Valheim-Conquering the Black Forest,Sailing the Sea,Building a Bronze Age Settlement and Defeating The Elder!

Howdy Gamers

Last week I played Valheim for around 6-8 hours a day for 3 days in a row.I got a little burnt out on it and have taken a few days rest since then.

I managed to make a lot of progress and collected a whole load of footage over those 3 days.

In this video we take to the seas for the first time crafting a raft first and then a Kath later on.I go dungeon delving to collect sutling cores for my kiln and smelter.I built a nice little bronze age homestead where I could smelt bronze weapons,armour and tools and finally we head out to take out the Elder which is the second boss in the game.

We start our adventure at the very first burial chamber I discovered in the Black Forest area.

These chambers are the first dungeons you will come across Valheim.We need to go here to find sutling cores so we can build a smelter and kiln to start crafting with bronze.I would advise crafting the Stagbreaker 2 handed weapon before entering as it makes clearing these dungeons pretty easy and smashing skeltons to bits with a weapon fit for the gods is alot of fun...

Each of the burial chambers can have different amounts of sutling cores.We need 10 in total ,5 for the kiln and 5 for the smelter.In the first chamber I only found 4 cores.We also find the runestone which is needed to activate the Elder boss spawn location here.

The burial chambers are also a good place to harvest these yellow mushrooms which give increased stamina...

These evil bone piles are what spawn the skeletons,smash them to stop them respawning or camp a room with one in it to farm skeletons for their bones...

I swear I must have spent around 2 hours searching every inch of this Black forest area for another Burial chamber.Eventually I came to the conclusion that there wasn't another one in the Black Forest on the Island I was on so I decided to head closer to the Elder spawn location which was quite a distance away on the map.To do this I would have to cross my first small stretch of ocean on a very basic raft..

Sailing the seas for the first time is quite an experiance.It took we a few minutes to get used to steering the raft and sailing with the wind.After a short journey we reach the shore of a new island just as a storm hits....I jump of the raft excited to explore this new found land and build a new homestead...

Into the stormy forest we go!....

I built a basic little wooden shack with a bed as a respawn point and headed of into this new Black Forest area in search of another burial chamber.

I honestly love the design of the forest's in this game especially the Black forest areas.It feels and looks like something right out of a fairytale and reminds me of exploring large Caledonian pine forests in the highlands of Scotland.

I think they are the best designed forest areas I have ever seen in any game and the fact that every tree can be cut down,fall with realistic physics and be crafted into useful items and buildings has me very excited for the future of the rpg and mmorpg genres.

Eventually I stumble upon the second burial chamber...

Its guarded by more skeletons...time to whip out the Stagbreaker....its hammer time!

This chamber had 8 suttling cores in total which means I now have enough to build both my smelter and kiln...

With the suttling cores gathered up let's head out of the dungeon and do some crafting...

Ok now we have a smelter and kiln added to my little bronze age homestead,its time to go find some copper and tin ore...

Copper deposits in this game can be huge....I love how we have to smash them to pieces to gain our ore.It might be worth setting up a mining camp when you find one of these huge deposits as you will need to make a few trips back to base with the ores as they are pretty heavy.You're also going to need to repair your pickaxe a few times before you get through the entire deposit.

The first copper deposit I found was guarded by skeletons ,I didn't even get to start mining before they attacked me...

Mining these deposits often attracts groups of greydwarfs which can be a real hassle ,especially if you get a mix of greydwarf shamans and brutes attacking you at once.Thankfully this one only had a few skeletons to deal with and then I could continue mining.In the end I must have harvested around 40 copper ore from this one deposit by the time it was fully depleted.Remember to smash the ground around the deposit as parts of it are not visible until you mine some of the land and stone around the outer edges.

Tin ore is relatively easy to acquire, the deposits are found near the waters edge in the Black Forest...

So now we have a whole load of ore it's time to smelt some bars...

Combining copper and tin bars at our forge we can now craft bronze items.

One of the first things to craft is a bronze axe which will let you harvest fine wood from trees that are to hard for the stone and flint axes.With fine wood we can craft a new fine wood bow and finally get rid of our crude bow.

After a long while of gathering ,smelting and crafting I made my bronze axe,bronze pickaxe,sword,mace ,shield and all 3 pieces of bronze armour.Once we add an anvil to our forge we can upgrade all of these to level 2.With our full set of level 2 bronze items and our fine wood bow I think we are just about ready to head out and take on the Elder boss.

The first time we craft bronze nails it opens up our ability to build our first real boat ,a rather significant upgrade to the raft we first hit the seas on.

I had to build another boat to sail a bigger stretch of ocean to get closer to the Elders spawn location.

After a long journey through stormy seas finally we see land

Into another stormy forest we go...

Wandering through the forest I found this creepy little village haunted by Draugr which I thought was pretty cool....We wander out of the forest to find a haunted village....damn I love this game!

I tried fighting the Draugr and an archer very nearly killed me which would have sucked big time as I had not yet built a house with a bed in this location.

I would have had to respawn at the base on the other island and somehow made my way back to fetch my corpse and all my items.I think its time to build another little basic hut with a bed so we can respawn here....

Eventually we get to the Elder boss spawn location.....lets just take a minute to marvel at the surroundings...look at the sunrise through the forest.....this game is epic!

To spawn the Elder we need 3 Ancient seeds.They can be dropped by the Greydwarf brutes or looted by destroying Greydwarf nests.

There are a couple of tricks we can use to defeat this boss, the first is to build campfires all around his temple...Doing this will mean he takes fire damage if you plan to run him around and burn him down with the bow...

The other trick is to dig a hole under the edge of the temple,make it big enough and deep enough so you can take shelter in it.Doing this makes it hard for the Elder to hit you and gives you an area to take shelter and regen your hit points.

Now that our firetraps are set and our hiding cave is dug its time to spawn the Elder...

I brought with me a stack of 100 fire arrows and managed to burn him down by running in and out of the little cave I dug.

This method took a long time, probably the best part or an hour and close to 90 fire arrows although maybe I missed with 10 so I guess if you try this bring a stack of 100 fire arrows or more.

With the Elder boss dead we get the swamp key as loot as well as his trophy.I haven't built any portals so it's going to be a hell of a long journey back to the sacrificial stone circle to hang the trophy up and gain his Forsaken power.

The swamp key is used to open crypts in the Swamp biome.These crypts are our second dungeon type and its where we need to go to harvest Iron.With Iron we can create our stone cutting table and start building a castle and advance into the Iron age.I plan to build my first castle here around the elders temple.What a cool spot to build our first castle!

The fact we can do things like that in this game is something else.....kill a forsaken god....reclaim his temple and turn it into your first castle....sheer epic,viking magic!

Stay tuned for more Valheim adventures as Conan progresses into the Iron Age!