10 Tips to Manage the Mountains – Valheim

While the earlier biomes mostly presented combat and logistical challenges, Valheim’s Mountain biome turns the environment against you. Dealing with debilitating cold and hard to climb cliffs makes the biome’s already challenging enemies even more dangerous. This guide will share 10 tips that will help you navigate the Mountains and extract their resources.

Mountain Tips

• Use Mead and warm capes to resist the cold
• Make sure you have enough stamina
• Use the Wishbone to locate Silver veins
• Have a good bow to deal with Drakes
• Have a good shield to deal with Wolves
• Use a pickaxe when fighting golems
• Prioritize crafting the Frostner
• Raid abandoned huts for Onion Seeds
• Explore Frost Caves if you’re looking for Tetra fish or Fist weapons
• Make sure to have a portal up, and Mead back at base

Staying Warm

While the Mountain biome has its share of dangerous enemies, the biggest threat there is the environment itself. While you’re there, you’ll have a constant Freezing debuff:

• Health Regeneration: -100%
• Stamina Regeneration: -60%
• Eitr Regeneration: -60%
• Resistant vs Fire

No health regeneration is bad enough, but that reduced stamina regeneration is even worse, considering how much running and jumping you generally need to do in the biome. Here’s how to prevent the Freezing debuff from affecting you:

• Stay by a fire
• Use the Frost Resistance Mead
• Wear a warm cape (Wolf Fur Cape)

Staying close to a source of fire will prevent you from freezing. The inconvenient thing about it is that you have to stay near that fire at all times. This method only works if you want to venture inside the biome to do something quick, like hunt some wolves when you don’t have any Frost Resistance Mead on you.

To brew Frost Resistance Mead, you’ll need:

• Honey: x10
• Thistle: x5
• Bloodbag: x2
• Greydwarf Eye: x1

This will get you 6 bottles of the mead. Each of them will protect you from Freezing for 10 minutes. You’ll want to combine these ingredients in a Mead Ketill into Mead Base: Frost Resistance. Then put that inside a Fermenter for 2 in-game days.

You’ll need a good amount of this mead during your early Mountain exploration. Once you’ve established yourself there, you’ll start mining Silver. At that point you’ll be able to get permanent immunity to Freezing thanks to the Wolf Fur Cape. You’ll need:

• Wolf Pelt: x6
• Silver: x4
• Wolf Trophy: x1

Wolf Pelts and Trophies are dropped by the wolves inhabiting the biome. And Silver is the main new ore tier in the Mountain. Wearing a Wolf Fur Cape provides permanent Frost resistance. And along with it, makes you immune to Freezing. The cape, along with the earlier mead, also make you immune to Cold, the debuff you get when you explore at night. So these two items are useful even outside the Mountain.

It’s good to mention here that capes from later biomes also provide resistance to Frost and work as well as the Wolf Fur Cape for dealing with cold weather.

Keeping Your Stamina Up

The Mountain biome has a lot of uneven terrain and steep slopes. The enemies there also require you to be in peak condition as they’re relentless in their attacks. This means you want to make sure you have enough stamina to traverse the biome, and then some left over to deal with the wolves and other foes.

To ensure you have enough stamina, you want to always have the Rested buff. It’s also advisable to eat 2 good stamina foods and 1 health food when exploring the Mountains. (We have a guide that lists the best food you can find in each biome.) For the Mountain, your food setup should look something like:

• Serpent Stew – Max Health +80, Max Stamina +26
• Eyescream – Max Health +21, Max Stamina +65
• Onion Soup – Max Health +20, Max Stamina +60

If you need a bit of extra stamina, you might also want to use the Eikthyr Forsaken Power that lowers your stamina use for running and jumping by 60% for 5 minutes.

Using the Wishbone

After you reach the Mountain biome, you might struggle to find its new ore – Silver. To reach it, you’ll need to use the Wishbone item dropped by the Bonemass, the boss of the Swamp biome. The Wishbone goes in the same inventory slot as the Meginjord belt, which is unfortunate but unavoidable.

Wearing the Wishbone allows you to find resources hidden underground. Its primary use is locating the Silver veins in the Mountains. However, it can also help you locate scrap piles in the Swamp and buried treasure in the Meadows.

With the Wishbone equipped, explore the Mountains while watching your character closely and listening to game sounds. Whenever you get close to a Silver vein, you’ll hear a pinging noise and see sparks circling around your character. The closer you are, the faster these pings will come. When they come very rapidly, get your pickaxe and hit the ground. This will allow you to uncover a Silver vein and continue your biome progression.

Dealing With Drakes

Drakes are an annoying enemy type, as they don’t close the distance to attack you directly. Instead, they float in the air and send frosty projectiles at you. Because of that, before venturing into the Mountain, you want to make sure to have a ranged weapon. Early on, your best bet will be the Huntsman Bow (Finewood x10, Iron x20, Feathers x10, Deer Hide x2). You’ll also want some Fire Arrows (Wood x8, Feathers x8, Resin x2) along with it, as drakes are weak to Fire damage. It’s best if you get some practice shooting before coming to the Mountain. The Root Set from the Swamp can be useful there thanks to its bonus to the Bows skill.

Drakes drop several items you’ll need for crafting, so once you down a drake, make sure to find its loot and pick it up. You’ll need a Drake Trophy to craft this biome’s helmet, and you’ll be using Freeze Glands for the Frostner and Staff of Frost, two iconic weapons.

Dealing With Wolves

Unlike drakes, wolves are all about hounding you from up close. They tend to travel in packs and gang up on you whenever you set foot inside the Mountain biome. When you’re running Swamp gear, wolves can be very dangerous. It’s best to never explore the biome at night. Still, even the daytime wolves can pose a challenge.

To deal with them, you’ll want a good shield and a lot of stamina to block and parry their attacks. When you’re playing with other people, wolves become more manageable. One player can tank their attacks while the others can hit them back. When playing solo, things become all about finding the openings to counterattack without overextending and draining all your stamina.

Fighting Golems

Stone Golems are another tricky enemy type you’ll find in the Mountains. They start by pretending to be mere piles of rocks. When you approach, they shake the ground and attack you. Each stone golem is essentially a mini boss. Due to their powerful attacks, your best bet is dodging. Since they attack slowly, time your dodge to move out of the way, then counterattack.

A neat trick when fighting stone golems is using your pickaxe to hit them. While they’re resistant to most damage types, stone golems take increased damage from pickaxes. Using one to fight them will make things go much smoother.

Crafting the Frostner

The Frostner is a mace you can craft in the Mountain biome. It’s modeled after the Mjolnir, so in a game about Vikings, you know it will be good. And unsurprisingly, Frostner doesn’t disappoint. This club-type weapon deals Blunt, Frost, and Spirit damage. It also has great knockback. The Frost damage portion also makes it slow enemies. Combined with the knockback, this makes Frostner a good weapon for dealing with crowds of enemies. Meanwhile that Spirit damage portion is fantastic when when fighting the undead. While it won’t do anything to a lot of the enemy types in the game, all the skeletons, werewolves, draugr, and oozes will feel its sting.

To craft a Frostner, you’ll need Ancient Bark x10, Silver x30, Ymir Flesh x5, Freeze Gland x5. Ancient Bark is harvested from the ancient trees in the Swamp biome. Silver is your main Mountain ore. Ymir Flesh is sold by Haldor the merchant (check out our guide for how to find him in the Black Forest). And finally, Freeze Glands are dropped by drakes in the Mountains.

Raiding Abandoned Huts for Onions

The Mountain biome hides its new ore underground. And since it’s such a frigid biome, it makes you work for its new farmable crop as well. When exploring the Mountains, you’ll come across abandoned huts and towers. Some of them will have chests inside. And some of those chests will store Onion Seeds.

When you take these seeds and plant them in a more hospitable biome, like the Meadows, with the Cultivator, you’ll grow Onions. Since they’re quite tricky to obtain, Onions aren’t as crucial to your progression as Carrots or Turnips, but they still get used in several important recipes.

Right away, you’ll be able to cook them into Onion Soup, a good stamina food for the biome. Later on, you’ll combine them with some ingredients from other biomes to create a deceptively powerful Salad. And if you decide to start taming animals, you’ll need some Onions for your Brew of Animal Whispers.

Exploring Frost Caves

Since they were added in a later update, the Frost Cave dungeons of the Mountain biome aren’t critical to your progression. They can still be an attractive place to explore for those interested in fishing and those looking for a rapid, backstabbing fist weapon playstyle. You get it by crafting the Fenris set and Flesh Rippers.

Once inside the caves, you’ll be dealing with different variety of werewolves, Cultists, and bats. Cultists deal Fire damage, so if you’ve been wearing something like the Root set that makes you vulnerable, you’ll want to swap it out in there. While traversing Frost Caves, watch your step, as there’s a lot of verticality to these dungeons. Sometimes it’s easy to miss the staircases leading down, or fall down all sorts of pits. These dungeons also contain breakable ice walls. You’ll want to hit them to get through.

Some Frost Caves also contain pools of water. This is the only place where you can find the Tetra fish. If you’re looking to craft the Fishing Hat, you’ll need to catch some. In fact, you can even find a rare frozen lake underground and get a free Fishing Rod there.

Preparing a Portal

In general, it’s always a good idea to have portals set up whenever you explore a new biome. Since the Mountain ramps up the difficulty by not only throwing challenging enemies at you, but also featuring plenty of precarious drops and other environmental hazards, there’s always a chance to fall. In battle or otherwise.

Having an easy way to retrieve your gear is important. Later on, when you’re wearing a warm cape to protect you from the biome’s Freezing debuff, make sure to keep at least some Frost Resistance Mead back at base. That way, if you ever need to retrieve your gear, you can drink the mead and not worry about the Freezing debuff while you’re out looking for your lost cape.