Xenowars | Defense, Dungeon, And Dung
Valheim | Portal And The Elder
Having depleted my local Black Forest area it was time to go a lot further south in search of new untouched lands. Down that way, I also uncovered on the map that The Elder was waiting to be summoned. I was getting a bit bored of the Black Forest anyways so it was time to move forward.
The walk down there was quite a long one. I ended up passing through quite a few different areas. There were many different kinds of looting opportunities on the way. I more or less burned a path right through destroying anything that dare get in my way slowing me down.
Once I got closer to my destination I decided to do a giant circle around the area to see all the Burial Chambers and ores I could find and mark them on the map. I was still in quite a need of everything to upgrade my gear further to add extra damage or defenses to it for the boss fight.
I also needed to acquire the summing item for The Elder that I was hoping I’d find in the area. So far I’ve only looted a single Ancient Seed and I needed three total. They can drop by taking out the Greydwarf spawners or from Brutes.
Since I wanted to reduce my risk of getting a bunch of adds during the boss fight I took out any of the spawns that were close by. During take out one of them another Ancient Seed dropped. I now just needed one more. It would however be quite some time before I’d find another.
I was also on the hunt for a location I could set up my first forward base at. The plan was to place down a portal so I could teleport back from my main base out here. While ores like tin and ore are not permitted in the portals. I could at least save a lot of time from having to walk back.
I also suspected I could get killed during the fight. I wanted a quick and easy way back. While I would be setting up a bed as well I ended up not using it. I’d rather get the higher resting bonus I was getting back at my base anyways.
I also spent some time scouting out the exact area around the summon for The Elder. I wanted to make sure there were not going to be any Trolls or other issues nearby once I got this thing going. Oddly enough that did end up happening anyways as a troll wandered into the fight midway creating quite a situation. If only it had done so sooner I could remove the troll before it was an issue.
Once all the scouting was done I set up a tiny three-by-three flooring hut. I then put a fence around it. I wanted to make sure nothing wandering around could just destroy the portal.
The biggest thing about setting up portals is making sure you have one already at base with a tag. So you are not having to run from where you are just to have it connected with one you set up off at a faraway land.
I should have thought ahead and had a portal already set up at the base for the Black Forest. I ended up just naming one in the future, I’ll be setting up a couple of spare portals with a more generic name in case of emergency. As my longer-term plan is to always walk around with enough supplies to craft up a portal when needed.
Once I had a forward base setup I could just dump things into a chest for now at. It was time to go on quite the grinding sessions of dungeons and ore mining. Since I had a lot better gear every Burial Chamber I hit was a cakewalk. Not even bad spawn locations could keep me from finishing off and collecting cores.
I was mostly after more cores found in the Burial Chamber dungeons. You needed two per portal and two portals for a set. So now you can start to see why I’m going to need quite a few of them even much later into the game. Setting up a lot of portals will save a lot of time and struggle. You still need to run out and get them down but that is just the fun of the journey.
I sometimes took a break at a spawn I left to try and farm for the last Ancient Seed I needed. It took a bit longer than I was expecting but over time I got my final third one to drop. Hopefully, I won’t have too much issue with The Elder as I’d hate to have to spawn him again in the future.
There was only putting off fighting The Elder for so long. Over time I depleted my new Black Forest area as well other than a little bit more mining. So it was time to rest up, eat some food, finish final upgrades, and spawn The Elder in.
Trying to fight The Elder with my level of gear on would be a quick death. Since there are many pillars and other things to hide behind around his arena area. I’ll just be using the bow and trying to avoid taking on too much damage when my health is getting low allowing regenning back up when needed.
I should have waited around just a bit more. I was not fully starting the fight when I should have and it would be best to have waited for the start of another day. It was however good enough for me I thought. This fight overall should not be that bad. If nothing else I can kind of sit it out and wait taking an occasional shot while waiting out the night.
Every so often The Elder would spawn in roots where I was standing. While they are quick to kill I just find it quicker to run off to the next pillar. This for the most part works as long as The Elder is not right next to you.
Standing within range of the roots hurts. So I found myself more focused on paying attention to them spawning in and where they were than The Elder himself. Granted he has some nasty damage as well. That however is quite easy to see as it requires him to cast it. Unless you are stupid enough to be in melee range where he will stomp you to death.
I got the elder to about halfway and then the unthinkable happened. A troll wandered into the area and messed things up increasing the difficulty factor by quite a lot. Since it was nearing dark at this point the troll was not the only add I got trying to cause trouble. It was however the hardest to deal with.
Needless to say, having that forward base set up and a portal back and forth saved me on this one. I not only did get killed due to the complication of a troll. I was having to use so many more arrows than expected I went and crafted a bunch more just to be sure.
For quite a while I was having to avoid the elder’s main attack, the roots, and the troll wanting to bash my brains in. At the very least when the troll did get a hit in or I was not giving The Elder enough attention the gear I spent so much time upgrading saved me more than once.
Final Thoughts
It was touch and go for far too long. In the end, I got the kill. The Elder is now dead and I brought his trophy back and hanged it on the stone to unlock his power. You can however only have one power at a time and I for now prefer Eikthyr’s since it helps so much for exploring and running around.
The Elder itself drops a key that you need to open the gates to dungeons that can be found in the swamp. I first however needed to set out and find one since I had yet to encounter any.
I will also more than likely need to set up another forward base. I however know better than trying to set one up in the swamp itself unless you are using a certain portal trick. More on that however in another post and journey for another day.
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Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Valheim.