The early game of the new smash-hit survival game Valheim is a bit difficult due to a lack of gear. This is far from something insurmountable, but the leap between leather gear and all-metal gear from the resources in the Black Forest biome is a massive gap.
There are two important things here, though – first, it’s absolutely optional. There are trade-offs to using Bronze armor, for example, such as players gaining higher defense and losing some movement speed as a result. Some may prefer the mobility of leather rather than the survivability of bronze.
You also won’t be able to obtain bronze until you’ve downed the first boss Eikthyr, as this boss drops what can be crafted into the game’s first pickaxe. Without this item, it’s impossible – technically you can trick trolls into breaking copper and tin for you, but this is wildly inefficient and difficult to do.
That said, if you’ve decided to jump into bronze, you’ll need to gather both copper and tin. Both have their own individual uses – copper makes a knife, both make some items buildable with the hammer – but their main use is being forged together to create bronze.
Bring two copper bars and one tin bar to a forge to create a bronze bar. These items must be smelted first in a smelter, which you’ll obtain by getting surtling cores from the mini-dungeons spread around in the Black Forest biome.
The first thing you’ll want to craft is likely going to be a bronze pickaxe, as this’ll make gathering copper and tin significantly easier. The bronze pickaxe has more durability, allowing you to mine for longer before it breaks, as well as breaking the stones needed quicker.
It’s also a good idea to make a base near or even in the Black Forest so that you don’t have to travel too far to repair your gear or drop off your materials. Remember that metal ores and bars cannot be teleported using a portal, forcing you to mule them back to where you’ll use them.
Because of this, a cart is extremely useful to bring, as metals are very heavy. Given that each ore weighs 10 pounds and the base carrying weight is 300, players won’t even be able to carry a single full stack of ore without a cart due to the carry weight of armor and the pickaxe itself.
Tin is found near the water of a Black Forest biome and is mined for several ore at a time from single nodes, making it relatively easy to obtain. Copper, however, is found in large veins throughout the Black Forest and require a much larger effort to obtain one at a time.
Mining will also attract enemies, so be ready to defend yourself when you inevitably need to! Keep an eye out for trolls especially, and make sure you aren’t accidentally overburdened by your materials in case you need to make a quick getaway.
