himmin afl gameplay (mistlands polearm): valheim ashlands

my miserably-low polearm skill made this harder than it otherwise would have been.
i gave this a try since there is so much lightning damage in ashlands, why not bring up the original lightning weapon, himmin afl polearm from mistlands. so, i sank like 100 eitr into this thing and let it rip.
youd think the control would be nice, but enemies break out of stagger so quickly in ashlands that the spin attack isnt very dominant, which is probably for the best. bad melee players are known to over-rely on the atgier secondary as a cover for being unable to manage parries and other forms of defense. turns out, even when hugging that attack, this weapon has some critical limitations in the ashlands:
1. about 60% of the damage is pierce. pierce is bad against all charred skeleton types, and the boss. pierce is fine against morgen, valk, and asksvin lizards.
2. the slow primary attack speed allows only 1 light attack follow up after a parry on most enemies. even dealing with zero star warriors is a chore. the only enemy this weapon performs well against when deployed in its typical fashion is the asksvin, because it has a low 30% stagger threshold, takes full damage from lightning and pierce, and has a normal (comparatively long, for ashlands) stagger window. taking on a zero star morgen is super tedious with this weapon.
maybe someone with higher polearm skill can give this a try. but in terms of pre-ashlands weapons which can still hang, this feels like a miss. other pre-ashlands weapons like silver sword, mistwalker, frostner, and demolisher are very viable. demolisher is still in my preferred loadout even after finishing the biome.

[@sittingforgetting9907]

wish you could apply the new lightning enchantment to this.
note that, with the lastest small patch, the light armor set was buffed to provide a set bonus of -20% combat stamina and +10% pierce. i may re-attempt himmin afl with that setup.

[@ringofasho7721]

I was just gonna say it'd be way better with askvin armor/ashen cape

[@VenatorStellorum]

I think you might be interested in some of TerraTanzanite's discussion of atgeirs as a tool of proactive control rather than reactive control like parries and dodge rolling. While certainly over-relying on one weapon can be a sign of a bad player, I would not be so quick to dismiss atgeirs as a whole because of that. I do agree though with my limited Ashlands experience so far that using any atgeir in this particular biome is an exercise in futility because of the rampant pierce resist and weird (possibly bugged?) stagger windows.

[@sittingforgetting9907]

the stagger windows are low on purpose. both offensive stagger and parry stagger has never been worse. meanwhile, knockback, like from one handed mace, is suddenly useful. demolisher is still good as well.

[@fungjungkung]

The charred can be knocked back, but they can't be stunned. The devs probably didn't want people rushing into the ashlands with the himminafl and just decimating everything with how easily it can stun multiple mobs at once in other biomes. It was kind of funny how even the bronze polearm was very effective in the mistlands because it could stun multiple seekers at once and it was even the best polearm for killing ticks since it used a lot less stamina than the other polearms, so I can kind of see why they wanted to switch things up with the ashlands mobs given how effective polearms were in previous biomes including mistlands
Still, the polearm isn't terrible, it's still one of the best weapon in 5 out of 7 of the biomes so far, and having a high polearm skill increases the knockback quite a bit which could be helpful in the ashlands. I haven't tested it out, but the himminafl's special attack should be able to stun Morgens, and could possibly even stun a 2 star morgen if you have leveled your polearm skill.
My character uses the bow and polearm combination, and I'm more excited for the Ashlands bows as the storm bow with frost arrows would be OP in theory

[@streater3293]

I was disappointed how ineffective the himmy is in Asslands.

[@sittingforgetting9907]

weak sauce

[@kiryre]

When playing in a group, you can use it to stun enemies and then others can do critical hits.

[@thegoldenrenesus9740]

I mean the polearms skill was lvl 15 so no wonder you did not do a lot of damage

[@thegoldenrenesus9740]

I tested the himmin afl with my polearms being level 74 and it is pretty solid vs everything in the ashlands. If you have being playing with polearms your whole valheim playthrough then you can continue to do so in the Ashlands

[@remmrek]

It's an Asksvin killa

[@hmgxiongchico]

So pretty much to cancel out the fallen V spin attack is to roll..👍

[@YANSKUY64]

Try demolisher on those mob, its good to maintain the overwhelming fight on ashland

[@sittingforgetting9907]

i do use demolisher. i am forcing myself to try himmin afl. for science.

[@L.I.S.T.I.T.W]

need twohanded spear

[@janwszoek1578]

On what difficulty you are playing?

[@sittingforgetting9907]

vanilla with 3x drops.

[@janwszoek1578]

@@sittingforgetting9907 best settings imo because you dont have to do 9000 trips for berries and you can actually parry without shield, I decided with my friends to play on the hardest mode and every time i see 2 star mob i shit my pants

[@bensadikin9513]

Hmm i could swear my Frostner would mow down these goons faster. Anyone felt same way ?

[@sittingforgetting9907]

yes, frostner is excellent in this biome.