Whether you’ve been playing the Ashlands since
its release or planning on diving in for the first time, one thing you can expect is DEATH
This biome is Valheims most dangerous yet! But fortunately, I have 20 strategies for YOU to
increase your chance of surviving – including, how to safely mine the valuable flametal columns
But first, how can we get to the biome safely? Make sure you set sail close to the middle of the
map, not the east or west as I mistakenly did. With the full landmass revealed you will
see that while the rock spires extend to the edge of the map, the landmass
does not. If attempting to sail from the far edges you will have a longer journey
ahead of you with dozens of rock spires, bonemaw serpents, and Volture attacks in
your path. For best results, choose the shortest path to the biome up the middle!
Further, to overcome the attacks of these creatures ensure you have 10 wood on hand
to take advantage of the spires for a quick ship repair as needed. The Drakkar has
less health than you think and without an opportunity for a rest you would be setting
yourself up for a trip to Davey Jones’ locker! As you approach land, the water become shallow
sooner than you would expect bottoming out your ship. The Ashland creatures will not
hesitate to wade into the water to get you. When choosing your landing location, do your best
to avoid locations with spawners and if possible land where a ruin is present. The existing
structure can serve as a good location for your first base providing early shelter
from the elements and nearby creatures. If a spawner is unavoidable, snipe it from
the safety of your ship prior to landing with either a bow, crossbow, or staff
of embers. Destroying creatures spawners quickly should be a strategy you adopt as you
begin your adventure inland a little later. We will talk further about my recommendations
for weapons and combat strategies for exploring the ashen wasteland shortly.
Like the twitcher spawners you will want to avoid getting too close to the lava blobs! When
close to them, they will explode dealing TONS of blunt and fire damage. Your safest bet is to shoot
them from a distance with a bow or stav but my preferred strategy is to bait them to explode and
leverage the I-frames from your dodge to avoid the damage saving yourself the eitr or arrow.
To secure safety of your first base you will want the following materials with
you on your first trip to the biome. 4 Stone, 2 Iron, and 10 Wood
for the crafting of a stone cutter 10 Greydwarf Eyes, 20 Fine Wood, 2 Surtling
Cores for a connecting portal to your main base And 5 Iron, 5 Copper, and 1 Shield core
for the crafting of a shield generator and some bone fragments for fuel.
With your base location found, set down your shield generator, providing a bubble
of protection from the elements. From there, lay down your portal and reinforce your ruin
home with any stone or grausten walls should you desire. The stone cutter will also be needed
for the crafting of a stone portal as you find molten cores which will enable your portaling
of flametal we will gather later in the video. Before moving onto the next tip, its worth
mentioning that it may be worthwhile to establish a portal on one of the rock spires near
the shore prior to attempting you first landfall. In my experience the first landing is one
of the most challenging parts of this biome and having a portal to quickly return to
your body in the event of a poor docking will help prevent unfortunate death loops.
As you turn your attention towards exploring the biome you will want to be familiar with the
creatures strengths and weaknesses which can be summarized in this table on screen of which I will
also include a link for in the video description. For the most part, spirit, frost, and
lightning are in my opinion the strongest elemental damage types with blunt and slash
doing well from a physical perspective. Many of the creatures in the biome are resistant
to pierce and most are immune to poison. As a result, my personal choice for melee
weapons would be either the mistwalker or frostner. While most creatures are not weak to
frost, the freezing effect applied to them will slow them down and considering the massive
amounts of creatures that will attack you, you will be thankful for the slowing effect. Plus,
the spirit damage is a huge plus in this biome. However, in my opinion spellcasting is the
easiest way to survive with the each of the mistlands staves providing a great benefit. My
preferred approach is to eat two eitr foods, one stamina food and ensure I always have
a staff of protection bubble active. Further, use the staff of embers for distant
creatures and the freezing effect from the staff of frost will allow you to easily
outmaneuver and dismantle nearby foes. In the Ashlands both your stamina and forsaken
power will be valuable resources you need to manage. The best of the powers has got to
be bonemass. Whenever encountering a starred charred warrior, morgen or even a fallen Valkyrie
in combination with a large cluster of mobs, popping this power will surely save your life.
Secondly, save your stamina by walking rather than running. Running uses your valuable
stamina quickly. You will regret not having it when snuck up upon by an enemy.
When out of combat, walk, do not run. The ashlands offers many types of unique terrain
you can use to your advantage like the large wide rocks. Climb up on these to give yourself a break
from the onslaught of enemies. While the ashlands creatures have been designed to climb these
rocks, they will be forced to path in single file around the outer edge allowing you to fight
one enemy at a time or tackle them from range. While not terrain specifically you will
occasionally come across structures filled with dvergr. When swarmed by enemies, flee to
one of their structures for support. However, be careful not to hit them or their
structures as they will quickly turn on you. Before getting to my fortress and
flametal gathering tips I have one last powerful trick to assist you on your travels.
As you may know, many creatures when placed provide spawn suppression within their radius
roughly equal to the dotted line seen when placing a workbench. In particular, the campfire stands
out for its cheap cost and ease of construction not requiring a workbench, plus it won’t draw
creature aggression and cannot be caught on fire. If you find yourself being overwhelmed by
creatures, start placing campfires every 25-30 meters as your progress. This will
create a path for you in which enemies can no longer spawn making your journey
around the biome that much easier! The skugg turrets on the four corners of
fortresses pack a punch and will first engage you when you approach the fortress but only become
more dangerous as you enter. For this reason, deal with them first before invading.
The staff of embers works best for destroying these but arrows and even the staff of
fracturing from closer range will work just fine. When time to enter the fortress DO NOT
destroy the main gate. I’ll explain why, shortly. Rather, bring materials for
a workbench or stonecutter and craft a ladder or stair to get you atop the wall.
A hoe and stone will work effectively as well should you not have workbench
or stonecutter materials available. At this point, run along the wall edge
raining ranged attacks down upon the enemies below. For max survivability,
your priorities will be as follows: First, destroy the effigies of malice.
While these live, they will continuously spawn more charred for you to deal with
Next, focus the warlocks. These do a significant amount of damage and like the effigies will
continuously spawn creatures but in this case a green variant of the twitcher.
Finally, clear up the remaining warriors and marksmen and claim
the fortress riches for your own! Alternatively, if you have already crafted the
Trollstav, there is an easier way to clear any fortress safely. Simply summon a troll
at the edge and if you’re lucky they will land inside and terrorize the inhabitants.
For me, I try to target the corners of the fortress with the effigies of malice
because if precise, the summoning animation alone will destroy the spawner.
You may need to summon a few trolls to complete the job but while your troll buddy conquers the
fort you can sit back, relax, and enjoy the show. With the doors intact as we talked about
earlier, the fortresses now make for the MOST secure base location in all the Ashlands.
With their indestructible doors, walls, and protective spikes, nothing can enter the
fortress aside from the airborne Fallen Valkyrie Inside, lay down a shield generator, stone portal
and from that point on you have a sturdy foothold of which to begin our dangerous flametal grind!
Mining the flametal columns is a super dangerous endeavor killing me and my friends dozens of
times. Fortunately, through my pain, I have discovered 5 tips to share with YOU and save you
from the painful deaths I and my friends endured. And speaking of friends, we have a dedicated
server over on DatHost that we use to explore the Ashlands! And you too can
use DatHost and get 30% off your first month using my link in the description!
The first tip is to craft an abundance of basalt bombs. These will allow you to
raise platforms above the lava for a short period allowing you to navigate safely.
Second, lay down a shield generator as close to the base of the column as you can. As you may
have noticed fire balls erupt from the lava and if they hit you while on a basalt platform will
boop you into the flame. The shield generator prevents this from happening inside its radius
Third, either kill all nearby creatures as best you can or alternatively, leverage the campfire
strategy we discussed earlier to prevent spawn of creatures in the nearby vicinity. The
reason we do this is that using your tools like the pickaxe makes a ton of noise and will
attract nearby creatures. The last thing you want to be dealing with is combat once the
lavathan starts its decent into the lava. Fourth, wear the feather cape. The increased jump
height will make your life a lot easier jumping from platform to platform as the lava rises
and falls much like the tide of the ocean. And finally fifth, bring with you the Queens
forsaken power for increased mining efficiency as you will want to reduce the amount of time
you must stay on the dangerous platforms. With all that preparation done, pop the power
and mine away while being generous with the basalt bombs because after a few seconds
the platforms will sink and disappear. Do not worry about gathering the dropped
flametal while mining. I have a key strategy for gathering once the lavathan has submerged.
With the flametal laying on the lava its time to recover your riches which in many ways is the most
dangerous part. As you know, metal is heavy and a Viking only as so much strength. Fortunately,
tamed asksvin provide the answer. Unlike you, Askvin do not have a max carrying capacity and can
support the player even if they are encumbered. As a result, tame your asksvin, craft
the asksvin saddle, hop on the back of your green good boy and trot about the lava
floor gathering your abundance of flametal. But if all else fails, turn down the
game difficulty in the world modifiers, there's no shame in it! Whatever you need to do to
maximize your enjoyment of this incredible game! And if that was not enough, I have
the perfect video for you with even more survival tips that you can
use in ANY biome, right here!
