Overview
A few helpful tips for anyone who’s just starting out in Valheim!
PROGRESSION AT START “So what do I do?”
*** PER MOST RECENT UPDATE *** Enemies now attack buildings much more often, many people in the comments mentioned building a moat. If you build a deep moat with shallow water it can protect your base / camp from being destroyed before your able to gain aggro from the enemies.
Here’s the basic steps for what most players will do when they start Valheim! You dont have to do these things in order, Valheim is a very chill game as long as a tree doesn’t fall and kill you! Try doing whatever you want, but if you are confused about what to do next at the start here’s a list in order!
- Make a Stone Axe! (Gather materials and hit Tab, its one of the items you make with your hands)
- Make a Hammer (Gather materials and hit Tab, its one of the items you make with your hands)
- Make a campfire wherever you want to setup camp!
- Make a Crafting Table at your first camp! (Use the hammer to craft structures like the Crafting Table) ((In order to use the hammer, equip it and right click))
- Make a Camp (Defend yourself with your Axe and continue to gather!)
- Make a Flint Axe, and maybe upgrade it at the crafting station!
- Make a bow and craft arrows at the crafting station
- Hunt deer / boar for materials to craft armor at the crafting station!
- Continue building up your first camp and your food supplies. You can also upgrade your armor and weapons for more durability, armor rating and damage output. Some great food options at the beginning of the game are red mushrooms, raspberries and cooked dear or boar meat.
- Fight the first boss! At his summon alter (normally in the outskirts of your starter meadows biome) you can burn Deer Trophies obtained by killing deer.
- After you kill the boss you can hang his trophy on the initial spawn stone structure and gain his special ability! Now your onto crafting and building up to fight the other bosses in the other biomes across your world.
Goodluck! And watch out for falling trees!
Helpful Tips For a Beginner
1) There are multiple Biomes in your world but you always start in the Meadows.
2) You do not HAVE to eat. You will not starve, however, without eating your maximum health and stamina pool will be small. Eating foods increases your health and stamina pools and depending on the quality of the food will last longer and have more recharge effects.
3) Being sheltered and around a fire increases the rate that you heal.
4) Don’t build your house too far from the stone structure you spawn at, you’ll need it later. It is however important to consider building your camp with access to the ocean, as you will absolutely be sailing from island to island during the game.
(BE AWARE – Don’t build your first camp too close to the BlackForest (Biome #2). At night enemies spawn in large numbers and can be overwhelming early in the game)
5) Don’t try and fight in the rain at night. Being wet and cold will lower your stamina recharge rate.
6) The bow and the flint axe are your best friends early game. Once you have a bow, hunt deer!
6) Repairing structures and gear is free (Less Chores YAY!) Except there is a downside. Repairs are free but the rain will damage any wooden structure that’s not properly roofed. The rain will deteriorate buildings without a roof but will not ever damage them fully, only making them squishy for enemies!
7) Beehives (usually found on abandoned natural spawn structures) when destroyed will drop a queen bee! This will let you build a beehive and collect honey over time. It’s not the best food but it requires zero effort and can give you a free source of food! BEES!!!
Gear Progression
Basic tools and Leather armor -> Meadows
Troll Hide Armor / Bronze Gear -> Black Forest
Iron Gear -> The Swamp
Silver Gear -> The Mountains
Inbetween The Mountains and The Plains is a good time to craft end game weapons like The Fang and Frostner.
Black Iron / Padded Gear -> The Plains
No Gear for this area currently in the game -> The Mistlands
No Gear for this area currently in the game -> The Ashlands
No Gear for this area currently in the game -> The DeepNorth
Wood Types and Location
Meadows:
Beech (Regular Wood)
Birch (Fine Wood)
Oak (Fine Wood)
Black Forest:
Fir (Regular Wood)
Pine (Core Wood)
Swamp:
Fir (Regular Wood)
Ancient Tree (Ancient Bark)
Mountains:
Fir (Regular Wood)
Plains
Birch (Fine Wood) ((And a lot of it))
Mistlands
None (There are giant spiderweb tree’s but they are not currently choppable)
Ashlands
None
Deep North
None
Cooking
Cooking Progression
Cooking Station (Early game and for cooking meat)
- Neck Tail
- Raw Meat
- Raw Fish
- Serpent Meat
- Lox Meat
Cauldron
- Barley Wine Base
- Blood Pudding
- Bread
- Fish Wraps
- Lox Meat Pie
- Mead Bases (Tasty, Frost, Healing, Stamina and Poison Resistance)
- Queens Jam
- Sausages
- Carrot Soup
- Turnip Stew
- Serpent Stew
My Preferred foods to use when adventuring / exploring or even fighting in tough areas are
- Cooked Lox Meat
- Sausages
- Honey
Honey is extremely easy to get from crafted beehives
Lox meat is easy to get once you have quality gear and can farm needles in the plains.
Sausages become easy to get if you have a portal setup to different black forest biomes. We often farm corewood / stone around our trader portal and no longer lack thistle or blueberries since we are there so often. After doing many iron runs, entrails became abundant.
Farming
Farming can be done once you have reached the second biome, the black forest. First at a forge you have to craft the cultivator (5 core wood and 5 bronze). Core wood comes from pine trees and bronze comes from Tin + Copper at the Forge (All 3 of which come from the black forest). The cultivator lets you plant seeds! Be warned, enemies hate crops more than most structures for some reason.
Plants you can grow outside of the plains biome
- Carrots
- Turnips
- Beech Trees
- Fir Trees
- Pine Trees
Plants you can only grow inside of the plains biome
- Flax (can be turned into linen)
- Barley (can be turned into flour for cooking)
Haldor, The Trader
Every world has one but you’ll have to find him. Haldor always spawns inside of a Black Forest biome. Once you are event remotely in his vicinity his icon will appear on your map. You will recognize him because he has a dome shaped bubble shield that enemies cannot pass through. It’s absolutely worth it to build a portal and small camp outside of his protective shield for easy access to his goods.
You can buy and sell certain items to him. You will have to find your worlds trader to craft high level gear with Ymir flesh, or if you want to obtain the yule hat, Dverger Circlet, Megingjord etc.
Other Resource Locations
Copper
Found in deposit’s in the Black Forest (Must obtain the hard antler pickaxe from the First Meadows Boss)
Iron
Mined inside of Swamp Crypts (Must obtain the Key from The Elder Boss)
Silver
Found underground in the Mountains (Must obtain the wishbone from The Bonemass)
Black Iron
Dropped by Furlings in the plains, must be smelted in the Blast Furnace from Moder’s Tears)
Linen
Crafted once you farm the necessary materials (Flax) while inside a plains biome.
Surtling Cores
Found in dungeons inside of the Black Forest or dropped from Surtlings in the swamp biome.
Helpful Tips for Mid-game
1) Ore’s and Metals for crafting cant be taken through a portal, but the nails to build a ship can. You can rebuild a boat after passing through a portal to save yourself half a world-trek.
2) Upgraded Bronze armor or Troll Armor at max will give you decent armor compared to the Iron set. Iron is tough to get and sometimes frustrating, consider getting iron hatchet / pickaxe while upgrading your previous tier set and skipping the armor until you get the Silver set.
3) When your in the swamp, dont run and jump everywhere. You will always be wet in the swamp so your stamina will decrease in restoration speed. Consider walking at a higher pace than the enemies (they are not that fast) and only running when you are right near them. And most importantly stay out of the water!
4) The plains is extreamly tough without full silver gear, consider taking a shield to protect from Deathsquito attacks.
5) The Iron Pickaxe is currently at the time of this writing the best pickaxe in the game, and is the first thing you should craft with Iron.
6) The Wolf Fur Cape is the first item to be made at the Mountain biome. It will protect you from the freezing temperatures and let you dig for silver far easier than having to craft frost resistance meads.
7) Consider using the finewood bow maxed out at level 4 even into the late game. It’s not very much weaker than the iron bow and it can be repaired with a level 1 crafting station. This makes it perfect for using and repairing on the go when exploring and sailing around the world.
Tips for building and such
1) This is by far my favorite tip. Place a small table next to your bed with a flat item stand ontop of it. Then place a yellow mushroom onto the item stand. Ta-da! You have a nightlight / bedside lamp.
2) Dragon Eggs can be placed on horizontal item stands for a cool purple ambient glow.
3) You can re-fight bosses for their trophy’s. The meadows starter boss has a pretty cool trophy that will talk to you while your standing near it.
4) You can build stone structures and place a bonfire on-top of it. On my profile are some screenshots of our towns lighthouse! It looks good and stops enemies from spawning in its vicinity.
5) Stone foundation and walls with Log supports extending above it is my preferred way to build since it allows you to build a bit higher, it has better support, better defense in-case of attack and it looks cool. Using a hearth will warm your home and look fantastic with a well built chimney.
6) If your playing with other people, consider building together and having separate homes. There’s no reason to build two sets of upgraded forges and crafting stations. We build a single large town with a community center, a community bank, but have our own homes and storage where we have Wards preventing other players from entering.
Sailing
1) ****WHEN SAILING**** Don’t try moving from island to island on the raft unless your trapped somewhere. The bronze ship is fast but still not great for fighting the sea serpents. The Iron nail ship will outrun a sea serpent with wind, and once you have Moder’s boss power you will never have to worry about the serpents again (at-least we haven’t had too!)
2) When sailing you may encounter a giant turtle looking creature. He wont attack you, but his back will have barnacles you can mine for chitin. After initially attacking the barnacle it will submerge, so don’t let your ship go to far! Chitin can be used to craft a chitin knife and a harpoon gun for attaching to sea serpents!
3) Sea serpent meat is high quality and a hell of a fun time to hunt with the harpoon!
4) Sailing around an island can help you avoid wasting time, if your on the hunt for a specific resource try sailing around the entire island to make sure its large enough to be worth stopping.
5) Do not sail off the edge of the world, you’ll die and will not be able to recover your gear.
Boss Summon Materials
Meadow Boss – Deer Trophies (Elkthier)
Black Forest Boss – Ancient Seed’s (The Elder)
Swamp Boss – Withered Bones (BoneMass)
Icy Mountain Boss – Dragon Eggs (Moder)
Plains Boss – Fuling Totems (Yagluth)
Mistlands Boss – Not yet added to the game (Unknown)
Ashlands Boss – Not yet added to the game (Unknown)
DeepNorth Boss – Not yet added to the game (Unknown)
Late Game Tips
1) Consider building a portal hub. Find a location such as a small island in a meadows or forest biome, then clear the small island of trees and rocks and flatten the entire section. Build a stone structure to house all of your portals, then use a pickaxe to decimate the edges of the island. No enemies will be able to spawn inside as long as there is a fire and if the land is cut correctly enemies will not be able to attack from outside. We build ours as a circular castle with a roof, and a bonfire in the center to stop enemies from spawning in the area. Our hub houses roughly 20 portals all over the world, with a single portal taking us back to our meadows base.
2) Farming needles can be done at the same time as lox meat, and is rather easy once you have fully upgraded padded gear.
3) The black iron tower shield and the porcupine are our favored end game weapons.
4) The Deep North is rather pretty and currently unoccupied by enemies or spawns of any kind. It is perfect for a far away camp / base but don’t forget to bring the materials for a bench, stone cutter and portal before sailing all the way up there.
5) Once you can craft the blast furnace, artisan station, and the windmill you will be able to start farming inside of the plains. This will allow you to make Flour for Loxmeat pies, fishwraps and bread. These are the superior foods in the game and if you are able to build a base camp inside of the plains to consistently farm it, it will provide you with great semi-easy to get food.
*** Other / Notes ***
ASHLANDS
- There are metal bars that can be obtained in the Ashlands for future gear yet to be released. They currently have no use and to avoid bugs I would not pick them up in-case future content patches introduce new items. Since you gain recipes when you pickup an item its possible you could glitch your game and prevent yourself from learning recipes but then again this is just me being cautious.
Deep North
- The floating icebergs are mine-able but do not currently drop items yet.