Valheim: 6 Tips & Tricks You Probably Didn’t Know

by Mike Alexander / Articles, Misc. Guides / 30 Mar 2024

The survival genre got a new, interesting take on its standard systems and mechanics in February of 2021 when Coffee Stain Publishing released Iron Gate AB’s Valheim, a Viking-themed survival game where anything is possible. In Valheim, you’ll play as a Viking adventurer as they try to survive and take down all of the mystical creatures in Purgatory in hopes of being able to gain passage to the Viking afterlife. You can accomplish this mission solo, or with friends, but either way, you are in for a hell of a ride. If you’re neck-deep in the world of Valheim, you might think you know all of its ins and outs. However, you might find some new information on this Valheim: Top 6 Pro Tips & Tricks You Probably Didn’t Know list. When you’re ready to chop some wood and some monsters, pick up your axe, and let’s get started!

Base Defense

A big part of Valheim will be building your own home base to return to in between adventures. You’ll be free to build and decorate however you like, but the threat of danger is constantly looming in the world of Valheim. Enemies will be able to walk right up to your front door and attack if your base isn’t properly defended. One of the best ways to defend your base is by building an old-school moat all the way around. If it is deep enough, anything that falls in won’t be able to get out. For extra peace of mind, you can drag leeches from the biomes they reside into your moat, and they will stay there without despawning. Then, when something falls in, it will be instantly devoured.

Home Decor

When building out your home, you might find the empty building to be a little sparse. Using Valheim’s item placement system, it is possible to create buckets that look like they are full of anything. This can be handy as storage but it is also aesthetically pleasing. All you need to do is build a waist-tall wall where you’d like to place the bucket, place your items, destroy the wall underneath, then place the bucket underneath those items. It’ll be an easy-access location for whatever you chose to store, and it’ll look great too!

Troll Labor

When you encounter a troll, your first instinct will be to engage it in combat and kill it. However, smart Valheim players have figured out a way to use the brutes to their advantage. If you encounter or can drag a troll to an area that has material deposits like copper, you can fool the troll into attacking them, smashing them, and making those materials easily picked up and taken. When you need a lot of ore quickly, this is a great way to do it.

Bypassing Locked Dungeons

Valheim is home to countless procedurally-generated dungeons. As you find them in your exploration, occasionally you’ll find some that require a key to unlock them. These are typically the best dungeons that contain the best loot, so you’ll want to get into them quickly. If you want to skip finding the key, here’s a little trick. If you place a wooden chair right up on the door facing it, interact with it to sit down, and move forward before the animation completes, you will be teleported to the other side of that door. Who needs a key?

No-Maintenance Hearth

In your home base, you will be able to build a hearth. These constructions are used for cooking, sleeping, and warmth for your Viking. They can be kind of a nuisance though, as a standard hearth will require constant fuel recharges and maintenance to keep it going. If you want to have an infinite hearth, you can grind out biomes to obtain surtling trophies. When you have a bunch of them, you can place those inside your hearth, and they will burn infinitely, saving you a ton of time and effort.

Chest Labeling

You’ll be collecting a ton of resources in Valheim, and much of that will be stored in your home base. When you’re building storage for these items, you might want to label them to keep everything straight and organized. There isn’t a way to do this built into the game, but there is a trick to allow labeling of cabinets. If you place a board on a wall, you can write a message. IF you line that board up with where you’d like your label to be, you can make the text float over it by inputting enough spaces at the end of your message to push the words off of the board and over the appropriate space.

Mike Alexander

Mike has been playing video games since he was able to hold a controller, having been fascinated by Sonic 2 on his mom’s Sega Genesis. That fascination and passion for the art form has grown exponentially nearly 30 years later, and he doesn’t see that fading away anytime soon.
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