4Game

The Elder's power is generally regarded as one of the most useless powers to have in Valheim. And it's not hard to see why: It makes you do 60% extra chop damage* to trees. On paper, this doesn't sound that bad, but in practise, it hardly makes a difference, as most trees go down in 2-3 chops with a bronze axe anyway. You save very little time and since you can only have 1 power at a time, you can't have any other more practical powers at hand such as Bonemass or Eikthyr.

Besides, woodcutting is not the only way to get wood. A lot of players make afk greydwarf spawner farms, which passively gives them wood as well as stone, greydwarf eyes and resin. The more daring ones use trolls or other giant enemies to cut trees for them. Others use big hammers to demolish wooden structures. Some use doors to destroy trees. The list goes on.

Plus, you spend a lot more time and effort in this game mining, than woodcutting. Especially in the Black Forest where you spend most of your time getting copper and tin. Or when you get to the Swamp and unlock the stonecutter to build stone structures, which take an immense amount of stone.

That's why I think The Elder's power should include a 60% increased mining speed effect, as it would not just make the power itself a lot more useful, but also because it is then given at the perfect time in the game(the Black Forest IS the stage where you first learn to mine, after all.) and not at the (current) end of the game.

I mean, sure, it's nice that you finally have that power after hundreds of days, but let's face it: At this stage, you've done pretty much all the mining you needed to do, already. It's like climbing a mountain without any climbing gear, but receiving it when you reach the summit.

I'd love to hear your opinions on this. Skal!

*Side note: It's strange that at Spawn, Eikthyr's power tells you exactly how much less stamina you spend when running and jumping, but the Elder's power is just "faster wood cutting". Iron Gate, please add this percentage, which I previously had to look up on the wiki in order to know it in the first place, in the game. It's a little thing, but it helps make it a little more clear. Thanks in advance.