Valheim – Pro Tips for Surviving

As a seasoned player, I feel compelled to share some valuable advice. Here are a couple of my favorite tricks.

How to Survive

Prioritize staying well-rested and avoid venturing out at night. While this may seem like common sense, many overlook its significance. Your demise often results from inadequate rest. Understanding the importance of being well-rested is like distinguishing between Superman and Luke Skywalker. Despite Luke’s popularity and his companion R2D2, Superman is the clear victor.

A less apparent tip relates to patience. After months of playing Valheim, I’ve realized it’s a game that rewards a slow pace. While constructing bases, walls, and roads is essential for survival at night, the trade-off is the risk of raids. Therefore, constructing a robust base is pivotal.

Don’t forget to eat. There are three food slots: you should keep at least 2 of them full at all times. Eat the same thing again well before the timer runs out, too, because the buff deteriorates over time; by the time it runs out, it was barely doing anything anyway.

Certainly, consuming nourishing meals holds great significance, especially for a viking who deserves nothing but the finest fare! This brings to mind a valuable piece of advice I hold dear. When engaging in gardening activities, it’s crucial not to overlook the importance of cultivating the land. Valheim boasts ample expanses of land ripe for cultivation. The rationale behind this approach is that establishing an extensive farm ultimately translates to more efficient long-term farming, as opposed to managing multiple smaller farms.

Remember you automatically sheathe your weapons when you start swimming and you have to unsheathe them after. To many times I accidentally started punching people, or the air in the general direction of someone if I had a bow equipped, after exiting water.

Have a backup/emergency portal somewhere in your base, or least close by. I have 1 labeled “x” in case I just get too excited for adventure and forget to change my portal names before I sail off.

When you get your antler pick make a nice big trench around your base, being sure to leave room for a few buildings, some fields for foods and other esthetic structures. Go directly to your base and make the trench. Right meow. Be sure everything is at least 3 tiles in from the edges. Trolls have a long reach.

When you upgrade to new fancy armor continue to upgrade your old armors to highest level for backups for the inevitable corpse runs. If you run out of room, turn all that troll hide into a second set. Just saying.

Don’t rush through the first two biomes. Music is a cue, listen and learn. There are specific sounds that begin long before you are in danger. Spotify is not your friend.

Health is key. Your ability to block and parry, how hard you hit, how long you survive is all related to health, related to food. Quit eating the cheap stuff. Potions on the hot bar, always.

Learn to parry, learn to parry, learn to parry. Hone your bow skills. Run & jump, a lot.

If you die more than twice in the same place just get off for the night and come back when you are “well rested” and better able to make a plan.

Strategy

I only do zero death runs. My last three games were finished without dying once. Slow pace is indeed very good advice. Never be out when not rested or at night are rather obvious. My other tips:

1. Going from the black forest to the swamp is a rude transition. Constant protection against poison (better from the potions than the root mask) is necessary. Beyond that, the main killers are 1 and 2 star draughr. They will spawn from nests at high probability. Destroy the nests at a distance with bows or in the crypts, with an AOA sledgehammer.
2. Never be on the mountains or plains without Bonemass ability ready. “You are being hunted” is a killer.
3. Always have health and stamina potions in the quick bar.
4. Avoid raids. You can farm at undisturbed locations, away from your camp – only a portal is needed, avoid the 3 builds that trigger raids. Build your main base on an island before killing Moder. Build workbenches, torches all over the place to prevent raids. You really don’t want Fuling or Seeker raids.
5. Frostner is your friend.