Valheim – Mistlands: Helpful Tips

Some Helpful Hints / Guide

I was originally very sceptical about the Mistlands ‘misty’ feature. Even with the wisp light, the radius of visibility is just not quite far enough and with full visibility in all the other Biomes that we’re used to, Mistlands was always going to be a major culture shock. That said, it’s a late game biome and I think that its difficulty does reflect the stage of the game.

Having said that, once you’ve traversed the biome enough (and let’s face it, every new biome came with apprehension) you get used to the pattern of small green valleys and mountain peaks.

How I approached Mistlands:

• Get the wisplight and build a number of them – it’s very annoying that these don’t stack in crates.
• Then next up is to get that blackmetal pickaxe. You only need Yggdrasil wood and Blackmetal for this so initial ventures should focus on cutting down the Yggdrasil trees.
• Build a small house, fire and bed etc near to the Mistlands with a Transporter back to your main base. Stack it up with spare wisp lights, you’ll need these because you will die alot. From this little mini base, venture into the Mistlands. Start tagging on the map notable points of interest if you come across any: Ancient root (AR), Petrified bones with skull (PBS), Infested mine (IM), Dvergr settlement (DS) etc etc
• Yggdrasil trees are all over the place, they’re most prominent up higher but if you find some near the border of your biome then that’s pretty good. When you’re axing the YG Trees it’s likely that you will attract unwanted visitors…
• You’ll have to learn to combat ticks and seekers. Master this, even if it means before hunting for YG wood. You should be able to confidently kill a seeker without thinking about it much like you how you now confidently kill a mountain or plains beastie. The benefit to this grinding is that you’ll build up a nice supply of carapace and blood blobs.
• The ticks and seekers will just pursue you if you try to run from them. My chosen weapon throughout the game has been the Atgiers – their arc of destruction with the 2nd attack and the knockback is key here, it’s essential crowd control. The knockback gives you much needed breathing space and the chance to get a couple of free hits on stunned beasties. The 2nd attack is good at getting ticks of you as well that have latched on, you have to be quick though. – I have found that the ticks will die instantly from the 2nd attack swing from the BM Atgier. Try to lure the seekers and ticks down onto the green valleys where the ground is a bit more considerate to the viking fighter. Watch the ticks for their jump, let them jump and move out the way, then 2nd attack with Atgier – this should catch them. Seekers are similar – let them lunge at you, just dodge it to the left or right, 2nd attack Atgier will knock and stun, then run in and whack it a couple of times face on. You’ll need to do this a couple of times with the BM Atgier.
• My first jaunt into the Mistlands I had to deal with a Gjall and this didn’t end well. Gjall is slow moving and a bit thick, and bellows a warning to you. You can run away from them, but if they drop ticks the ticks will hang around the drop zone to get you when you go back if you die :). Fortuitously I managed to kill the Gjall with my bow and arrow during rain, so the flames didn’t really harm me when he fired. The other tactic is to use the terrain to hide, sneak, jump out, fire, etc. Advise you take fire resistant mead with you in case you have to take on a Gjall early on. lure them down to the green valleys and run early to avoid the fireballs, as they have a significant spread effect on contact.
• Don’t even entertain a seeker soldier at this stage, run away from it over the high rocks, they’re useless at terrain traversal. You can snipe them on the arse for mega damage with arrows, but they do take alot to kill them. You’ll eventually have to take these guys out to get the mandibles though.
• Once you have the BM Pick-axe, it’s time to start mining the Petrified bones and skulls (this gets you soft tissue and black marble). Ticks will hang out at the petrified bone sites, you should be able to get 60 flesh from inside the skull of a petrified bone skull and more tick killing skills.
• Find and tag on the map an infested mine if you come across one, but stay cautious – these are guarded by 4 or 5 seekers and even with Atgier mega skills, that’s a tough battle. I eventually killed the seeker guards at my first infested mine and then built a transporter beside the infested mine so I was ready to raid the mine and could jump back to it quickly to continue the raid when I died (which you will).
• The infested mines are pretty hard at first, but you can run back to the entrance plinth and get a breather. Sometimes the seekers will follow and fly up onto your level of the entrance plinth which means you can 1 on 1 them. Ticks will jump up too, but the plinth area is quite small and enclosed so again, the Atgier 2nd attack’s radius is the winner here.
• The objective now is to get 5 black cores. I was lucky enough to find 5 in my first mine which then let me build the black forge. This then opens up things like the Arbalest (build this with carapace bolts) which is much better for taking out Gjall and getting a good long range snipe on alot of beasties early on in a fight.
• I then went on to build the Krom, just for max sword damage fun. You’ll need to have been killing rabbits/hares to get their skins for this. If you are struggling to kill the rabbits/hare’s then I don’t think this game is for you. Put the sword down and go read a book.
• By the way, during all this wandering around, you’ll have been picking up all the mage caps and Jotun puffs you come across…
• Once you’ve got the Arbalest and Krom, then go for the Dvergr settlement and the crate that houses the extractor, it’s a silver crate with pink runes on it. Not an easy task but again, try to place a transporter close to the Dvergr base to make re-raiding nice and quick. I used the Arbalest to do alot of long range sniping but the Mage’s kept healing. Eventually, I just ground them down and then did raid attacks. Remember you can’t transport the metal extractor, and you need black metal also to build the sap extractors so factor this in – your first Sap extractors could be placed within close walking distance of the first little house/teleport you build on the mistlands border.
• Use the extractor tech to build sap extractors and then move onto creating Eitr with the big Eitr machine, Sap and the flesh from Skulls. You can then build the Himminafal Atgier which is, I have to say, fantastic. With a maxed out upgraded one, a single 2nd attack knockback and then followed up by 2 jabs will take out a normal seeker. You’ll need to have killed a few seeker solders as well to get their mandibles.
• The next step is to build the magic table which then unlocks the feather cape, and other Eitr based magic weapons which are pretty good fun.
• I can’t stress enough about the effectiveness of the Atgier 2nd attack. The added on lightning damage of the Himminafal is a great touch. I don’t bother carrying a shield now. I carry the mistwalker as a quick ‘goto’ for quick deaths, and the Himminafal for going into battle. I don’t wear any tough armour now either. The Fenris outfit with speed buff and the feather cape for graceful falling is my clothing now and this makes the mistlands actually quite fun.

The above is of course just the way I did it, it’s not THE way to do it, but perhaps some bits in there will help people that are struggling. I have also recounted this mostly from memory so I hope the chronology of item creation/obtaining is correct .