Valheim Journal 8Jun2021

I had a few important develoments since the last entry, so thought I would post. As always the index to previous and next journal entries is at the bottom.

So I smelted up the silver ore, and crafted chest and leg pieces as well as Draugr's fang. I did not have enough trophies to do the wolf cape, nor did I have enough to do the drake helm. So I was faced with a choice- farm Bonemass to get the mats to apply rare enchantments to the newly crafted pieces, or go on a wolf/drake hunt and craft those.

I chose Bonemass. I had killed him once, and this time I was serious about farming him.

The first summon was a one star mending Bonemass. I did not have the routine down, and he would heal up the damage I did during the poison retreat phase and kill the adds phase. While I had did a lot of skittish sledging on my first kill of Bonemass, that was not going to work here. I quickly discovered that there is a damage window, and I had to lay in a lot of mace hits during it. Bonemass will puke poison, then toss adds. Run away then, sledge the adds, and go back to tower shield and mace. Hold block as you get close, then land at least 6 mace hits. Depending on the version of Bonemass, you can maybe get 1-3 more hits before you have to block, but 6 and block seems reliable and safe. The damage you do by landing 2 complete 3-swing chains is a huge chunk. Note I did try using frost arrows, and they could not keep pace with the mending.

That kill gave me mats to enchant Frostner, which I switched to, and it worked much better. The spirit damage over time (DoT) damage shows as a yellow bar, and that applies during the run from poison and sledge adds phase. The DoT damage seems to stack on itself rather than just overwrite the duration. Frostner's value is in slowing the adds that ware wet and the cold damage just makes them crawl. I then killed several other versions of Bonemass

• A 2 star summoner, which summoned Draugr Elites (1-star): I died to the elites, and spent a lot of time kiting in the greater swamp to try and isolate the elites from Bonemass. Eventually I downed Bonemass, and had to go back and mop up all the summons. A subsequent 1 star summoner saw me improve technique- you can mace hit and fall back on the elites on the smoothed fighting field about the summoning stone, and or use sledge hits. Once I had it down, the summons were extra drops from the encounter. You just basically backpeddle and hit the most forward add until the elites are down, and the summon frequency is not too bad, so you can get some damage windows on Bonemass before he replaces the summons. For the Draugr elite adds, I would not shield block unless multiples were on me. Instead I would time a Frostner hit, which would knockback and slow the elite. This did heavy damage without me taking any, and I could pivot from add to add as I backpeddled, thinning them.

• Enchanted 1 and 3 stars- I did not notice much from these guys. Higher star ratings hit harder, and thats about it.

• Enraged 1 and 2 star- I was expecting more lethality, but by the time I was fighting these, I was much more smooth in tower shield + Frostner.

• Twinned 1 star- these were very tricky. When I was killing them with my son, he could draw threat and apply pressure and I could line up sledge hits, and they were easy. In solo sledge is slow and risky, and you face hits from both as well as double poison and double adds. I just ground them down by running from poison, sledging adds, then if there were no adds, get as many mace hits as I could. The twins share a life pool so the splash damage is nice.

I think I did 9 summons before I quit. In the process I saw a good 4 epic loot drops which really upped my gear in the shield, helm, and leg slots. I was short on rare essence, and Bonemass was not dropping that. I had to grind up rares to get that, which I did a few of. Mostly though I had yellow gear, and grinding purples is painful. I did get a pretty decent Draugr Fang enchant, so I decided to return to the mountains. Were I to do this again, I would skip the mountains until I had farmed Bonemass quite a bit. I was thinking that getting a little silver and crafting silver armor/weapons would add those to the drop table, but it seems like a gear boost from farming Bonemass a while before going to the mountains will up your survival rate in the mountains.

I took out the wishbone and did a bow patrol of the mountains. I found maybe another 5 silver lodes (possibly more), but did not score a second wolf trophy. I did get plenty of drake trophies, and crafted a drake helm, but my legendary iron helm is tough to beat. I got double teamed by wolves and died once, but the corpse recovery was pretty easy. Draugr Fang and poison arrows (which I had a lot from the Bonemass farms) were really hitting hard. I even staggered a 1-star wolf.

So I was exploring the last little parts of my mountain, and had come down scree into a little valley with a drake nest and standing boulders. I rounded one of those, and there was a 5-star fire infused wolf. I backed off without getting its attention, and started digging a pit. My idea was to dig a ring with an elevated portion in the middle. I would have collapsible flooring via the hammer leading to me standing in the middle, and this was how I would get my wolf. I had dug the ring, and was getting ready to do the woodwork, when the wolf spotted me. So I ran the rim on sprint, and turned around. He was gone. Then I looked down, and saw him in the pit. I had a 5-star wolf in the pit! Not sure why it fell in, suspect is is the huge model size for high stars screws up pathing.

Since it was a day spawn wolf, I had no fears of it disappearing. The drakes and their nest were far enough away that it would likely not hit the wolf. So I ran back to a portal base, grabbed wood, portal materials, and raw meat. I tossed a 20stack in the pit, and the wolf just went nuts trying to kill me but could not escape.

I had yet to do this aspect of the game. My son had done this before. So there was a learning curve, and I suspect I still have things wrong. I remember the basics…back off far enough so it is not angry and it will then eat meat. So I did. And I decided to make a crude shelter.

My shelter was simple. I dug down in a pile of boulders, going for dirt, until I hit maximum depth. At the bottom I dug more dirt. This left a stone structure above with a cutout where I started digging, and I was sheltered. Drakes could not get angle on me, and I think I was deep enough that the other stuff would not find me. Up went the portal and chest and bench, and then I spent a bit of time trying to rig a ladder out to not block the campfire I had going. Rising smoke from the fire is a good way to spot the place btw. So if worse came to worse, I could jump in the hole and port out.

I came back the next day, and the wolf was still mad. So too was another wolf, that attacked me while I was near the pit. I lead it back to the pit, and shoved it in. But I fell in, and they killed me, with my corpse on the bottom of the pit.

This stymied me. A naked runback revealed I could not click my tomb from the safety of the pit rim, and there was a good chance the wolves might climb up each other trying to get out. So I had to get backup gear.

I went back and discovered that one of the yellow chests was a wolf fur chest, and I did not even notice it. That chest means I do not need frost resistance pots. I went back to much of my older gear.

But I had two bad wolves, and they had not tamed much overnight. Then I remembered that you need to be far enough away so that they are not aggressive, but close enough so that they feel the time pass and eat meat. So I started a better building project, and that is where I left it.

I am not sure if having 2 untamed wolves in the same pit with food will work, but I will give it a go. My aim is to get a very tough survival structure and just afk near them for a bit. My cave hovel is not within sight of the wolves, so I am not sure if idling there counts. The plan is a square/rectangular trench, with a 2m rim, then either a stakewall structure or maybe I will lug over iron to do a stone structure.

But 5 stars in the pit. Oh this should be fun.

Previous journal entry 7Jun2021