Quick answer
This skill in Valheim is absolutely BUSTED when you achieve level 100. Now I know future biome bows will deal more damage than this but I can’t overlook the stealth capabilities of this weapon. Combining the increase damage, stamina reduction, and reduced draw time, bows damage per second values skyrocket the higher your skill level to roughly 7X the damage at base level. For bows and crossbows, we're going to use the exact same setup.
Unlike preceding bows, the huntsman is the first to reliability shoot completely straight leading to much more consistent surprise hits. There is a new ranged weapon class in crossbows, available in both the Mistlands and Ashlands. The skill increase alone is going to increase your damage output considerably with both weapon classes, reduce stamina usage, and in the case of bows also lower draw time further increasing damage output. It might be my new favorite armor set and comes with a neat set bonus to both increase your bows and sneak skill.
Most bows have an attack noise of 15 meters while the huntsman is reduced to only 4. As a result, the damage per second dealt skyrockets the higher your skill with bows! As you might expect, you can practice your bows on it. And last thing I'll bring up, it does have a pretty decent bonus to bows, kind of just like the root armor set, plus 15.
Weapon basics
Keeping that theme in mind, I started out by building a small makeshift archery range where they could practice with their bows. So, we're going to start throwing some workbench upgrades in here for whenever we get the chance to make stuff like finewood bows and all of that. In this video I am going explain the importance of leveling each of the 20 distinct skills. All bows except this one have attack and hit noise of 15 and 8 meters respectively.
Unlike most melee weapons however, for bows, I do not recommend you use the crude bow but rather opt for the finewood for increases accuracy reducing the amount of missed shots. Crossbows will be leveled the exact same way, but replace the workbench with a black forge for repairs on your arbalest. Yes, it adds spirit damage into the mix but also drains WAY more stamina than previous bows. All this in a biome where you’re probably going to want to keep your distance from wolf and drake alike, bows and spears might be your best option, so I choose the wolf sight.
One thing you can do to increase your experience gain with bows is wear the root armor which provides a set bonus adding 15 to your bow skill. I suck with bows, so not a big help to me, but if you're a bow player, you might like to go into the mountains with a slightly better bow armor set. This bow has drastically reduced attack and hit noise compared to other bows which will allow you to pick off fuling without alerting others to thin their numbers before entering the camp. Just sneak plus 30 bows plus 15.
How to craft it
Share, everything you need to know about the skill leveling mechanics And thirdly, give you strategies to level each of them, as FAST as possible. Bows gain 1.5Xp for each enemy hit and crossbows a reduced 1Xp. Yes, crossbows are a pain but they can be a great way to open a fight with elite hit scan accuracy and massive damage to an unsuspecting target. Just a flat 10% buff to your damage alone is crazy, but considering how good spears are and better yet, the bows skill, perhaps being the most valuable in the game, I can’t ignore this one.
At max level, your damage output for each class will be an average 141% higher with the minimum damage number increasing +240% and the max increasing roughly 81%. Crossbows are one of the slowest skills to level in all Valheim due to their long reload time and low XP per hit. Further, melee weapons increase their knockback by the same percentage as damage and reduce stamina consumption per attack peaking at 33% less stamina at level 100. Leveling your weapon skill will vastly increase your damage output.
Stick around for two speed leveling strategies for your preferred weapon later in the video. While this is good, it is nothing compared to the benefits of leveling your bow skill. All that said, leveling your skills in valheim is a challenging and time consuming activity. Fortunately, I have a strategy you can easily adopt for each skill, to accelerate this process, but first, we must cover 3 key experience mechanics for which you should be aware.
Stats and upgrades
First things first, each skill requires roughly 20,000 experience points to achieve max level and getting those points will be no easy task with each skill receiving only 1 to 3 experience per action. Second, skill is lost each time you die in Valheim unless you are under the “no skill drain” effect provided by a previous death. The skill lost when dying is 5% under normal game settings but can be changed with world modifiers varying from 1% on casual settings to 100% on hardcore. As an example if you had a skill at level 20 and died under normal settings you would lose 1 full level bringing you down to 19.
In addition, any progress you had made towards your 21st level as represented by the orange bar will also be lost. However, keep in mind that the fractional skill progress you had made towards the next level is not included in the 5% loss calculation. This buff will be critical for us in implementing our strategies going forward. Build a small enclosure around the tree ensuring you make it wide enough so that when you swing your axe you hit the tree and not the walls of the enclosure.
This way, no creatures can interrupt us while we work on our skill. Further, ensure your enclosure has a roof to give you the shelter effect and place and vent a fire inside to get the fire effect. With the shelter and fire we will get both the RESTING and RESTED effect simultaneously. While these buffs do not stack we will get the massive stamina regeneration from the Resting as well as the XP gain boost and later eitr regeneration from the rested buff.
Combat strategy
With our setup complete, I recommend using the stone or flint axes for three reasons. 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. Second, neither of these axes can successfully damage an oak tree which is why we chose this tree type. Surprisingly, you gain woodcutting experience despite not damaging the tree.
This way, we can stick with one tree for experience farming saving us the time moving from one to another. And third, these axes can easily be repaired at a workbench. Ensure your axe is fully upgraded for max durability and built a workbench for quick repairs when it inevitably breaks. You will only get one XP per hit but with all the stamina regeneration mechanisms in place, there will be little down time waiting for stamina to return.
Second is sneaking which gives you .05 experience per second while crouched but jumps up to half an experience point when sneaking while undetected by a nearby creature. The strategy to use here is a simple one but does require a troll cave with a troll present. Once found, enter the troll cave and place down a fire nearby again for the rested and resting effects. Third is the pickaxe which receives 1.5 XP per hit on a rock or ore, not terraforming earth.
Tips
For this skill we will adopt all the same principles as with woodcutting but instead with a silver vein and antler pickaxe. The antler pickaxe wont be able to damage the vein but will still give us experience with each hit. Like with woodutting before, ensure you have all your buffs and a nearby workbench will be critical for quick repairs as the antler will inevitably break. Fourth and fifth using similar strategies are the running and riding skills.
You can leverage the same shelter for the fifth skill in jumping. To do this you will want to place a floor piece in your shelter at a height just barely higher than the players height. The floor piece shortens your jump and will allow you to save time between jumps maximizing your skill gain! The sixth and seventh skills in fishing and swimming are in my opinion useless skills to level in Valhiem and therefore I won’t bother covering them here.
The eight and ninth skills are likely the most difficult to level in all Valheim in Blood and Elemental magic. Further, the strategy we will adopt allows us to continuously attack a creature without killing it thanks to the stone golems immunity to frost damage. At this point, build a fire nearby to recoup your rested buff when it wears off. Next is blood magic which gains 1 XP from protection bubble breaks, 0.75 XP from a summoned melee skeleton hit and .5 from a skeleton arrow hit.