Valheim – How to Get Silver Equipment (Before the First Boss)

This is a guide on how to obtain Silver Equipment before killing the first boss.

Guide to Obtain Silver Equipment

All credit goes to John!

Introduction

This is a guide i have made because i saw someone making a post that he (or she) was going to try to get as high as possible equipment without ever killing a boss. Intrigued by this challenge i decided to do this myself, and while i’m at it, make some short notes that perhaps, i could turn into a short guide, so anyway, here we go.

I have played plenty of challenge runs in my life, my favorites so far are the low level challenges but since that is pretty much impossible in this game to do, i went for this objective, the best possible equipment to obtain without killing a boss.

Objective

Well just like the title suggests, how do we get this, is it even possible?, well yes indeed Timmy, we can do this. It will take a considerable amount of extra time, but ey, that’s what challenges are for amirite? So what is the objective, does Steve ask?, well to get silver equipment without ever killing a single boss. So no Antler Pickaxe, no Swamp Key and no Wishbone. But why on earth would we do this does Jessica in the back ask?, well for the challenge of course, to play the game in a different way than it is supposed to be played, that’s what challenge runs are for. So now that we got that out of the way, let’s start.

How to Obtain Fine Wood Without a Bronze Axe

Now this is not the most important material to get as we can get a Bronze Axe, but it might be very useful to get some fine wood early on for, let’s say, a Finewood Bow or maybe some comfort items for in your base. The current materials are needed for a bow:

• Level 1 Workbench
• 10 Fine Wood
• 10 Core Wood
• 2 Deer hides

Now most of the materials are easy to obtain, and core wood is dropped by cutting down Pine Trees, which can be cut down with a Stone Axe. The problem however, is Fine Wood. So how do we obtain this illustrious type of wood, which is dropped normally from Birch Trees, which can only be chopped down with at least a Bronze Axe?

1. Break down run down furniture in abandoned buildings

Some structures have furniture made out of fine wood, if you break them down most of them drop some Fine Wood, it is not a lot, but all the little bits can help. It takes long however and might not be worth your time.

2. Shipwrecks

If you manage to find a shipwreck, you are in luck, these bad boys easily drop 20 fine wood in one go, if you have 2 in one place that is around an entire stack. These however are rare to find, and unless you get lucky, probably not worth it.

3. Bring a Troll to your workday

This is by far the easiest way, also the most dangerous, but if you know what to do, you should be done in a few minutes. So what do you do?, simple, lure a Troll to some Birch trees and let him smack them until they break down into their base materials.

Troll tearing down some Birch Trees

You could upgrade a Finewood Bow to level 3 if you wanted to, but it is not needed, as the time spend will probably be better used on getting the next materials so you can just get fine wood yourself.

How to Obtain Tin & Copper Without an Antler Pickaxe

Tin and Copper, these are the difficult materials to obtain to make a Bronze Pickaxe, this is the full list of items we need to make one:

Forge + Pickaxe + Smelter + Kiln

• 3 Core Wood
• 44 Stone (at least)
• 4 Coal
• 10 Wood
• 26 Copper
• 10 Tin
• 8 Surtling Cores (at least for Kiln, Smelter and 2 portals, from tombs)

So how would we obtain Copper and Tin without an Antler Pickaxe? These are 3 simple methods doctors don’t want you to know about, number 3 will surprise you.

Tin

Tin is used to create bronze, it is also used to create a cauldron so we can finally get rid of berries and such and have some proper food items, but that can be gotten later, we first need to focus on getting a Bronze Pickaxe.

1. Barrels

These can be found around an Abandoned Outpost in the Black Forest, this is what they look like:

Barrel and Stool in front of an abandoned outpost

If you break the Barrel, it will have a 12,5% chance to drop 2-3 tin ores, also other plenty of materials but the Tin Ore is the most important. However, finding all of these barrels might take a ridiculous amount of time and a lot of luck, unless you have that, it is better to rely on option 2.

2. Bring a Troll to work, day 2

Basically just this

Troll breaking Tin deposit

Copper

Copper can only be obtained by one method as far as i know, well maybe some other enemies but this is the easiest way, here he is, we all love him, at this point we should just think of the option of offering him a permanent job, the good ol’ Troll

Troll damaging a Copper Vein

Copper Obtained

What to make with Bronze

After obtaining these materials and getting some surtling cores, you are ready to make your very first pickaxe to finally get some proper gear, so what do i suggest for you to obtain AND fully upgrade?, or better yet, what don’t we need.

• All possible (for now) Workshop and Forge upgrades
• Fully Upgrade your Pickaxe
• Bronze Mace
• Bronze Shield
• Full Bronze armor (to survive the mountains)
• Bronze Axe
• Cultivator
• Nails (for a Karve)
• Some Fermenters
• Hanging Brazier (comfort)

This will take a long time, but this equipment is pretty much needed for the next 2 biomes

How to Obtain Iron Without a Swamp Key

Ah yes, Iron, this will be the most annoying material to find in the game, unfortunately it is needed and we need, for a minimum, quite some of it. So here is a list what we need it for, in order of what is more important:

1. Iron Pickaxe (20)
2. Longboat (10 for 100 nails)
3. Stonecutters (2 a piece, i went for 5 so 10 iron total)
4. Tool Shelf (4, also needs obsidian, without a pickaxe, can be found in chests in mountain lodges)
5. Anvil (20)
6. Forge Toolrack (15)
7. Raven Throne (1 for 10 nails)
8. Dragon Bed – (2 for 15 nails)

This list needs a total of 82 iron, no axe, no mace, no armor, no shield, no pickaxe upgrades, just the essentials for your house. However, how can we obtain this without a Swamp Key, or even a Wishbone.

How to obtain the iron

I have one word, Stagbreaker. This weapon can be made with the following materials:

• 20 Core Wood
• 5 Deer Trophies
• 2 Leather Scraps

After obtaining this weapon, you just gotta go to the swamp, which should be pretty easy with fully upgraded bronze gear. Just make sure to use that cultivator and Cauldron to make some proper food. Also poison resist mead, oh it’s marvelous, plus don’t forget materials for a workbench and portal, and don’t forget to get turnip seeds from the swamp, great food source. Once there, just smack around with the Stagbreaker a bit, it takes a bit of practice noticing it, but after a while you will be able to find iron with it, how you ask?, well these pictures will explain it.

Check your surroundings

Smack your Stagbreaker and watch the numbers

Dig around and profit

Do know that plenty of your surroundings are considered breakables, bushes will just break, but rocks, ancient trees, stumps, logs, all will show up with 0 damage. So watch carefully if the numbers shown up on the screen seem odd. Once you have enough Iron, smelt it down, get your stuff and we can finally get to the final act of our challenge.

How to Obtain Silver Without a Wishbone

The mountains, now obtaining the silver is not going to be difficult, in fact it is probably easier than obtaining Bronze. The biggest threat here, are your surroundings. Your gear is starting to show its age, everything deals a ton of damage and worst of all, the freeze effect. So get your Gluten Free anti freeze and pop’em whenever. With this, Carrot Soup, Turnip Stew and Sausages, and your fully upgraded Bronze Gear, it should still be possible. Just make sure to have materials with you for a workbench AND a portal, so you can portal back whenever you need to for extra resources and the well rested bonus.

Once you have found your tall mountain, go to the top, this is by far the easiest method. I usually make a small camp up just to make sure, so i’m not surprised if i do die on accident. Cause those Stone Golems are… well, they be dealing damage. You can deal with them if your block is good enough and you know how to parry them, but they really are something else for now. Your Fully upgraded Finewood bow should still be enough to deal with both drakes AND wolves, yes it truly is a marvelous bow.

Once there and the area is safe, start smacking around again with your Stagbreaker, sooner or later you should see something like this.

Too hard

Silver Vein found

Obsidian also shows up as “too hard”, but since they are easy to spot, it usually isn’t that hard figuring out if you have obsidian or a silver vein. Once you have this, i pretty much went and got enough materials to fully upgrade the following:

1. Wolf Fur Cape
2. Drake Helm
3. Wolf Armor
4. Wolf Pants
5. Silver Shield
6. Frostner
7. Draugr Fang

Now with this gear in your inventory, you can deal with pretty much everything in the game, you can even go to the plains just for the fun of it and wreak some havoc there. Unfortunately we can’t use any of the materials we find there, as we need dragon tears to do anything with it. I mean you can make a farm in the plains, but we can’t use the harvested materials for anything as again, we need to kill Moder for that option.