the campfire as we did with the last house. (48 wood)
28. Now place 4 wood stairs (below the doors) (8 wood)
29. Place your bed next to the campfire. (10 wood)
30. Build 3 Cooking Stations over your campfire. (6 wood)
31. Build 2 storage Chests wherever you would like. (20 wood)
32. Place all extra items in your storage chests (stone, wood, feathers, resin, greydwarf eyes, etc).
33. If it was raining while you were building, let’s clean up that wood! Select the repair option for your hammer and start left-clicking on everything!
34. Bring up the map, and double click the little house icon on your location and write “Main Base”.
35. Congratulations! Your new main base first structure is DONE! Sleep if it’s late or night time.

Phase II – Scouting Burial Chambers and Copper Ore Veins

Before we dive into the Bronze Age, we have to scout the location of Burial Chambers and Copper Deposits around us.

1. Repair all of your gear! Make sure you have your rested buff! Put some cooked meat and berries/mushrooms in your storage just in case you die so you can eat them for your corpse run.
2. While this guide uses a predefined seed and we know where the Crypts we need to explore are, it’s still important to go through the process of exploring because it’s a key part of the game and necessary in randomized worlds.
3. This is a SCOUTING trip. Your goal is to scout the Black Forest areas to the North, South and West. Your goal is to find and mark Burial Crypts and Copper Deposits on your map.
4. This scouting trip will take 3 in-game days. One day per direction. The below map shows what regions you are going to explore and in what order.

5. When you encounter a Copper Deposit, you mark it the way you did when you ran from your starting base.
6. When you encounter a Burial Chamber, you use the bottom map icon (the pillar with a circle). Ignore troll caves. You don’t have to write anything for Copper or Burial Chambers. An icon is all you need.

7. Make sure your gear is all repaired and you have at least 2 different foods active (with one of them being Cooked Meat). Also make sure you have at least 4 cooked meat and 4 berries or mushrooms. Start Recon in the morning after you have slept and have rest bonus.
8. We don’t go southwest because there is swamp there, and it’s far too dangerous. If you see big swampy trees unlike anything in the Black Forest, stay away.
9. NORTH RECON (REGION 1): head west per the above map. You will run through an abandoned town with nasty undead Draugr. Ignore those. Keep going west until you hit the Black Forest. Activate Eikthyr if available. Keep going. Once the west shore is in sight, turn north and make a full circle moving from the outside into the middle. Remember to keep your weapon/shield/bow sheathed for faster movement speed. Your goal is recon, not fighting. Avoid all fights.
10. Skeletons almost always guard the entrance to Burial Chambers, so if you come under attack, kill them (Melee is best with axe/shield for now), find the entrance and mark it. Hugin will also appear the first time you find a Chamber. Once marked, keep going!
11. Gather any thistle, mushrooms or blueberries you come across.
12. AVOID FIGHTING, INCLUDING TROLLS. You’re here to do recon, not fight. You’ll kill the big blue bastards later!
13. Once North Recon is complete, you should have come across at least 4 Burial Chambers. Get back to camp before nightfall.
14. SOUTH RECON (REGION 3): Once again, make sure you are full of food, and have at least 4 meat and 4 of something else. Repair any equipment and make sure you have the full rest bonus.
15. Head south down the shoreline, but stay inland a little so you can see the shore in the distance and get the edges revealed on the very edge of the map. You will end up making a U shape as the shoreline comes back around. When this happens, follow the same circular pattern we did while doing Recon north. You’ll see the Trader on your map. Use him as the marker for heading back north to move your exploration circle inward. Don’t interact with the Trader yet; keep your reon going since we have limited sunlight. Mark all Copper and Burial Chambers on your map accordingly. Ignore troll caves.
16. Stay away from the Swamp and Mountain biome. The enemies in those areas will 1-shot kill you.
17. WEST RECON (REGION 2): Once again, make sure you’re rested, equipment is repaired and you have food. Head directly south until you see the mountains. Do not get close to the Mountain Biome; if you aggro a Wolf, you will be 1-shot. Hug the west side of the Mountain Biome until you are heading south and can see the swamp, then head west and north, hugging the swamp. Like the Mountain biome, avoid the swamp at all costs. The swamp will turn to the west as you come across a big ravine. Head west until you hit the ocean. As you hug the coast north and then east, you’ll come across the bottom exploration of your north run. Now you know what remains to be explored. You should reveal 8 crypts, showing that the west of our base is the best run for Surtling cores!

Time to delve for glowing red goodness!

Phase III – Running Burial Chambers (30 Surtling Cores)

Before we can properly Mine Copper and Tin to smelt Bronze, we need to build 2x Charcoal Kilns and 2x Smelters. This requires 20 Surtling Cores, which can (at this time) only be acquired in Burial Chambers.

Because this is a static seed map, I can direct you to exactly which chambers to run to obtain the cores you need.

If you have trouble seeing in the Burial Chambers, you can adjust the digital brightness for your gaming monitor. To do this with an Nvidia card: Go to the Nvidia Control Panel > Display > Adjust Desktop Color Settings > Select the monitor you play on > Set Brightness to 75%.

1. Don’t forget to check your Beehive for honey! Throw it in storage for now; do not eat it! Make sure you check every 2 in-game days.
2. Kill any Greydwarves you come across so you can get their Greydwarf Eyes.
3. Don’t go in the Burial Chambers at night; it will cause 1-2 star skeletons to spawn more often!
4. Get your Rest Bonus. Make sure to Sleep if it’s afternoon or later. Eat Food. We’re going to be fighting! We are also going to prepare for Trolls, which you will probably encounter. The good news is we are going to kill them. If you don’t have them already, gather the resources to craft 100 Fire Arrows (40 wood, 40 resin, 10 feathers).
5. Clear your inventory. Build more storage Chests if necessary. Your character should only be carrying your hotbar items, the armor you’re wearing, fire arrows and food. Everything else should be in storage.
   

6. Head for Burial Chambers 1 marked on the above map and complete them in the defined order.
7. If you have trouble seeing, craft and use a torch; but be ready to equip your axe/shield on a moment’s notice!
8. Equip your Axe and Shield. We’ll be melee within the Chambers.
9. When you’re done exploring a chamber, just left click on the icon on your map, and it will be marked with a red X showing it’s complete! This works for any icon on the map.
10. The Chambers generally have 3 branches; left, right, and forward. You’ll want to explore all 3 in full.
11. Immediately destroy evil bone piles; they spawn skeletons! Note if you shoot bone piles from afar, they won’t spawn and you can kill them from a distance.
12. Surtling Cores are glowing red cubes. Grab every single one you can! This will unlock Smelter and Charcoal Kiln.

13. Gather all of the yellow mushrooms you find!
14. Careful of Rancid Remains (the green skeletons)! They poison!
15. Grab all the precious stones and coins you see. Open and loot all chests as well. These coins and precious stones are used to buy items from the Trader! Save them in storage!
16. When you come across a glowing red rune called “Vegvisir The Elder” select it. This will reveal the location of the Elder (which you already saw doing Recon to the south).
17. Here is the core count for each chamber: Chamber 1 = 6, Chamber 2 = 4, Chamber 3 = 5, Chamber 4 = 4, Chamber 5 = 11. Total run = 30.
18. Careful of ghosts! They can be tough because you can’t see their attack to parry it; you have to listen for it. And they can hit hard.
19. If you want to fight Trolls, you just kite and kill them with Fire Arrows. It takes between 15-20 to kill a troll. Just fire, run (without sprint) and use your sprint when he swings. As he recovers from his swing, fire again, run, rinse and repeat.
20. Congratulations! You should now have 30 Surtling Cores!

We’re now ready to lay the foundation for our upcoming empire!

Phase IV – Setting up a Mining Base, Portals, Smelting and Bronze

In this section we are going to set up our mining base camp for Copper, unlock Bronze weapons and Portals, and start the Smelting process!

As I mentioned previously, we skip farming and crafting Troll Armor. The only advantage it provides is for builds that specialize in Sneak. If you want to create a stealth character in the future, Troll Armor is great; but for this guide, we’re learning how to tank and spank. As such, we go straight into fully upgraded Bronze armor.

1. Make sure you have your full rest bonus!
2. Don’t forget to check your Beehive and save the Honey in storage!
3. Obtain 80 stone. Easiest way is to run around and use your pickaxe on rocks.
4. Clear the area on the south side of your base (as seen below).

5. Build 2nd workbench outside of the south side of your base. You don’t need to cover it since we’re only using it for building objects.
6. Build 2 Charcoal Kilns (40 Stone, 10 Cores)
7. Build 2 Smelters (40 Stone, 10 Cores). Circle Hole takes Coal. Square hole takes ore. Be careful not to place them Smelters too close together, as it may prevent you from interacting with the material intake and outflow slots.
8. Build a storage chest outside next to stairs. (10 wood)
9. I recommend the layout seen below.

10. Collect 50 wood and fill each Kiln so when you return there’s plenty of Coal.
11. TIME TO MINE TIN! Make sure you have food, rest bonus and your pickaxe is repaired! Empty your Inventory of everything except your hotbar items, armor, and food!
12. Run up the coast (North) per the below map and start mining Tin Deposits as you find them, heading north along the Black Forest coastline. Tin Deposits only spawn on the coastline of the Black Forest or Plains.
13. You should be able to hold 30-32 tin in your inventory. Toss stone and any other items you have that aren’t food or essential.
14. When you’re full bring up your map and put a white dot mark called “END TIN”. The reason we’re doing this is because we need to come back when we run out.

15. Run back to base. Put 20 of the Tin Ore in the Smelters (10 in each, the square side). Put the rest of the ore in the storage box.
16. Grab all of the Coal and start loading the other side of the smelters, and they should come to life! While they’re running, we’re going to go and get our first load of copper, but first…
17. TIME TO SET UP OUR COPPER MINING BASE!
18. Start with a new day (sleep) and get that rest bonus!
19. Run to the point defined below.

20. When you arrive, clear the ground and any trees or rocks in the way and set up a covered workbench and storage chest. This is going to be our main mining base for Bronze. Look at all of those juicy nodes nearby. Put any core wood, stone, wood, or anything else you want to save for later into the chest.
21. Bring up your map and place a white circle icon at your new base location and call it MINING CAMP.
22. When you harvest Pine for the first time, you’ll get Core Wood. This unlocks the core building poles, Stagbreaker, and Sharp Stakes.
23. The Stagbreaker is a ton of fun, but I don’t really use it because a shield is so important. You can play with it at end-game, but I recommend sticking to a mace and shield while progressing through the biomes since it teaches better combat skills and raises those skills for end-game.
24. The first thing you want to do is dig around the parameter of the copper vein. You’ll find it’s much larger than it looks. This way you know where the edges are and don’t lose out on what might be hidden underground.

25. Run back and repair your Stag Pickaxe at the workbench as necessary.
26. Mining without rest bonus sucks; don’t worry, this should be the last time you have to mine without once since we’re going to set up portals!
27. You need to mine at least 25 copper ore. This number is important; make sure you have at least 25. You might have to make two trips if nightfall comes before you have 24. When you finally have 25 return to your base!
28. When you arrive, there should be 20 tin bars waiting for you. You’re now entering the Kiln and Smelter management process. You need to keep the Kilns going to produce coal which you must fill the Smelters with while also keeping the Smelters full of ore. That’s why we made two of each.
29. Go out and farm 50 more wood and load those kilns up. Also throw your copper ore in the smelter (5 in each). Once the kilns pop out 5 coal each, move the coal to each smelter and wait for the copper bars to come out. When the first Copper Bar comes out, a new option to craft a Forge appears.
30. Metal bars and ore are very heavy, which is why we created the storage chest near the smelters to store ore and bars in.
31. Build your Forge (4 stone, 4 coal, 10 wood, 6 copper).

32. Crafting one Bronze Bar requires 2 Copper Bars and 1 Tin bar, so it’s a 2:1 ratio of Copper to Tin. Once you’ve smelted all of your copper ore and have at least half of the tin bars, pick them up.
33. Go to the forge and craft at least 8 Bronze bars.
34. If you have weight issues and can’t make it up the steps, just access your storage chest from the top of the steps!
35. Time to craft a Bronze Axe (4 Wood, 8 Bronze, 2 Leather Scraps)
36. Replace your Flint Axe with the Bronze Axe (I put the flint axe in a storage container in case I need it for a death run)
37. Time to harvest Fine Wood! You can now cut down those “too hard” white Birch Trees. There are many around your base.
38. This unlocks numerous new craftable items including a Fermenter, Furniture, and the Ward; but most importantly (and what we’re going to set up now) — a Portal.
39. Next, we need to harvest 40 Fine Wood to set up our two portals.
40. Time to build our first Portal! You need 20 Fine Wood, 10 Greydwarf Eyes, and 2 Surtling Cores for each portal. I clear a space up behind the Kiln in the direction of the mine and place it there. Note you will go in and come out of the portal on the side the Runes are facing, so I recommend facing the runes towards your base. When the portal is built, select it and give it the tag of MINECAMP1. All upper case (portal tags are case sensitive!)

41. Make sure you have no Bars or Ore on you for the next step! If you do, put them in a storage chest!
42. After building your first portal, make sure you have 20 Fine Wood, 10 Greydwarf Eyes and 2 Surtling cores on you because we’re going to run back to our Mining Camp and build the other end of this portal!
43. Run to your Mining camp and build the other portal. Set the tag to MINECAMP1 and it should activate! Walk through the portal, and Voila!

44. Now, for those who don’t know, you cannot transport Ore or Bars through a portal. This is by design so players are required to use other transportation methods (Ship, Cart, etc.). But why did we set up portals when we can’t transport ore through them? So we can quickly and easily repair our bronze gear (which requires a Forge, not a Workbench). Plus it allows us to work late and leave the area as soon as dark falls without having to run back, and reinstate our rest bonus by simply walking through the teleporter. It increases our efficiency tenfold.

Phase V – Rest Bonus, Road, Cart, Mining, and Bronze Items

Now that we have our base set up, it’s time to get to work. The 30 Tin we farmed will allow us to smelt 30 bronze, but we’ll need 60 copper to make 30 bronze (2:1 Copper to Tin Ratio to make Bronze). On top of that, to make the Bronze Armor, Mace, Shield, Pickaxe and upgrade everything, it’s going to take 225 total bronze. We have a lot of work to do, including getting more Tin.

First, a note about the Ward, which is unlocked with Fine Wood. The Ward is a unique item you can craft in your base that not only notifies you if any part of your base is under attack, but it also prevents other players from unlocking your doors, building within the radius of your Ward (which is quite large), or looting your chests. Playing solo, most people don’t need wards (unless you want to know if somebody is beating on one of your walls), but for multiplayer, even with friends, Wards are a must-have. This guide doesn’t include building a Ward, but you are welcome to do so anytime.

1. Make sure your gear is repaired and you have ample food and rest bonus. Sleep if it’s late afternoon or later.
2. Don’t forget to check your Beehive and save the Honey in storage!
3. The first thing we’re going to do is improve our rest bonus. Right now we’re at 4 comfort and 11 minutes. Let’s get that up to 7. We do this with the Furniture that was unlocked. We’re going to use that. First, it’s important to note some items cancel themselves out. For example, a Chair, Stool, and bench all share the same comfort “category”. So do the banners. So we only need one of each shared category.
4. First, place a Table up against the wall (6 Fine Wood). This gives +1.
5. Next, place a Chair next to the table (4 Fine Wood). This gives +2.
6. Place a Deer Rug near the fire (4 Deer Hide). This gives +1.
7. Now hang a Blue Banner anywhere you’d like in the building (6 Leather Scraps, 2 Fine Wood, 4 Blueberries). This gives +1.
8. There we go! We’re now at 9 Comfort and have a time of 16 minutes rest bonus. We just got an extra 5 minutes of bonus. That makes a huge difference when mining!
9. Build new storage chests whenever you need more room! You can stack them by building a small horizontal floor piece (as seen below) and then placing the chests on top of the piece.

10. You should have at least 1 extra bronze bar, or be able to make one more bronze bar. Do this, and then craft 20 bronze nails. This will unlock the Cart, the Karve (ship), and a few other items.
11. Before we take the portal, go to your upgraded workbench and upgrade your Hoe to +3 (3 wood, 3 stone). Feel free to upgrade your Hammer to +3 as well if you would like.
12. Keep the Bronze Nails on you and take the portal to your mining camp.
13. Now we’re going to craft a Cart (20 wood, 10 bronze nails). It’s under the Misc tab.
14. We’re going to make a ROAD that goes from the mining camp to your base. We are going to use the Hoe and its “leveling” feature to do this.
15. The fastest route back to our base is to the southeast towards the ocean, but there’s a steep cliff between the mining base location and the camp. This is OK because we’ll be dragging a full cart DOWN the cliff, and not up. This is where we learn to path! Even though the Hoe has a Pathen feature (which works great), that doesn’t adjust the terrain at all, and we want to flatten the terrain as we make the path. So make sure your trusty Hoe is repaired, head southwest and start making a path to your base! Below are a few images showing the path I chose.

16. With normal use, the Hoe will try to raise the ground to the level your feet are currently at. To get around this on steep slopes (so we don’t try to raise the ground too high), we hold down SHIFT for the hoe to level at the position of the cursor. This makes it a ton easier to level a pathway down a steep slope!
17. Make sure you clear out all trees, stumps and rock. The path needs to be as smooth and wide as possible to ensure the cart rolls smoothly.
18. Once you have completed your path and are at your base, it’s time to mine more Copper so we can make a Bronze Pickaxe (3 Core Wood, 10 Bronze). Mine the required copper ore (20 if you have none) and run back to your base with the ore (we don’t need to use the cart yet). We’re doing this right quick so we can start using the Bronze Pickaxe, which will let us mine faster than the current Antler Pickaxe. Also make sure you have at least 3 Core Wood on you (from Pine Trees around your mining camp).
19. Always remember to stack your stone by your mining site – you’ll be coming back to get it later on!
20. Don’t forget you can return to your base through the portal to reactivate your rest bonus. Always do this when you can, especially while mining!
21. Go back to base and smelt the Copper Ore and when it’s all ready, make 10 Bronze then build your Bronze Pickaxe!
22. You can toss the old pick. We won’t be using it again. The next thing to do is upgrade our nice new pick to +3 so we can mine as efficiently as possible.
23. Go through the portal and mine 14 more Copper. Run back to base.
24. Smelt the Copper. You can built it outside on the other side of the wall.
25. Build Anvils (5 Wood, 2 Bronze). I build it on the other side of the wall from the Forge since our little house is getting small. Note I put extended floors out but don’t cover with a roof. Crafting improvements don’t need to be sheltered.
26. Next upgrade your Bronze Pickaxe to +2 (1 Core Wood, 5 Bronze). This increases damage and durability.
27. Next we’re going to upgrade our pickaxe to +3, but that requires a Forge Cooler. So we’ll need 25 Fine Wood, and 10 Copper for the Forge Cooler, but also 10 Bronze for upgrading the Pickaxe to +3. We should only have around 5 Tin Bars left, so this will also use up our Tin.
28. Portal back to your Mine site and mine 30 Copper Ore. Don’t worry about the weight, because we’re going to use the Cart for the first time!
29. As you’re mining, when you get 15 ore, just run it to the cart and throw it in. That’s also a good time to port back to base and repair your pickaxe.
30. Start storing all of the extra resources like Wood, Core Wood, Stone, etc. in your cart!
31. When the cart is full of 30 ore, we’re going to also go and gather up all the stones we’ve dug up and throw them in.
32. Make sure your Pickaxe is repaired to max before the next step.
33. Time to get a bit more Tin, because we’re running low. Remember when we marked the map where we left off? It’s just north of our mine site. Run to that location and keep going up the coast, gathering as much Tin as you can until your inventory is full.
34. When you’re full, add a new “END TIN” mark on your map and delete the old one.
35. Toss the Tin in the Cart and let’s do this!
36. Now, position your character between the two front poles and move your mouse over one of the poles and press E. This should connect you. Congratulations! You’re now a Viking Carthorse!
37. Time to run this handy cart back to our main base on the road we made.
38. Pull the cart up right between the Smelter and chest and unload the ore into the chest and unload the stone and wood, and place that behind the smelters as stacks.
39. Now smelt all of the copper. Don’t make Bronze out of it yet.
40. While the smelting is going, destroy the cart with your axe! Do it! Just don’t hit any nearby objects.
41. Pick up the Bronze Nails. Now we don’t have to drag the cart back. All we do is rebuilt it on the other side of the portal!
42. When the smelting is ready, build a Forge Cooler (25 Fine Wood, 10 Copper). You can build it outside on the other side of the wall next to the Anvil. Congratulations! Your forge is now +3.
43. Now smelt the copper and tin to make 10 Bronze bars.
44. Time to upgrade our Bronze Pickaxe to +3 with 10 Core Wood and 10 Bronze Bars!
45. Remember our Antler Pickaxe? Its damage was 18. Your +3 Bronze Pickaxe now does 35. Not only are you mining faster, you also have twice the durability.
46. Now it’s time to build and max out all of our Bronze Armor, a new Mace and Shield, and upgrade our Axe! We are also going to upgrade our Workbench. In the end, we need 115 Bronze, 6 Deer Hide, 8 Leather Scraps and 12 Wood. This means we need 230 Copper Ore and 115 Tin Ore. I personally recommend mining 250 copper ore and 125 tin so you have some extra.
47. Once you go through the portal to your Mining Camp, rebuild the Cart.
48. Bronze Armor is DONE and our Armor rating is 36.
49. Swap items to update Hotkeys. Bronze Mace #2, Bronze Shield #3 and Bronze Axe #7.
50. For the next part, we will need 3 Bronze Bar, 50 Fine Wood, 40 Core Wood and 14 Deer Hide.
51. First, let’s improve our Workbench to Level 4. Build an Adze (10 Fine Wood, 3 Bronze) near it.
52. Now we’re going to craft and fully upgrade a shiny new Finewood Bow. Just wait until you shoot this beauty.
53. Replace the Crude Bow in Slot #1 with the new Finewood Bow.
54. Toss all of the old items: Wooden Shield. Crude Bow. Leather armor. Get rid of all of it. I like to throw it in the ocean a bit of a distance from my base.
55. Take the 5 remaining Bronze Bars and craft 100 Bronzehead arrows.
56. And there we go! You are MAXED OUT with the best weapons and armor available within the Tier 2 Biome!
57. Try your new mace out! Note it has a devastating middle-mouse button attack!

Let’s have a quick chat about Weapons. One may wonder “why make a Bronze Mace instead of a Sword?” The reason is at this time, Clubs (Maces) are currently the best weapons in the game, especially for end-game. You can go with swords, but you won’t be able to melee the Tier 3 Boss. Clubs also do more damage to skeletons, wolves and other end-game mobs. While the Silver Sword is very nice, and a great option for the current final boss, Clubs just outperform everything else as a 1H weapon with a shield currently. So by using Maces (Club skill) we begin to raise that skill to increase our damage from here on out.

Phase VI – Getting Ancient Seeds and Killing The Elder

Before we can venture to the next Biome, we have to killed the Boss and get the key he drops to open the Swamp Crypts. Killing the Elder is very easy at our current state because we have the best armor and ranged weapon available. But first, we need to get 3 Ancient Seeds. Remember those purple Greydwarf spawn areas in the Black Forest? We need to take down 3 of those.

1. Don’t forget to check your Beehive and save the Honey in storage!
2. Make sure you are rested and have 3 different foods active. If it’s afternoon or later, sleep.
3. Craft enough Fire Arrows to have a stack of at least 80. Don’t select them yet; keep the Bronze Arrows selected.
4. Locate the Elder spawn position on the map to the south of you. Activate the Eikthyr special ability and run there.
5. Want to raise your new mace/club skill? Use the mace on a rock!
6. We need to locate and destroy 3 Purple Greydwarf spawn piles around the Elder spawn area to get our Ancient Seeds. The image below shows what the spawn locations look like. Note some piles will give 2 seeds vs. 1.

7. Once you have 3 Ancient Seeds, check the time of day. Make sure it’s not afternoon or evening, and make sure you have at least 8 minutes of Rest Bonus. If you don’t, you’ll need to run back to your base and rest.
8. If it’s afternoon or later, or you don’t have at least 8 minutes of Rest Bonus, you’ll want to go back to your base and sleep.
9. When you’re ready, go to the Elder Altar, load the seeds into Slot #8 and use it on the Ancient Bowl. This will summon The Elder!
10. Just kite him around the pillars, and use the pillars to block his ranged tangle attack. It’s a pretty easy fight.
11. When he’s down, pick up the Elder Trophy and Swamp Key.
12. Because the starting Sacrifice Altar is so far away from our base, and we will have additional trophies to hang there, we are going to build a portal.
13. Get 20 Greydwarf Eyes, 40 Fine Wood, and 4 Surtling Cores. Once you have those, build a new portal next to your Mine Base portal and call it “ALTAR”.
14. Verify you have the necessary materials to build the other end of the portal and take your MINECAMP1 portal and run north to the Altar Stones.
15. Want to run faster? Unequip your Bronze Chest and Pants. Just don’t engage in any combat or you won’t have the armor to protect you!
16. When you get there, hang the head of The Elder. Do not activate his power.
17. Near the stones, clear a spot and build a Workbench and then a Portal. Name it ALTAR. Once connected, step through it back to your base.

PART III – THE SWAMP BIOME (TIER 3)

What we’ll accomplish: Exploring the Swamp, Getting tons of Iron, Making max-level Tier 3 weapons and armor, learn new food recipes and building parts.

Congratulations! You’ve mastered the Bronze age! Ready for the Swamp? Poison is deadly, and the leeches paired with Draugr and their dungeon spawn piles can be a recipe for disaster. Let me preface by saying this: NEVER go into the swamp at night. This includes being in Crypts at night. Don’t do it. Just don’t. Not until later when you have a complete set of upgraded Iron Armor and gear.

While we have a bit of swamp west of our base, there are only 4 Crypts in it, and it’s important that we learn how to sail and transport Iron Ore with our ship, so we’re going to head to the Swamp to the east of our base.

One note I want to make is many players by this time focus on building a new base. You can do that before you head into the swamp. One reason we haven’t torn down or replaced or expanded our base was to show how efficient a small building can be. But as we progress through the game, it becomes necessary to set up a portal network and extend the crafting and storage areas quite a bit. Once we discover and start using Iron, we can also raise our Comfort level quite a bit. The current goal is to get iron as soon as possible and set up a structure of iron farming and transport so we can maximize our gear and unlock some awesome weapons and armor to prepare for the next Biome: Mountains. And just wait until you encounter a pack of wolves!

Phase I – Preparing Poison Resist Potions

1. The first thing we need to do is build another campfire next to our current one. Remove the floor piece and build the fire.
2. Build a Cauldron (10 Tin) over the new fire. This will unlock a bunch of new recipes for Mead and Food. Don’t forget to adjust the ceiling to let the smoke out!
3. You should easily have 20 honey by now. We need to make 2 Mead Base: Poison Resistance (10 Honey, 5 Thistle, 1 Neck Tail, 10 Coal). We do this at the Cauldron. Gather any additional materials necessary.
4. Once you have two Poison Resistance Mead Bases, it’s time to build two Fermenters. You’ll need 60 Fine Wood, 10 Bronze and 20 Resin.
5. Our little house is getting a bit tight, but we can make it work. Put the two of them side by side in the open end within the house. Once they’re built, put a Mead Base in each one. But now we need to close the open areas behind them with walls or we will get a “too exposed” message with them (and they won’t work). Check them to make sure they don’t say “too exposed” when done. Sometimes it takes a few seconds to update the message.

6. It will take two in-game days for them to create the potions. That’s OK, we need to build a boat and make sure we have materials for two more portals!
7. We also want to make sure we have enough storage. Build and stack additional chests as necessary.
8. I generally create 10 storage chests, two stacked on each other, all side by side, and use them according to what Biome the items dropped in. So the left storage containers are Meadows, The next are Black Forest, the next are Swamp, etc. I use the top storage container for generic drops (Leather Scraps and Deer Hide for Meadows, etc.), and the bottom storage container for Food drops (Thistle and Bluebarries for Black Foreset, etc.).

Phase II – Swamp Preparation

While we wait for our potions to get ready, it’s time to gather the resources for building two portals and our Karve boat. I want to mention the technique of Tacking, which is used when you have to sail against the wind. Here’s a link to a Valheim Simple Sailing Tacking Guide that’s very helpful.

For those who are new to the game, here’s a video that overviews how to sail in the game.

1. The first thing we’re going to do is build our ship. You can also build a small dock if you would like, using horizontal beams to anchor in the water and hold up the floor boards.
2. You need 4 Bronze Bars, 30 Fine Wood, 10 Deer Hide, and 20 Resin. Once you have the Bars, craft 80 nails.
3. You don’t need to build a dock, but it can be fun to do. When you’re ready, build the Karve (30 Fine Wood, 10 Deer Hide, 20 Resin, 80 Bronze Nails = 4 Bronze Bars).

4. Next, we need the materials for 2 portals. Half of them you’ll take with you. Gather 40 Fine Wood, 20 Greydwarf Eyes and 4 Surtling Cores.
5. Once you have these materials, build a 3rd Portal at your base and tag it SWAMP1.
6. Make sure you have the materials on your character to be able to build a Workbench and another Portal.
7. Once the fermenting is done, you will have 12 Poison Resistance Potions. Keep 10 and put 2 in storage.
8. Make sure you have the Swamp Key on your character!

Phase III – Sailing to the Swamp and Building the Portal

The swamp we’re going to is in the first island to the east of our base, and it has 20 Sunken Crypts. Given the average amount of Iron Scrap from a crypt is over 30, there’s more than 600 icon scrap available for us to obtain. That’s more than enough to create max upgraded Iron tier armor and weapons, and have a ton left over for base building (and future runs).

1. Make sure you have at least 8 Cooked Meat, 8 Neck Tail, and 10 Mushrooms (or berries, etc.).
2. Make sure you have 10 Poison Resistance Mead.
3. Make sure you have at least 80 Bronze Arrows.
4. Make sure your items are all repaired.
5. Make sure you are rested with full rest bonus.
6. Make sure you have the Swamp Key in your inventory.
7. Make sure it’s MORNING.
8. It’s Sailing Time! Hop in your Karve and head due east. Try to stay exactly east.
9. When you come to the shore, you should head a little south to the point shown on the map below. You want to build your base in the Meadows on the edge of the Swamp.
10. Note that some creatures from the Swamp will probably come your way as soon as you land. You can ignore leeches since they stay in the water, but if you see Slimes jumping your way, shoot them with your bow and bronze arrows and don’t let them get close to you.
11. Draugr can easily be fought with your mace and shield.
12. Clear a spot with your Hoe, build a Workbench and your Portal. Set the tag to SWAMP1 and it should connect. Now build a storage chest next to the portal.
13. Open your map and place a house icon and call it SWAMP1.
14. Your Swamp base is now ready! Note we don’t need to build any defenses as I’ve never had my swamp portal destroyed when it’s on the edge like this.
15. Now you can kill any leeches that have gathered in the water. Note if you shoot them once or twice they will swim away. Do not follow them. Wait until they come back. Kill them and collect their Bloodbags. Kill Draugr get their Intestines to unlock Sausage, one of the staple foods until end-game. Kill any slimes and get their slime bags.
16. Time to head into the swamp and look for Sunken Crypts!
17. Use a Poison Resistance Potion. It lasts 10 minutes.
18. With this potion you can melee slimes and leeches! Without it you must range attack them and not let them get close or their poison will kill you.
19. NEVER go into the water if you can help it. Leeches will bite you and it’s easy to get bogged down while a group of Skeletons or Draugr shoot you with arrows. We use our Hoe to level the ground as we traverse the swamp, making paths and raising the ground.
20. As you traverse the swamp, make note of any trees that have big green blobs growing on them. Mark these on your map with a white dot that says “G”. We’ll come back to those later.

21. When you come across your first Sunken Crypt, mark it on your map like we did the Burial Chambers in the black forest; a single icon. We’re going straight in! Use the Swamp Key and you’re in!
22. Sunken Crypts are larger than Burial Chambers, and have these piles of goo you must hack through with your pickaxe in order to farm Iron and get to the next chambers.

23. Make sure your anti-poison potion is UP at all times while you’re in the swamp!
24. Depending on the chamber layout, I always go through the open areas first. Keep your eye open for chests and treasure (pick up all coins, amber, pearls, etc.). Also pick up every Iron Chain you see in any chest.
25. The most dangerous thing in these crypts are the Body Piles that spawn Draugr. It’s very easy to be quickly overrun. You can usually hear the buzzing flies before you can see them. When there’s a body pile, you must destroy it as soon as possible.
26. You can build a campfire in the crypt to quickly dry out and remove the wet debuff!
27. Remember, the Draugr and Slimes can only make it through a corridor that’s completely opened; one technique is to hack through to the other side but leave enough of the muck so they can’t make it through. This makes it very easy to pick them off with arrows.
28. Hack through all of the slime and load up on Iron Scrap! The first chest will probably cause you to get to max weight. When you get to max weight, run back to your camp, put the ore in the Storage Chest and portal back to your Main base to deposit the other Tier 3 goodies like Intestines, etc.
29. Don’t forget to go back to your base to get your rest bonus and repair your gear!
30. Remember to use your Eikthyr power when running back and forth!
31. Grab all the yellow mushrooms you come across.
32. When you loot a Chain for the first time, it will unlock Forge Bellows. PIck up every Iron Chain you com across (in chests). It’s very important for upgrading your Forge and crafting the end-game shield.
33. Make sure you pick up all of the rubies, gold, and other treasure spread throughout the chambers.
34. Don’t worry about picking up Ancient Bark. It’s very easy to get, very heavy, and you need your space free for Iron Scrap. Drop it and ignore it for now.
35. The first chamber alone will have you making 4-5 runs back and forth to your camp to put Iron Scrap in the chest. Don’t forget to portal to your base to refresh your rest bonus when you do run back to your camp. It makes all the difference.
36. The first crypt (closest to our base) gives roughly 70 iron scrap. This is a lot more than average.
37. Your Karve can hold 4 stacks of 30 (for a total of 120). When your character’s current weight limit (300) and all essential items, you can hold 22-24 scraps, allowing you to transport a maximum of 142-144 per trip on a Karve. Right now we only have around 70; we’re going to make our return trip because we want to be able to mine Iron Scrap quicker and more efficiently, so we’re going to run back to base and make a shiny new upgraded Iron Pickaxe.
38. Before we sail back, I do recommend building a dock for your ship since we’ll be coming here many times, and because it’s easier to haul the ore to your ship when it’s properly next to a dock when you’re encumbered.
39. Position your boat at the end of your dock so you can easily open the hold from the dock.
40. Make sure you have plenty of food so you have high stamina.
41. Go to your storage container and grab all the scrap. This should put your weight over 800. While encumbered, walk down the dock to your ship and put the scrap in the hold.
42. Now jump in the ship and sail back home!
43. Once you dock at home, you’ll do the same thing; however this time you might lose stamina before you get to your storage box by the smelters. Not a problem; just toss the ore on the ground until you regain your stamina, and pick it back up.
44. Put the ore in your storage box by your Kilns and we’re ready to smelt!

Phase IV – Iron Scrap, More Comfort, Sausage, Trader, Carry Weight

Time to smelt our near 70 scrap! You know what to do. While it’s cooking, go out and farm wood to keep the kilns going and the coal coming in.

When you pick up your first Iron Bar, a ton of items will appear. Welcome to the next tier of weapons, armor, and more! The Stonecutter is also unlocked, which is how we make stone walls and floors. We can now also create Iron Reinforced beams for the strongest building structure support available in the game. The Reinforced Chest was also unlocked; the best storage chest in the game with 16 slots. This is one reason we rushed to Iron before upgrading our base.

1. Check your honey!
2. Start smelting the Iron. We’re going to Smelt all of it, so grab the wood, feed the Kilns and keep things going. Put the bars in the Storage as they become available.
3. Take 1 bar and craft 20 Iron Nails. This unlocks the Raven Throne and Longship.
4. Get 20 Fine Wood, and craft a Raven Throne (10 Iron Nails, 20 Fine Wood) in your house. This will raise your Comfort to 12 (19 minutes).
5. You should have some Bronze left over from your previous runs. If not, you can either skip this, or go and farm some Copper/Tin right quick. But next you’re going to craft a Hanging Brazier (5 Bronze, 2 Coal 1 Chain) and place it on the ceiling of your house. This will raise the Comfort level to 13 (20 Minutes).
6. Next, craft the Iron Pickaxe and upgrade it to +2 (30 Iron, 4 Core Wood).
7. To upgrade the Pickaxe to +3 we need to increase the level of our Forge. To do this, we’re going to craft a Smith’s Anvil outside by the other upgrades (20 Iron, 5 Wood).
8. Now we can upgrade our Iron Pickaxe to +3 (20 Iron, 2 Core Wood).
9. Look at that; we’ve pretty much used all of our Iron – that was quick! The good news we have an awesome mining tool with great durability! We did this first so we can run the crypts quicker and more efficient.
10. I just toss the Bronze Pickaxe once I have the Iron one. The only reason you’ll want to keep it is if you plan on giving it to a friend. If not, toss it and replace slot #6 with your new handy +3 Iron Pickaxe (which does 43 damage vs the old 35 and has more durability).
11. Time to make Sausage! Go to your cauldron with Raw Meat + Entrails + Thistle. Sausage is the most used food in the game. It’s awesome. Make as much as you can. I recommend having 10 on your character at all times.
12. If you need more, make additional Poison Resistance potions. I find once I really get a feeling of how the Swamp works, I don’t need the potion at all because I’ve got great food and know what monsters to stay away from. But do whatever you’re comfortable with.
13. It’s this time in the game I recommend players look for the Trader. We’re lucky to be running a predefined map where we know exactly where he’s located; but for those playing a world they know nothing about, finding the Trader can be very tedious because the player has to sail around the world. This can be very dangerous. When you play a different map, just know at this point you will need to get in your Karve and start looking for the trader. Many players sail naked as they look for him in case they die. (more about this)

14. Remember all of the treasure we gathered? It’s time to put it all to use. You should have enough to buy the belt now. Time to build 2 more portals! Gather 4 Surtling Cores, 40 Fine Wood, and 20 Greydwarf Eyes. Clear a spot and build out 4th portal at the base and call it TRADER.
15. Grab all of your treasure! This includes Coins, Amber, Rubies, and Pearls.
16. Make sure you have the materials on you to build the portal at the other end, and run to the trader! Don’t forget to use Eikthyr’s special power. We’re heading for the bag icon on our map to the south. STAY AWAY FROM THE MOUNTAIN BIOME. Wolves will still kill you quickly.
17. When you’re just outside the Trader bubble, clear a spot, put down a Workbench and build the other end of the portal. Label it TRADER.
18. Talk to Haldor. First start clicking on the hanging coin icon to the lower right of the UI. This will sell all of your treasure (Amber, etc). You should have enough to buy Megingjord Belt. If not (and you’re close) just run another Burial Chamber in the Black Forest until you have enough.
19. Once you buy the belt, equip it. You now have 450 Carry Weight. Now we’re a really capable Iron Scrap farmer! Don’t worry about buying anything else at this time. Head back to your base!

Now might be a great time to take a break and expand your camp! It’s up to you! Our little house is pretty packed, but it’ll work all the way through Mountains if we want to.

Phase V – Farming 500 Iron in The Swamp

Are you ready for the longest farming requirement currently in the game? We need 500 Iron Scrap. By the time you’re done, you’ll hate the swamps. Don’t worry though; it’ll be worth it. ~8 hours depending on your speed, combat luck, and other factors.

1. Check your Honey!
2. The good news is everything we need is in this swamp instance; there are enough crypts to easily get us to 500 Iron.
3. I like to use a Karve to do this because it adds variation and a break to things. Some players build a Longboat so they can haul everything in one run, but it’s all up to you as to how you want to do it. The Swamp is so close to our base, going back and forth with 150 Iron Scrap works just fine, and only takes 4 trips.
4. Here’s what you’re going to craft (in order): Toolrack (to raise your forge one level), +4 Iron Pickaxe (do this with the ore from your first run). After that, build: Iron scale mail, Iron Greaves, Iron Helmet, Banded Shield, Iron Mace, Iron Axe, and Huntsman Bow. Your Iron Armor just at +1 is better than your Bronze Armor, so you can craft them all first, then upgrade them as you complete additional runs. We’re also going to build a Bellows at the very end (last run), which requires 4 Chain (which we get running the Crypts). The Chain is very rare, and found either in chests in the Crypts, or when you kill a Wraith (spirits in the swamp that come out only at night).
5. You can craft a Style on your banded shield!
6. When you encounter a glowing red rune in a Crypt, be sure to select it; this will put the location of Bonemass on your map!
7. You only need to collect 10 Withered Bones. After that you can discard them, but make sure you have 10 in storage back at your base!
8. Kill Surtlings when you can; having extra Surtling Cores to make Portals is always a big plus. And we’ll be making another portal shortly.
9. Following this approach, we will have all Iron +4 gear and have a total of 60 armor. This is a huge difference from our Bronze Armor.
10. As you are doing this, make sure you keep your food up; make Sausage, gather Yellow Mushrooms, have Cooked Meat, and check your Honey regularly. Make more Poison Resistance potions if you need. Save any treasure you find.
11. Also, you want to craft 2 Frost Resistance Meads to prepare for the next Biome (20 Honey, 10 Thistle, 4 Bloodbags, 2 Greydwarf eye).
12. You should have around 50 Iron Bars left. Go ahead and use however many you need of them to craft Ironhead Arrows so you have a stack of at least 50 (unless you have 60+ you looted from the chests over time). We’ll use them for the next part.
13. You should have found at least 4 Chain; time to craft the Bellows next to your forge!
14. Also, feel free to place the Stonecutter. It operates like a Workbench for stone building structures for base upgrades. It also unlocks the Hearth, which gives us an additional Comfort point. Note the Hearth must be placed on ground or stone foundation.

Congratulations! You just finished the most tedious farming in the game! Time to move to the next Biome! Don’t worry – we’ll be killing the Tier 3 boss (Bonemass) after we gather some materials from the Mountains, which we can now survive.

PART IV – THE MOUNTAIN BIOME (TIER 4)

Time to head into the mountains! With 60 armor, we should have no problem with Wolves, and a +4 Huntsman Bow with Ironhead Arrows will easily drop Drakes. Plus we’ll get access to Obsidian Arrows very quickly. Our initial goal is to farm Frost Glands from the Drakes so we can make Frost Arrows to go and kill Bonemass, the Tier 3 Boss. But if you plan on Tank’n’Spank for Bonemass, we’re still going into the mountains to get Wolf Pelt and a few other items to improve our base and fighting capabilities.

Phase I – Mountain Portal, Wolves and Drakes, Frost Arrows

1. Remember that Frost Resistance Mead we put in the Fermenter? Time to tap it and get those potions! Put 2 in storage and take 10 with you.
2. Make sure you’re fully rested and have Sausage+Cooked Meat+Neck Tail for max health and stamina. While we’re well equipped for the Mountain Biome, Wolves are very nasty.
3. First, build another portal at your base. Tag it MOUNTAIN1. Also make sure you have the resources needed to build the portal on the other end with you.
4. Run south to the nearby Mountain biome. As soon as you enter, use one of your Frost Resistance potions.
5. Wolves are very dangerous, and even though we have great armor and weapons, if you are attacked by 2-3 wolves and one or more is a 1-star, you can quickly find yourself in trouble. Wolves can attack two times in the amount of time it takes you to swing once. Try to block parry and stagger them when you can, but it can be challenging with 2 or more. Just do your best to learn the cadence of killing wolves. You can also shoot them from a distance; but you need to kill them because we need their pelts!
6. Kill wolves to get Wolf Pelts and Wolf Fangs. Unlock the Dragon Bed and Wolf Rug. Do not fight Wolves on slopes; get to flat ground. Kite them if you have to.
7. It’s VERY important to manage your stamina in the mountains since you have to use a lot to traverse the mountainsides.
8. When you see Obsidian Deposits, mine them.
9. You might see Silver veins sticking out; if you do, mark them on the map.
10. Now there aren’t any drakes on this first mountain; it’s not high enough. But we get to kill some wolves and mine Obsidian. Head south to the next Mountain.
11. This next mountain has a lot of Drakes. Grab their Freeze Glands and pick up any Drake Trophies that drop.
12. Do not pick up Dragon Eggs but mark them on your map with a white dot and “Egg”.
13. Build your portal at a high point between the two parts of the mountain near the Egg location shown in the map below. Set the tag to MOUNTAIN1 to connect it. This position is very important because it’s very close to two Silver nodes we’ll mine later. Also build a storage chest for your Wolf Pelts and Wolf Fangs.

14. There is a small patch of Plains biome on the south side of the southern Mountain range. DO NOT GO THERE. You will die.
15. Go back to your base.
16. Now we must make our little house larger because we’re going to place the Dragon Bed. Time to sleep in style! What I do is extend the front, relocate the upgraded Workbench to the front, and extend the back closer to the ocean, adding 3 additional squares.
17. When you’re done, craft a Wolf Pelt Rug and a Dragon Bed. Your comfort level should now be 15 (22 minutes).

Phase II – Killing Bonemass

Time to kill Bonemass! It’s a bit of journey to get to him, and we’ll be setting up a portal just in case we die. There are two ways to fight Bonemass. You can either melee him with your Mace and Shield, or you can kite him with Frost Arrows. The fastest way is Mace and Shield, but you need to be good with your blocks and know when to kite, etc. We have the resources to do him either way, so choose whatever method you’re the most comfortable with.

1. Craft a new portal at your base (or rename an existing one). Name it BONEMASS.
2. If you plan on kiting him, craft 120 Frost Arrows. Even if you plan on Facetanking him, I still recommend making at least 60 as it’s always good to have the ability to shoot him from a distance if necessary.
3. You do have the ability to craft a Healing Potion, and if you are playing Hardcore, I recommend start using them now. But if you aren’t playing hardcore, healing potions are optional at this point since being decked out in fully upgraded Iron armor makes us pretty tough for the current content.
4. Make sure you have at least 5 Sausage, Grilled Neck Tail and Cooked Meat.
5. Make sure you have our awesome new Comfort Level 15 Rest Bonus of 22 Minutes.
6. Make sure your Karve is repaired.
7. You have two choices. If you’re really comfortable with the game and kicking ass, you can sail to Bonemass in the morning, which will put you there at night. This can be rough because it’s hard to see things and tougher monsters will be waiting for you when you land. I didn’t have a problem doing this. But if you want it easier, leave and sail during the night so it’s dawn by the time you arrive. Choose whatever is most enjoyable and adventurous for your play style.
8. Avoid sailing during storms! This is when Sea Serpents are the most active! If you come across a Sea Serpent, just try to outrun it! If the wind dies and you have a serpent on your tail, you’ll have no choice but to try and kill it with arrows.
9. Grab 10 withered bone. This is what you use to summon Bonemass.
10. Make sure you have 2 Poison Resist Potions.
11. You don’t need to eat until you get close to your destination.
12. The Bonemass spawn is a bit dangerous because it’s surrounded by Plains. So we’re going to sail around the plains and land on the east side of the swamp. This will be our first swamp landing, so be prepared to fight!
13. You may notice a small floating island as you’re sailing to Bonemass. That’s a Kraken. Mark it on your map for later.
14. Stay away from the Plains. As you sail around the south end of the Plains, you’ll see Fuling base camp with bonfires.
15. Below is a map of our landing spot.

16. When you see the small abandoned tower house on the east side of the Swamp, you’ve arrived at your landing spot. Make sure you’ve taken an anti-poison potion and be prepared to fight; make sure your health is full!
17. Land and secure. Build your portal. Tag it BONEMASS. Put the point on your map as well, calling it the same thing.
18. If it’s night, go back to your base and sleep until morning. Make sure you have your full rest bonus!
19. Head to his spawn point. But don’t spawn him yet. Instead, take out all of the creatures around his spawn point because this fight is all about running and Kiting. Be sure to take out the Surtlings because they’ll definitely aggro you during the fight.
20. Now we’re going to do something fun. Surtlings die when they touch water! So what we’re going to do is use our Pickaxe and lower the ground around the Surtling flame spout so it’s all water. Now when they spawn, they’ll just die and explode! This will ensure they don’t interrupt our fight with Bonemass, and it’s a fun way to get free Surtling Cores. Additional fun fact. Surtling Trophies make infinite light sources when mounted on the wall at your base!
21. Make sure you have Frost Arrows selected, have full food and health, and have an anti-poison potion ready to go if yours is still counting down (hotkey it). If you don’t have it active, use the anti-poison potion. Activate Eikthyr’s power to help with kiting.
22. Doing Bonemass melee is pretty easy as long as you’re able to block his attacks and ensure you’re not mid-swing of your weapon when he attacks next. You can beat him down in under 5 minutes with your Mace if handled properly. Just run away when you need to regenerate a bit.
23. If you Kite Bonemass, just stay away from him and kill the adds. Fire from a distance.
24. SUMMON BONEMASS!
25. Once he’s down make sure you pick up the Wishbone and his Trophy.
26. Run back to the swamp portal base and DESTROY your boat with your Mace. Pick up the pieces and go through the portal to your main base.
27. When you go back to your base, rebuild the boat at your dock and then take the portal to the Altar, and hang the Bonemass trophy! No need to activate it yet. Go back to your base and celebrate!

Phase III – Mining Silver, the Long Road

Thankfully, mining Silver isn’t nearly as tedious as Iron. Not only will we get and fully upgrade our Armor and Weapons, we’ll also get the best bow in the game. All of this will require 350 silver. To find Silver, we use the Wishbone that Bonemass dropped. This helps us locate veins that we can then excavate. The good news is if you’re running the Guide map, we already know where the silver is, and where it is not. Sadly, the mountain range to the north and directly to the south of our camp doesn’t have any silver because they aren’t high enough; Silver only generates above a certain elevation. The good news is the Silver Veins are right around where we placed our MOUNTAIN1 portal! Granted we can only use the portal to repair, it’s already there and ready to go. We will need to build another base camp at the foot of the mountain. Note the average Silver Vein yields between 80-90 Silver Ore.

1. Craft 100 Obsidian Arrows. These are the best arrows until we get to the Plains. Plus you’ll 2-shot drakes with them. Equip the arrows and toss any others you have.
2. Make sure you have at least 1 Frost Resistance Potion.
3. Set the tag of the BONEMASS portal at your base to ROAD (we’re just re-routing it). Make sure you have another portal at your base tagged MOUNTAIN1 one and enough materials on you to build a new portal.
4. The first thing we’re going to do is locate Silver veins. We do this by going through the MOUNTAIN1 portal and equipping our Wishbone. There are two veins right by the portal. Once the beeper is very active start digging and you’ll uncover the vein. As soon as you hit the vein the Wishbone will no longer try to detect that particular vein.
5. Kill wolves and store their fangs and pelts in the storage chest by the Portal!
6. We’re going to get permeant cold protection on our first run back, so you only need one potion to do this! Create a Storage Container at the portal. This is where you’re going to put all of the ore as you dig it up.
7. Locate and start digging up the closest vein! Remember to dig around the edges so you can see how big it is and how far it stretches. Also remember to equip your strength belt so you can carry 450.
8. Silver veins always have 3 legs. It takes about 10 minutes to mine one vein.

9. If you come across 3 stones and your Wishbone is going crazy… that’s not Ore. It’s buried remains.
10. If you take your portal to the mountains while it’s raining, even with an anti-freeze cape, you’ll still freeze while wet! For this reason you have to wait to go through the portal until it’s not raining at your base.
11. Sometimes the Silver veins will run through rock! Not a problem; just break the Rock away!
12. Begin mining that delicious silver! Toss rock or build a stone pile as you get too heavy and take the ore to the storage container near the Portal.
13. Once your potion nears expiring (2 minutes or so left), load up as much ore as you can on your character (should be 22-24) without becoming encumbered and head down the slope directly to the north (seen in the below image). As soon as you get to the base where the land flattens out and it says Black Forest in the upper right map, clear the space, build a Workbench and Storage Chest, and put a point on your map called “SILVER BASE”. This is where we’ll be running two carts of ore down to from the top of the mountain. The storage chest is for storing one of the cartloads before we destroy the cart. Note we are not building a portal here since we’ll be using the MOUNTAIN1 portal above.

14. And now for the real fun. We are going to make a road all the way back to our base. Because we’re going through the Black Forest, we’ll encounter trolls, and we have to build a bridge across a ravine! This is going to take a few in-game days to do properly because of how much we need to remove (and the bridge will take a bit of time). This is why we carry the portal with us. When nightfall comes or we need to refresh our rest bonus, we just drop the portal down, set the tag to ROAD, go back to base, rest up, and then get back to work (taking down the portal again as we continue building the road).

15. Remember to hold down shift while leveling ground on slopes!
16. The general rule of thumb is to move forward making the path for about 10-15 seconds, then go back and clean it up and make sure it’s smooth.
17. You must get rid of all large rocks, trees, tree trunks, and bushes the cart could get caught up on.
18. The best bridge we can build at the Ravine is a raised ground bridge. To do this we must farm stone from the big rocks around the ravine. I was able to build the below bridge with around 120 stone (which only took a few minutes to get). Don’t worry, one width is wide enough for the cart! Also, there’s a trick to using only one raise per block; here’s a Video Link to how to do it if you aren’t aware of the technique.

19. Build a chest, put your ore in it, and start picking that rock!
20. Once you have around 120 stone, go ahead and build that land bridge!
21. Once done, continue; make sure the road that goes up the other side of the ravine is as smooth as possible or you may not be able to pull a full cart up the slope, even with stamina.
22. As soon as you start the path on the other side of the ravine, go a little to the right so you get better sloping. We’re going around the east side of the mountain range to the north, by the trader. Stay in the Black Forest; no need to go into the Mountain Biome.
23. Always put your ore in a chest before you port back to base. This requires some shuffling. Throw the Fine Wood down, then farm 20 wood; make the workbench then chest, then pick up the fine wood, make the portal, put the ore in the storage unit, then go to your base to rest/repair/get food.
24. You can stop making the path when you reach the open field south of our base if you want, but I like to complete it all the way to the base. It takes between 1-1.5 hours in total. Trust me, it’s worth it as you’ll see shortly!
25. Congratulations! You’ve made an incredibly long transport road for your cart!
26. Now get that ore smelting! When you pick it up, you should see the unlocks for Wolf Armor, Wolf Cape, Silver Sword, etc. pop up. This is the next tier of armor! But more importantly, the cape will protect us from the code and ensure we no longer need potions!
27. Craft a Wolf Fur Cape (6 Wolf Pelt, 4 Silver, 1 Wolf Trophy). Don’t upgrade it; we’re just leaving it at level 1. Equip your first cape and feel the warm goodness of permanent frost resistance! No more potions!

Phase IV – Mining 350 Silver, Transporting and smelting

We need 350 Silver in total to upgrade our gear completely to prepare for the Tier 4 boss and going to the hardest place in the game: The Plains. The problem is the 4 nodes around the MOUNTAIN1 portal only provide 330 ore (including the amount we brought back making our road). The good news is there’s another node on the very south side of the mountain just north of us. We’ll be stopping by that to grab the extra 20 as we’re taking our cart through the woods. Quick note – we skip the Silver Shield; we just don’t need it. Also, do not mine at night. That’s when 2-star Wolves come out, and they can kill you. There’s also a very dangerous werewolf creature that comes out at night in the Mountains.

1. Kill wolves and keep their pelts! Store the pelts in the chest by the portal. You’ll need them for later!
2. Now it’s time to get all of that Silver.
3. Make sure you’re rested, have ample food, and your equipment is repaired.
4. Get that Hive Honey!

5. Take your portal and start mining the two veins by the MOUNTAIN1 portal. Toss the ore into the chest and port back to base when it gets dark or when you need to refresh your rest bonus or repair.
6. Once you’ve mined all of the ore near the portal, run to the other location with the two nodes and build another workbench and chest. Do the same thing. Mine, put the ore in the chest, and run back to the MOUNTAIN1 portal for repairs or to rest.
7. Once you’ve mined all 4 nodes, you should have two chests full of ore. Time to get that down the mountain!
8. Go back to your base. Refresh your Rest Bonus. This is very important. Also, if it’s not morning, sleep. We have a big day tomorrow! Make sure you have plenty of food.
9. Get (or craft) 10 Bronze Nails and 20 wood. Take the portal back to MOUNTAIN1.
10. Build a cart. Load up all the ore onto the cart and go flying down the hill! It’s fun! When you get to the bottom and at your road starting point, unload the ore from the Cart into the Storage Chest.
11. Destroy the cart with your mace, pick up the nails and wood, and head back up the mountain to the second chest. Do the same thing. Craft the cart, transport the Ore, and take that Cart flying down the mountainside!
12. If you get stuck or have any issues just unhook the cart, manually push it, and if necessary, destroy it with your mace and rebuild it in a location you can quickly re-load the ore back onto it at.
13. Once all of the ore is at the bottom of the hill at our Road starting point, now we need to be careful about how much weight we put into the Cart.
14. You should be able to carry 25-27 ore on your character. You can put 90 in the Cart for a weight of 1260. Don’t go over this, or you won’t be able to sprint pull it up any steep hills.
15. Be careful when going over your land bridge; you must be EXACTLY in the middle.
16. You can activate Eikthyr’s power right after the bridge before you pull the cart up the steep incline out of the ravine.
17. You can fight and clear and use your hoe while pulling a cart!
18. The toughest parts are up the hill after the ravine, and up the hill by the Trader. But using your run, you can do it! Just manage your stamina properly.
19. It takes roughly 10 minutes to make one run. When you get to your base, fill your Kilns, fill the Smelters with Coal, and throw 20 Ore in the Smelter.

20. Sleep so we can start the next run at the beginning of the day. Make sure you have Rest bonus and food.
21. Store the Silver that was produced overnight, and smelt another 20 Silver bars, making sure the Kiln is producing, and the Smelters are going. We want them done and 20 Silver Bars waiting for us!
22. Destroy the cart and pick up the Bronze Nails and wood.
23. Take the MOUNTAIN1 portal, run down the mountain, create the cart and load it up with another 90 in the cart and 23-25 on your character.
24. Make sure they’re loaded with Coal, destroy the Cart, take the nails, and head back to the MOUNTAIN1 portal! Run down the mountain, rebuild the cart, and repeat the process another time!
25. When that’s done, rinse and repeat; except this time we only have 78 or so ore in our cart. Remember; we need another 20-30 ore! We’re going to stop by another vein and get it on our way back.
26. After we cross the Ravine and head up that steep hill, we park our cart at the top (make sure it can’t roll away), put any ore you’re carrying in the cart, and head up the hill and into the Mountain biome to the northwest towards our final Silver Vein. Once you find the vein, mine 23-25 ore. When you have it, run back down the hill to your cart, load the cart up with the 120 and put the rest on your character, and head back home!

27. We’re done! You just ran more than 350 total silver to your base in less than an hour. That’s quite an accomplishment!

Phase V – Tier 4 Armor, Frostner and Draugr Fang Bow

Time to make all of that silver mining worth it! Not only are we going to get fully upgraded Tier 4 armor, we’re also going to get Frostner (one of the best maces in the game), and the Draugr Fang bow; the best bow in the game.

1. Smelt all of that ore. Keep those Kilns burning and the Smelters going! It takes awhile to smelt 350 ore.
2. We need a total of 36 wolf pelts, 10 Wolf Fangs, and 2 Drake Trophies. If you are lacking in anything, just make a run to MOUNTAIN1 and get what you need.
3. Craft and upgrade to +4 the following: Wolf Armor Chest (50 Silver, 17 Pelt, 1 Chain), Wolf Armor Legs (50 Silver, 17 Pelt, 10 Fang) and Drake Helmet (50 Silver, 2 Pelt, 2 Trophy).
4. Your armor should now be 79. Given 100 is the highest in the game currently, we’re doing very well! But now for some real weapon upgrades!
5. Next we are going to craft one of the best melee weapons in the game, and the weapon you’ll use until you get the final end-game melee club. We will craft Frostner.
6. You’ll need 600 coins for this. You should have enough coins from killing trolls and running dungeons; but if not, the easiest way to make coins is to run the Black Forest at night and kill 1-2 star creatures, or you can run Crypts in the Black Forest you haven’t already completed, and sell the treasure.
7. When you have 600 coins, visit the Trader and buy 5 Ymir Flesh. This will unlock Frostner.
8. Craft and upgrade Frostner to +4 (120 Silver, 5 Flesh, 5 Freeze Glands, 50 Ancient Bark). If you need Ancient Bark, just run to the SWAMP1 portal and farm it from the trees. You now have an amazing mace that will destroy undead and does over 100 damage of 3 types.
9. Now to get the best bow in the game. Remember those green globs in the swamp we marked on our map with G? Time to get them! But here’s the catch; to get them, you must build stairs up to them so you can mine the guck! You’ll need 22 in total. So load up on 100 wood, make sure you’re rested and have food, and that it’s morning and head to the SWAMP1 portal.
10. Be very careful when you build the stairs and platforms up the tree; if you fall, you could die. Sometimes the Guck falls to the ground; it’s ok – mine all of it while you’re up there then run down and pick it all up. Just 3 trees should give you all that you need (depending on the trees).
11. Once you’re done, head back to your base; if you don’t have 40 Ancient Bark, quickly farm it in the Swamp.
12. Head back to your base and craft the best bow in the game, the Draugr Fang – and upgrade it to +4 (80 Silver, 40 Ancient Bark, 14 Deer Hide, 22 Guck).
13. You now have the best Tier 4 armor, one of the best weapons in the game, and the best bow in the game. You are ready to face Moder, the Tier 4 boss.

Phase VI – Killing Moder

Moder is the Tier 4 boss, an angry dragon that really likes to inflict cold damage. The good thing is we already have cold resistance, and on top of that, we have the best bow in the game that not only does top tier damage, but also does Poison damage. Let’s do this!

1. Craft 200 Obsidian arrows. Yes, 200. Note it’s possible to down him with far less than 200, but given skill level variations, missing him while he’s in flight and having to spend arrows on Drake or other adds that spawn, 200 is a good number you should be fine with.
2. Load up on food.
3. Get materials for a Portal and have them on your character.
4. Change your temporary base portal tag to MODER.
5. Take the ALTAR portal and begin running north to Moder’s mountain! It’s VERY steep so once we get to the base, activate Eikthyr’s power.
6. You can unequip your chest and legs to gain 10% movement speed! Just remember to put the armor back on as you approach the mountain!
7. Even though I ran through 3 mountain ranges, I never found the runestone to reveal Moder’s location; but we know where he is from the main static map seed. If you’re playing a different game, you’ll have to keep running Mountain biomes until you encounter his runestone (which is usually in a stone structure).
8. When going up the mountain (using sprint), pace yourself and use large rocks embedded in the side of the slope to rest without sliding.
9. As we run to Moder’s summoning altar, we need to collect 3 Dragon Eggs. They weight 200lbs each, so we grab them one at a time and put them at the altar. If you’re already carrying one and come across another, mark it on the map so you can come back and get it when you’ve mounted the one you’re carrying.
10. Make your portal quite a distance from the Altar; don’t put it in the tower. Moder will just destroy it (that’s too close). He really loves to destroy your portal. I recommend putting it on the neighboring mountaintop, a good 30 second run away.
11. Once you’ve placed all 3 eggs, don’t summon him yet. Go back to your base and restore your rest bonus. If it’s not morning, sleep. Make sure your food is loaded.
12. Once you’re ready, go through the portal. Make sure the area around the Altar is clear of wolves and Drakes. We don’t want any trouble during the boss fight.
13. When the area is clear, activate the Altar and summon Moder.

14. His most dangerous attack is the ice shard breath from the air. You’ll learn when he’s going to do it because you’ll hear the breathe-in sound FX. Just sprint run perpendicular to his angle and you shouldn’t get hit. You can also stand still and block with your shield when he does it. If you’re at full health with 3 food, you should be fine. It’s a long and drawn out fight, even with the best damage and bow against him. Takes about 10 minutes and ~200 arrows. Just remember to keep your distance sprint/dodge his air attacks, and dodge his ground freezing breath. Note his ground breath attack only has a horizontal impact, so if you’re below him (a fair amount) his breath attack can’t get you.
15. When he’s dead, loot the Dragon Tears and Trophy. Return to your base, take the ALTAR portal, hang his head, and return to your base.
16. Now, build the Artisan Wheel (10 Wood, 2 Dragon Tear) in your base on the wall near the outside Smelters. This unlocks the Blast Furnace, Windmill and Spinning Wheel; each used to craft Tier 5 end-game items. We aren’t going to craft these just yet.

Holy moly! We’re going to THE PLAINS!

PART V – THE PLAINS BIOME (TIER 5)

Welcome to the end-game Biome; the most dangerous place in Valheim: the Plains. The good news is we have a great large biome of the Plains just north of the Swamp where we fought Bonemass! But we need to build a dock for our boat so we can properly transport the next tier of ore: Blackmetal.

Remember I talked about Healing Potions earlier? If you want to be as safe as possible, I recommend crafting some Healing potions and throwing them in your #8 slot for instant activation. Healing potions are generally a requirement if you’re playing Hardcore.

I also want to mention that Valheim isn’t just about exploration, combat, and upgrading your equipment. It’s also about building amazing bases. If you haven’t upgraded your base yet, I recommend you do this. Rebuild it with stone, dig a moat, use reinforced iron beams to gain amazing height, and do whatever you need to protect it from events, because you can now experience raids of Fulings and other nasty creatures.

Phase I – Establishing a Foothold

1. Makes sure you have ample food, rest bonus and that it’s morning. Get that Honey!
2. Change your temp portal tag to PLAINS1.
3. Have materials to create a Portal.
4. Take the BONEMASS portal.
5. Now head north. We’re going to run through the center of the big Plains biome just north of the Swamp.
6. Mark any Fuling camps on your map but keep your distance.
7. Pick up any Cloudberries you come across.
8. Whack the Deathsquitos as they buzz close enough. They are glass cannons and will explode with one hit of your mace or one arrow strike. Once you get timing down, you’ll be able to whack them regularly without ever getting hit. You can also shoot them with a bow. Note that every Deathsquito drops a Needle, which is used to make the best arrows in the game. Farm them when you come across them.
9. We aren’t farming Fulings yet, but if you encounter rogue Fulings, feel free to take them out, leveraging your parry blocking. They drop the Blackmetal Scrap you’re looking for.
10. Lox are the giant furry cow-like critters that wander around. Be careful though, they hit like a truck. Shoot them at a distance and when they come to you, use your Frostner and Iron Shield to beat them down. They drop Lox Meat and Lox Hide, which unlocks the Lox Cape, and Lox Rug.
11. 2-star Fulings cannot be parried! Plus they can 1-shot you. If you come across a 2-star Fuling at this point, just run. You can try to kite with your bow, but if they get one lucky hit in, it could be the one hit that kills you.
12. Run to the north end of the Plains until you encounter the ocean, then find a place that’s in the Plains right on the edge of the Black Forest. Make sure the base is in the Plains. Clear the area, build your workbench and Portal and name it PLAINS1. Build a storage chest and put any Darkmetal Ore you acquired into it. Mark it on your map as PLAINS1.
13. Go back to your base! Rest, stock up on food, etc.
14. Ready to get 17 Comfort? Build a Lox Rug and a Hearth in your base (if you haven’t already). Lox rug takes 4 Lox Pelt, and the Hearth requires a StoneCutter (10 Wood, 2 Iron, 4 Stone) in proximity to build the Hearth (15 stone). You should now be at 17 Comfort (24 minutes).
15. Feel free to craft some Needle Arrows and switch over to those if you have more than 40, but make sure you have at least 100 arrows on you (Obsidian as backup).

Phase II – Hunting Fulings, Blackmetal, Barley and Flax

Now it’s time to go hunting! Remember those Fuling encampments we came across? Time to shoot them like fish in a bucket.

1. Always keep your food up in the plains (at least 150 health)
2. Make sure it’s MORNING and you have full rest bonus.
3. Go to your Cauldron and craft a Fire Resistance Mead. Just one. Ferment it. This will be for our final boss fight later on.
4. Make sure you have full food and at least 100 Obsidian or Needle arrows.
5. Make sure all equipment is repaired.
6. Go to your PLAINS1 portal and head south for the closest Fuling camp! Not the stone tower, but the camp with the bonfires. Get to a high point on the ground that’s quite a distance and start picking off the Fulings. Take out the Shamen first, followed by the little guys who aren’t running around crazed because they don’t know where the shots came from.
7. When you’ve cleared the camp, head in and loot everything. You should find Barley in the chests and a Totem. Note you need 5 totems to summon the final boss, so save it.
8. You’ll also find Barley growing in 4 fields. Loot all of it. This is our foundation for making Flour.

9. Unfortunately, this base has no Flax, which is our other needed material. We’ll need to raid another camp for that.
10. Once you kill all of the Fulings at camp, it doesn’t respawn. They’re gone for good, with the rare exception of random spawns.
11. Run back to your portal camp and put the Blackmetal Scrap, Barley and Totems in the chest.
12. Now hit the Camp to the East, Southeast of your camp. They have Flax. Take it slow as there are multiple Fuling Berserkers. You should have more than 40 Flax after you loot everything.
13. We now have everything we need to start our Plains Farm!
14. There’s a reason we chose a spot next to the Black Forest. Farm 100 Wood.
15. Clear a big space around your portal (putting your portal and storage box on the edge). Make it big (think 200′ x 200′). Surround it with Stakewalls (no door). Note this doesn’t stop Deathsquitos, but it will stop aggro from Lox and Fulings (because they can’t see you). I put a ladder over each side of the wall so I don’t need a door.
16. Make sure none of your “field” is in Black Forest! We’re pretty close to it.
17. Go back to your base and craft a Cultivator at the Forge (5 Core Wood, 5 Bronze). Throw it in your #8 slot. I don’t upgrade the Cultivator because I’m never using it away from a portal or base. Keep a corner of the enclosed area clear (portal, etc.) for a place we’ll build our Windmills (2 of them).

18. Port back to your new enclosed area and cultivate all of that soil! Make it black and rich!
19. Grab all of the Flax out of your chest and plant all of it. You can plant them very close together. I recommend rows. We want to harvest a total of 100 Flax, and whatever you plant will double the yield. We want to do Flax first because that helps us make the best end-game armor.
20. Next, plant the Barley. Fill the rest of the entire space if you can.
21. When you plant 1 of something, 2 can be harvested. So we can multiply our farms.
22. While we’ll be using Barley perpetually because it mixes into Flour that is used to make many different end-game foods. Once we spool 100 Flax, we’re done for now (unless you want to build more end-game gear for friends, or create other weapons to try out, etc.).
23. Once the Barley crop is done, plant as much as will fit in the area and start processing the rest.

Phase III – Transporting and Smelting Blackmetal

Ready to build your end-game gear and have the best axe for quickly cutting down trees so you can gather wood to build amazing structures quicker than ever before? By the time you’re done, you’ll live in the Plains, facetank Lox and laugh at Deathsquitos. The only thing that’ll be really dangerous to you is a 2-star Fuling.

One of the fun things about building a base right on the edge of Plains and another biome is the creatures from the two biomes will always be fighting each other. This is a good source of free resources.

When we smelt Blackmetal for the first time, the Blackmetal shields are unlocked, and when we create Linen Thread for the first time, it unlocks Blackmetal weapons and the end-game Padded Armor. Spoiler alert: you’ll probably have to farm more Iron Ore! Good thing we have a swamp with a ton of crypts still waiting to be excavated.

For this next phase we’ll need 100 Blackmetal, 146 Iron, and 100 Linen Thread. You’ll also need 11 chain from the Swamp to make your Blackmetal Shield. Now we can make everything +4 except for the Blackmetal shield, which currently has a max upgrade level of +3.

1. Make sure you have crafted the Grinding Wheel upgrade for your Forge. If you haven’t done this yet, craft a Stonecutter, then a Sharpening Stone. This unlocks the Grinding Wheel. Now craft that by your Forge and you’ll be Level 7!

2. Make sure you have 30 Iron for the next few steps.
3. Craft 60 Iron Nails.
4. Take 2 Dragon Tears from your storage (the drops for Moder) and go to your PLAINS1 base. Build an Artisan’s Workbench, and then build two Windmills within your walls. Make sure you have access to the intake and outflow ports. Now load them up with as much extra Barley that isn’t planted and growing.
5. Picking up Barley Flour will unlock Bread, Lox Meat Pie and Blood Pudding.
6. Fun fact! If you use the spinning (middle-mouse) attack of the Atgeir on Barley or Flax, you will get 4x the amount rather than 2x! I guess it doubles as a farming scythe!

7. Now go back to your base and build a Spinning Wheel (20 Fine Wood, 10 Iron Nails, 5 Leather Scraps). I put mine near my forge.
8. Upgrade your workbench by crafting a Toolshelf (4 Iron, 10 Fine Wood, 4 Obsidian).
9. Next, craft a Blast Furnace (20 Stone, 5 Surtling Core, 10 Iron, 20 Fine Wood) behind your two Smelters.
10. You are now ready to process all the materials you’re going to get from the plains. You probably already have quite a bit of Blackmetal Scrap that you’ve collected in the chest back at your PLAINS1 base. If you’re still waiting for your Flax and Barley to be ready for harvest, go raid a nearby Fuling camp and get more Blackmetal Scrap. Don’t forget to kill Lox for their hides and Deathsquitos for their needles. I recommend going to the other camp to the south that has Flax because you can plan that and the yield from two crops will be more than the 100 you need. After you make 100 Flax you don’t really need it anymore, but I would keep some around in case you need to grow more in the future.
11. You can tell Flax and Barley are ready for harvesting when they turn golden in color.
12. When you’ve collected 4 stacks of 30 Blackmetal Scrap (it’s more than we need, but it’s good to have a bit extra), it’s time to sail that juicy goodness back to your base! You know what to do! Get the nails and all the other parts necessary to build a ship from your base, take them through the PLAINS1 portal, build the Karve in the water, and move the ore one stack at a time from your mini-base storage to your ship. Sail it all home!
13. You can change up the order of the below items based on having Chain or not. If you need more Chain, either go to the Swamp at night and hunt Wraiths, or go into Crypts and loot them from the chests.
14. For the final end-game weapons and armor, we need: 100 Blackmetal, 146 Iron, 100 Linen Thread, 11 Chain, 18 Lox Pet, 2 Silver, 45 Fine Wood, and 17 Needle. If you have all of this, you’re golden. If not, craft what you can and upgrade what you can when you can.
15. First, let’s craft and upgrade the best end-game mace; The Porcupine (5 Fine Wood, 32 Iron, 17 Needle, 10 Linen Thread). Put Frostner in Storage. You’ll be using it again!
16. Next make and fully upgrade: Padded Cuirass (28 Iron, 20 Thread), Padded Greaves (28 Iron, 20 Thread), Padded Helmet (40 Iron, 15 Thread), and Lox Cape (18 Lox Pelt, 2 Silver).
17. Note we stick with the Lox cape and don’t get a Linen Cape (even though it looks cooler) because the Lox cape has cold resistance, but the Linen Cape does not.
18. Time to make and upgrade the best woodcutter in the game, the Blackmetal Axe (80 Blackmetal, 6 Fine Wood, 35 Linen)
19. And time to make and upgrade the best shield in the game, the Blackmetal Shield (40 Fine Wood, 20 Blackmetal, 11 Chain). While the Serpent shield looks cooler, it doesn’t have Parry, which makes it very poor for fighting tough monsters.

When you’re done with all of this, you are equipment complete. Congratulations! You now have 100 Armor, which is currently the highest Armor value in the game.

Phase IV – Fishing & Fish Tacos

It’s time to fish and make Fish Tacos! Lox Meat Pie + Blood Pudding + Fish Tacos = 255 health.

Below is a video that shows how we fish in Valheim.

1. Go to the Trader and buy a Fishing Pole (350 coins) and 2 Fishing Bait (20 coins).
2. Go back to your base and start fishing!
3. Capture around 10 fish.
4. Go and make 10x Fish Tacos, 10x Lox Mat Pie, and 10x Blood Pudding.
5. You now have the best food combination in the game, and are ready for the final boss!

Phase V – Yagluth

We’re nearly at the end of the game. It’s finally time to take on the Plains Boss, Yagluth. His spawn point is just south of our PLAINS1 base.

1. Make sure you are loaded on Food (Fish Tacos + Lox Meat Pie + Blood Pudding), rested, it’s morning, etc.
2. Get that Fire Resistance potion from the Fermenter!
3. Get Frostner out of storage. It’s the best weapon against him since he’s undead.
4. Grab your 5 Totems and head to the Summoning Altar for Yagluth.
5. Activate your Fire Resistance Potion.
6. Summon him!
7. 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 dodge the meteors and beam of death, but the explosion isn’t a problem. You’re going to melee him; don’t worry about blocking with your shield. Just whack the hell out of him and run when he does his meteors or beam of death.
8. He’s quite easy once you get the cadence down.
9. Once he’s dead, take his head and the Yagluth Things that drop (they currently do nothing, but when the next major update comes out, they should convert to whatever they are used for).
10. Go back to base, take portal to ALTAR, and mount Yagluth’s head!

Congratulations! You have defeated all of the bosses currently available in the game! Now you can get down and dirty with what you’re really supposed to do… BASE BUILDING! But before we do that, there’s one more thing.

PART VI – SERPENT HUNTING

Now that we’ve completed all of the bosses, it’s time to go Serpent Hunting! Remember that floating Kraken when we sailed to the first swamp? We’re going back, and we’re going to mine the Chitin from its back to make a Harpoon.

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

1. Remember that Kraken we saw on our way to Bonemass? Head back there, jump on his back and Collect at least 30 Chitin. Don’t worry, the Kraken won’t start submerging until the third rumble, and even then, you have plenty of time to mine 30 or more. Also, he won’t attack you, he just submerges. Make sure you have enough stamina to swim back to your boat if you don’t make it in time!
2. Head back to your base and craft the Abyssal Harpoon.
3. Test it on the local wildlife! Deer are the most fun, but Greylings work as well.
4. Next, wait for a storm (or at least rain). During the day is ok, but nighttime is best.
5. Head on out to the Ocean, which is just outside your base.
6. You should encounter a Serpent in no time. Perhaps even two. Focus on one.
7. Eat the 3 big foods to get the maximum amount of Stamina you can.
8. Harpoon the Serpent and pull him in per the video and end his ugly existence!
9. Pick up the goodies to unlock the Serpent Scale Shield. While it’s the best looking shield in the game, it lacks Parry, which makes it useless to us. But we’re going to craft it and hang it on our wall anyway!
10. Cook the Serpent Meat to unlock Serpent Stew!

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.

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!

Hardcore Challenge & Replaying the game

One of the most popular methods of re-playing Valheim for experienced players is self-imposed Hardcore Mode. If you die, you delete the character and world, and start again with a random seed.

Also starting a new game with a random seed and new character, but not imposing a Hardcore challenge is another great way to re-experience the game.

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 tame Wild Hogs, Wolves, and 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.

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.
• TotalXclipse’s Advanced Base Building Guide.
• Six Addams Advanced Building Tips and Tricks.
• Unno Games How to build on Water.
• Video Overview of Unique Base Locations.
• CohhCarnage’s 130+ Hour Huge Base Build Video.
• Start of “Valheim Funny Moments” series.
• Eurogamer’s 19 Valheim Beginners Guide Tips & Tricks.
• Quorthor10’s Video Guide to Building a Starter Home.
• FireSpark81’s Most Efficient Long House Build Guide.
• Vetlive’s Large Dock House Build Video Guide.
• FIreSpark81’s Ultimate Boar Taming and Farming Guide.
• Kysen’s guide on How to Tame & Breed Wolves.
• FireSpark81’s Ultimate Beginners Guide to Metal and Smelting.
• SeeShell Gaming’s guide on How to Find and Tame a two-star Wolf.
• Schmidtdude’s Advanced Building Tips Video.
• CohhCarnage’s Building Integrity System Video Guide.
• FireSpark81’s How to level Skills fast and easy video guide.
• Schmidtdude’s Comfort Level Video Guide.
• Kysen’s Solo Sea Serpent Hunting Video Guide.
• TanMan321Go’s Bridge Building Tutorial Video Guide.