Valheim is a great survival sandbox game in early access and set in a world inspired by Norse mythology. While unforgiving at times, it’s a fun challenge. The player is given one goal, defeat the forsaken ones, the game’s bosses.
Of these, the third boss, Bonemass, serves as the biggest roadblock for new players. His altar is in the swamp, and he is centered on dealing poison damage. Thankfully, there are ways to make this fight easier on yourself so that you don’t even need to bring friends. Without further ado, here is the guide to solo Bonemass in Valheim.
Bonemass spawning in
Before Getting to Bonemass’ Altar
Obviously, to kill Bonemass, you first have to find him. To do this you have to venture to the swamp biome which is indicated on your map by brown. In my world, I had the best luck finding swamps past black forests. However, worlds are randomly generated in Valheim so you’ll just have to explore and walk into a swamp eventually.
The transition from black forest to swamp
Once you’re in the swamp, you’ll want to look for sunken crypts. Other ruined structures can have a vegvisir (the runestone that gives a boss’ location), but the sunken crypts are more reliable. Keep in mind, you’ll need the swamp key, which is dropped by the Elder, to enter these dungeons.
Sunken crypts also have muddy scrap piles and withered bones. The scrap piles will give iron and the bones are the item used to summon Bonemass. Once you find the vegvisir and interact with it, you’ll have the closest of the Bonemass locations in your world.
Top Left: Sunken Crypt, Top Right: Vegvisir, Bottom Left: Muddy Scrap Pile, Bottom Right: Withered Bone
Preparing
There is a pretty long list of things you’ll wanna do before rushing into solo Bonemass. It will also be 100% worth it as it’ll make the fight a lot easier.
Meads
One of the first things you’ll wanna do is start making meads. To solo Bonemass you will need poison resistance mead. You’ll also probably want to have some medium healing mead. If you don’t already have a few bee hives, a cauldron, and a fermenter, you’ll need to get them. If you need help figuring out how to get these things or anything else I’ll leave a link to Valheim‘s fan wiki.
Cauldron
You’ll need 10 honey for each mead base which makes six actual potions. For the poison resistance mead, you’ll need 5 thistle, 1 neck tail, and 10 coal.
The thistle is found both in the black forest and swamps, but I’d recommend gathering it in the forest because it’s just safer. The neck tails are dropped by necks in the meadows. The coal you should already have from advancing through the bronze age.
Fermenter
For the medium healing mead, you’ll need 4 blood bags, 10 raspberries, and 1 dandelion. The dandelions and raspberries are found all over the meadows. The blood bags are dropped by leeches found in the waters of the swamps. They can poison you so you may want to use some poison resistance mead while hunting them.
The Build
Your weapon is the only thing really important for this fight. Bonemass is weak to blunt damage, so to solo him you’ll want to craft a weapon that deals blunt if you haven’t already. You’ll also likely want to upgrade that weapon as much as you can. Personally, I used a level 4 iron mace, but you can probably make any blunt weapon work as long as you’re careful.
The build I used
For the forsaken power, I had Eikthyr because running at a lower stamina cost is much more helpful than wood chopping in this fight. Armor and food aren’t very important, I used a mix of iron armor and troll leather with cooked meats and queen’s jam. As long as you can survive a hit though, you should be okay.
Manipulating the Arena
As you’ve probably noticed traversing the swamps, there is a lot of water. There is likely a large amount of it very close to the forsaken altar. Obviously, fighting Bonemass solo in water isn’t going to work out so well.
The trick to it is to not fight him in water at all. A tool you probably only used while building your base is actually extremely useful, the hoe. The hoe has the options to level ground or raise ground.
The hoe’s options
Bring that, a lot of stones, and a workbench to the altar. Mix the level ground and raise ground functions so you don’t use more stones than you need to and raise a good area around the altar.
There’s no specific amount you should do, but I’d recommend raising all the ground within the workbench area if it’s placed next to the altar. Getting out of the water also blocks leeches from getting involved in the fight.
A view of the arena after it was raised
I’d also recommend going to the surrounding area and making sure there aren’t any body piles or evil bone piles so you’re not dealing with more minions than you need to, especially since the draugr hit hard and aren’t among the enemies spawned by Bonemass himself.
Body and evil bone piles
The Solo Fight Against Bonemass
With all the prep out of the way, it’s time to approach the altar with 10 withered bones. Have your weapon and shield (if you opted to carry one) equipped and drink up your poison resistance mead. It should last the whole fight but make sure to have more than one just in case. Once you interact on his altar with the bones, locate where he’s spawning. Get there and whack him a few times before he starts actually moving for some quick damage.
The Base Swing
Bonemass’ main attack is to swing either one of his arms at you. This is an instance where fighting Bonemass solo is actually helpful. The attack is very predictable when he is facing you because of a long windup. It also has a lot of downtime after it ends.
The best thing to do is to dodge forward through it using invincibility frames and get some hits in, usually 2-5 depending on what weapon you’re using and if you’re avoiding the poison cloud attack.
The Poison Cloud Attack
One of his many attacks is spitting up a lingering cloud of poison. He’ll grip his stomach like he has a stomach ache and then the poison will puff out. As long as you drank your poison resistance mead, you are fairly safe to stand in this as the damage is minimal.
The poison cloud attack
The animation is long so it’s a great time to get some big hits in. However, it’s important to be careful with this because it is hard to see in and he will attack again before it dissipates. If you’re not confident in your ability to see a swing coming through the green smoke, do not stand in it.
The lingering poison cloud
The Minions
While you may be trying to solo Bonemass, he most certainly is not interested in fighting you solo. He will reach into his armpit and summon 2-5 enemies. These summons will be a mix of skeletons and blobs. When he does this he throws them quite far from himself.
Bonemass preparing to throw minions while in a poison cloud
All you need to do is rush them down and dispatch them as fast as you can. Prioritize skeletons because they can be archers and the blobs are relatively harmless when you have the poison resistance mead active.
Bonemass’ minions
If You Get Hit
If you get hit, it isn’t the end of the world. He hits hard but as long as you have decent armor it won’t one-shot you. He’s slow and lacks ranged attacks, so just put some distance between the two of you. Use the altar to kite him. You’ll heal slowly from your food and you can use the medium healing potions once every 2 minutes and they come pretty close to undoing the damage he did to you.
Victory
As long as you follow the tips above, you’ll be able to chip away at his health. Just be careful, keep moving, and strike his openings, and he will go down. After you defeat Bonemass solo, he’ll give you everything you need to progress through Valheim‘s world, including the Wishbone. This item helps you find buried ores and treasures. If you want to make the world more interesting and you’re playing on PC, here’s a guide to installing mods in Valheim.
