Valheim: Tips & Tricks to Survive the Mistlands

by Mike Alexander / Articles, Trending / 06 Jul 2023

Since its release in February 2021, Valheim has grown exponentially in the scale of its world and content. As the game quickly approaches its two-year anniversary, the developers at Iron Gate Studios have just released an update that fills out the previously empty Mistlands biome with a host of new resources, treasures, and dangers.

If you’ve played Valheim at all, you’ll know that each new biome you enter presents a massive leap in difficulty, and players who stumble into a new area without being prepared are destined to be one-shotted into the Viking afterlife with little to no warning. Thankfully, the goal of this very article you’re reading is to get you prepared for the Mistlands, so that you don’t wander up to it and find yourself in over your head. So, if you want to be the most prepared Viking warrior you can be, join us for these Tips & Tricks to Survive the Mistlands. Hopefully it will be enough to prevent you from becoming giant spider food!

I Can See Clearly Now

The Mistlands didn’t receive their name as the result of some kind of cruel joke. This place is absolutely covered in mist, to the point that it can feel like navigating Silent Hill, especially with the monsters you’ll find in the area. Getting around can be tricky, and the topography of the Mistlands makes it even more treacherous, but there is a way to get around safely.

What you’re going to want to do is make sure you’ve defeated Yagluth and have at least one Torn Spirit in your inventory. You’ll use this with 10 stones and the stonecutter to create a Wisp Fountain. This construction will collect wisps for you, which are crucial to the next step.

With your wisps and some silver bars, go to the Workbench and you can now craft a Wisplight, which is a torch that can be placed down in the Mistlands to dispel the mist in a medium-sized area around that torch. You’re going to need a lot of these, so farming wisps and collecting plenty of silver is probably going to be high on your list of to-dos.

The Gjall of This Lad!

One of the Mistland’s new monsters is a flying, fire-breathing, tick-dropping creature known as a Gjall. It floats, it has tentacles, and it is generally unpleasant to deal with. However, they can become quite trivial if you use a few helpful tricks.

The Gjall’s fire attack is devastating regardless of the armor you’re wearing, but if you can manage to stay directly underneath it, it won’t be able to hit you at all! Talk about a safe zone. While you’re there, you can use whatever bow you have on hand to light up its weak spot, which is located directly on its belly. You’ll be able to recognize it by its red, bump-covered appearance. A few fully-charged arrow blasts to this part of its body, and it’ll be downed for good.

Armor Recycling Service

Scattered around the Mistlands are the remnants of a mysterious race of giants. These will come in the form of many armor pieces, swords, and even skulls and bones if you look around enough. Most will just walk past these thinking they are interesting set dressings, but they all have a secret: you can mine them for awesome resources.

Craft up some pickaxes and get cracking on those discarded pieces of equipment to get things like copper and iron scraps. If you mine through the brain cavity of a skull, you might even find a resource called soft tissue, which is incredibly gross but might be useful later on, so make sure you grab as much as you can.

We Now Know What Came First

Another addition to Valheim with the Mistlands update is a purchasable egg that you can obtain from Haldor the Trader. That’s it. Just an egg. However, if you place your eggs down next to your campfire and wait a few days, they will then hatch into chickens!

These chickens can then be eaten. But, if you want an infinite egg-production machine, you can lay down seeds in your chicken’s living area, and they will lay even more eggs that you can use for recipes or hatch into more chickens. This is a pretty good route to take if you’re already building up a homestead, as the steady supply of food will be ideal for cooking powerful meals that will prepare you for dangerous adventures.

Defeating Seekers

So you wanna know how to take down those pesky Seekers in Valheim, huh? No problem! Here is the deal:

Seekers are weak to elemental damage, so using a powerful bow like the Draugr Fang with elemental arrows is a surefire way to take them down. Just wait for them to attack, circle around them, and let those arrows fly! Keep this up until they’re toast.

If bows aren’t your thing, the new Valheim Eitr magic weapons, like the Staff of Frost or Staff of Embers, are also great against Seekers. The Frost staff in particular will wipe out their HP bar in no time.

As for melee weapons, go for ones that have both physical and elemental damage, like the Himmin Afl polearm. Or, you can try using a one-handed weapon and shield, but be prepared for a longer fight. And when you’re facing a Seeker in close combat, don’t forget to wear a Feather Cape to protect against knockback attacks and fall damage.

Oh, and one more thing: Seeker Soldiers have a weak spot on their hind body, so always try to hit them there for extra damage.

Misc. Tips & Tricks

Make sure to craft an arbalest, as it’s a powerful weapon that uses very little stamina to fire. It’s worth the effort to get to the location where you can craft it.

If you want to protect an area from spawning enemies, break open some of the giant rocks and place a workbench inside. This will prevent Gjalls and Seeker soldiers from spawning there, as long as the workbench isn’t at ground level.

When fighting multiple enemies, try to isolate one or two at a time by running away and then picking them off one by one. This “Roroni Kenshin style” of fighting can help you come out on top in tough battles.

Unleash the power of potions, especially when your vitality is waning or you seek a speedy sanctuary. Let stamina potions be your ally in fleeing from peril.

Raiding dark forest tombs and troll caves can yield a lot of loot, which you can then sell to Haldor for coins. You can also try hunting fulings at night in the plains for additional income.

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.
View all posts