Survival is your first and foremost priority in Valheim, and armor is your primary means of defense. But that doesn’t mean that each and every armor set is worth the price. In some cases, the sheer weight of the armor nearly outweighs its usefulness in defense.
That being said, there aren’t a ton of armor options in Valheim just yet, but resources to craft them can be quite the grind. If you’re interested in finding out which ones are worth the investment, here are the best sets to hold out for.
Troll Armor
Troll Armor is the first substantial protection you can equip yourself with in the game. It provides a six-point defense for each article, which is substantially more than the two-point base protection Leather Armor provides, and it weighs the same five units. The only exception is the cloak, which offers the same base defense and weight as the Leather Cape. This is the strongest armor you can wear without suffering movement debuff.
What truly makes the Troll Armor set stand out as the best armor in the early game is its Sneak buff. Each singular piece of armor, including the Troll Cape, grants the wearer a 25 percent Sneak bonus. That’s a total 100 percent buff when wearing the entire set.
Each piece of armor requires an initial set of materials to craft its base form. Then they will need additional materials and a higher level crafting station for each individual upgrade. With that in mind, let’s look at what it will take to craft the Troll set.
How To Craft
NOTE: Though you will need an upgraded workbench to craft the upgrades initially, repairing upgraded armor only requires a level 3 workbench.
Trolls can be found in the Black Forest, most likely patrolling near a Troll Cave. You will find a couple more Trolls within these caves as well. Trolls are susceptible to piercing damage, and they’re dangerous to engage in close quarters, so ranged tactics are best. Fire or Poison arrows will allow you to cause constant damage with their burning and poison debuffs, making quicker work of these giants.
Bone Fragments can also be found littering the Troll Caves. They’re also standard drops from the Skeletons that haunt Burial Chambers within the Black Forest and can be found amidst Rancid Remains in those dungeons as well.
If you find a Stone Grave or Viking Graveyard within the Meadows biome, mining those is likely to yield Bone Fragments too. If you’ve ventured into the Swamp biome, you might try your luck taking on some Draugr, who also drop Bone Fragments, or search the Muddy Scrap Piles within the Sunken Crypts there.
Root Armor
You’ll probably want to upgrade from the six-point defense provided by Troll Armor before you are able to craft the gear that can truly protect you against the many dangers that prowl the land. But the Bronze and Iron Armor sets are highly weighty, making their cumbersome nature not even worth the defense they provide.
That’s where the Root Armor set comes in, comprised of a pair of leggings, Root Harnesk, and mask. While this set is still weighty without offering substantial base protection (only two points more than the Troll Armor), The leggings and chest piece only suffer a -2 percent movement debuff compared to other sets, which commonly take a -5 percent hit.
What sets Root Armor apart from others of its class is the additional buffs it provides. Its most outstanding stat is the plus 15-point Bow skill provided by the Ancient Bark and Roots the set is woven together with, making Root Armor the best set for archers. Additionally, the Root Harnesk boosts piercing resistance by 0.5, while the mask offers additional protection with a 0.5 times poison resistance rating. Do keep in mind that an armor set woven together with old roots is more susceptible to fire damage — 1.5 times weaker than usual, to be exact.
Vikings have two options for gathering Ancient Bark. They can either chop it themselves by felling Ancient Trees in the Swamp biome, for which they’ll need a sturdy bronze ax to get the job done. Or they can try their luck scouring the Sunken Crypts, where they may find some loose bark stored away within chests throughout the crypts.
Roots may prove a little more challenging as they only drop from undead Abominations. These monstrous and aggressive creatures are strong and resilient, making them dangerous to engage in close quarters. The best approach is to keep as much distance as possible and take them out with fire.
Wolf Armor
Wolf Armor is the next set that stands out with a base armor value of 20, each weighing the same 15 units as the Iron Armor set. Again, the Wolf Cape is the exception here, as all Capes in the game currently provide only one point of protection and weigh four units.
The wolf set is the set you will want for long treks through the Mountain biomes for the Frost Resistance buff provided by the chest piece and cape. Unfortunately, the essential materials used to make Wolf Armor (wolf hide) can only be hunted in the Mountains’ harsh climate.
In order to gather the resources required, you will need to brew and consume some Frost Resistance Mead. You will then have ten minutes to make a pointed expedition into the Mountains to farm the materials and get to milder temperatures again before the effects wear off. Because you’ll need to gather a substantial amount of materials, it’s advised you craft some extra Frost Resistance Meads to have on hand for the journey.
Most of these materials are obtained by slaying wolves in the Mountains biome, such as the pelts, fangs, and Wolf Trophy. You’ll also need to hunt the Drakes who make their nests in the Mountains as well. These frost dragons shoot a three-pronged icy breath attack, then circle in the sky and repeat, making for an easy pattern to fall into sync with. You’ll side-dodge their attack, then fire some arrows while the Drake makes its round.
Silver is also exclusively mined in the mountains and commonly spawns underground. This requires the use of the Wishbone to detect the veins running beneath the mountain’s surface. You will acquire the Wishbone as a drop upon defeating Bonemass, the boss of the Swamp biome.
You can loot Chain from chests within the Swamp biomes’ Sunken Crypts or in the stone circles that act as Draugr spawns. Chain is also a standard drop from Wraiths that haunt the Swamp biomes’ abandoned structures by night.
Padded Armor
When considering flat-out defense, Padded Armor is hands down the best armor in the game so far. Each piece of the set offers a base 26 armor rating and is lighter than the Wolf Armor, weighing in at only ten units apiece. You will still take a -5 percent debuff to movement speed from the greaves and cuirass each.
Still, in terms of switching between this set and Troll or Wolf armor for their respective bonus effects, it certainly lightens the load in your inventory and gives you superior protection. The complete Padded Armor set’s total base protection equals 79 points, but when each piece is fully upgraded to the highest tier, that total rises to 100 points of armor protection.
The exclusion here is once again the cloak. The Linen Cape provides the same one point of protection, weighs the same four units, but doesn’t offer the additional benefits of the Troll or Wolf Cape.
The upgrades to the Greaves and Cuirass require a substantial amount of additional Iron each. The second tier requires three bars for each item, the third tier takes another 6 bars each, and the fourth and final tier requires an additional nine bars of Iron.
Even though the helmets in Valheim typically require fewer materials to craft, that isn’t the case for the upgrades. Upgrading the Padded Helmet to tier two requires an additional five Iron, another ten for tier three, and 15 more for tier four.
Being the best armor in the game, Padded Armor requires a more involved crafting process than the other sets.
Iron Smelting
Iron isn’t readily available in its craftable form. Instead, you will need to process Scrap Iron through a Smelter to produce Iron bars. This requires Coal to fuel the furnace.
Scrap Iron can be found throughout the Swamp biome in a variety of places. They are either stuck within Muddy Scrap Piles, which mainly form inside Sunken Crypts, or stashed inside Chests in these dungeons. Using the Wishbone, you can also detect any scraps that have sunk below the surface of the swampy ground outside.
Two quick ways to produce Coal are by burning meat over a fire or throwing wood into the Charcoal Kiln. The other way to obtain Coal is by hunting Surtlings found in the Swamp biome. There’s usually a small pack of these hot-tempered beasts keeping close to the Fire Geysers that crop up in that toxic biome.
Surtlings are weak to frost damage, so if you want to keep your distance to avoid getting burned, a bow and a good stack of Frost Arrows should do the trick. If you’re feeling more daring, you can take the Frostner war hammer and wail away on them with melee attacks. However, for the purposes of obtaining Coal, you may want to cool them off by luring them into the water, which is shockingly easy to do. This method seems to produce more Coal drops than the traditional fighting tactics.
Spinning Thread
Linen Thread must also be crafted using a Spinning Wheel, which in turn can only be crafted once you have upgraded your workbench to incorporate an Artisan Table. You will be able to upgrade to the Artisan Table after obtaining two Dragon Tears from defeating Moder in the Mountains. A Spinning Wheel requires 20 Fine Wood from Birch or Oak trees, five Leather scraps from Boars, and ten Iron Nails which can be crafted at a Forge.
Once you have an adequate workstation set up, you’ll need to gather Flax from Fuling Villages in the Plains biome. Be wary about charging in to take on an entire mob of Fulings. They can be very lethal in greater numbers. It’s advised to pick them off with a bow and arrow to thin out their ranks. Flax can then be spun into Linen Thread on the Spinning Wheel.
NEXT: Valhiem: A Guide To The Plains Biome
