It's no Dark Souls that's for sure. The weapon mechanics are much more basic, the enemies are very predictable in their behaviour and generally with open world games you have so much freedom that any encounter can be trivialised into oblivion.

The best way to take the tedium out of it is by bringing buddies. Even though enemies have more health, they also get staggered more, and you can dedicate much more of your stamina just for attacking.

Although biomes are not literally locked, the game uses large enemy stat jumps as a soft barrier. There isn't a big difference between knowing combat mechanics and mastering them. After that it is entirely about the gear and food that you bring.

Originally posted by Vintorez:

Each tier of enemies are pretty much balanced around the armor you get from their zones. Once you get silver armor, wolves aren't much more deadly than earlier encounters. If you're fighting draugr in bronze armor, you're slightly obsolete. This can be partially negated by upgrading your gear beforehand, but ultimately you should be working towards getting iron armor, which will then carry you to fighting wolves.

The first time your progression takes you to a new zone will be the most difficult. As you gather from the zone, you grow in strength and will conquer it.

Still fighting 2 star draughs with upgraded bronze armor and weapon can almost one shot you, the ranged ones are nastier though and you have to evade their missiles or you're taken down with 2-3 hits max, even with 110-130 hp from food buffs

Edit: I would get a cauldron and do some decent food like carot soup or even turnip soup, with sausages and other meat, you should have a decent stamina/hp for that tier, also potions also help, healing ones for emergencies, stamina potions to recover it fast so you can fight back and poison res for swamp area and 3rd boss

Originally posted by Quaiv:

At first i thought i liked the combat, but now (bronze-era) there are only two types of fights:
a) super easy button mashing wins
b) die for one mistake fails (draugr, wolves, goblins)

I suppose goblins are too strong at the moment, but why do draugr and wolves hit so damn hard? I fight with a spear, club and bow and have full bronze armor. I know about blocking, but it drains my stamina and i still get too much damage. What's the key to success here?

I'm not sure how you're playing but from this post alone it sounds like the answer is fairly obvious. You can absolutely fight higher tier enemies in this game, even with lower tier equipment. But if you're trying to button-mash through draugr and wolves wearing bronze gear, yeah they're going to wreck you.

Combat really is more skill based than gear based, unless you're fighting weaker enemies. You need to practice blocking, parrying, and dodging. Practice at those and you can melee trolls with bronze gear without much issue. Also preperation and situational awareness is extremely important... Being well fed and rested, and fighting enemies on your terms as much as possible will keep you alive even in areas you're not meant to be in.

Jump more. Seriously.

Originally posted by Gladi8er65:

Shields... learn how to block / parry using shields which can give you significant advantage in a fight when you stun the opponent, making it much easier to kill them, as well as reduce the amount of damage you take... It is also a good idea to learn how to dodge / roll to avoid attacks.

Originally posted by Professor Hugedix:

Parry everything you can

here you go. Should carry you through the swamp, at least. But maybe avoid draugr-elites for now.

You basically fighting level 4-5s with level one weapons lol

Parry everything you can

Go sailing for the great scaled beasts.

Originally posted by Quaiv:

At first i thought i liked the combat, but now (bronze-era) there are only two types of fights:
a) super easy button mashing wins
b) die for one mistake fails (draugr, wolves, goblins)

I suppose goblins are too strong at the moment, but why do draugr and wolves hit so damn hard? I fight with a spear, club and bow and have full bronze armor. I know about blocking, but it drains my stamina and i still get too much damage. What's the key to success here?

You probably haven't upgraded your bronze armours and weapons. You can upgraded them to 4 tiers and shield to 3. It makes a lot of difference. Off course good quality food helps a ton as well.

I usually skip making bronze armor, for a couple reasons, and instead, wear Troll armor, usually up until i am able to craft Iron or even Silver armors

1) Bronze armor is super "grindy" to make and upgrade due to having to mine and process 2 separate resources, then combine to make bronze... Because of this, it also takes twice as much coal than, for instance, Iron, and take twice as long, overall, to process and craft it AND upgrade it....

2) Another reason I skip over bronze armor is the movement penalty... It drains your stamina faster. Bad news in the early game, when you don't have the greatest foods available yet to keep up your HP and Stamina levels at a higher max.

3) Troll armor.. Is nearly just as good as Bronze and doesn't have the movement penalty and, in fact, a full set allows 25% sneak as well, making you harder to detect, and IF you have to run, your stamina won't drain as fast.

You are far better off using that bronze to craft Bronze TOOLS and WEAPONS and upgrade them, and wearing Troll armor until you are able to craft Iron or even wait until you can craft silver, before putting the troll armor away in a chest to use in an emergency... Always upgrade your tools and weapons to the next resource before making armor from the next resource.


More important than any armor is, to manage your HP and Stamina... This means ALWAYS upgrading to, and USING, the very best foods available... As newer ingredients and recipes become available, craft and use those newer foods to give yourself, and MAINTAIN, the very highest max HP and Stamina boost you can...

Rest bonus goes hand in hand with Foods... Resting by a fire and other "comfort" items will give you a significant boost to HP regen and Stamina regen, while it is active... The more confort items you rest near, the longer the buff lasts.

Shields... learn how to block / parry using shields which can give you significant advantage in a fight when you stun the opponent, making it much easier to kill them, as well as reduce the amount of damage you take... It is also a good idea to learn how to dodge / roll to avoid attacks.

Make and USE the various Meads available, from stamina heal, HP heal, poison resist, frost resist etc.

This game is very much a stamina / HP manager and as long as you keep those topped off and in good shape, the easier it is to survive any encounter.

You said you're in the bronze age, right? Wolves hit so hard because you have zero business fighting them. Put simply, they kill you because they're stronger than you. There aren't two types of fights, you're just making it that way by venturing places you shouldn't be.

Draugr are hard until you get to the next tier of equipment, which is gained from the swamps, where the draugr live. Also keep in mind each weapon has a "combo"; the third hit from your mace in the combo is going to do tons more damage than the first two hits. Upgrade your shield, parry the draugr, then give them a combo. Repeat until dead.

Unfortunately you just have to be careful and methodical about beating them, it's supposed to be a challenge. You'll be one-shotting wolves before you know it, until then you shouldn't be in the mountains until you're DONE with the swamps.

You're fighting enemies several levels ahead with bronze gear, that's the problem. First off bronze armor is only slightly more protection than Troll armor while nerfing speed 10%, its a massive waste of bronze, its a grind and resource sink you can easily skip. (hopefully they will better balance it in the future but as of now at best bronze offers only 6 points more armor than the same level of troll, which at that point only equates to 15% more protection. In comparison Iron armor is a 40% jump in armor)
Draugr are slow, block/dodge their attacks. They are the only enemy you listed you should be fighting in bronze tier gear, and only for the start of the swamp.
Wolves you should be in full iron gearing up to wolf armor. They are easy to block, just don't be out at night because the 2 stars will wreck you.
Goblins are several biomes ahead of you, you shouldn't be fighting them at all in that gear, they should be wrecking you. By the time you should be facing them you should have the Bonemass forsaken power to dramatically reduce damage if things get ugly.
As you level up not only will you improve your gear, but access to new food will also significantly increase your hp and stamina. Also don't take chances, dying is a 5% hit to allskills, and if you die constantly you are just gimping your stamina use and weapon damage. Valheim is all about caution and being prepared, not running in and button mashing.

did you improve the armor, weapons, shield fully? There are at least 3 tiers to most items.

avoidance is your friend. if some guy is lining up with a bow, side step when he fires. If some guy is about to clobber you with a sword, take a step backwards.

wolves are way above your level. meadow, forest, swamp, mountain (wolf), plains (goblins).
you need a full set of iron gear to move up to mountains, and a set of mountain / silver to move to plains, or you need to be a master at avoiding being hit.
the iron shield can block a LOT more than the bronze. and so on. food gives the stamina to take the hit and still be able to swing.

you 'can' try to do the whole game in troll / bronze. But you will take a lot of damage if you fail a dodge. By the time you have the mountain gear, a draghr will feel like a generic blue eye dwarf does now.

Good food.
Stamina management.
If you don't have the skill to consistently parry <like me> then use the bow and attack ranged.

Each tier of enemies are pretty much balanced around the armor you get from their zones. Once you get silver armor, wolves aren't much more deadly than earlier encounters. If you're fighting draugr in bronze armor, you're slightly obsolete. This can be partially negated by upgrading your gear beforehand, but ultimately you should be working towards getting iron armor, which will then carry you to fighting wolves.

The first time your progression takes you to a new zone will be the most difficult. As you gather from the zone, you grow in strength and will conquer it.