First, use the bow when you can. It is always better to pull enemies to you than to go to them. That way if you die, you won't be right in their spawn area. With a sneak attack, you can sometimes kill things in one shot. If you are being shot at, get behind a tree and make them come to you. I usually skip the huntsman bow and wait for the draugr fang. The fine bow works well enough for now. (Gather some guck while you're there and save it.)

For melee, the atgeir is great to use on draugr. Spin then stab. It's also good for bipedal groups to keep them off of you. Does not work for blobs or abominations. I would use caution with elites.

Skeletons and blobs are weak to blunt. It's good to have a mace and get some levels in it because you will need it for Bonemass which is both blob and skeleton. However, you can kill them with any weapon you want. Swords use less stamina and don't take a lot more time than a mace. You could even stick with the atgeir but it will take a little longer. Don't forget to drink poison resist before fighting blobs.

Abominations are weak to fire and slashing. (Extra bonus for ax? Maybe, I haven't looked it up, but I think so.) It is best to either lead them to a surtling fire, or to get on top of a crypt. They will clip through the crypt and may knock you off if you're not careful, but they can't hit you up there while you can hit them.

For surtlings, bring a shield. They will throw fire at you and they move fast but they are very weak and they can't touch water. Once you clear them use the pick ax around the fire spout so that it's in the water. Any new ones will die instantly giving you coal, cores and trophies.

Leeches are not difficult, though they also use poison. Bring a hoe and make dry paths so that you only fight leeches when you choose to do so. If the water is shallow enough for cattails, you can level ground to make a path. Just about any weapon will work. Step out of the water if they bring your health down too much.

If you don't have any turnip seeds yet, that rare yellow flower should be your first priority.

Iron mace is your best early option once you've got a little iron. Frostner is king of the swamp once you can get it. Atgir weapons are always useful for stagger and keeping distance.

As far as armor goes i never make the bronze armor or whatever the tier is between troll and iron and honestly its rare for me to make the iron armor as i usually jump from troll to wolf armor. Kill some trolls, upgrade your troll armor and it should serve you well.

Besides that make a banded shield as soon as your able and you should have a bronze buckler when you're first entering the swamp. Make sure you've practiced your block timing to stagger mobs as it will let you just roll over tough mobs.

Remember you can get early silver without even finishing the swamp by making frost resist mead and isolating silver deposits with the stagbreaker radius damage or just by spotting corners of them sticking out of the ground.

Recommending iron weapons to enter the swamp is non-sense since you need to get into the swamp to get iron. You need to start with what you got from the previous biomes.

Originally posted by vinyblaster:

Recommending iron weapons to enter the swamp is non-sense since you need to get into the swamp to get iron. You need to start with what you got from the previous biomes.

Your going to spend alot of time in the swamp and you're going to have your first iron weapon very early into that.

If we want to look at it as your first jaunt in and and you have no iron yet at all you want to have a bronze mace, bronze buckler, troll armor and a fine bow. Having a bronze atgir is not a bad idea either.

Originally posted by Grimtempest:

Originally posted by vinyblaster:

Recommending iron weapons to enter the swamp is non-sense since you need to get into the swamp to get iron. You need to start with what you got from the previous biomes.

Your going to spend alot of time in the swamp and you're going to have your first iron weapon very early into that.

If we want to look at it as your first jaunt in and and you have no iron yet at all you want to have a bronze mace, bronze buckler, troll armor and a fine bow. Having a bronze atgir is not a bad idea either.

Since the crypt density nerf you may well need to visit a few large swamps before finding a single crypt.

Originally posted by vinyblaster:

Since the crypt density nerf you may well need to visit a few large swamps before finding a single crypt.

I don't remember finding a single large swamp without at least a dozen of crypts. A single narrow strip of swamp between other biome and ocean is something i will never look into. I don't count that as a swamp biome at all. It may be long and look like its big, but it rarely has any crypts. Just skip it and search for the real swamp.

Originally posted by Grimtempest:

Iron mace is your best early option once you've got a little iron. Frostner is king of the swamp once you can get it. Atgir weapons are always useful for stagger and keeping distance.

As far as armor goes i never make the bronze armor or whatever the tier is between troll and iron and honestly its rare for me to make the iron armor as i usually jump from troll to wolf armor. Kill some trolls, upgrade your troll armor and it should serve you well.

Besides that make a banded shield as soon as your able and you should have a bronze buckler when you're first entering the swamp. Make sure you've practiced your block timing to stagger mobs as it will let you just roll over tough mobs.

Remember you can get early silver without even finishing the swamp by making frost resist mead and isolating silver deposits with the stagbreaker radius damage or just by spotting corners of them sticking out of the ground.

I get two differing theories on armor for the swamp. I dislike the bronze armor as I feel definitely slower, and at level 3 I'm not sure it's giving me that much more protection ? Three pieces go from 10 to 12, so I'm getting a total of 6 more armor. I'm unsure if that equates to 6 hit points off of every hit ? I dunno what the math is behind damage vs armor in this game.

LMAO the same youtuber, on different videos, recommended both armor types for swamp.

Ignore the bronze armor, if you are able to upgrade your troll armor as far as possible at that point. Idk about the math but those 6 armor points can be neglected at this stage. Except if you have like a chest full of bronze, but you will still be 10% slower if you wear the upper and lower armor parts - which you will notice.
And yes, it's a good idea to get a bronze mace (until you get the iron one) and level blunt weapons, will be useful even into the next biome.
Also, personally I will always craft myself the iron armor since I'm dumb and slow at times :D For players playing the different biomes for the first time, I'd say it cannot hurt and might be safer to do so as well. Especially since you probably don't know yet what to expect in the following biome.

hopefully you can build a carve (boat) & portal at this point. It makes navigating that biome so much easier.

Originally posted by Buckus:

hopefully you can build a carve (boat) & portal at this point. It makes navigating that biome so much easier.

Couldn't have found the Elder without a karve.

Maybe you can one-shot something with sneak attacks using a bow and fire arrows, but most enemies in swamp are not particularly affected by fire, and enemies who dip into water to become wet are even more resistant to burning.

The previous lessons from earlier biomes will apply: Undead stuff is generally susceptible to blunt damage, and blades and fire will work on shuffling trees.

Blob
Weakness: Blunt, Frost
Resistance: Slash, Piercing, Fire
Immunity: Poison

Draugr
Weakness: None
Resistance: Fire
Immunity: Poison

Leach
Weakness: None
Resistance: Poison
Immunity: Fire, Spirit

Wraith
Weakness: Fire, Spirit
Resistance: Blunt, Slash, Pierving
Immunity: Frost, Poison

Surtling
Weakness: Frost, Water
Resistance: None
Immunity: Fire, Poison, Spirit

Get an iron mace. A sword is nice for the swamp's large enemy, but make sure you have a good iron shield before trying to melee them. Fire arrows will sort of work until then.