the skipping bonemass option is, in my opinion, simply a contrarian way of playing the game. It offers nothing better in terms of gameplay, and makes finding silver tedious at best (as electricdawn outlined).
It's like how some people will tell you that you can skip getting a metal axe to get fine wood. Yes! You can do it, but it's tedious and there is little point to doing it besides bragging rights (guess what though? no-one cares that you rolled a tree into another tree for a while/walked around the mountain randomly hammering the ground). Just because you CAN do something, doesn't mean that you SHOULD.

What @Noodle wrote.

@Chaoslink: No one is trying to stop you from doing what you're doing.

But I absolutely see no point in directing a new player with very little knowledge of the game to do stuff the hard way. They then think this is the intended way and give up on the game, because it becomes tedious very fast.

I am also a pretty slow player. I've now played the game for almost 900 hours and I only have one character that killed all bosses, a second that is on the hunt for Moder (difficult on a seed that comprises mostly islands), and third that just entered their first crypt (character to play together with my wife).

The fourth is on a "no bosses, no portals" run, just to see how far I can get. THAT is the character that can do experimental things, like the ones you described.

For a new player on their first playthrough, I simply would not recommend it.

Edit: And again, no. I've never seen any exposed silver nodes the way you describe. I'm pretty sure that this is due to a special seed that actually allows for this stuff. I don't think this is intentional.

Edit2: I'm also not interested in a e-peen contest. Fine that you were even quicker than me. I probably could've done the same with end game equipment. But what's the point?

My point is to show that with proper preparation you can beat this boss the INTENDED way without much hassle. Your point was obviously to show off.

Originally posted by Noodle:

the skipping bonemass option is, in my opinion, simply a contrarian way of playing the game. It offers nothing better in terms of gameplay, and makes finding silver tedious at best (as electricdawn outlined).
It's like how some people will tell you that you can skip getting a metal axe to get fine wood. Yes! You can do it, but it's tedious and there is little point to doing it besides bragging rights (guess what though? no-one cares that you rolled a tree into another tree for a while/walked around the mountain randomly hammering the ground). Just because you CAN do something, doesn't mean that you SHOULD.

Agreed, 100%. Well said.

I'm not sure if it's still relevant but I built a small base up high on an indestructible tree near the boss and brought a few bows and many stacks of arrows. Cheesy but it worked

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

Btw, you don’t need to kill Bonemass to get silver. While you won’t find every silver node in the mountains, there’s often plenty of silver nodes that are exposed and visible without needing the Bonemass item. You should still want Iron armor for dealing with wolves, but if you’re incredibly careful and build protective shelters when mining silver, you can get it without fighting Bonemass. He’s actually an optional boss really. Search enough different mountains and you can get all the silver you’ll ever need without touching Bonemass.

Wow this would be amazing

I... would not recommend going that route.

Bonemass IS the easiest boss in this game, and mining silver without knowing the tricks to do so, is tedious at best, and outright impossible at worst. I NEVER saw an exposed silver vein in all of my mountain explorations, and without the wishbone you would need to hammer an entire mountain with a stagbreaker to "maybe" find a silver node.

You don't want to do this. Beating Bonemass is a piece of cake in comparison to trying to find silver on a mountain with wolves and drakes at your tail and no idea where to start.

The wishbone makes it so much easier to find silver, trust me. Why make it unnecessary hard on you when you don't need to?

Edit: My equip that I used to beat Bonemass in under eight minutes:
Lvl 3 iron chest
Lvl 3 iron greaves
Lvl 3 iron banded shield
Lvl 3 iron mace
Lvl 3 root mask

You also need a poison resist potion and of course sausages, blood soup and either muckshake or turnip stew for stamina.

With that, Bonemass is really easy since you can block all its attacks, except poison, and you have the mask and the potion to deal with that.

Originally posted by electricdawn:

I NEVER saw an exposed silver vein in all of my mountain explorations, and without the wishbone you would need to hammer an entire mountain with a stagbreaker to "maybe" find a silver node.

I mean, either you weren't looking closely or I find this VERY hard to believe. I find 2-3 per mountain pretty often, though finding just one is common. They're always around the most hilly sections, being exposed due to the natural sloping of the land. You won't see much of it, but they're there.

Originally posted by electricdawn:

You don't want to do this. Beating Bonemass is a piece of cake in comparison to trying to find silver on a mountain with wolves and drakes at your tail and no idea where to start.

I mean, as long as you're equipped to fight Bonemass, there's no reason Mountains mobs should be any higher threat to you. Its not like Bonemass drops anything that helps you fight them.

Originally posted by electricdawn:

The wishbone makes it so much easier to find silver, trust me. Why make it unnecessary hard on you when you don't need to?

Not really anything harder about it. The only difference is that you're just wandering in the mountains instead of hunting for the specific spot to dig. I wander into swamps before fighting The Elder for drops you can get there that can help. I enter Plains before fighting Moder because there's things out there that can help fight her, I even enter Black forest before Eikthyr because why not.

Do you have to enter the next biome before fighting the boss of the previous? Not really. Thought there's not really any reason not to either.

Originally posted by electricdawn:

Edit: My equip that I used to beat Bonemass in under eight minutes:
Lvl 3 iron chest
Lvl 3 iron greaves
Lvl 3 iron banded shield
Lvl 3 iron mace
Lvl 3 root mask

You also need a poison resist potion and of course sausages, blood soup and either muckshake or turnip stew for stamina.

With that, Bonemass is really easy since you can block all its attacks, except poison, and you have the mask and the potion to deal with that.

That's all fine. Though I'll note that in my recent run my first time fighting bonemass allowed me to beat him in less time, ignoring the need to block even and could immediately fight him a second time for a wall trophy without healing or anything. Would run Serpent Stew and Serpent meat because why not and some other stamina food, and have the Frostner hammer already ready to go, dealing higher damage with multiple vulnerabilities and higher base damage. Literally it was just walk up to him and spam the power attack until dead. No dodging, no blocking, just hit after hit. Easy Peasy.

The only hard part about the way I do it is that you take a bit longer to find silver and you find less of it per biome. However, this allows you to explore more to find more caves and such as well as having an established portal network and temporary base setup for more in-depth mining once you do have the trinket for finding the underground nodes. The exposed ones really aren't hard to find though. There's usually one on just about every mountain peak.


I mean, you have your way, I have mine. Neither is more right or wrong than the other. I just don't have any sort of rush to progress when I play. I'd rather it be slower progression with more exploration and far more preparation that borders on the unnecessary.

Originally posted by electricdawn:

Ok, I guess you want to venture into the mountains, but are afraid of Bonemass.

Let me tell you that Bonemass is the easiest boss of them all. If you don't have the right gear to kill Bonemass, you don't have any business in the Mountains, as wolves will make very short work of you.

You should have at least lvl 3 iron armor, a lvl 3 iron-banded shield and a lvl 3 iron mace. Combine that with a lvl 3 root mask and poison protection flask and you can kill Bonemass within minutes with it having not much of a chance hurting you.

Having a portal nearby helps in case of... unfortunate circumstances.

Thanks. Okay looks like I need some iron! I've been wearing troll armor.

Yeah. That won't work. Welcome to Valheim and the Swamps. This is pretty much the hardest step for anyone who is not familiar with the game.

But let me tell you that once you got iron armor and the iron-banded shield, you can pretty much survive the rest of the current game, if you are very careful and are alway properly fed.

Good luck! You can make it. :)

Edit: Oh, and don't forget to upgrade your armor! Level three is recommended.

Btw, you don’t need to kill Bonemass to get silver. While you won’t find every silver node in the mountains, there’s often plenty of silver nodes that are exposed and visible without needing the Bonemass item. You should still want Iron armor for dealing with wolves, but if you’re incredibly careful and build protective shelters when mining silver, you can get it without fighting Bonemass. He’s actually an optional boss really. Search enough different mountains and you can get all the silver you’ll ever need without touching Bonemass.

Ok, I guess you want to venture into the mountains, but are afraid of Bonemass.

Let me tell you that Bonemass is the easiest boss of them all. If you don't have the right gear to kill Bonemass, you don't have any business in the Mountains, as wolves will make very short work of you.

You should have at least lvl 3 iron armor, a lvl 3 iron-banded shield and a lvl 3 iron mace. Combine that with a lvl 3 root mask and poison protection flask and you can kill Bonemass within minutes with it having not much of a chance hurting you.

Having a portal nearby helps in case of... unfortunate circumstances.