10 Things I Wish I Knew Before Playing Assassin’s Creed Valhalla

what's going on ladies and gentlemen my name is michael and welcome to fudge muppet after getting early access to assassin's creed valhalla scott and i really enjoyed our time as a ferocious viking and we're super excited that ubisoft actually agreed to sponsor some content for the game including this video as of this video's release the two of us have amassed a combined play time of over 120 hours with around 60 hours of playtime each we've played a ton of the content available testing out different playstyles raiding monasteries fulfilling assassination objectives and finishing the main story we've still got some more side quests to complete but it's safe to say we've learned a whole lot about the game some things later than we'd have liked to so before you get the game and begin to dominate england i'm here to present 10 things i wish i knew before playing assassin's creed valhalla there will be no big spoilers or anything of that nature the first thing i wish i knew is do not stress over skills as you level up you receive two skill points to spend on various buffs in a skill tree that gradually becomes more visible depending on the paths you take however you always have the option to reset skill points and allocate them differently if you want to this means you can test out different specializations and the various special skills as desired it makes sense considering you can't see all of the skill options from the get-go also don't think you have to commit to just one theme or style like raven woof or bear no matter where you go in the skill tree you will find buffs for all kinds of ways of playing the game you'll find improvements to assassination damage melee damage bow damage health buffs resistances to fire and poison and various weapon boosts all around the place therefore you'll mainly want to prioritize the special skills you want which we'll talk about soon also as you get really high level you'll find that you become good at everything and you can get all the special skills you want anyway and then the rest just feel like extras you may specialize with stealthier buffs to start with like i did but by the end of the game i ended up extremely capable with my melee weapons choosing to play aggressively when i felt like it and even prioritize using my bow so unless you have a strong preference to avoid certain weapons and play styles it does feel good and i'd recommend to utilize everything provided to you just don't expect to be making the type of highly specialized min max setups you might create in other rpgs the second thing i wish i knew is that you should take your settlement seriously not that i didn't use it but there was much more potential to it than i initially realized and i'd definitely be utilizing it more early on in a second playthrough you'll want to prioritize things like the blacksmith the merchant shop the headquarters for hyattham and the tattoo shop if you care about changing your hair facial hair and applying tattoos have a look around and see what you're interested in but something i want you to know is that there's a bell outside the longhouse of your settlements and you can ring it to begin a very merry feast if you've gone far into upgrading your settlement you will have collected a bunch of buffs that will all be applied upon feasting which costs a small amount of silver things like improving armor assassination damage ranged damage even getting 25 more points of health for building the bakery there's a bunch of things there that can help you before you go on a tough mission so just be aware of what you can build to get all the materials needed to build you'll want to go on raids which is super fun anyway so the process of expanding your settlement comes quite naturally as you play through the game and pillage various places expanding and doing tasks around your settlement could also lead to new quest content and can even lead to new abilities in the form of an attack wharf speaking of abilities let's talk about some of the ones we found best to use including those special skills found in the skills tab so these special skills are found throughout the skill tree and tend to be passive abilities are found in the ability section and you can only choose 4 melee and 4 ranged ones at any given time you unlock these abilities by finding books of knowledge and sometimes by doing quests and completing certain tasks unleashing one of these uses an adrenaline slot which are found above your health bar remember i'm not saying these are objectively the best but i wish i knew to prioritize them as they ended up our favorites i loved harpoon impalement it was super helpful against boss type enemies especially zealots as it deals heaps of damage when you throw them into a wall or other obstacle if they're already close to it at higher levels i could just waste four adrenaline slots spamming this ability to take a boss down to half health mark of death is also great it lets you mark sighted enemies and then let fly a deadly volume of arrows which could take out multiple foes at once poison strike and fire strike as well as their ranged equivalents were also really useful allowing you to spread heaps of damage around the battlefield turning the tide during tough moments as for the skill tree some of the special skills i was talking about are just unlocking new adrenaline slots to use your abilities and i recommend getting as many of these as you can but speaking of more gameplay-oriented options advanced assassination is a great choice letting you assassinate high-level targets with a timing based attack otherwise really strong enemies can only be stealth attacked which isn't an instant kill chain assassination was also a great pick and has the advanced assassination timer added to the axe throw if necessary it gives you a prompt to throw an axe straight into a nearby target's head after you perform an assassination another great staple is brush with death which gives you a slow time effect if you dodge just before an attack lands grit is also good letting you regain the red portion of your health bar if you then land successful melee hits back at enemies you can parry melee attacks but the same button will let you send projectiles back at ranged attackers if you get missile reversal you can even throw bombs back at zealots sprint attack is another good one which is self-explanatory as is auto loot which automatically loops targets after a melee kill or stealth takedown battleground bolt is also a great one for big battlefield moments as you can just throw the nearest discarded weapon at enemies finally i'll offer the suggestion of heavy dual wield which lets you dual wield heavy two-handed weapons more advice on this later in the video the fourth thing i wish i knew is a lot simpler and that is to go all in when you're offered to bet on flighting flighting is basically a poet's rap battle where you insult your opponents in rhyme you have to respond with lines that rhyme with what they just said as well as have the correct number of syllables this may not come easily to every single person watching the video but generally speaking we think you'll smash it scott and i both found it to be so easy that you may as well bet as big as you can on every opportunity you get furthermore there's a reason to do it beyond money and that is that fighting raises your charisma skill now don't expect your charisma skill to give you any fallout new vegas end game win with your tongue type speech checks but you will use charisma to aid you in various quests including some in the main story for things like getting enemies to back down peacefully not having to bribe someone or even to avoid miscellaneous tasks like having to learn biblical teachings the fifth thing i wish i knew was what to spend my resources on when it came to upgrading my gear so using the settlement blacksmith you can upgrade your weapons and armor what we found was that it's most efficient to use a matching set of armor instead of mixing styles together as doing so gives you a bonus perk furthermore you still get that satisfaction of a fresh armor feel by upgrading it because it changes the appearance not just the strength quite a bit too depending on the specific set just be careful with wasting resources on upgrading armor weapons also change in appearance as they're upgraded so you can take your favorite weapon throughout the entire game if you like its effect everyone's playthrough is different but i'll also add that i found it better to prioritize upgrading my weapons as i could always dodge enemies and be evasive during tough moments but there's nothing as good as that raw damage increase that an upgraded weapon provides i'll talk more on which weapons to use for the seventh thing on this list the sixth thing i wish i knew before playing valhalla was that this game really does facilitate any play style you want and as much as you have to be a barbaric viking at times you can spend a huge amount of time indulging in a stealthy playstyle with plenty of areas to sneak through and tons of vantage points and hiding spots to find your way through there's also plenty of verticality in the various environments which you can use to strike down with assassinations on unsuspecting targets i used stealth quite a bit but what i also want you to know about stealth is that you really do not have to use it at all it's largely a preference thing you can pretty much play this whole game as a hornblowing viking warrior and it's much faster that way too stealth is fun if you enjoy it like i do but it's definitely slower and sometimes i couldn't resist just running in and letting my axes flurry through all the enemies without care of being spotted it's very fun and often just more convenient the seventh thing i wish i knew is a subjective one but it's which weapons to use answer spears we've done a lot of testing and i really wanted to have my character use short weapons like war axes and even daggers jew wielding them as a kind of agile dps character scott opted for a two-handed weapon a spear and found it to be extremely effective later due wielding two spears with the heavy due wheeled special skill we talked about earlier i switched to a spear halfway through the main story and let me tell you without having practiced with it so far it was incredibly effective i ended up duel wielding a spear in one hand and a battle axe in the other by the end of the game and it just worked so well we tested everything on offer and you can use whatever you want there's flails hammers greatswords and all kinds of dual wielding combos including dual wielding shields which is better than you think nothing special but it's completely possible anyways see what you personally like best but the recommendation here is to seriously consider using a spear in a playstyle that uses plenty of dodging especially if you're fond of this weapon type as we just found spears to be absolutely sensational all round the eighth thing i wish i knew is do not fear the high level zones so you'll notice each zone on the map has a different recommended level so obviously you're going to want to do the easiest ones first progressing to harder ones as you level up take your time to explore the world go on raids and collect materials build your settlement and help strangers when you're feeling generous the map offers lots of cool surprises to uncover but what i'll let you know is that you can actually tackle areas while being below the recommended level as you become a more powerful character this is mainly because you get more adrenaline slots highly upgraded weapons and heaps of the special skills and abilities we talked about you can use these intelligently to overcome the odds stacked against you however if you're a low level then this isn't the case so at early game stages definitely try to be the level you need to be but if you're say level 170 you can handle the areas with recommendations of level 220 and so on do be careful though as i did succeed in winning the main missions in the level 340 area at level 220 but it was very hard and much more of a challenge than i would have liked so in a nutshell take your time to explore and level your character's power but don't see the area recommendations as these super strict guidelines you can still tackle a zone that you're below the suggested power level for within reason if you're feeling hasty and just can't wait to progress the main story the ninth thing i wish i knew before playing this game is actually what to prioritize during a siege so as you lead the assault your viking allies will be using a battering ram to breach through the gate i found them to be really slow and ineffective at it so my recommendation here is to just suck it up and man the battering ram yourself it just speeds the whole process up however sometimes you'll find that you can actually just climb over the towering walls in front of you climb down the other side and open the gate for your fellow warriors and i highly recommend doing this only if it's actually a possibility during the particular assault that you're doing as it's just way quicker than using the ram let your vikings push the battering ram onwards though you'll just want to jump in when they've got it close to any gate you need to break through later on in the game though you may find that there's really strong resistance above the gates and in these cases you'll want to prioritize climbing up and breaking all of the tools they may have such as ballast and large pots of oil they'll use to drop and then set on fire and finally we come to the last thing i wish i knew before playing assassin's creed valhalla and that is to spend all of that hard-earned pillaged silver without fear as often happens to me in rpgs i ended the game with fat pockets full of silver that i never used instead i should have been far more liberal in spending it on resources which you can buy from merchants to upgrade your gear you will find enough resources without having to buy them but if you want to make things easier definitely feel free to be a spendthrift if there's a cosmetic design you want a weapon you want or a rune you want which can be placed into weapon and armor slots to give you more buffs just buy it you won't be needing huge amounts of silver for anything in particular so don't be stingy and just happily purchase whatever you need to remember to always go to the vendors and sell all of your trinkets too of course and that ladies and gentlemen brings us to the end of the 10 things i wish i knew before playing assassin's creed valhalla we've had a heap of fun playing through the story and exploring the world and i will say it is quite a hefty game so you'll definitely get a lot of hours out of it thank you so much for watching the video so far and i'd love to know what you're thinking about valhalla and if you're planning to get it soon to pacify all of england with your viking forces we're planning to have some more videos for valhalla coming over the next few weeks alongside our usual elder scrolls content which you can check out if you're new to the channel or keep enjoying if you've already subscribed social media links are in the description as always my name is michael and i look forward to nerding out with you again very soon

Channel: FudgeMuppet

Views: 1,420,749

Keywords: assassins creed valhalla, valhalla, assassins creed, assassin's creed valhalla, eivor, viking, acv, 10 things I wish I knew before playing assassins creed valhalla, assassins creed valhalla gameplay, assassins creed valhalla combat, fudgemuppet, ubisoft, ubisoft valhalla, ubisoft anz

Id: EtSi4tffruI

Length: 13min 47sec (827 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 11 2020