How to Summon and Defeat The Elder in Valheim

The hardcore Viking survival game of Valheim has five different Forsaken bosses to defeat. Each boss belongs to a different biome, and the second one you’ll encounter is The Elder of the Black Forest. The giant tree doesn’t mess around and can be a bit of a headache if you don’t know how to fight it properly. Here’s how to summon and defeat The Elder in Valheim.

You can summon each of the Forsaken bosses at their corresponding summoning altar. To find these locations, you’ll first need to locate the corresponding Vegvesir in the proper biome. The Vegvesir Elder is somewhere in the Black Forest biome, but we can’t give you the exact coordinates because each world is randomly generated. 

How to Summon The Elder in Valheim

You can summon The Elder in Valheim with the following materials:

• 3 Ancient Seeds

The items you’ll need to offer at the Ancient Bowl to summon The Elder are 3 Ancient Seeds, which drop from Graydwarves. There are many types of Graydwarves, but you’ll need to focus on killing the Brutes and the Shamans to get Ancient Seeds. Look for a glowing purple portal in the woods, as this is a spawn point for Graydrawves. You can also find them just by roaming around the forest. Mobs are attracted to noise, so if you do a lot of mining with your pickaxe, chances are some will come running to you.

How to Defeat The Elder in Valheim

The Elder is exponentially more difficult than Eikthyr, the green forest Forsaken boss. He has a far larger health pool, and his attacks can chunk off half of your health or more if you’re not careful. The Elder has three attacks to look out for:

• Summon Roots: The Elder summons roots in random locations around a target player. These roots will attack you if you get in range, and they can disorient you if they spawn directly underneath your character.
• Root Projectiles: The Elder throws waves of projectiles at you, dealing around 20-50 damage per hit. You can completely negate this attack by standing behind any object, like the four pillars around the summoning area.
• Ground Stomp: The Elder stomps the ground in front of him, dealing massive damage in a small radius. 

I recommend two or more players for defeating The Elder. It is entirely possible to solo, but you may need to use some cheesy tactics. Before summoning The Elder, come prepared with 200 arrows per character, as it’s mostly a ranged fight. I’d also recommend setting up a small camp nearby with a bed and workbench in it, preferably behind a hill and not in direct line of sight of the summoning location. Aside from allowing you to run back to your corpse quickly, this will enable you to repair your items and craft more arrows if you need them.

Here’s the strategy you can use to defeat The Elder quickly and easily. Four pillars are surrounding the Ancient Bowl where you summon The Elder. Each player should pick a post and stand behind it. There are three reasons for this:

1. It impedes the boss’s movement and keeps him in an easy to access area.
2. You can place ten campfires in the center to burn down the boss quickly.
3. The pillar gives you a barrier to completely block The Elder’s ranged attack.

All players should continuously shoot arrows at the boss at all times to drain his health. You can block The Elder’s projectiles by briefly standing behind one of the pillars. 

One thing you need to look out for is the root summons. Occasionally, The Elder will summon roots around a random player. The roots might be close enough to hit you, in which case you’ll have to run to another pillar. After all the damage from arrows and the fire slowly draining its health, The Elder should be down within five to ten minutes.

The Elder drops a Swamp Key and The Elder trophy on death. You can use the Swamp Key to progress to the next biome in Valheim, the swamp. Hanging The Elder Trophy on the Trophy hook at the starting area grants you access to the faster wood cutting power.