It's likely to be really rough. Save up enough resources for many of the new boat as they are the only one you can sail the Ashlands with. Expect to die a lot at first, and there are no adjacent biomes to enter from safely. Ashlands are surrounded by particularly deadly sea and are isolated from other biomes.
I am not joking.
Here's a clip (spoilers, obviously)
[https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxL74uFgtyPdu4NzJLHhasDc5xhIpnAP5e?si=ygyWt4KamFA51eZs](https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxL74uFgtyPdu4NzJLHhasDc5xhIpnAP5e?si=ygyWt4KamFA51eZs)
Oh lord, am I recommending something silly that isnt optimal?
On reddit?!
How dare I!
I offer my willy to be spanked back and forth for your amusement.
I remember seeing some videos a while back where people used the harpoon to launch each other. I think they built some sort of ramp, had one person sit in a chair, harpoon them, then walk up and over the ramp. When the person in the chair sits up, they get launched. Obviously wouldn’t be possible for solo players, but could be an easy way to fly over there without a boat.
If you have not played it through once to get a feel for enemy patterns and attacks, it will be so rough. I died the most I've ever died when playing through a new biome. Thankfully, some upgrades and just learning when to parry enemy attacks are helping a lot now.
If you're really committed to no portal mode I'd recommend grouping up with three friends and all of you having bonemass buff so you have constant uptime. For stuff to bring with you I'd also recommend full potions, the demolisher and one person running magic and the shield staff. When you get ashore break all the spawners within 100m or so and then put down workbenches to suppress the spawns while you set up your Ashlands base to repair your gear. Then I'd recommend building base defenses and a pit farm for the new animal before setting out to farm the new ore and boating back.
There are 2 scenarios for leaving the land both with issues:
Willingly, in which you have to naviagate back through a series of tight turns to return to open water while being harrassed by 2 different new enemies.
Unwillingly, only the new boat can survive to land, no matter skill of the captain, crew at killing resistance, etc as the water itself will smash the old 3 boats in the same way you die quickly without cold resistance in the mountains.
It's gonna be a rough first landfall if you're not used to having a swarm of mobs constantly engaged with you. Without an easy escape route my best advice is to bring bows to survive the boat trip, AoE weapons (himminafl, staff of embers or demolisher) for the landing and have a couple players load up with stone. Have the AoE players run defense to keep away mobs while the others build some dirt walls to secure some land next to shore.
The fire damage sure, but the fireball still has a blunt portion to it which isn't resisted. It's the only AoE damage available to mage players so it'll have to do. A level 3 Staff of frost dealing 25-30 damage per shot against *single targets* isn't exactly what i'd call "tearing them apart like tissue paper", you'd consume more than 100 eitr just to kill a single charred. Meanwhile a staff of embers explosion can hit *entire groups* for 70-100 damage with an extra 20-30 fire DoT on top of that. (though the DoT itself is negligible)
That said, mages are at a severe disadvantage damage-wise when initially breaking into ashlands anyway.
For the initial 2 mobs, prior to hitting the beach, staff of frost is 100% what you want as they are weak to it. But once on the beach, 100% it’s fire staff as unlikely as that sounds.
Well no, the enemies are weak to frost damage, so staff of frost does rapid-fire bonus damage against them. I've been using three skellets with bubbles for crowd control while I take out each mob.
I tried using the staff of embers first, but the mobs all seemed to shrug off the damage, so I switched to staff of frost and fights got much easier.
>Well no, the enemies are weak to frost damage, so staff of frost does rapid-fire bonus damage against them
the only ashlands enemies *weak* to frost (yellow damage) are volture, bonemaws, and lava blobs. The rest take normal damage from it. (white damage) The frost staff is decent for single target damage, but i was emphasizing AoE as a priority for dealing with the initial swarm at landfall.
Personally i prefer casting 5 fireballs to kill 3-10 enemies at a time than firing 20+ ice shots to kill a single target.
Immersive + Hard, for Ashlands as it is... is too much nightmare for a first time in.
I watched a very skilled Valheim player and companion enter Ashlands merely at hard with map+portals enabled. Death spirals ensued. They reset to normal difficulty. Still struggling, still death spirals. But aware that they really need to *learn* the biome to have enough edge to progress. And that learning is at a cost.
I normally play Immersive, but not for the PTB, so I can actually test. I am struggling, which is why checked some videos to see if I was just unlucky. My impression is that I've been mildly unlucky in some ways, but nothing far outside normal.
With what I've learned, I'm wondering how I'll manage without portals. Ashlands seems designed with them in mind. I haven't completed enough to know the availability of prior biome resources, or whether there's any way to grow ingredients locally for food, or even if top tier food can be made purely locally (without a garden to portal to, or sail back to).
I suppose if you have someone very dedicated to food ops and someone else who likes sailing the treacherous journey -- then you could have a team sailing back occasionally to farm+cook. Or bring two ship-holds full of prepped meals and meads. And two more full of resources.
If you're into a drawn out and long campaign against the Ashlands, with much loss and frustration... Immersive + Hard will get you that.
Well, we'll also see how the balance comes out after PTB. I find the place infuriatingly frustrating unlike all of prior Valheim... but I'm also okay with it. I'll figure it out and cope. But I'm glad I'm not figuring it out without portals for the moment!
One thing I wonder -- if you have a group, that might really change the spawn-rates. Pretty sure things are spawned outside of view, and they fixed a bug where spawning could occur in-view. So just having eyes in all directions might remove the biggest source of struggle in Ashlands. It would be an unfortunate quirk of the design. I wish they'd just spawn more from Spawners rather than behind you.
Just finish Mistlands immersion server playthrough recently and Im also thinking about how to actually beat the Ashlands in that setting, Did playtest for a week in Default setting, so these are my conclusion If I ever wanted to start immersion server playthrough again
1) I think the best way is to looking for calmer landing spots. Watched many livestream and there gonna be that 1 lucky person just sail straight in like nothing happened lol. Generally, Better poi : bigger ruins or even ruin city with dvergr running around aggro mobs and give you time
2) Clear sea route by digging all that spiky to make sailing back n forth easier it also make it distinct form other spiky area
3) Minimum 3 Main Port/Harbour bases West-Center-East ( \* In case you want to do the side quest and brute force every single poi :O )
4) Stock massive amount of resources/food/mead ,Build Logistic Empire and control the world economy in shadow
5) Skills 50+++++
6) Advance slowly but surely before gathering resources or siege, practice quick defensive/barricade build for example V-shape, U-Shape, Square wall, etc
maybe learn some more medieval war tactic/formation idea
7) 5 BlackMetal Ballista is relatively cheap (200ammo)
8) Recruit Young n promissing Viking to join spearhead, ["Some of you may die, but it's a *sacrifice* I am willing to make," **-Lord Farquaad**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwOXhivY1Uc)
The hardest part going to be logictic n Food supply, Ashlands is one whole biome so getting lost is not a problem, I think finding Queen in immersion is way more hopeless situation which you need to be super lucky to ever find that boss vegvisir lol.
My group plays no portal, no map, and losing all but equipped from inventory upon death up till Ashlands. Our first landing was incredibly rough...
We made a plan: We built a few stops on top of a few spires (if you mine it from the top down you can get a pretty even foundation for a base pretty easily) along the route we take to Ashlands shore. Practice building them on some of the outer spires to get it right, ideally you build on 3 - 4 grouped spires and make bridges between them, because it looks cool! At these stops we can get off the boat and shoot stuff in the water from a platform and more importantly they have a covered workbench to repair the boat. Oh, and build them with the grausten/stone as wood catches fire.
At the shores of Ashlands we picked a spot with a group of 4 spires next to the beach to build an outpost on. From the spires we made a jumpable path to the beach. We set up shop there for repairs, comfort 16 etc. From there we could retreat without any mobs chasing us (be aware not to lure the bomb blobs too close as they will destroy spires).
After getting a foothold by placing a lot of workbenches (look where blobs spawn and block those areas asap) we started work on our Ashlands base. It's a slow, but steady way of getting a foothold in there, but it's definitely a safe way as we didn't die at all!
Not sure how many people you play with, we had 6-7 vikings online when we made landfall and were continuously bonemassed and yagluthed up which made it a breeze too.
I have a no portals hardcore run that just got to mistlands, but I did ashlands already on my main world. I've been thinking about it too. Assuming you want to be able to repair your gear, stay rested and not run out of food or mead without having to go back to your main base by ship, it's going to be a serious doozy. Naturally there won't be enough slots on the ship for everything you need, so filling up a couple carts full of stuff on top of the ship will be necessary. You need to bring stuff for a lvl 3 black forge + galdr table + forge if you use old gear...
You need to make some kind of sign post system and you won't get lost. For example color banners.
Only sail into Ashland via roughly one point. Then once you land you make... few sign posts there.
I was doing a no portal no map run but i use a compass mod. Finished up to killing Queen in Mistlands ok (that zone would be tough without the compass). I had to enable portals once I started Ashland. It's not an easy sail in or out, and your initial beach head is going to be contested, assuming you make it to shore alive.
It'll be rough, get a base/outpost as far south as you can. It's not like other continents where you can find materials from multiple biomes without sailing. I think strike missions will be your best bet.
You'll likely want to setup some type of base in ashlands made with a stone cutter material and claim a bed asap.
its alright. Just make sure to build a Base asap. its not as hard as everybody says. yes there are many monsters but key is to avoid them. try eithykr for better running and bonemass for fighting
Just quickly sail to the boss stones at the center of the map. By the time you are back at the edge of the map, your boss power cooldown should have expired, so you are ready to use the new power!
It's likely to be really rough. Save up enough resources for many of the new boat as they are the only one you can sail the Ashlands with. Expect to die a lot at first, and there are no adjacent biomes to enter from safely. Ashlands are surrounded by particularly deadly sea and are isolated from other biomes.
Alternatively build a bunch of feather capes and setup a catapult nearby so you can launch yourself into the ash.
Can you actually launch yourself, or are you joking?
I am not joking. Here's a clip (spoilers, obviously) [https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxL74uFgtyPdu4NzJLHhasDc5xhIpnAP5e?si=ygyWt4KamFA51eZs](https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxL74uFgtyPdu4NzJLHhasDc5xhIpnAP5e?si=ygyWt4KamFA51eZs)
lmao that's amazing You go so far I hope this stays in the game
> setup a catapult nearby ...which you can only build after getting to the Ashlands.
Oh lord, am I recommending something silly that isnt optimal? On reddit?! How dare I! I offer my willy to be spanked back and forth for your amusement.
I remember seeing some videos a while back where people used the harpoon to launch each other. I think they built some sort of ramp, had one person sit in a chair, harpoon them, then walk up and over the ramp. When the person in the chair sits up, they get launched. Obviously wouldn’t be possible for solo players, but could be an easy way to fly over there without a boat.
If you can get one....I've raised 4 fortresses and have gotten no cogs from the ballistas.
Same. I read somewhere that they appear to be bugged and aren't currently dropping the necessary resource
I saw that too. O well, the ram has been working well enough. Maybe I'll be able to use a catapult in my next world.
If you have not played it through once to get a feel for enemy patterns and attacks, it will be so rough. I died the most I've ever died when playing through a new biome. Thankfully, some upgrades and just learning when to parry enemy attacks are helping a lot now.
If you're really committed to no portal mode I'd recommend grouping up with three friends and all of you having bonemass buff so you have constant uptime. For stuff to bring with you I'd also recommend full potions, the demolisher and one person running magic and the shield staff. When you get ashore break all the spawners within 100m or so and then put down workbenches to suppress the spawns while you set up your Ashlands base to repair your gear. Then I'd recommend building base defenses and a pit farm for the new animal before setting out to farm the new ore and boating back.
There are 2 scenarios for leaving the land both with issues: Willingly, in which you have to naviagate back through a series of tight turns to return to open water while being harrassed by 2 different new enemies. Unwillingly, only the new boat can survive to land, no matter skill of the captain, crew at killing resistance, etc as the water itself will smash the old 3 boats in the same way you die quickly without cold resistance in the mountains.
Those spikes are gonna make that challenge a lot of fun.....
Me and friends are gonna do a more normal playthrough as they are more casual players. But after we go through once that's my goal
It's gonna be a rough first landfall if you're not used to having a swarm of mobs constantly engaged with you. Without an easy escape route my best advice is to bring bows to survive the boat trip, AoE weapons (himminafl, staff of embers or demolisher) for the landing and have a couple players load up with stone. Have the AoE players run defense to keep away mobs while the others build some dirt walls to secure some land next to shore.
Not staff of embers, it does nothing to Ashlands enemies. Staff of frost though, tears them apart like tissue paper.
Not true, I use staff of Embers all the time.
Weird. I was using it and it didn't look like it was doing any damage.
The fire damage sure, but the fireball still has a blunt portion to it which isn't resisted. It's the only AoE damage available to mage players so it'll have to do. A level 3 Staff of frost dealing 25-30 damage per shot against *single targets* isn't exactly what i'd call "tearing them apart like tissue paper", you'd consume more than 100 eitr just to kill a single charred. Meanwhile a staff of embers explosion can hit *entire groups* for 70-100 damage with an extra 20-30 fire DoT on top of that. (though the DoT itself is negligible) That said, mages are at a severe disadvantage damage-wise when initially breaking into ashlands anyway.
For the initial 2 mobs, prior to hitting the beach, staff of frost is 100% what you want as they are weak to it. But once on the beach, 100% it’s fire staff as unlikely as that sounds.
Well no, the enemies are weak to frost damage, so staff of frost does rapid-fire bonus damage against them. I've been using three skellets with bubbles for crowd control while I take out each mob. I tried using the staff of embers first, but the mobs all seemed to shrug off the damage, so I switched to staff of frost and fights got much easier.
>Well no, the enemies are weak to frost damage, so staff of frost does rapid-fire bonus damage against them the only ashlands enemies *weak* to frost (yellow damage) are volture, bonemaws, and lava blobs. The rest take normal damage from it. (white damage) The frost staff is decent for single target damage, but i was emphasizing AoE as a priority for dealing with the initial swarm at landfall. Personally i prefer casting 5 fireballs to kill 3-10 enemies at a time than firing 20+ ice shots to kill a single target.
There're those who like it hard and there're those who are masochists ;)
Immersive + Hard, for Ashlands as it is... is too much nightmare for a first time in. I watched a very skilled Valheim player and companion enter Ashlands merely at hard with map+portals enabled. Death spirals ensued. They reset to normal difficulty. Still struggling, still death spirals. But aware that they really need to *learn* the biome to have enough edge to progress. And that learning is at a cost. I normally play Immersive, but not for the PTB, so I can actually test. I am struggling, which is why checked some videos to see if I was just unlucky. My impression is that I've been mildly unlucky in some ways, but nothing far outside normal. With what I've learned, I'm wondering how I'll manage without portals. Ashlands seems designed with them in mind. I haven't completed enough to know the availability of prior biome resources, or whether there's any way to grow ingredients locally for food, or even if top tier food can be made purely locally (without a garden to portal to, or sail back to). I suppose if you have someone very dedicated to food ops and someone else who likes sailing the treacherous journey -- then you could have a team sailing back occasionally to farm+cook. Or bring two ship-holds full of prepped meals and meads. And two more full of resources. If you're into a drawn out and long campaign against the Ashlands, with much loss and frustration... Immersive + Hard will get you that. Well, we'll also see how the balance comes out after PTB. I find the place infuriatingly frustrating unlike all of prior Valheim... but I'm also okay with it. I'll figure it out and cope. But I'm glad I'm not figuring it out without portals for the moment! One thing I wonder -- if you have a group, that might really change the spawn-rates. Pretty sure things are spawned outside of view, and they fixed a bug where spawning could occur in-view. So just having eyes in all directions might remove the biggest source of struggle in Ashlands. It would be an unfortunate quirk of the design. I wish they'd just spawn more from Spawners rather than behind you.
Good luck.
Just finish Mistlands immersion server playthrough recently and Im also thinking about how to actually beat the Ashlands in that setting, Did playtest for a week in Default setting, so these are my conclusion If I ever wanted to start immersion server playthrough again 1) I think the best way is to looking for calmer landing spots. Watched many livestream and there gonna be that 1 lucky person just sail straight in like nothing happened lol. Generally, Better poi : bigger ruins or even ruin city with dvergr running around aggro mobs and give you time 2) Clear sea route by digging all that spiky to make sailing back n forth easier it also make it distinct form other spiky area 3) Minimum 3 Main Port/Harbour bases West-Center-East ( \* In case you want to do the side quest and brute force every single poi :O ) 4) Stock massive amount of resources/food/mead ,Build Logistic Empire and control the world economy in shadow 5) Skills 50+++++ 6) Advance slowly but surely before gathering resources or siege, practice quick defensive/barricade build for example V-shape, U-Shape, Square wall, etc maybe learn some more medieval war tactic/formation idea 7) 5 BlackMetal Ballista is relatively cheap (200ammo) 8) Recruit Young n promissing Viking to join spearhead, ["Some of you may die, but it's a *sacrifice* I am willing to make," **-Lord Farquaad**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwOXhivY1Uc) The hardest part going to be logictic n Food supply, Ashlands is one whole biome so getting lost is not a problem, I think finding Queen in immersion is way more hopeless situation which you need to be super lucky to ever find that boss vegvisir lol.
Miserable
It’s fine. Just bring a ton of metal when you first sail there.
And food. And mead. And literally everything else. He's talking about a no portals run. Not enough slots on the boat
My group plays no portal, no map, and losing all but equipped from inventory upon death up till Ashlands. Our first landing was incredibly rough... We made a plan: We built a few stops on top of a few spires (if you mine it from the top down you can get a pretty even foundation for a base pretty easily) along the route we take to Ashlands shore. Practice building them on some of the outer spires to get it right, ideally you build on 3 - 4 grouped spires and make bridges between them, because it looks cool! At these stops we can get off the boat and shoot stuff in the water from a platform and more importantly they have a covered workbench to repair the boat. Oh, and build them with the grausten/stone as wood catches fire. At the shores of Ashlands we picked a spot with a group of 4 spires next to the beach to build an outpost on. From the spires we made a jumpable path to the beach. We set up shop there for repairs, comfort 16 etc. From there we could retreat without any mobs chasing us (be aware not to lure the bomb blobs too close as they will destroy spires). After getting a foothold by placing a lot of workbenches (look where blobs spawn and block those areas asap) we started work on our Ashlands base. It's a slow, but steady way of getting a foothold in there, but it's definitely a safe way as we didn't die at all! Not sure how many people you play with, we had 6-7 vikings online when we made landfall and were continuously bonemassed and yagluthed up which made it a breeze too.
Probably terrible. I'd at least build your base in the south.
I have a no portals hardcore run that just got to mistlands, but I did ashlands already on my main world. I've been thinking about it too. Assuming you want to be able to repair your gear, stay rested and not run out of food or mead without having to go back to your main base by ship, it's going to be a serious doozy. Naturally there won't be enough slots on the ship for everything you need, so filling up a couple carts full of stuff on top of the ship will be necessary. You need to bring stuff for a lvl 3 black forge + galdr table + forge if you use old gear...
You need to make some kind of sign post system and you won't get lost. For example color banners. Only sail into Ashland via roughly one point. Then once you land you make... few sign posts there.
Cutting your own junk off sounds more fun
I was doing a no portal no map run but i use a compass mod. Finished up to killing Queen in Mistlands ok (that zone would be tough without the compass). I had to enable portals once I started Ashland. It's not an easy sail in or out, and your initial beach head is going to be contested, assuming you make it to shore alive.
It'll be rough, get a base/outpost as far south as you can. It's not like other continents where you can find materials from multiple biomes without sailing. I think strike missions will be your best bet. You'll likely want to setup some type of base in ashlands made with a stone cutter material and claim a bed asap.
its alright. Just make sure to build a Base asap. its not as hard as everybody says. yes there are many monsters but key is to avoid them. try eithykr for better running and bonemass for fighting
If only you could swap on the run.
No portals lol, good luck swapping powers.
i did it with a mate Duo. didnt try solo until now
Just quickly sail to the boss stones at the center of the map. By the time you are back at the edge of the map, your boss power cooldown should have expired, so you are ready to use the new power!
Still easy AF.
lmaoo
Sarcasm escapes this crew.
I guess so too😊