Within three weeks of release, Valheim has achieved more than 4,000,000 players! With the game reaching such an intense popularity so quickly, it’s a good time to look at the challenges in the game and see how best to overcome them.
We’ve already discussed the first two bosses, Eikthyr and the Elder, and now it’s time to focus on the lord of the Swamp biome that players will encounter third. As a warning – Bonemass is significantly more difficult than either of the two bosses.
That said, preparation is always key, and while more of it may be required for this boss in comparison to others, that doesn’t mean that the challenge is insurmountable. If one goes into Bonemass with the right equipment, the boss is more than killable.
To get one thing out of the way first – yes, there is a way to cheese Bonemass. Players can bring hundreds of arrows and build a sniping tower up in a tree out of melee, shooting him out of range until he’s down. Congratulations, you’ve cheesed the boss.
If you’re the type of player that wants a boss fight straight up instead of just shooting arrows until you can move on, though, there’s plenty of strategies that you may want to employ! And arrows are first up – it’s heavily advised to bring some frost arrows to the fight.
There’s a bit of a catch-22 there, though – to get frost arrows, you need to be in the Mountain biome, which comes after killing Bonemass. If you make a fermenter and snag some frost resistances meads, you’ll be able to run into the Mountains long enough to down some drakes and mine some obsidian to make the frost arrows.
Either way, you’ll want to make poison resistance meads, as Bonemass is heavily focused on poison damage. Tackling the fight without poison resistance is an almost certain death sentence, so bring a good number – they last 10 minutes each, but bring as many as you can safely carry just in case.
If you don’t like bows or don’t want to grab frost arrows, don’t bother – other types of arrows do an incredibly low amount of damage against the boss, and Bonemass’s health regeneration will negate any damage you do with those arrows.
Instead, tackle Bonemass with a blunt weapon instead of any other melee weapon – bringing an iron mace is arguably the best weapon next to frost arrows you can possibly bring. A shield is a must if you’re in melee, and you may prefer a round shield over a tower shield for the enhanced movement.
Bonemass will also summon slimes and skeletons, so you’ll want to stay mobile and take these out as needed. Bring the right food, right mead, right gear, and prepare the area around the boss, and you shouldn’t have that terrible of a time killing the putrid third boss.
