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The sharpest sword in the world is useless in the hands of someone who doesn’t know how to use it, but is this true in Valheim?
Leveling up skills is a vital part of progressing through Valheim. While it’s not that much of a chore to do, it helps to know just how those skills work, and why they’re useful to level up.
How to level combat skills in Valheim
Valheim uses a similar system to the Elder Scrolls series for skill leveling; skills are leveled through use. This means that whatever the player decides to do, they will eventually do better over time. On the one hand, this means that players can just pick whatever they want and trust that they will eventually get the skills they need. On the other hand, it means that if a player knows they want to use a specific weapon later on, they’ll want to start leveling the skills now.
Combat skills are leveled by using the relevant weapons on something. That something can be anything from enemies to trees, so in theory someone could level their sword stat by hacking away at a nearby forest, though that might not be the most fun.
Blocking is unique in that it can only be leveled in combat, as there are unfortunately no ways to block trees in Valheim. The blocking skill in Valheim affects both shields and weapons, and provides a strict buff to the listed blocking power.
What do the skills in Valheim do?
Leveling a skill does two major things - it improves the weapon’s damage and reduces how much stamina it takes to swing. The exact amount is subject to change and differs somewhat between weapons.
According to the formula listed on the Valheim fan wiki, Valheim requires a player to have 75 skill in order to have their weapon do its maximum damage, with later levels only increasing the minimum damage instead. Furthermore, most weapons listed here have a 30% reduction in stamina consumption when at level 100.
Once again using the formula on the Valheim fan wiki, the blocking skill reportedly gives a 0.5% buff to the block stat per level. This means it takes about 20 to net a 10% increase in the amount of damage blocked. Because the amount gained is a percent multiplier, the blocking skill gets stronger with better shields, while providing significantly less power to lower quality shields.
At 100 blocking, a sword would go from blocking 10 to 15 damage, a wooden shield would jump from 20 to 30, and the Black Metal Tower Shield would go from 105 to 158.
As a rule of thumb, the blocking skill will be more useful with stronger shields. Weapon skills, by comparison, are limited by the individual weapon. When looking at a weapon, the range of yellow numbers in the item’s tooltip show that weapon’s current minimum and maximum damage as adjusted by the player’s skills. Weapons can never go over their listed damage, even at 100 skill.
While skills are useful in Valheim, the design for the skill system is such that the quality of equipment will matter a lot more than having the relevant skill at max level.
