6 Tips to Overcome the Ocean – Valheim

The Ocean isn’t a true biome in Valheim, in that it doesn’t have a boss or a progression tier associated with it. But, you’ll still be spending plenty of time there, sailing between the game’s many islands, and it holds its own share of dangers and useful resources. So if you want your sailing to be smooth, you’ll be interested in the 6 tips this guide provides.

Ocean Tips

• Avoid sailing into the wind
• Stay away from the shores of dangerous biomes
• Carry Wood to build Workbenches for repairs
• Have a big pool of stamina in case you need to swim
• Mine Leviathans (barnacled islands) for Chitin
• Hunt Serpents with an Abyssal Harpoon

Sailing With the Wind

Whenever you’re in a boat, pay close attention to the circular wind indicator on the right side of your screen under the minimap. You can check out our ships guide to better grasp the basics of sailing in Valheim. You ideally want wind to be right behind you, pushing you in the direction you need to go. Since you can’t control the wind, this will not always be possible. There are two main ways to avoid sailing into the wind:

• Rowing
• Tacking

An easy to overlook feature of ships in Valheim is the ability to row. If you drop the sails completely without fully stopping the ship, a moving oar symbol will appear above your wind indicator. This oar will slowly but surely take you in the direction you need to go regardless of wind.

Tacking is an actual real world sailing technique when dealing with undesirable wind. If you need to go straight and the wind is blowing directly into you, you can turn your ship about 45 degrees to one side, sail that way for a while, then turn 45 degrees in the opposite direction (from the middle position). This zigzag movement pattern will help you keep your sails up in any weather.

Staying Away From Dangerous Biomes

Valheim’s later, more-dangerous biomes like Plains and Mistlands have flying enemies in them. Whenever you approach the shores of a biome like this, the flyers will start chasing you. If you’re undergeared — or simply don’t want to deal with Deathsquitos chasing you while you sail around — don’t sail too close to the shores of those inhospitable biomes.

Additionally, when you’re sailing at night and get surrounded by fog, you might want to simply stop and wait it out. Not only will that save you from aggroing any enemies accidentally, it will prevent you from blindly running into rocks or other obstacles.

Carrying Extra Wood

If you’re setting out for distant shores, chances are you’re grabbing some building materials to create an outpost at your destination. The resources to build a Portal are also quite important (Greydwarf Eye x10, Finewood x20, Surtling Core x2).

Specifically when sailing, you should also always grab some extra Wood. Your ship can get damaged during the trip. Be it due to monsters or environmental hazard. To quickly repair it, you need to have a Workbench nearby. Having extra Wood allows you to quickly stop, put down a Workbench, repair, and keep sailing with a ship in perfect condition.

In fact, if you’re fast enough, you can quickly place a Workbench on some rock you’re sailing past, repair your ship, and keep going without stopping.

Having Enough Stamina

Accidents can happen on open waters. If you fall overboard, you’ll be able to swim to get back to your ship or a nearby shore. Swimming drains stamina at a rapid rate and it doesn’t naturally regenerate in water. Because of this, you want to have a lot of it. Considering it can take a while to sail to your destination, you don’t necessarily want to have your stamina buffs active when you start your journey. The buffs will run out before you reach your destination. What you want is to have the following ready:

• Stamina-rich food
• Eikthyr Forsaken Power
• Stamina Mead

What food you’ll have available will vary greatly depending on your progression. Either way, you’ll want the best stamina food there is in your inventory in case you need to swim. Check out our complete food list guide to see your options.

Eikthyr is the first biome boss you’ll defeat. Activating its Forsaken Power will reduce the stamina consumption of swimming by 60% for 5 minutes. It’s always good to have it ready.

If you’ve exhausted your stamina, you won’t be able to keep swimming. The only thing that will help you at that point is stamina mead. Your options are Minor Stamina Mead and Medium Stamina Mead.

Mining Leviathans

When you sail the Ocean biome, you’ll occasionally spot these small islands with large barnacles on them. These aren’t actually islands but Leviathans. These creatures are docile and won’t attack you. They’re there mainly to let you mine Chitin for use in items like the Abyssal Harpoon.

The thing about mining Leviathans is that after you start hitting the barnacles on their surface with a pickaxe, they’ll eventually submerge, leaving you stranded in open waters. Your best bet to avoid this is to carefully listen to the game audio. Before a Leviathan submerges, it will produce a loud groan. When you hear it, run back to your ship.

If you miss the audio cue, or are playing without game sound, you want to make sure you can get back to your ship anyway. This means you want to park it as close to the Leviathan as possible. And just to be extra safe, you should have all your stamina buffs active or ready when mining a Leviathan.

Hunting Serpents

Serpents can be a real threat to poorly equipped Vikings. They live in the Ocean and like to attack passing ships. If you’re not ready to deal with a Serpent, you should be sailing without looking at the water and instead navigating using your minimap. This will make it less likely a Serpent will aggro on you. If one does, pick the direction with the most favorable wind and sail there to outrun the Serpent. Make frequent course adjustments, as that will confuse the beast.

Serpents only spawn at night or during storms. If you don’t want to meet them, avoid sailing in those conditions. If you do want to meet one, that’s when you’ll be doing your best hunting.

The best way to defeat a Serpent is by using ranged weapons, like bows. However, since deep waters act as Valheim’s natural garbage can and despawn anything that falls into them, before finishing a Serpent off, you’ll want to shoot it with your Abyssal Harpoon (Finewood x8, Chitin x30, Leather Scraps x3), and then drag it closer to shore.

That way you can ensure getting all the loot that includes, Serpent Meat, Serpent Scales, and Serpent Trophies. You’ll particularly want the meat, as it’s a key ingredient in Cooked Serpent Meat and Serpent Stew. These foods provide a lot of health, and if you get good at defeating Serpents, can really help you during the early to mid game.