People seem to disagree, but if you're one of the players that likes taking it slow and building/maxing gear, like me, then fully upgraded bronze will let you glide through the swamp with ease. No poison resist needed for this. All you need to do is parry Draugr and archers, avoid everything else, especially aboms (though they are easily doable if you're not mobbed by ads and can parry, just probs not worth it for now.) Make sure you have decent food. For me, cooked Deer, Boar and Neck was good enough to loot a few crypts, though better stuff is nice. I am replaying Valheim after a long time away and have just cleared a swamp of around 9 crypts and now have more iron than I know what to do with. Just make sure you create a base in the biome across so you can smith there and portal to your main base if needed.

First thing I made was full iron armour to get even tankier, now all I have to worry about is 2 star draugr (and then only if I fluff a parry or my stam management) everything else is easy when I am fully fed.

Gear up, have good food, and most importantly be patient and pick your fights. The swamp is a very open biome and has a lot of enemies, take your time moving through it and fight them as they come. Enemies in there can pile up on you easy and they've very aggressive.

As mentioned before, the swamp is the big boy test, the REAL difficulty hike.

Whenever you encounter a crypt, go to your map, zoom in, and mark it. You don't want to explore crypts all lazily like a silly goose. Prepare for an extensive exploration of each crypt individually.

I apologize for saying silly goose, though very harsh, the words seemed necessary.

Originally posted by ShaftAlmighty:

As mentioned before, the swamp is the big boy test, the REAL difficulty hike.

Whenever you encounter a crypt, go to your map, zoom in, and mark it. You don't want to explore crypts all lazily like a silly goose. Prepare for an extensive exploration of each crypt individually.

I apologize for saying silly goose, though very harsh, the words seemed necessary.

Adding onto this. Antler picks work(easy to get a few of them), and you can build a craft bench and chest right outside the crypt you're working on for easy repairs and iron storage.
That way you can knock out an entire crypt in one shot and don't have to run home and dump inventory and repair every time.

My first foray into the swamp was yesterday. Other than the visibility, I didn't think it was too bad...at first.

I had one place where there was a few bone piles combined with a couple of body piles, where I got a little overwhelmed but a tactical retreat led me to victory, nonetheless. Hit my first sunken crypt and mined up a good amount of scrap iron.

I was sweet sailing....and it made me a bit over-confident...because then I ran into an abomination. Corpse run followed shortly after. :)

I think the best advice I've gotten for this game so far was to not get over-confident in new areas and be cautious, rather than run everywhere. Sadly I forgot it yesterday.

Get some core lumber and just slap up a blind in some of those big huge trees to use as a beachhead.

there are several recent threads about this with good info. shouldn't be too hard to dig up.

Carefully read through these, they have all the answers:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/892970/discussions/0/3763355653570036505/
https://steamcommunity.com/app/892970/discussions/0/3763355849149848803/

Don't forget to upgrade equipment and find the weakness for your foe.

*Fully upgraded troll armor. Skip bronze armor as it takes far too much time and material, only use bronze for tools and weapons.

*Poison resistance potions are a must. ALWAYS have the Poison Res buff on when in the swamps. This means making a cauldron.

*Never park your boat near swamps. Park it near the shores of the area next door. Build a portal there as well if you see it fitting.

*For food buffs try sausages, queens jam, and cooked boar or deer meat. Sausages require entrails which means farming draugr so hunt the outskirts of swamps.

Welcome to Viking (not quite) Hel...

Each Biome approximately redoubles difficulty (Well not mountain that's about 1.3 x swamp at best)

Rule of thumb max upgrade gear and weapons of preceding Biome is Just about OK for limited forays into the next one :)

Swamp is a nasty Rubicon to cross so its not just you.
1) Have poison resists handy ditto healign meads
2) Scout first !
3) The Hoe is your friend
4) Rested Buff at all times or forget it
5+ Nah wouldn't wanna spoil it

Good luck!

Just put your toe in. You need to find turnip seeds, grow them, replant to reseed for a few cycles to get a decent supply and then upgrade your cauldron so that you can access the better foods that you will need in the swamp. While you are doing that you can hunt trolls to get fully upgraded troll armor, hunt or breed boars for boar meat since boar meat in required for better swamp foods.

Once that's done just explore the edges of the swamp because you will need dragur and leech drops to succeed. Take the time to stock up on things before doing a full recon trip into a large swamp to find iron.

swamp is the big difficulty outliner of this game. its far more difficult to get into than all other biomes. mistlands is a close 2nd but still not at swamp level since you have way more tools available by then compared to swamp where you dont even have the best boat yet.

food is a big help. kill a few stray zombies and collect the guts. That and one turnip plant will give you a lot of options.

like skeletons, the archers are slow to shoot, so wait for it and step aside, then shoot back or charge in. There is a learning curve, but the basic lessons are
- avoid archer fire by timing it
- avoid blob bomb by shooting them from afar
- don't step in water, find a way around or hoe/level it
- avoid abominations for now
- do not go in at night for now

your goals are:
1) get better food (the turnip seeds and zombie guts)
2) cut down 1 new tree type
3) find crypts and get iron inside. Once inside the fighting is very controlled and fairly tame. Outside is deadly.
4) check all the chests in crypts. they are the best in the game, with 4 or 5 very useful items possibly, stuff you can get elsewhere but here you get a stack for nothing, elsewhere is work

Do not go there in a boat. Walk in from a safe biome. The swamp eats boats for breakfast.