10 Valheim Tips Every Viking Needs to Know

Valheim 1.0 is finally here. After 5 years in development and several biomes later, we’ve finally left early access. If you are jumping into the wonderful yet harsh lands of Valheim for the first time, or it’s been a while since you set sail, here are some tips to help you survive.

Beware the Trees

Let’s be honest. Everyone talks about the dangers of woodcutting in Valheim. But with any list, it’s worth talking about. If you’ve played before, you know that felling a tree will cause it to slam down and damage anything in its path. This means you, any enemies, or idle trees.

You are going to need a lot of wood. More wood than you ever think you will need. So to make the most of your axe durability, chop trees so they fall against other nearby trees, damaging them and possibly chopping them down for you. But be warned, this game of dominoes doesn’t always work, and some logs will get stuck. So be careful not to make a death trap.

Kill it With Fire

Fire is an interesting damage type in Valheim. Every time someone takes a tick of fire damage, they take some damage over time for around five seconds. But what’s interesting about fire damage is how it stacks. Taking multiple hits from a fire source, like a torch or a campfire, will not only refresh the DOT, but will stack its damage up.

So if you can bait an enemy to walk over a campfire and stay there for several seconds, their HP bar will quickly melt. Just make sure to repair the fire with a hammer while they stand on it. Alternatively, hitting an enemy with a torch or fire arrows also works, but it’s harder to restack the DOT that fast.

Never Leave Home Without It

Never forget your hammer. Not only can you use it to build, but you can destroy any natural structures. In the early game, you’ll often find abandoned structures made of wood or other materials. If you bring your hammer and enough wood to make a crafting bench, you can either repurpose the structure by repairing it or demolish it for resources with your hammer.

It’s also good to keep your hammer with you at all times, just in case you need to build something far from home, like a campfire.

Comfort & Resting

One important part of Valheim is its comfort system. In short, if you rest somewhere near a heat source with furniture that raises your comfort level, you gain the rested buff. The higher your comfort level, the longer the rested bonus will last.

But what if you lose your rested buff out in the wilderness? A few landmarks or methods let you regain a decent rested buff while you are away from home. Structures like Troll or Frost caves have a giant overhang that counts as a roof. If you build a campfire in the entrance, you can get a quick rested buff while out and about.

Alternatively, you can do this by going inside a cave or dungeon, since the entire indoor area has a roof. This is especially good for Crypts in the Swamp.

Cart Smarter, Not Harder

Once you’ve progressed far enough, you will unlock the cart. Allowing you to haul a ton of items and resources across longer distances with ease. But as you fill the cart up, it gets heavier and harder to push. One trick you can do if you have a friend in your world is to have them get on top of the cart and put all the contents in their inventory.

This will reduce the cart’s weight, and you can pull it instead, which is much faster. Just don’t go too fast, or they can fly out mid-trip, and you’ll have to put them back in.

Home Defense

One of the scariest moments for every Valheim player is when their base is targeted for a raid. Raids occur when a player is near a fire source and a bunch of player-made structures for an extended amount of time. If you are playing on normal, the server will try to send a raid every 45 minutes, with roughly a 20% chance of it triggering if a player meets the criteria.

So 4 players all afk at base is a 20% chance of a raid happening, but rolled 4 times. To better defend your home, make sure you have walls, either wooden or stone, or raise the ground up with your gardening hoe. Raising the ground will look ugly, but most mobs won’t be able to get inside.

Alternatively, you can build a moat, but you still need 1 strip of land that’s walkable; otherwise, the mobs will ignore the moat entirely. All of this is especially important if a Troll raid triggers, which is hands down the scariest raid since they deal so much structure damage.

Ready for Raiding

Speaking of raids, the number of active raids is triggered by your world state. We won’t give every one away, but to put it simply, if you have yet to defeat a boss, that boss will send its minions to your home. Once you defeat them, those raids will stop, but custom raids will begin.

Sometimes raids require certain triggers. For example, Troll raids only turn on after a single troll has died in your world. It doesn’t matter if you killed them or something else did. Furthermore, if you complete any Mini Boss questline, turning in the chest they are guarding to Hildir will open up those Mini Bosses to return as future raids.

Food Management

Food is also an important part of Valheim. The type and strength of what food you eat determines how much health or stamina you get. But if you are doing around-the-house work, it’s good to keep cheap food around, rather than eating your best items all the time.

It’s easy to keep a backstock of pork or deer meat for chore work or to have around the base.

Enemy Weaknesses

Almost all enemy types also have a weakness. Certain enemies will be resistant to one damage type but vulnerable to another. A few examples are that Trolls are weak to piercing damage, so something like a spear will work wonders, or skeletons are weak to blunt damage, so bring a mace.

Never Stop Farming

Lastly, our biggest tip is to never stop farming. Rarely does any item stop being useful in Valheim. For example, boar meat might not be worth it for a while once you move onto other biomes and zones, but later recipies might call for it as a ingrediant.

Rarely does an item, or ingredient, stop being worth anything. There are only a handful of items we can think of, such as Yellow Mushrooms, which barely have any future relevance, but that doesn’t mean you should throw them away.

Be prepared to make an entire storage room in your base just to stockpile whatever you need for a rainy day. Especially wood. You will always need wood.