Don't forget ocean in your biome progression. A karve and finewood bow are enough to get serpent meat for stew, just don't let it bite the boat many times and repair in between serpents.

Bow and atgeir work great on draugrs. Mace works great for slimes and skeletons. You rarely see a wraith unless you go at night.

Are you trying to boat in and dealing with the swamp welcoming committee? Walking in and slowly making a path with a hoe is much better if you can find a forest or meadows nearby. After you clear out the initial spawns, the respawns aren't as bad, as long as you don't walk through a spawner.

I agree that the swamp is quite a bit more difficult than the black forest.. constantly wet sucks I would say avoid night time period. Cold and wet is a no go also the wraiths can be a bit much early on.

Bring a hoe with you and try to level out the ground as much as possible. I don't mess with the poison resist meads it's easy to kill blobs with a few arrows before they get to you and I don't think I've ever in my life actually been hit by a leech but they maybe helpful for others.

Just take your time make sure you have good food at that level like deer meat, royal jam and maybe beef jerky should be good enough. Try to go in with rested buff. Be mindful of your surroundings.

GJEH -- As I read your post, you played Valheim after its initial released and progressed through Meadows, Black Forest, and Swamp and, perhaps Mountain and Plains too. The difficulty gap between successive biomes was manageable.

After Mistlands was released, you and your friends find that the transition from the Black Forest to the Swamp is much more difficult than you remember from earlier. As HangarPilot noted, Abominations were added to the Swamp. I don't know whether you had encountered any pre-Mistlands.

I have started over with a new character in a new world several times since Valheim's initial release but not since Mistlands dropped. In my experience, the transition between Black Forest and Swamp can be fairly easy or quite difficult for different playthroughs on different seeds. In some playthroughs, I have encountered no starred Swamp denizens before acquiring enough scrap iron to make suitable weapons and shields. In others, I was greeted upon entering my first patch of Swamp by three starred Draughr. Perhaps you got unlucky with your latest seed.

I don't think you need instruction on how to survive in the Swamp; you already know. I think you have done something that I and a lot of others have not: started a new viking on a new seed after the Mistlands update. Wait and see what players who have done so say about it.

Originally posted by warrenchmobile:

I don't think you need instruction on how to survive in the Swamp; you already know. I think you have done something that I and a lot of others have not: started a new viking on a new seed after the Mistlands update. Wait and see what players who have done so say about it.

I am doing so now. The swamp doesn't seem any different than before. OP might just have had bad luck on finding a crowded entry point. Granted, I do run away from abominations unless there's a crypt nearby and I put a workbench and ladders on each one I come across for that specific reason. They can't hit you while on top of a crypt, though they can bump you off if you're not careful. Easy root gear.

The hoe was already mentioned but i'm gonna say that again. The biggest problem in swamp are no run zones that must be hoed in places u will traverse a lot with scrap iron. If u don't wanna spend materials on poison resistance meads u can use stag sledgehammer on blobs.

Also respect starred draugs. Especially archers.

Easily more than 50% of all my deaths in Valheim (including Mistlands and "work accidents") were in Swamps. So yeah I think it's by far the biggest jump in difficulty in the game.

Most of the monsters are not that hard to handle by themselves, at least if you know them, but they tend to gang up on you and some fights require some space (especially abominations) and may cause you to draw in aditional enemies. Visbility is poor, the terrain can be tricky and you're constantly wet outdoors. You can get starred monsters everywhere, and some are extremly dangerous (2-Star-Draugr will likely kill you with a single arrow).
Then there's a lot of spawners (I just started Swamp in a new playthrough and there were four spawners just in the first crypt, complete with 2-Star spawn and all), and with spawners you usually can't play it save, you have to rush in at some point.
Also, there is a lot of luck involved in how long it takes you to actually get some upgrades. Example: On my first character I cleared 3 medium sized swamps and found a whopping 2 crypts, with a total of under 40 iron, but in the world i'm currently playing the first swamp has 4+ crypts and just the first of them held well over a hundred iron. Other biomes give more consistant results.

And while it's true that it get's easier if you know what to expect and prepare accordingly, the problem is you won't know what to expect the first time unless you spoil yourself with guides, and that this doesn't change the fact that you need to prepare a lot harder for Swamp than for the other biomes.
I think a reasonable change would be to put some kind of limitation on the star levels. Mountains was basically a walk in the park after that because you can completely avoid any enemies with stars (not sure about the caves but they are not needed for the essential upgrades).

Swamp is tough first couple of times into it. And from here on, new zones are going to be about this much harder.
you should have max upgraded armor, shield, and weapon with the best foods you can make (probably sausage, cooked fish, and some stamina food?). Troll armor is a little weak for the swamp, but if you can sneak well enough, it may be ok.

It gets easier because the crypts you need have blocked passages so you can pick your battles by removing them partly to shoot up the room in safety or jump over what the enemy can't to go in and run back out if needed, etc. They are rather safe all things considered, the easiest of all the dungeons.

Once you score a little iron, make a better shield and a better mace right away.
Iron is the king of the game; even the mistlands still uses it, so the more you can dig up the better, you will never say "I wish I had not farmed so much iron".

As for specifics.. there is a theme here...
skeletons are same as BF ones, and harmless or should be.
draghr are dangerous, but a little slow. you can shoot them a time or 2 before you engage melee. Once they get worked up they run faster, but they mosey a lot before they get close. Avoid if starred. Archers are dangerous, get cover make them come to you.
blobs are harmless if your armor is good, or if you have a PR potion. You can kill them with a bow easily.
Leeches can't get to you if you don't swim. But you need their drop, so may as well. They are harmless with a PR potion, and a bow can kill them with no risk.
Elite draghr will kill you for a while. Avoid.
Ghosts: night only, avoid until stronger.
Abomination: so slow it makes a troll look speedy. Fire kills it, but it hits hard up close. I think it may be strong against blunt so you may want to swap to your logging axe -- not 100% sure as time these came out, I was too strong to care much. You can drag them over the fire spouts.
Surtlings: easy to kill, but fire bad and quick. Block their shot to stun and kill before they can move takes practice. Easy to avoid: they only exist near column of flame things, can't miss it.

So, basically, the danger is groups of draghr, ghosts, or stupidity. You can shoot/kite/evade everything else.

Originally posted by HangarPilot:

I've been playing Valheim regularly since about 2 weeks after launch... with the notable exception of the addition of the Abominations, the swamp doesn't feel any harder to me than it used to.

Running into "Abe" as I call him can be a disaster early on. But even he's quite manageable once you know the tactics.

I prefer mace, shield, and maxed out troll leather (don't care for the movement penalty of the bronze armor). +1 on the poison mead ... and stamina/health meads "in case of emergency." My first batch of iron always goes to upgrading the shield/mace!

Abominations dont even bother you unless you try to hug one.

Swamp is still the same old swamp for me, but now with increased Wraith spawns at night & Abominations walking around. But also easier now I know what to expect from experience from an older character's play through.

swamp is relatively easy to master once one understand whats going on there
very important are poison resistance meads
try to beat up some abominations and get the gear craftet
the poison resistance from the helmet might be helpful (otherwise stick with meads)

as always the golden rule is: visit new biomes when you are prepared

if svamp is too hard for you then you are too weak when it comes to skills.
valheim is a very easy game to play. you just cant rush things.
you can kill everything in svamp with a bow. if you choose to have more of a challenge (like I did once and beat the whole game without ever using a bow)
you can use a sword or whatever.
learn when to swing the sword and when to run away etc.
level up your skills also, if you can low skills, then you will be weaker.
this game isn't fun when rushing, take your time, stack up items and food and build your base.
then move into svamp.
good luck

Use a mace for blobs, skeletons and wraiths. Their weakness is blunt damage.
A shield is your friend.
Fire arrows are good to go for the swamps.
Be sneaky! Take your time, don't rush!
Poison resistance of course!
...and run as fast as you can!

Swamp is nerfed to hell IMO, used to be you couldn't move without tripping over deadly stared mobs when you get there, now you can sprint through empty swamps.

I've been playing Valheim regularly since about 2 weeks after launch... with the notable exception of the addition of the Abominations, the swamp doesn't feel any harder to me than it used to.

Running into "Abe" as I call him can be a disaster early on. But even he's quite manageable once you know the tactics.

I prefer mace, shield, and maxed out troll leather (don't care for the movement penalty of the bronze armor). +1 on the poison mead ... and stamina/health meads "in case of emergency." My first batch of iron always goes to upgrading the shield/mace!

Tbh, I prefer to avoid being there at night if possible. I had just troll armor, a bow, and ategir. I used a bow for everything until I had to deal with either closing in draugrs or if I wanted to rush an archer.

It's a challenge, but it isn't overly difficult imo. I played either solo there or with one other person on the server if that affects the difficult while not in immediate location. It just takes lots and lots of arrows if being cautious

And always possible to farm the poison resist and pierce resist gear from the swamp even if it can take a bit of luck / time. Then it becomes a joke even with rank 1 of them.