How to Kill an Abomination — Valheim

The Abomination is an uncommon Swamp enemy that spawns by pulling itself out of the ground when you get close. It has several strong attacks with significant reach, and it is the source of roots, which are used to make Root Armor. This guide will walk you through several effective ways to handle and kill an Abomination, and will give you details on the loot it drops at the end.

Killing an Abomination

The first thing you have to do is find an Abomination. Often you happen upon them by accident while exploring a Swamp biome. Mark the location on your map as Abominations may respawn in the same area.

Abomination spawn nodes look like tree stumps, and an Abomination will emerge from it if your Viking gets too close. These nodes are often hidden behind trees or submerged in water. Occasionally you can catch a glimpse of the spawn node just before you get close enough to proc the encounter.

Abominations have about 800 health. They are the Swamp’s version of Trolls, Stone Golems, or Berserkers. There are four ways to deal with one: leave it alone, get the environment to kill it, or slay it at range or in close melee combat.

Fire Geyser

This might be the most entertaining way to kill Abominations! Medium to large Swamp biomes will contain one or more Fire Geysers that spawn Surtlings. Once an Abomination starts to spawn, run to the nearest Fire Geyser and kill any nearby Surtlings. Then, run back to the Abomination and kite it to the Fire Geyser with arrows.

Once at the Fire Geyser, position it between you and the Abomination. It will lumber directly over the Fire Geyser and start to take massive burn damage (10+ per tick on its legs, 30+ per tick on its body). It takes about 20 seconds at max damage to burn an Abomination’s entire health bar.

Strike the Abomination a couple times so that it might stay to attack you instead of fleeing the fire. Then, simply dodge left or right around the Fire Geyser to avoid the Abomination’s attacks while keeping it in the flames. If it does become frightened and flee, you can kite it back to the flame after it moves far enough away, which is usually no more than 75 meters.

The fight can be much easier to control if you have converted the Fire Geyser mound into a Surtling Core and Coal Farm. Check out our guide for tips on how to set one up, and you will have a relatively safe and predictable way to engage Abominations.

Slashing

Abominations can be fun to engage in a melee, and the fight is quite manageable with nearly maxed Bronze Armor and equipment. Here are a few tips to help the battle go down the way you want it to.

• Abominations are resistant to piercing and blunt damage. Stick to slashing weapons like swords and axes.
• The body is the weakest point. The legs are most resistant to damage of all types.
• Move the fight to a large, open and dry area that you have cleared of trees and enemies.
• The Abomination model easily dominates the screen, so zoom out to track its movements.
• All three of the Abomination’s attacks can be parried, but some have tricky animations and delays.

While the Abomination has four legs, it has a front and will only attack with its two front legs and its body. From the Abomination’s perspective:

• The right leg is thin and sharp and can swipe horizontally with high speed, little delay, and great reach.
• The left leg is thicker and can lift high and pound with surprising reach, a tricky delay, and high damage.
• The body can rise up and slam down with subtle animation, moderate delay, and heavy damage.

If you can parry an Abomination’s attacks and stagger it, the delay and double-damage will significantly accelerate the fight. Just remember to refresh your food before engaging to max out your stagger meter, especially if you are using Bronze equipment.

Fire Arrows

One of the earliest and safest strategies to take down Abominations is fire arrows. This uses materials you probably have in excess if you just finished off the Elder in the Black Forest. Make sure you craft and fully upgrade the strongest bow available to you, as the burn damage scales with the direct damage you inflict.

Find and spawn an Abomination, and then immediately run toward a high place that will be difficult for an Abomination to climb or destroy. Abominations do not seem to like attacking structures, or at least not when you are too high to reach. Kite the Abomination with arrows to a safe point of interest (POI) or structure.

• The best choice is a fallen swamp tree, which is invulnerable to all attacks.
• The second best is a Sunken Crypt entrance. It is also invulnerable, and you can climb up the back.
• Broken swamp towers with high-enough walls to block the Abomination will work.
• A last resort is a stilt house or your own base that you can quickly scale.

As the Abomination approaches, loose fully-charged fire arrows into the beast. It will ignite every time because it is so tall that its burning body remains above the swamp water. Eventually, the Abomination will attempt to disengage. However, once it is about 75 meters away, you usually can get its attention again with a well-placed arrow.

Don’t launch the next arrow until the fire dies out, since fire damage does not stack. Abominations are resistant to piercing damage, so it is the fire damage doing most of the work. It is likely to take 50 arrows or more. This is a slow but safe and guaranteed method.

Escape

If you know your Viking isn’t ready to take on Abominations yet, you can run. It takes several seconds for an Abomination to pull itself from the ground and flip over, and even above ground it moves slowly . This gives you a lot of time to run. Abominations frequently disengage, so all you need to do is to put some distance between your Viking and it.

Keep track of the land paths as you explore the swamp. Usually, where there are reeds or visible ground, you can move fairly quickly. Once you get about 75+ meters away, you won’t need to worry about the Abomination following you.

Loot and Recipes

Of course, the main reason to fight an Abomination is the loot, and some of the drops are used in exclusive recipes:

• Roots (5): A guaranteed drop. They are required to craft and upgrade Root Armor.
• Guck (3): Another guaranteed drop. A Swamp-native ingredient and fuel for Standing Green-burning Iron Torches.
• Abomination Trophy (1): An occasional drop. Required to make Sticky Fishing Bait to catch Giant Herring in coastal Swamp waters.

The Root Mask is the Root Armor headgear, and it is very useful early on in the swamp. Wearing it grants your Viking Poison resistance, and once fully-leveled, the mask will be as strong as the fully-leveled bronze armor you might have entered the Swamp with.

Giant Herring are one of the fish on the list that you have to catch–in sequence–in order to have one of every kind to display on your wall. Check out our complete Mistlands-update Fishing Guide for details. And don’t forget to hang up an Abomination Trophy and a Giant Herring. Each of them quotes like a boss!

We hope you feel more confident taking on Abominations now, or skillfully avoiding them! Let us know what you think of the guide or your own Abomination experiences in the comment fields below.