Quick answer
Valheim has many weapons to choose from – but, which are best? Three new battleaxes have been added in the crystal, black metal, and skull splitter in the mountains, plains, and Mistlands biomes, respectively. Here, you'll find yourself nearly 2,000 m from it, which has all kinds of complicating implications. And you can find these as early as 500 m from spawn.
With our setup complete, I recommend using the stone or flint axes for three reasons. Hard to believe, but after a little more than half a decade, Valheim has finally left early access. Two weeks ago, I got the full update early and have spent every day since tearing it apart so I can show you everything. Each of these traders have their own separate camps, which are pretty accessible during the early game.
These armors used to only drop from a specific target, the Kriegan with double axes, which were pretty difficult to come across. Finewood too can be gathered early by chopping beach trees deliberately to fall on birch trees or by pushing logs into them. Okay, it's uh going to be using stone and a lot of uh mid early late game sort of materials. Many Vikings have nearly lost their minds searching for these in the dark swamp.
Weapon basics
But if magic isn’t your thing, the berzerkir axes are the no brainer choice and specifically the iolite, lighting variant. So, fire arrows, which are available very early on in the game, only have a pierce damage of 11 and a fire damage of 22. I'll show you how to traverse the mountain safely, mine silver early, clear frost caves easily, grab the best weapons and armor, and absolutely crush the boss motor. Core wood works nicely as an early game material with sufficient strength to support the structure.
But your early hours in the game, you're going to be guided by a raven and it essentially just acts as a tutorial. Dude, that's so cool for little like early game bases and for like a little foundation. After chopping trees, use your axes secondary attack to destroy leftover stumps. Spears are my least favorite weapon class in Valheim but the benefits of using this in the early game cannot be ignored for the following 3 reasons: One, it is cheap!
Moreover, what elevates this update in my opinion, is that it is as forward looking as it is backward in adding feasts for early game biomes as well as late game. While the bear doesn't absorb nearly as much damage as the bronze, I still prefer the bear since it doesn't reduce your movement speed. This mod effectively adds additional axes of rotation to items that you can build in place. So more or less a repeat of all of the previous early game of Valheim, you're going to need cores.
How to craft it
Granted, you'll have to skip ahead for some early black marble that the frost blobs can't immediately destroy, but they really bring out the pain. Now, if I open up the map, I've explored all so you guys can see this really clearly. Normally it’s the first weapon you can craft but personally, I’m just not a fan of axes with their slow attack speed and damage leaving much to be desired. Single-handed axes now have a secondary downward axe attack.
These next two are for those looking to make Valheim's newest weapon, the early axes. One, these two axes have the lowest stamina cost of all the axes consuming only 6 stamina per swing conserving stamina while farming skill progress. If you're just looking at the final 1.0 update in isolation, I could see somebody wondering why that justifies the price jump, but basically, we're talking about exiting the early access stage. Plus, steeper 67° build pieces have been added across all build material types, so you'll be able to make steeper structures as early as the meadows.
While this may seem obvious, you cannot underestimate the importance of getting a strong honey supply early as it is a critical ingredient in late game foods and meads. And the good thing about this base is you can build this really early. One word of caution I’d advise with the axes however is that I find them hard to use unless you’re comfortable with parry timing. However, these are really just amazing early game and then they kind of just fall off rapidly.
Stats and upgrades
I think campfires are a fine way to enter the mountains if you're trying to go early to tame wolves or something like that. From there, raise the earth below the tar until nearly no tar is present and level the terrain as best you can. Now, seeing new stuff early game was actually kind of unexpected. For instance you can see the difference in damage numbers from my axes above and below this tree, or from above or below this copper node.
Um and I'm clearly just bad at this. This one is so bad that I often skip it altogether in favor of the seventh on my list in the flint axe. But by far the coolest thing added in this update is the early axes, an early less powerful version of the axes you find in the Ashlands. This seed gives you the best chance to find both early, having four of the wood house two structures and two of the six variant extremely close to spawn.
Second, neither of these axes can successfully damage an oak tree which is why we chose this tree type. The all the updates over the course of early access, this is good. It's only early yet, but I think thunderblood is going to be the move. Railed necktail is one of the most accessible early sources of help.
Combat strategy
Obviously, it's always going to be useful because it has that poison damage as well, but the game's in early access currently. Upon death, wolves can drop a trophy, fang, wolf pelts, and wolf meat, which is a great food choice for early mountain progression. But the one thing that that made me want more than anything else is to see what other early game stuff there was in all of the other early biomes. Another early one you might make is the heart of the forest to increase your health regeneration.
This is just an objective upgrade over the stone and is a no brainer. These axes are accessed in the Meadows biome and actually let you chop down finewood trees before you get the bronze axe, but they can be tricky to find. It's probably worth the iteration too, as this weapon is easily the most powerful metals weapon these days, making the early game a breeze. And third, these axes can easily be repaired at a workbench.
I found that a 3x resource drop rate made the pacing incredibly smooth for me as a solo player, especially while I was retreading early areas I had already seen on an entirely fresh 1.0 world. You may not find them early on, but if you do get lucky, wolf skewers are a good upgrade here, but we'll get into that later. Because while the locks gear is great, it's not nearly as high as padded gear. In my opinion, axes are for chopping trees, not combat, so a warning to axe enjoyers, this might not be the video for you.
Tips
I'll quickly cover all the fun new stuff in this update and show you exactly how to get your hands on this new OP weapon, the early axis. In most directions, you're going to have to sail nearly a quarter of the way across the map just to find another landmass. However, if you do not have a partner to work with, I do have a backup strategy that is not nearly efficient but still will work nicely. Your starting weapon is powerful being the first source the player has to elemental damage in fire.
This cap only requires a level two workbench, two deer hide, one bronze bar, one bear hide, and an amber pearl to craft, making it so you can craft this during early black forest progression. Thorn can be found in this seed and super close to spawn just in the northeast and nearly consists entirely of its own island, too. Plus, all of the meadows creatures will fear you while you have it equipped so it can be a nice greyling and boar deterrent. Last but not least, let's talk about the early axes.
Of course, it comes with the major downside of breaking when exhausting its durability, the games only weapon to do so. These axes are accessed in the meadows biome and kind of fall in between the flint and bronze axe damage-wise. Next is the flint knife, the first real weapon on the meadows list. Plus, the early axes actually let you chop down finewood trees before obtaining the bronze axe.