Originally posted by Sokaku:

I disagree, it is a perfectly viable defense that you need to take care around. It's no different to having a turret or alarm on a motion sensor, or a claymore mine. These are very viable means of defending an area, but they don't discriminate between friend or foe so you use them on approaches that you don't expect to be using yourself, otherwise you approach with extreme caution.

The fact that Valheim introduces anything like an automated defense is already a big stretch. Simply remember the mantra "Face towards enemy".

thats tru - but a mine for instance is static
if one lays that sort of trap one can avoid getting hit
an magically moving ballista (damn i dislike this thing) could be hard to avoid because it could hit one accidently

and dont really like the decision to put this and "staffs for magic"into valheim
it just dont fit into the theme