The Elder Boss Guide: How to Summon and Beat the Second Boss

This is a boss battle guide on how to summon and beat The Elder, the second boss of Valheim. Read on to find out what you need to summon The Elder, its attack patterns, and how to beat it!

The Elder General Info

The Elder
Behavior	Hostile
Health	2500
Damage	・45~60 Stomp ・30-40 Living Earth Roots ・25-35 Reaching Vines
Tameable?	No
Enemy Spawn Code

The Elder's Location

Activate The Elder's Vegvisir

The Elder's Vegvisirs are located in Black Forest biomes. Look for heavily guarded derelict towers within these dark woods — There's a good chance that one of its Vegvisirs are nearby or inside.

Burial Chambers may also contain The Elder's Vegvisirs.

Look For The Elder's Ancient Bowl

Activating The Elder's vegvisir will reveal one of its Ancient Bowls on your map. These are found within Black Forest biomes.

How To Summon The Elder

Sacrifice Three Ancient Seeds

Search and destroy Greydwarf Nests within the Black Forest. These nests drop Ancient Seeds and are required to summon The Elder. Alternatively, you can also hunt Greydwarf Brutes for Ancient Seeds as well.

How to Farm Ancient Seeds

How To Prepare for The Elder's Fight

Craft Bronze Equipment

Take the time to craft and upgrade Bronze Weapons and Armor to make the fight against The Elder easier. Bronze Axes in particular are extremely effective against The Elder.

Bring Fire Arrows

The Elder can regenerate a decent amount of HP per second. Maintain the offensive by lighting The Elder up via Fire Arrows. Doing this properly can prevent a long-drawn fight against this particular boss.

Ideal Food Combo

The ideal food combo would be these three to prepare for the fight.

Item Name	How to Get
Cooked Meat	Can be cooked from the Cooking Station with the right ingredients.
Grilled Neck Tail	Can be cooked from the Cooking Station with the right ingredients.
Yellow Mushroom	Can be gathered from the different dungeons. Found in Burial Chambers, Troll Caves, and Sunken Crypts. Respawns after some time.

Upgrade your Equipment

Not only will you want to craft better equipment, but you also will want to upgrade your equipment as high as you can. Even with a full Bronze set and weapon, you can find yourself struggling. Upgrading your Forge will allow you to also upgrade your bronze equipment and make the fight significantly easier!

How to Build and Upgrade the Forge

The Elder's Attack Patterns

Reaching Vines

The Elder stretches one of his arms out and shoots out vines that deal massive damage when they connect.

Living Earth

The Elder summons breakable hostile roots in its target area that can swing toward you or your allies for massive damage.

Big Stomp

The Elder can stomp the ground with its massive feet whenever you or your allies are within melee range.

The Elder Boss Strategies

Use Cover

Take advantage of the pillars around The Elder's Ancient Bowl as they can provide excellent cover against his Reaching Vines. Nearby trees and rocks may also serve as cover against this particular attack, but it is important to note that they can break once they take too much damage.

Mind The Roots

The roots of The Elder's Living Earth attack can easily deny safe ground for you and your allies, easily swinging the fight to The Elder's advantage.

Always be ready to relocate and drag the boss to a safe location when fighting it alone.

Groups can appoint certain members to focus these roots instead to hold your ground if necessary.

Block The Stomps

The Elder's Big Stomp attack can be efficiently blocked with shields.

While seemingly unintuitive at first, staying within melee range can force The Elder to spam Big Stomps instead of the more dangerous Reaching Vines attack. This can make the fight a lot easier — especially during group play.

A Bronze Buckler is an excellent choice for this boss fight since parrying with it allows you to maintain the offensive in melee range.

Check our guide below about Valheim's parry mechanic:
How to Parry: Parry Force and Parry Bonus Explained

The Elder Rewards

The Elder Drops

Item	Qty.	Drop Rate
Swamp Key	Level 1: 1	Level 1: 100%
The Elder Trophy	Level 1: 1	Level 1: 100%

The Elder Forsaken Power

Hanging The Elder's Trophy at the sacrificial stones grants you access to its Forsaken Power. The Elder's Forsaken power increases wood cutting speed for 5 minutes when activated and has a cooldown of 20 minutes.
List of Forsaken Powers

Valheim Boss Battles

Boss Guide: How to Beat All Bosses

List of Boss Battles

All Bosses
Eikthyr	The Elder
Bonemass	Moder
Yagluth