the other big problem is that Frostner's knockback pushes the mob out of harms reach usually, the sword doesnt do that so you can continue the attack if need be, which means the fight doesnt go on as long..
I generally think Frostner is best for folks new to the plains since it is safer. Once you have max armor and the best foods, the black metal sword is the way to go. Logically speaking though, most people should level mace since it is strong or neutral against so many mobs. It's strong against skellies, blobs, Bonemass, and Yagluth. The thing this video doesn't take into account is if you play with sword early to level it, you gimp yourself in the swamp. If you play with the mace, you have the best all around weapon throughout the course of the game. So if you level mace, even swapping to an objectively better DPS sword later, your skill level will be much lower and therefore your DPS will be much lower.
@@joek8054 I went to sword as soon as I could and haven’t felt handicapped in the swamp. I can one shot skellies most of the time, and that thrust is so good, especially in the muddy pile/hallway things in the crypt, where slashing and clubbing animation won’t hit right I built an iron mace for bone mass, and used it earlier today to help my girlfriend bring him down. I don’t know that I’m gonna pick the mace back up until tomorrow face him in my world. Sword just has too much going for it I agree that “best” can’t really be accomplished in the way this video covers it, but I don’t think maces are objectively better by your standards either. Environment and play style count for a lot
I like the Frostner as a support and crowd control weapon. It drains stamina, slowing the enemy and makes it so they can't do power attacks. The knockback helps keep you from getting ganged up on.
There's a couple things your video didn't take into account. One of them is knockback. Maces have the unfortunate side effect of knocking back enemies so that the second or third attack in your combo just misses, plummeting their effective DPS in real life scenarios against everything but bosses. Or maybe they have similar knockback but lack a little bit of range, not sure. You just end up missing one attack per combo which dramatically reduces their DPS. Second is stamina usage. I think maces use up more of your stamina. If damage per second is the goal over a short burst, that's not a big concern. If you're wailing on a boss until you run out of stamina then start to kite it again, then damage per stamina is more important, making swords even more effective. Third is more subtle, and I'm not sure how to measure it, but I feel like through a combination of attack speed and range, swords can get their three-hit-combo out before the enemy gets a hit in, whereas mace typically get hit before. I guess damage per damage would be another test. Fourth, the main advantage of swords and maces over other weapons is the quality of their alternate attack. If you parry, they have enough range (especially the sword) to follow up with a strong attack that crits and typically kills in a single strike. It's kind of obsolete to measure the dps when enemies die in a single hit. If you want to measure DPS against large enemies, you could average out normal-attack => parry => special attack => repeat cycle. It's definitelly higher than the three hit combos.
At the end of they day just bring whatever weapon that's suitable to wherever location you're heading to. Going to the swamp ? Take frot hammer, going to Ashland's take a sword because you'll need to hit fast, going the the plains ? Best shield and porcupine, and so on. Know the enemy types and bring what's appropriate.
Also: Most enemies overall are resistant to pierce...The only enemy at all with weakness to pierce is the Troll. The only enemy without a weakness or resistance to pierce, is the Lox.
the utility of the frostner slow only truly shines in a group setting where the debuff can create additional openings for teammates to load up damage like a stack of pancakes
DPS stands for damage per second and you don't seem to have factored in time at all. You find the attack speed by seeing how many attacks you can make in 10 seconds and divide by ten I timed a sword, mace, dagger and the iron sledge. Sword and mace: attack speed 1.4 per second (14 strikes in 10 seconds). Dagger: attack speed 1,8 per second (18 strikes in 10 seconds). Iron sledge: attack speed 0.5 per second (5 stikes per 10 seconds). Take your damage output by 6 attacks result, divide by 6, multiply the result by the attack speed and you will have the actual DPS output.
I carry Frostner and a Black Metal Sword. if im fighting large groups of fulings, the slowdown on Frostner is a god send, its got lower dps than the BM sword, but has saved my butt on more than one occasion.
Iron sledge? I'm sitting on 200 Iron and can't decide between a back up armor set or the sledge... Frostnir is clutch but more of a 1v1-2 kind of weapon.
Added comment for Frostner. The cold part damage gets boosted if the target has the 'wet' status. If you'd redo the test in the rain for example you'd see a difference.
Curiosity! While DPS is interesting, I'm more interested in damage per stamina. I notice that the maces drain your stamina at superspeed, while swords use half as much and daggers even less. When you're getting attacked by three or four Greylings, Furlings, whatever, killing one or two, but running out of endurance, is super-dangerous. Which weapon gives you the best bang for your stamina outlay?
Depends on your tier and what you're fighting. I wear troll armor and use a blackmetal knife in blackforest and meadows, but in swamps, mountains and plains swords all the way.
@@arrgylerawrgyle3784 nope, but damage required does. meaning if I can get away with a knife and do enough damage, I'll use it, if I need more damage I'll use a sword.
i just focus on the most dangerous mob in the pack, just remember that if you are knocking the enemy back you are making it harder to get rid of it from the battle in some ways, sword ftw sorry
Frostnir is useful when you're dealing with a gang of goblins, its good CC and great damage. You can't kill them fast enough with black metal sword to keep 4 or 5 goblins manageable.
From a pure dps stand point I get that the Porcupine and Black Metal Sword are better than Frostner, not arguing that. Frostner has the advantage where it applies a slow to the enemy making it easier to parry and control larger mobs. Of course if you can parry normally it's Porcupine and Black Metal Sword all day.
This is useful information, but I think it also removes some context. Most enemies aren't stationary. The spear has reach. The dagger is a stealth and backstab weapon. Slashing in front of the target is not the preferred usage.
The one time I absolutely always use Frostner is when I'm raiding goblins. Slowing down a group of 3-5 of them makes them super easy to manage. That said, for 'regular use' I completely agree with the numbers that the black metal sword is top. I also keep a black metal polearm with me for quickly nuking large groups of garbage (grey dwarves and stuff).
Truly appreciate all the time & effort you put into these Valheim videos. As a Valheimenweizer, it is hard to find accurate, up-to-date information, on one of the greatest games ever almost made (it's still in early access).
One thing I feel is overlooked in weapon choice is the need to not spread your weapons choices too wide, not only to save inventory slots but also to avoid having to invest in too many weapons skills. I go with Frostner and Draugr Fang for end game. Not just because they're decent weapons which give me both ranged and melee capability but also because clubs and bows are viable very early. Swords only become available in Bronze. By that time, I already have a bunch of points in Clubs and Bows. Starting to level Swords just holds back my existing skills. If I then invest in things like Polearms and Knives as well, it means I get a bunch of journeyman skills rather than two specialised skills.
So far there are no enemies with slash ddamage weakness. And most enemies have weakness to blunts, so mace is currently the best weapon type in general. The problem is the knockback, which makes you miss the 3rd hit most of the time, which is the highest damage hit. The knockback, along with the slow attack speed really brings down the realistic dps of maces.
Frost hammer does not need to be best damage, it has a slow, which is definitely valuable. Helps a lot to just slow those enemies down that are zippy and might run around in circles, highly annoying. Damage of frosty hammer is good enough, but if you just want straight damage, yea obvi not best. Its all about priorities and what you want, there is no single 'best in every way' or it would be more boring. Except the bow, its basically the best in every way - hax have occurred.
You don't have to skip Frostner at all, it has its uses being the best swamp weapon .. and it goes off club skill, same as the porcupine. It really shouldn't be that hard to get the mats since you will already be at silver tier. You want the trader for more than the flesh anyways .. if you aren't using the belt, you are making the game a lot harder and tedious than it has to be.
players have gameplay preferences when it comes to weapons. I personally like the Frostner over the Porcupine because it helps when being swarmed by Fulings to slow some of them down. I'd take a lower DPS mace and a bow for sneak bonus because thats MY playstyle.
Pretty much. Only reason I made the video is because people kept asking for it. Just play with whatever you want. Doesn't really matter in the long run. This is just min max data for min max people.
I found i like Frostner a lot more when online, the CC slow helps a lot managing the battlefield (and not gonna 1combo kill some enemies before they hit back like a truck).
true I was just gonna write pretty much the same, and then read your comment :) I died much less against fulings with it, Lvl 4 Frostner and they dont move anymore for 2 sec or so, even though DPS is lower, so dont agree with firespark here, its the cold damage and not the spirit damage or "silver" that makes it better
yes I think this should have been mentioned. Being able to kill enemies from a distance is significant from a risk/reward ratio. Also why not run DF and skip PP and FN and go straight for black metal sword as far as evolution is concerned.
Frostner doesn't hit as hard as the porcupine of course but its pretty op for the plains because of its defensive potential(specially for permadeath runs, have you finished one yet or you gave up after the elder fail btw?) and you also deal crazy amounts of dmg if you lure the fulings into the water first, the "you dont need to slow things down if you're killing them fast enough" doesn't make any sense whatsoever lol even with the porcupine you wont kill fuling groups fast enough to the point they dont get to you so yeah, slowing them down is pretty op, there's no discussion on that
As a fellow guy who likes to do math and experimentation with games like this that I love, I really appreciate when people like you take the time to gather all of this data and present it to the community! That being said, I think "DPS" is kind of a misleading statistic in stamina based action games like this. Simply because, unless you have an active tank taking all of the hits from enemies, mashing the attack button is likely to get you killed. Sure, against one fuling maybe two you'll do fine, but good luck pulling just one fuling out of an encampment! In those instances, I think the slow and knockback of Frostner or the AoE of the Iron Sledge would serve you far better than "max DPS". In addition, a metric that is commonly used by fans of the Souls series is counting the number of hits to kill something, rather than actual damage or DPS. If a fuling takes three hits to kill with any blackmetal tier weapon, then DPS doesn't really matter. On the other hand, if one weapon (say, the Axe) takes 4 hits, then it is a clear outlier. I haven't done any tests on that, but aside from utility based weapons (dagger, 2H maul, etc.) they all seem to be roughly the same. Personally, my current conclusion after watching videos on DPS, Range, Attack Speed, Single Hit damage, etc. Is that each of the weapons within a given crafting tier are basically within margin of human error to each other. You're rarely, if ever, going to find yourself in an optimal DPS situation where you are just spamming the attack button. Its an action/survival RPG, you're meant to dodge, roll, get hit and be staggered. At the end of the day I think personal preference and utility overrides minute damage gains. Want to save inventory space? Choose the Axe. Like fighting huge waves of foes? The 2H Axe or 2H Maul might be for you. Want the option to use ranged in a pinch? Chuck a spear at your fleeing foe. Like the sneaky, assassin playstyle? Use a dagger and troll armor.
With a Fuling village your safest approach is to snipe from a distance with frost arrows. You can one-shot the low-level ones, and the tougher ones will die as they run at you, when you are shooting/freezing them along the way to slow them down. Works great with the berserkers too.
Yeah look at 11:18 when he's hitting the walls AND the boss. Then look at 11:48 when he's hitting JUST the boss. The differences between hitting just 1 target, vs hitting the walls too- is roughly half damage.. You gotta re-test the DPS lol
After playing for a few months I've become a big fan of the Black Metal Axe. Big slash damage like the BM sword plus knockback and I free up a slot because I don't have to carry anything for wood cutting.
Thanks for testing this, tho a couple of notes: Upgrade progression might play a big role in how these weapons scale, looks like you tested them all at level 1? might be interesting to see if the results look any different after max upgrades. Also kinda bummed you left out the silversword, on paper its damage is on par with the blackmetal sword, afaik Yagluth is even weak to its spirit debuff so there's a possibility it might do even better than the blackmetal sword. Also: Furlings would have made a much more "useful" target for testing. Pretty much all of these weapons are able to deal with swamp enemies, starred furlings is where their damage differences are actually important.
Problem that I see is you are going for pure numbers, but that does not properly reflect in-game experience. End game is usually a group mob engagement, where things like slow - knockback - DoT really start to shine. Even in boss fights, you typically get adds of some sort.
Also a huge miscalculation he had: when you hit multiple objects with something that deals damage, you see almost 50% less damage. So him hitting the walls AND the boss skewed his results badly. Just watch the frostner at 11:18... when he hits the walls the damage he deals to the boss hits around 40 damage per swing. Then when the boss is the only thing hit, he sees around 70 damage per swing (first swing).
Ok but... there's many things you can't kill in a single combo and sometimes a single combo isn't even viable. And then I haven't even mentioned groups of enemies yet. Frostner certainly has its place, provided that you can afford it. It's insanely expensive.
You probably should have accounted for the stagger potential, given it is also a damage boost against regular ennemies. I haven't done the math like you did but I felt like maces took it once you can push an enemy against a wall (to avoid missing due to knock back) and spam attack them.
Good video but one thing Frostner is good for is if you are facing multiple Fulings. It freezes one and gives you more time to deal with the other. Besides, it looks cool!
@@Firespark81 You may have said "it depends" but you didn't leave us hanging at that point... you gave us the meat and potatoes of an answer at the end. Thank you!
idk, the fact it can take you longer to kill mobs can mean more mobs being aggroed while you are still dealing the initial mobs, thats probably more likely to get you killed imo
Best weapon: Black Metal Axe + Draugr Fang. It provides the best mix of stamina, DPS, and utility. Between those two, the only things you might struggle with (where a different weapon might help) are Lox (which the bow will still deal with, and is still one of the best options for, it's just inefficient), and Stone Golems (which again not many better options anyway). If going into the Swamp supplement it with a Frostner. If you want an alternate way of taking out Lox, sneak attack them with the black metal dagger, it's the best damage you can get vs them and they have terrible detection. Black Metal Atagier is also a valid option. Stone Golem if solo jump on their head and pickaxe them. If in a group, the Porcupine is the "best" option but it's barely better than a fully upgraded Iron Mace, which is a lot easier to get.
8:13 You can surprise Eikthyr, so I assume you can theoretically surprise all of the bosses. The logistics might make things tricky tho. I can only get a successful sneak attack against Eikthyr maybe 1 in 4 or 1 in 5 attempts. Sneak knife jump attack and you can open the first boss fight with him down to 2/3 or 1/2 half his health. It's pretty brutal when you land the hit, tbh.
FYI vs Yagluth Silver Sword is even better than Blackmetal Sword with its Spirit damage an Yagluth being undead. (Plus its damage scales amazing with upgrades as both damage types get a full increase per level)
I think the big thing that I and a lot of people like about Frostner is that it just FEELS good to use. Who doesn't want to swing around a frosty Mjolnir in a viking game. I was already kind of aware that the porcupine was better than the Frostner b4 this video. I'll still be using my Frostner though because it just feels awesome to use.
did you test the "2nd" skill of the weapons? for example the battle axe has a much faster single target attack; the normal attack combo is more of a group clearer rather than a single target dps. also are you considering making a group dps testing? because then the atgeir would destroy the competition with its spin to win move :D
Great video. BUT... massive atgeir secondary attack on a big group of enemies or 1 shotting a fuling berserker with 100 skill sneak backstab blackmetal dagger feels SO good.
Should try whacking with porky. Its longer reach and knockback actually trivialises fulings because you can hit them earlier and knock them back while they are locked in their attack animations. Well until you get chased by spear throwers. Those are annoying.
DoTs Don't really account for much if a different weapon kills the same mob in less time. I feel like it would be purely situational, at best. For example, if you're fighting a pile of mobs while running away, DoTs would be good. Otherwise, I don't see much use outside of ranged damage. DoTs would apply better when the mob(s) have a large distance to cover, where by the DoTs would chunk them before they reach you. Again, best when fighting multiple targets at range. Just my two cents. Keep up these amazingly well researched and informational videos!
Frostner is effective for hit and run tactics as it slows and applies a dot. hit.. let the dot tick down and run back in. Not super useful in the current game tbh.
Your numbers are all theory... The monsters will not be standing still when you fight them and some of these weapon will knock back enemies out of your striking range so you'll never get the 3rd hit of the combo. So if you're not in a boss fight with someone keeping the aggro from you these numbers are pretty much meaningless. The spear might have low dps but the special attack is very useful when you parry and the enemy gets out of range. Imo the best weapon would be highest damage for stamina spent
Thank you Firespark for the decent test setup. Did you also take into account stamina consumption? From my personal experience i think that e.g. the use of the spear consumes more stamina, then the sword. Which in fact would make the sword even more useful as you can keep up the high DPS even longer...
porcupine is half pierce dmg and yagluth is piercing resistant, so there's going to be a big dps loss there. I do like frostner, but at the same time, I often make a Q4 iron mace for the Bonemass fight, so frostner starts to feel pretty skippable these days.
Were the weapons upgraded or base? Iirc the weird weapons don't always scale as well when they're upgraded, and for some reason I was thinking Frostner was the one that scaled bad with upgrades. Daggers just feel soo good to me, idk why. Granted I'm only upto mountain biome and have an abyssal dagger, but up until this point daggers just feel great. They seem to be the fastest, so IDK if I can get in more practical hits in-between gaps or what it is. I know they have no movement penalty, which is a nice quality of life thing (I can chase down deer lol)
Daggers are my favorite weapon too. Copper knife (lvl3) and you can one hit troll. (if you use secondary and sneak) Not sure, but feels like you do lot more dmg with less stamina than other weapons. One last thing: Do not try to kill bonemass with dagger, it just wont work, trust me, i tried. I think wooden club is faster. :=)
If we had to use swords early on to level them up i would have struggled even more for inventory space which is why i just used the axe.Switching over to sword later would be painful since it is not leveled so this also needs to be taken into consideration,unless you want to spend 3-6 days just trying to level up the sword.
As an aside, if you got 95+ Bow skill, and enough arrows to match the bows durability, it is the most consistent and sustainable DPS in the game. You can tap shoot at 95+ skill, and you drain minimal stamina while doing it at that point. As long as your shots land, it is next to unmatchable for singletarget As you can also just walk backwards while spamming to avoid most attacks. I am guessing the Bow Nerf the devs talked about a while ago will end up being the draw speed as instatap firing is busted.
The best thing about the bow is you are less likely to get hit, which means you are less likely to die and less likely to have to do a corpse run and less likely to lose all your stuff from it despawing before you get to it.
@@MAGAMAN Your grave will never despawn, no matter how many times you die. Just make sure to mark it on the map because your map will only have 1 skull icon at a time, but all graves will still exist until you collect them
yea bows are OP but most people are not going to hit 95 skill. Sure you can and some will. Some may even hit 100 but unless you get that high the bow is not a weapon created for high DPS. It is a surprise an kite weapon and it is super op even with low skill level which is probably why the devs plan to nerf it. But the video was about high DPS.
@@Firespark81 I mean no offense, but that’s just not how testing works. If the bow was the highest dps weapon at level 100 bow skill, you wouldn’t know because you decided not to test it for arbitrary reasons. Most people are casual gamers and won’t even make it past the iron tier. Even less people will make it to 90 in any skill. Doesn’t mean you should test a category of weapon if you’re searching for answers about weapon dps
Great comparison! Just good to point out is also AoE. I understand this is single target evaluation. Situation changes when it comes to packs of enemies, where double-handled heavier weapons with bigger knockback can come more useful (not only DPS-wise). But that's situational advantage.
and mobs differents resistances and weaknesses , this dude forgot how combat is in this game , this isnt the forest , this game have better combat mecs
You do realize that hitting multiple things/objects lowers your DPS on whatever you're hitting? so hitting the walls where you spawned those bosses skewed your results bad. Even chopping trees down, if you hit 2 or 3 trees at once, you'll see a much smaller damage number as opposed to hitting just 1 object/target. Almost halves your DPS. Note: I'm not 100% sure if hitting multiple trees shares the same effects of hitting multiple objects, such as hitting NPC/Mobs. You should test that before testing DPS on mobs (if you're going to hit the walls too) Note2: I noticed when you hit the boss without hitting the walls you did 20+ more damage on the first swing of the frostner... Hitting the walls AND the boss, you did 40ish damage total, then when you hit him without clipping the walls, you did around 70. so yeah, you're going to have to re-test your theory of DPS my man.
I know this is 2 years old, but have you done an update video? A bunch of folks already mentioned the issue with hitting the wall, and I'm also curious how split damage works in regards to armor and resistances. Also to anyone watching this trying to decide what to use, I would take his conclusions about Frostner with a big grain of salt. It's true that a dead enemy can't hurt you, but if you're killing everything in one combo you probably don't need to worry about perfectly maximizing your DPS anyway. If you're fighting enemies that are a challenge then the slowing debuff will be a literal lifesaver.
I dont know what you are talking about with the bow. The bow is by FAR the best dps weapon in the game. I have 90 in bow skill and can shoot a fully charge arrow in 0.2 to 0.5 second. It a machine gun with high skill.
Yuuuuuppppp But people kept asking me for this video so I gave it my best shot. In reality just use whatever you want and have fun. It does not really matter.
Frostner has another trick he forgot to mention it does area effect damage meaning if you miss you still deal damage if close enough. You can hit enemy trough walls/terrain.
I know the swords are great but I just love using the knives. My little abyssal dagger has been treating me very well and when I can upgrade it to black metal I will continue to use it. That sneak damage is so OP... I'm sorry but I was an old school Runescape player and I would PK with the dragon dagger, I guess the knives in Valheim bring me back to the old RS days :D
I also like the idea of sneaking and doing backstabbing damage, but in this game sneaking is slow and the enemies usually see you when you get close to them, even if you have high sneak skill. It's much faster and safer to sneak and use archery from a distance to get your first 3x surprise damage. The other monsters are too dumb to question why the guy next to them just exploded, so rinse and repeat until they're all dead. Would be a very slow/difficult process to do that with a knife.
Glad you made this video. My friends wouldn't believe me when I said sword was the best in alot of situations. They insist porcupine is the only weapon ever needed and that swords were useless 🙄
I'm pretty sure people just say that because there are no enemies that are weak vs slashing. But the fact that very few enemies are resistant to slashing combined with the good dps makes swords a good all-arounder.
should run the last test again with a different boss yagluth has a peirce resistance so porcupine was only doing half damage plus with porcupine and frostner you were hitting the boss and the wall splitting the damage
dont forget that battle axe has a special attack if you press the mouse wheel that has really hige knockback i tested it on a greydwarf brute and i staggerd him in 1 hit
So I had this weird thing about bronze buckler that I didn't know the answer to. It's currently the only 1 that has 2x parry multiplier. But how does parry work? Can any attack be able to be parried? Does block amount affect how sucessful parry work?
@@TwinsProductions69 Firespark also made a video about this. But basicly, yes: Parry is a timed block. It block 50% more damage than a normal block, only the Bronze Buckler can block 100% more. Your Block skill influence your Blocking in General. What makes the Bronze Buckler better is the Parry Foce. Parry Force is Knockback for Shields and Knockback sucks, so a small Knockback / Parry Force = better DPS
@@MrOnePieceRuffy ehm , nope : Parry Bonus is a multiplier applied to your Block Power when you parry an attack. This indirectly reduces Stamina usage. For example, if your Block Power is 20 and you have a Parry Bonus of 2x, you can parry attacks dealing up to 40 damage. The Parry Bonus does not apply to stagger damage. so the stagger damage its the same no matter the shield
@@BkSonic I've no clue what you are talking about, but I read the Game Source Code and know what i'm saying. Your Info is useless because nobody talked about parry bonus. So have a nice day.
The spear gives better damage on the 3rd hit. I have been using them for my entire game (like 300 hours now) and it definitely hits for more damage on the 3rd hit.
While its not super relevant at blackmetal atm, what about how dps changes with stagger, and how easily a weapon can stagger your enemies? For example with the atgier i can h into l and get stagger damage on the l
Your tests against Yagluth were compromised though, because I saw numerous frames where Porcupine (for example) was also hitting the wall while striking Yag. Each target you hit divides the damage of the weapon, including ground, trees, rocks, ect. So for every hit of the weapon that ALSO strikes the wall/ground, you're losing up to 50% dps. Run the tests against, but NOT in a pit where you'll hit the walls. Really surprised you didn't know that, it's pretty obvious after cutting down trees in the first hour of the game.
Hitting the ground should not matter. I think the issue there was something I forgot and that is Yag is resistant to pierce. But in the end this also goes to show there is not a one weapon rules them all situation in this game. Also none of this really matters unless you are all about min maxing. Just use whatever weapon you enjoy.
I have an idea that will allow you to use the trader. Take supplies to a random seed and search for the trader. However many days you commit searching you must skip on your world. You are not allowed to bring back anything you didn’t take with you.
" You are not allowed to bring back anything you didn’t take with you." Did they change that? I haven't played in a few days, but I used to do this all the time.
@@tauntmeimmagic ok that would make sense, the thing is though with draugr fang pierce is the primary but poison goes up when upgrading it. Not by much I'll grant.
yes but not by much. It and the mace are pretty much the same. With that small of a sample size and the fact that their attack pattern is pretty much the same it is safe to say they have the same DPS. So that means. All swords and maces that share the same pattern will have high DPS.
I understand facts are facts, but when I'm swarmed by a flock of Fulings... I love that slow effect Frostner has.
the other big problem is that Frostner's knockback pushes the mob out of harms reach usually, the sword doesnt do that so you can continue the attack if need be, which means the fight doesnt go on as long..
I generally think Frostner is best for folks new to the plains since it is safer. Once you have max armor and the best foods, the black metal sword is the way to go. Logically speaking though, most people should level mace since it is strong or neutral against so many mobs. It's strong against skellies, blobs, Bonemass, and Yagluth. The thing this video doesn't take into account is if you play with sword early to level it, you gimp yourself in the swamp. If you play with the mace, you have the best all around weapon throughout the course of the game. So if you level mace, even swapping to an objectively better DPS sword later, your skill level will be much lower and therefore your DPS will be much lower.
Holden Mcgroine my point exactly, sitting in god mode and telling people off for being arguably and subjectively correct is just bad manners.
@@joek8054 I went to sword as soon as I could and haven’t felt handicapped in the swamp. I can one shot skellies most of the time, and that thrust is so good, especially in the muddy pile/hallway things in the crypt, where slashing and clubbing animation won’t hit right
I built an iron mace for bone mass, and used it earlier today to help my girlfriend bring him down. I don’t know that I’m gonna pick the mace back up until tomorrow face him in my world. Sword just has too much going for it
I agree that “best” can’t really be accomplished in the way this video covers it, but I don’t think maces are objectively better by your standards either. Environment and play style count for a lot
I like the Frostner as a support and crowd control weapon. It drains stamina, slowing the enemy and makes it so they can't do power attacks. The knockback helps keep you from getting ganged up on.
There's a couple things your video didn't take into account.
One of them is knockback. Maces have the unfortunate side effect of knocking back enemies so that the second or third attack in your combo just misses, plummeting their effective DPS in real life scenarios against everything but bosses. Or maybe they have similar knockback but lack a little bit of range, not sure. You just end up missing one attack per combo which dramatically reduces their DPS.
Second is stamina usage. I think maces use up more of your stamina. If damage per second is the goal over a short burst, that's not a big concern. If you're wailing on a boss until you run out of stamina then start to kite it again, then damage per stamina is more important, making swords even more effective.
Third is more subtle, and I'm not sure how to measure it, but I feel like through a combination of attack speed and range, swords can get their three-hit-combo out before the enemy gets a hit in, whereas mace typically get hit before. I guess damage per damage would be another test.
Fourth, the main advantage of swords and maces over other weapons is the quality of their alternate attack. If you parry, they have enough range (especially the sword) to follow up with a strong attack that crits and typically kills in a single strike. It's kind of obsolete to measure the dps when enemies die in a single hit. If you want to measure DPS against large enemies, you could average out normal-attack => parry => special attack => repeat cycle. It's definitelly higher than the three hit combos.
Well said. Maces end up being situational against enemies that are weak against blunt attack.
This comment should get a reward
Stamina usage is dependent on your skill level of the weapon IIRC. You will want to test stamina all on the same level.
At the end of they day just bring whatever weapon that's suitable to wherever location you're heading to. Going to the swamp ? Take frot hammer, going to Ashland's take a sword because you'll need to hit fast, going the the plains ? Best shield and porcupine, and so on. Know the enemy types and bring what's appropriate.
The reason Porcupine is bad on Yagluth is that he is strong against piercing and that is a big part of Porcupines damage.
and because he was spliting the dmg by hitting the walls.. same with frostner
Exactly he was doing half damage
Also: Most enemies overall are resistant to pierce...The only enemy at all with weakness to pierce is the Troll. The only enemy without a weakness or resistance to pierce, is the Lox.
the utility of the frostner slow only truly shines in a group setting where the debuff can create additional openings for teammates to load up damage like a stack of pancakes
Yeah but let's be honest, axe is best because it does damage, it cuts logs and it's viking as f
i agree only on the looks xD i prefer the mace except frostner
DPS stands for damage per second and you don't seem to have factored in time at all.
You find the attack speed by seeing how many attacks you can make in 10 seconds and divide by ten
I timed a sword, mace, dagger and the iron sledge.
Sword and mace: attack speed 1.4 per second (14 strikes in 10 seconds).
Dagger: attack speed 1,8 per second (18 strikes in 10 seconds).
Iron sledge: attack speed 0.5 per second (5 stikes per 10 seconds).
Take your damage output by 6 attacks result, divide by 6, multiply the result by the attack speed and you will have the actual DPS output.
I carry Frostner and a Black Metal Sword. if im fighting large groups of fulings, the slowdown on Frostner is a god send, its got lower dps than the BM sword, but has saved my butt on more than one occasion.
same, I dont think he agrees tho lol
Ooze bombs will do more work than your Frostner there
Iron sledge? I'm sitting on 200 Iron and can't decide between a back up armor set or the sledge... Frostnir is clutch but more of a 1v1-2 kind of weapon.
Added comment for Frostner. The cold part damage gets boosted if the target has the 'wet' status. If you'd redo the test in the rain for example you'd see a difference.
Curiosity! While DPS is interesting, I'm more interested in damage per stamina. I notice that the maces drain your stamina at superspeed, while swords use half as much and daggers even less. When you're getting attacked by three or four Greylings, Furlings, whatever, killing one or two, but running out of endurance, is super-dangerous. Which weapon gives you the best bang for your stamina outlay?
Depends on your tier and what you're fighting. I wear troll armor and use a blackmetal knife in blackforest and meadows, but in swamps, mountains and plains swords all the way.
@@hoganlex1 what? Sta per swing doesn't depend on biome
@@arrgylerawrgyle3784 nope, but damage required does. meaning if I can get away with a knife and do enough damage, I'll use it, if I need more damage I'll use a sword.
The utility of the Frosty makes up for the less DPS to Porky. The slow from the cold wins over everything else.
'Specially when dealing with 2star spear Fulings :P
i just focus on the most dangerous mob in the pack, just remember that if you are knocking the enemy back you are making it harder to get rid of it from the battle in some ways, sword ftw sorry
Legend has it that Firespark is still trying to kill Yaggie with the Porky.
The sun doesn’t set in eternity.
Frostnir is useful when you're dealing with a gang of goblins, its good CC and great damage. You can't kill them fast enough with black metal sword to keep 4 or 5 goblins manageable.
Atgeir time! Spin to win
black metal sword versus silver sword on final boss? :p
From a pure dps stand point I get that the Porcupine and Black Metal Sword are better than Frostner, not arguing that. Frostner has the advantage where it applies a slow to the enemy making it easier to parry and control larger mobs. Of course if you can parry normally it's Porcupine and Black Metal Sword all day.
This is useful information, but I think it also removes some context. Most enemies aren't stationary. The spear has reach. The dagger is a stealth and backstab weapon. Slashing in front of the target is not the preferred usage.
The one time I absolutely always use Frostner is when I'm raiding goblins. Slowing down a group of 3-5 of them makes them super easy to manage. That said, for 'regular use' I completely agree with the numbers that the black metal sword is top. I also keep a black metal polearm with me for quickly nuking large groups of garbage (grey dwarves and stuff).
Truly appreciate all the time & effort you put into these Valheim videos. As a Valheimenweizer, it is hard to find accurate, up-to-date information, on one of the greatest games ever almost made (it's still in early access).
One thing I feel is overlooked in weapon choice is the need to not spread your weapons choices too wide, not only to save inventory slots but also to avoid having to invest in too many weapons skills. I go with Frostner and Draugr Fang for end game. Not just because they're decent weapons which give me both ranged and melee capability but also because clubs and bows are viable very early. Swords only become available in Bronze. By that time, I already have a bunch of points in Clubs and Bows. Starting to level Swords just holds back my existing skills. If I then invest in things like Polearms and Knives as well, it means I get a bunch of journeyman skills rather than two specialised skills.
Fantastic video, but I disagree about frostner. The slowing affect is just so nice, especially against plains enemies.
So far there are no enemies with slash ddamage weakness. And most enemies have weakness to blunts, so mace is currently the best weapon type in general. The problem is the knockback, which makes you miss the 3rd hit most of the time, which is the highest damage hit. The knockback, along with the slow attack speed really brings down the realistic dps of maces.
thats why swords lol
Frost hammer does not need to be best damage, it has a slow, which is definitely valuable. Helps a lot to just slow those enemies down that are zippy and might run around in circles, highly annoying. Damage of frosty hammer is good enough, but if you just want straight damage, yea obvi not best. Its all about priorities and what you want, there is no single 'best in every way' or it would be more boring. Except the bow, its basically the best in every way - hax have occurred.
You don't have to skip Frostner at all, it has its uses being the best swamp weapon .. and it goes off club skill, same as the porcupine. It really shouldn't be that hard to get the mats since you will already be at silver tier. You want the trader for more than the flesh anyways .. if you aren't using the belt, you are making the game a lot harder and tedious than it has to be.
players have gameplay preferences when it comes to weapons. I personally like the Frostner over the Porcupine because it helps when being swarmed by Fulings to slow some of them down. I'd take a lower DPS mace and a bow for sneak bonus because thats MY playstyle.
Pretty much. Only reason I made the video is because people kept asking for it. Just play with whatever you want. Doesn't really matter in the long run. This is just min max data for min max people.
I found i like Frostner a lot more when online, the CC slow helps a lot managing the battlefield (and not gonna 1combo kill some enemies before they hit back like a truck).
true I was just gonna write pretty much the same, and then read your comment :) I died much less against fulings with it, Lvl 4 Frostner and they dont move anymore for 2 sec or so, even though DPS is lower, so dont agree with firespark here, its the cold damage and not the spirit damage or "silver" that makes it better
Love the massive amount of content lately! Putting in some OT :P
At max bow skill the draw is almost instant, and with the draugr fang with needle arrows I think that that may be a contender
yes I think this should have been mentioned. Being able to kill enemies from a distance is significant from a risk/reward ratio. Also why not run DF and skip PP and FN and go straight for black metal sword as far as evolution is concerned.
Frostner doesn't hit as hard as the porcupine of course but its pretty op for the plains because of its defensive potential(specially for permadeath runs, have you finished one yet or you gave up after the elder fail btw?) and you also deal crazy amounts of dmg if you lure the fulings into the water first, the "you dont need to slow things down if you're killing them fast enough" doesn't make any sense whatsoever lol even with the porcupine you wont kill fuling groups fast enough to the point they dont get to you so yeah, slowing them down is pretty op, there's no discussion on that
As a fellow guy who likes to do math and experimentation with games like this that I love, I really appreciate when people like you take the time to gather all of this data and present it to the community!
That being said, I think "DPS" is kind of a misleading statistic in stamina based action games like this. Simply because, unless you have an active tank taking all of the hits from enemies, mashing the attack button is likely to get you killed. Sure, against one fuling maybe two you'll do fine, but good luck pulling just one fuling out of an encampment! In those instances, I think the slow and knockback of Frostner or the AoE of the Iron Sledge would serve you far better than "max DPS".
In addition, a metric that is commonly used by fans of the Souls series is counting the number of hits to kill something, rather than actual damage or DPS. If a fuling takes three hits to kill with any blackmetal tier weapon, then DPS doesn't really matter. On the other hand, if one weapon (say, the Axe) takes 4 hits, then it is a clear outlier. I haven't done any tests on that, but aside from utility based weapons (dagger, 2H maul, etc.) they all seem to be roughly the same.
Personally, my current conclusion after watching videos on DPS, Range, Attack Speed, Single Hit damage, etc. Is that each of the weapons within a given crafting tier are basically within margin of human error to each other. You're rarely, if ever, going to find yourself in an optimal DPS situation where you are just spamming the attack button. Its an action/survival RPG, you're meant to dodge, roll, get hit and be staggered. At the end of the day I think personal preference and utility overrides minute damage gains.
Want to save inventory space? Choose the Axe. Like fighting huge waves of foes? The 2H Axe or 2H Maul might be for you. Want the option to use ranged in a pinch? Chuck a spear at your fleeing foe. Like the sneaky, assassin playstyle? Use a dagger and troll armor.
Also number of hits on weapons to see average damage doesn't mean thats what its dps is, you have to factor in attack speed, stamina usage etc.
With a Fuling village your safest approach is to snipe from a distance with frost arrows. You can one-shot the low-level ones, and the tougher ones will die as they run at you, when you are shooting/freezing them along the way to slow them down. Works great with the berserkers too.
Dude the mace knocks back so hard...you'll usually miss the 2nd or 3rd hit. Mace is my main but it can get annoying sometimes compared to the sword.
Yeah look at 11:18 when he's hitting the walls AND the boss. Then look at 11:48 when he's hitting JUST the boss.
The differences between hitting just 1 target, vs hitting the walls too- is roughly half damage.. You gotta re-test the DPS lol
2:50 already weird that he starts with "I test with iron weapons" to find the best weapon.
Lol no block and no sneak :D. I love blocking and sneaking. It is awesome how differently this game can be played! Great vid!
After playing for a few months I've become a big fan of the Black Metal Axe. Big slash damage like the BM sword plus knockback and I free up a slot because I don't have to carry anything for wood cutting.
Thanks for testing this, tho a couple of notes: Upgrade progression might play a big role in how these weapons scale, looks like you tested them all at level 1? might be interesting to see if the results look any different after max upgrades. Also kinda bummed you left out the silversword, on paper its damage is on par with the blackmetal sword, afaik Yagluth is even weak to its spirit debuff so there's a possibility it might do even better than the blackmetal sword.
Also: Furlings would have made a much more "useful" target for testing. Pretty much all of these weapons are able to deal with swamp enemies, starred furlings is where their damage differences are actually important.
Problem that I see is you are going for pure numbers, but that does not properly reflect in-game experience. End game is usually a group mob engagement, where things like slow - knockback - DoT really start to shine. Even in boss fights, you typically get adds of some sort.
Also a huge miscalculation he had: when you hit multiple objects with something that deals damage, you see almost 50% less damage. So him hitting the walls AND the boss skewed his results badly. Just watch the frostner at 11:18... when he hits the walls the damage he deals to the boss hits around 40 damage per swing. Then when the boss is the only thing hit, he sees around 70 damage per swing (first swing).
This is why I love your videos! Love to min-max, especially after I've beat a game and go to replay it like I am doing currently. Awesome Video!
Ok but... there's many things you can't kill in a single combo and sometimes a single combo isn't even viable. And then I haven't even mentioned groups of enemies yet. Frostner certainly has its place, provided that you can afford it. It's insanely expensive.
Just got home from work, looking for something to watch. Perfect timing Firespark :)
You probably should have accounted for the stagger potential, given it is also a damage boost against regular ennemies.
I haven't done the math like you did but I felt like maces took it once you can push an enemy against a wall (to avoid missing due to knock back) and spam attack them.
can you please do a comparison on final boss between silver sword and blackmetal sword?
Good video but one thing Frostner is good for is if you are facing multiple Fulings. It freezes one and gives you more time to deal with the other. Besides, it looks cool!
Could you make best weapon for each biome enemy type?
Finally someone tells us EXACTLY the best weapon we should use instead of saying "It depends". Thank you!
But I did say it depends lol. But if you use a sword and porcupine you do have all damage types covered.
@@Firespark81 You may have said "it depends" but you didn't leave us hanging at that point... you gave us the meat and potatoes of an answer at the end.
Thank you!
My issue with the porcupine is the knockback you can very rarely get a full combo off on a single target. It is great for multiple attackers tho.
idk, the fact it can take you longer to kill mobs can mean more mobs being aggroed while you are still dealing the initial mobs, thats probably more likely to get you killed imo
You may have screwed up your testing with the porcupine because you kept hitting the wall next to you which I think will actually reduce the damage.
Best weapon: Black Metal Axe + Draugr Fang. It provides the best mix of stamina, DPS, and utility. Between those two, the only things you might struggle with (where a different weapon might help) are Lox (which the bow will still deal with, and is still one of the best options for, it's just inefficient), and Stone Golems (which again not many better options anyway). If going into the Swamp supplement it with a Frostner.
If you want an alternate way of taking out Lox, sneak attack them with the black metal dagger, it's the best damage you can get vs them and they have terrible detection. Black Metal Atagier is also a valid option. Stone Golem if solo jump on their head and pickaxe them. If in a group, the Porcupine is the "best" option but it's barely better than a fully upgraded Iron Mace, which is a lot easier to get.
8:13 You can surprise Eikthyr, so I assume you can theoretically surprise all of the bosses. The logistics might make things tricky tho. I can only get a successful sneak attack against Eikthyr maybe 1 in 4 or 1 in 5 attempts. Sneak knife jump attack and you can open the first boss fight with him down to 2/3 or 1/2 half his health. It's pretty brutal when you land the hit, tbh.
I appreciate how thorough this is but this doesn’t take parry bonuses into consideration
FYI vs Yagluth Silver Sword is even better than Blackmetal Sword with its Spirit damage an Yagluth being undead. (Plus its damage scales amazing with upgrades as both damage types get a full increase per level)
I think the big thing that I and a lot of people like about Frostner is that it just FEELS good to use. Who doesn't want to swing around a frosty Mjolnir in a viking game. I was already kind of aware that the porcupine was better than the Frostner b4 this video. I'll still be using my Frostner though because it just feels awesome to use.
And despite what he claims, when actually playing the game outside of godmode it’s really useful.
did you test the "2nd" skill of the weapons? for example the battle axe has a much faster single target attack; the normal attack combo is more of a group clearer rather than a single target dps. also are you considering making a group dps testing? because then the atgeir would destroy the competition with its spin to win move :D
More valheim research gold - thanks for your work
1. have food
2. have boat
3. have appropriate tools
4. have storage for all acquired items
5. explore
That's the formula to fun in this game.
Thanks dude I needed that. I almost forgot that we needed food to live. I also was thinking about swimming to other islands until I found this.
Great video. BUT... massive atgeir secondary attack on a big group of enemies or 1 shotting a fuling berserker with 100 skill sneak backstab blackmetal dagger feels SO good.
The frostner is just too good in those moments when ur low hp and running from a hord of goblins
oh yes, frostner has saved me so many times when that happens
Should try whacking with porky. Its longer reach and knockback actually trivialises fulings because you can hit them earlier and knock them back while they are locked in their attack animations.
Well until you get chased by spear throwers. Those are annoying.
DoTs Don't really account for much if a different weapon kills the same mob in less time. I feel like it would be purely situational, at best. For example, if you're fighting a pile of mobs while running away, DoTs would be good. Otherwise, I don't see much use outside of ranged damage. DoTs would apply better when the mob(s) have a large distance to cover, where by the DoTs would chunk them before they reach you. Again, best when fighting multiple targets at range. Just my two cents. Keep up these amazingly well researched and informational videos!
Frostner is effective for hit and run tactics as it slows and applies a dot. hit.. let the dot tick down and run back in. Not super useful in the current game tbh.
Your numbers are all theory... The monsters will not be standing still when you fight them and some of these weapon will knock back enemies out of your striking range so you'll never get the 3rd hit of the combo. So if you're not in a boss fight with someone keeping the aggro from you these numbers are pretty much meaningless. The spear might have low dps but the special attack is very useful when you parry and the enemy gets out of range. Imo the best weapon would be highest damage for stamina spent
Thank you Firespark for the decent test setup. Did you also take into account stamina consumption? From my personal experience i think that e.g. the use of the spear consumes more stamina, then the sword. Which in fact would make the sword even more useful as you can keep up the high DPS even longer...
Lots of people talking about stamina. So I'm gonna do a video on it.
porcupine is half pierce dmg and yagluth is piercing resistant, so there's going to be a big dps loss there. I do like frostner, but at the same time, I often make a Q4 iron mace for the Bonemass fight, so frostner starts to feel pretty skippable these days.
But using sword consumed less stamina and you could go longer without resting. Thats also something important.
Were the weapons upgraded or base? Iirc the weird weapons don't always scale as well when they're upgraded, and for some reason I was thinking Frostner was the one that scaled bad with upgrades.
Daggers just feel soo good to me, idk why. Granted I'm only upto mountain biome and have an abyssal dagger, but up until this point daggers just feel great. They seem to be the fastest, so IDK if I can get in more practical hits in-between gaps or what it is. I know they have no movement penalty, which is a nice quality of life thing (I can chase down deer lol)
Daggers are my favorite weapon too. Copper knife (lvl3) and you can one hit troll. (if you use secondary and sneak) Not sure, but feels like you do lot more dmg with less stamina than other weapons.
One last thing: Do not try to kill bonemass with dagger, it just wont work, trust me, i tried. I think wooden club is faster. :=)
If we had to use swords early on to level them up i would have struggled even more for inventory space which is why i just used the axe.Switching over to sword later would be painful since it is not leveled so this also needs to be taken into consideration,unless you want to spend 3-6 days just trying to level up the sword.
As an aside, if you got 95+ Bow skill, and enough arrows to match the bows durability, it is the most consistent and sustainable DPS in the game. You can tap shoot at 95+ skill, and you drain minimal stamina while doing it at that point. As long as your shots land, it is next to unmatchable for singletarget As you can also just walk backwards while spamming to avoid most attacks. I am guessing the Bow Nerf the devs talked about a while ago will end up being the draw speed as instatap firing is busted.
The best thing about the bow is you are less likely to get hit, which means you are less likely to die and less likely to have to do a corpse run and less likely to lose all your stuff from it despawing before you get to it.
@@MAGAMAN Your grave will never despawn, no matter how many times you die. Just make sure to mark it on the map because your map will only have 1 skull icon at a time, but all graves will still exist until you collect them
yea bows are OP but most people are not going to hit 95 skill. Sure you can and some will. Some may even hit 100 but unless you get that high the bow is not a weapon created for high DPS. It is a surprise an kite weapon and it is super op even with low skill level which is probably why the devs plan to nerf it. But the video was about high DPS.
@@Firespark81 I mean no offense, but that’s just not how testing works. If the bow was the highest dps weapon at level 100 bow skill, you wouldn’t know because you decided not to test it for arbitrary reasons. Most people are casual gamers and won’t even make it past the iron tier. Even less people will make it to 90 in any skill. Doesn’t mean you should test a category of weapon if you’re searching for answers about weapon dps
Thanks, it was helpful, I'm kinda tired to carry too much weapons in this game with me. Probably will drop some of it at home-base.
Wait till the next big Ashland’s patch happens when they talked about bringing in that legendary fire sword :P
Great comparison! Just good to point out is also AoE. I understand this is single target evaluation. Situation changes when it comes to packs of enemies, where double-handled heavier weapons with bigger knockback can come more useful (not only DPS-wise). But that's situational advantage.
DPS is not everything. Weapons have different knockbacks and stagger chance/stagger bonus dmg, different stamina use and different range.
and mobs differents resistances and weaknesses , this dude forgot how combat is in this game , this isnt the forest , this game have better combat mecs
You do realize that hitting multiple things/objects lowers your DPS on whatever you're hitting? so hitting the walls where you spawned those bosses skewed your results bad.
Even chopping trees down, if you hit 2 or 3 trees at once, you'll see a much smaller damage number as opposed to hitting just 1 object/target. Almost halves your DPS.
Note: I'm not 100% sure if hitting multiple trees shares the same effects of hitting multiple objects, such as hitting NPC/Mobs. You should test that before testing DPS on mobs (if you're going to hit the walls too)
Note2: I noticed when you hit the boss without hitting the walls you did 20+ more damage on the first swing of the frostner... Hitting the walls AND the boss, you did 40ish damage total, then when you hit him without clipping the walls, you did around 70. so yeah, you're going to have to re-test your theory of DPS my man.
I know this is 2 years old, but have you done an update video? A bunch of folks already mentioned the issue with hitting the wall, and I'm also curious how split damage works in regards to armor and resistances.
Also to anyone watching this trying to decide what to use, I would take his conclusions about Frostner with a big grain of salt. It's true that a dead enemy can't hurt you, but if you're killing everything in one combo you probably don't need to worry about perfectly maximizing your DPS anyway. If you're fighting enemies that are a challenge then the slowing debuff will be a literal lifesaver.
I dont know what you are talking about with the bow. The bow is by FAR the best dps weapon in the game. I have 90 in bow skill and can shoot a fully charge arrow in 0.2 to 0.5 second. It a machine gun with high skill.
@@OddLlamaMan Thousands of wood arrow and shoot a rock. You skill raise when you hit a tree or rock
knowing dps is kinda useless, since the knockback every weapon has will sabotage the combos anyway.
Yuuuuuppppp But people kept asking me for this video so I gave it my best shot. In reality just use whatever you want and have fun. It does not really matter.
Frostner dps aint that good, but the cold damage slow effect is pretty nice
he did a bad dps testing with frostner here if u look closer
Frostner has another trick he forgot to mention it does area effect damage meaning if you miss you still deal damage if close enough. You can hit enemy trough walls/terrain.
Agreed. Useful when fighting enemies next to spawn piles like in the crypts.
I know the swords are great but I just love using the knives. My little abyssal dagger has been treating me very well and when I can upgrade it to black metal I will continue to use it. That sneak damage is so OP... I'm sorry but I was an old school Runescape player and I would PK with the dragon dagger, I guess the knives in Valheim bring me back to the old RS days :D
I also like the idea of sneaking and doing backstabbing damage, but in this game sneaking is slow and the enemies usually see you when you get close to them, even if you have high sneak skill. It's much faster and safer to sneak and use archery from a distance to get your first 3x surprise damage. The other monsters are too dumb to question why the guy next to them just exploded, so rinse and repeat until they're all dead. Would be a very slow/difficult process to do that with a knife.
Not sure how well it will work in a goblin camp though.
also no stamina drain with knives
Glad you made this video. My friends wouldn't believe me when I said sword was the best in alot of situations. They insist porcupine is the only weapon ever needed and that swords were useless 🙄
My friends said the same thing until we pvp'd. The lack of knockback ment I was landing more hits on them. And I just killed things faster period.
I'm pretty sure people just say that because there are no enemies that are weak vs slashing. But the fact that very few enemies are resistant to slashing combined with the good dps makes swords a good all-arounder.
@@Neelo5000 lox and golem are very resistant to slash
This guy loves to talk... this is what I came for: 8:35
Even though his content is good I gotta agree with you, thanks for the time stamp
im 100% certain that silver sword deals more dps than the blackmetal sword and frostner vs yagluth btw
Frostner will out damage the Silver Sword against Yagluth. Yagluth has Weak vs Blunt and like the Silver Sword, it has Spirit Damage.
i feel like giving myself a reach around after watching this
should run the last test again with a different boss yagluth has a peirce resistance so porcupine was only doing half damage plus with porcupine and frostner you were hitting the boss and the wall splitting the damage
I've been saying the Sword is the better weapon. Nice to see the math
Nice video. I'm more interested in the food that you eat for health and stamina lol
dont forget that battle axe has a special attack if you press the mouse wheel that has really hige knockback i tested it on a greydwarf brute and i staggerd him in 1 hit
the compare was only on sheer damage, not on effects. Of course, the better effect you need depend on the combat style.
This confirms my "Black Metal Sword + Bronze Buckler = most DPS (against not Bosses)" Theorie ^^ thank you Sir
So I had this weird thing about bronze buckler that I didn't know the answer to. It's currently the only 1 that has 2x parry multiplier. But how does parry work? Can any attack be able to be parried? Does block amount affect how sucessful parry work?
@@TwinsProductions69 Firespark also made a video about this. But basicly, yes: Parry is a timed block. It block 50% more damage than a normal block, only the Bronze Buckler can block 100% more. Your Block skill influence your Blocking in General. What makes the Bronze Buckler better is the Parry Foce. Parry Force is Knockback for Shields and Knockback sucks, so a small Knockback / Parry Force = better DPS
@@MrOnePieceRuffy ehm , nope :
Parry Bonus is a multiplier applied to your Block Power when you parry an attack. This indirectly reduces Stamina usage. For example, if your Block Power is 20 and you have a Parry Bonus of 2x, you can parry attacks dealing up to 40 damage. The Parry Bonus does not apply to stagger damage.
so the stagger damage its the same no matter the shield
@@BkSonic I've no clue what you are talking about, but I read the Game Source Code and know what i'm saying. Your Info is useless because nobody talked about parry bonus. So have a nice day.
The spear gives better damage on the 3rd hit. I have been using them for my entire game (like 300 hours now) and it definitely hits for more damage on the 3rd hit.
I am talking about the throwable spear not the polearm btw.
@@DanBarry851 Thats only because the third hit staggers the enemy though right?. Which gives a damage buff.
@@99range92def Ahhhhh okay I see now, I thought it was the same thing?
Frostners is great try against wet enemys, lure fulings into water and test it.!!!!
Will do.
Doesnt frostner do like 4x damage to blobs and stuff considering its weak to crush + wet.
While its not super relevant at blackmetal atm, what about how dps changes with stagger, and how easily a weapon can stagger your enemies? For example with the atgier i can h into l and get stagger damage on the l
Your tests against Yagluth were compromised though, because I saw numerous frames where Porcupine (for example) was also hitting the wall while striking Yag. Each target you hit divides the damage of the weapon, including ground, trees, rocks, ect. So for every hit of the weapon that ALSO strikes the wall/ground, you're losing up to 50% dps. Run the tests against, but NOT in a pit where you'll hit the walls. Really surprised you didn't know that, it's pretty obvious after cutting down trees in the first hour of the game.
Hitting the ground should not matter. I think the issue there was something I forgot and that is Yag is resistant to pierce. But in the end this also goes to show there is not a one weapon rules them all situation in this game. Also none of this really matters unless you are all about min maxing. Just use whatever weapon you enjoy.
So just wondering. does the AoE on the sledge split damage like the maces, swords, and axes do when attacking multiple targets?
Very nice and informative, learnt a lot!
I have an idea that will allow you to use the trader. Take supplies to a random seed and search for the trader. However many days you commit searching you must skip on your world. You are not allowed to bring back anything you didn’t take with you.
" You are not allowed to bring back anything you didn’t take with you."
Did they change that? I haven't played in a few days, but I used to do this all the time.
@@MAGAMAN I was talking about his 100 day challenge. Some people might consider it cheating to bring back items from another map.
question regarding frostner, when you upgrade it the blunt damage never goes up, is this a bug or intended?
because blunt is not frostner primary damage. its actually frost damage. same for porcupine, primary is pierce not blunt.
@@tauntmeimmagic ok that would make sense, the thing is though with draugr fang pierce is the primary but poison goes up when upgrading it. Not by much I'll grant.
Thanks for the video FireSparkel!
LOVED this video! Thank you so much!
Thanks for the best valheim vids. Super informative!
Thank you for this I had never tried swords.
Good work.
Thanks!
Add graphs and charts when doing testing / comparison video.
Wait.. I'm confused.. According to the DPS chart you showed, the iron sword had the highest DPS of the iron weapons.
yes but not by much. It and the mace are pretty much the same. With that small of a sample size and the fact that their attack pattern is pretty much the same it is safe to say they have the same DPS. So that means. All swords and maces that share the same pattern will have high DPS.
the frostner is great against the boss yagluth and bonemass, i destroyed him 7 times with that weapon. but is a dister with everithing else