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Valheim boss fight guide: Moder tips

Valheim’s mountains-based boss is one of its hardest

Moder the dragon flying in front of a player in Valheim Image: Iron Gate Studio/Coffee Stain Publishing via Polygon
Austen Goslin (he/him) is an entertainment editor. He writes about the latest TV shows and movies, and particularly loves all things horror.

The mountains are one of Valheim’s trickiest environments, and its boss fits right in. The final challenge of the mountain biome is Moder, a giant wyvern who can only be summoned at the peaks of certain frozen mountains. While getting to her is already a dangerous journey, killing her can be even tougher.

To help you take down Moder, our Valheim guide corrals our best tips, tricks, and strategies for the frozen fight.

Preparing for Moder

Weapons

For this fight, bring your best sword. If you have an iron sword take that, but a silver sword also works well, if you have it upgraded.

The most important weapon you is the huntsman bow or the draugr fang bow, along with a few hundred arrows. Needle arrows are the best against Moder, but they’re difficult to acquire before you get to the plains (the next section of the game). Both poison and obsidian arrows work well, too.

A Valheim player facing Moder on the mountain with a bow Image: Iron Gate Studio/Coffee Stain Publishing via Polygon

Armor

You absolutely must have at least a wolf fur cape or wolf armor chest during your fight with Moder. Having at least one of these items negates the cold debuff that you get while in the mountain biome. But if you’ve been exploring the mountains enough to find all the dragon eggs you need to summon Moder, you probably already know that and have at least one of these two pieces.

Because silver is so plentiful and easy to get, the best option against Moder is a set of full silver armor, all upgraded to level four. However, if you’re trying to move as quickly as possible, you could get away with a fully upgraded set of iron gear with just a wolf fur cape to gain the frost resistance damage buff.

Food

Eat sausages, turnip stew, and cooked Lox meat before and during the fight. Getting Lox meat is more difficult and dangerous than other foods, since they only spawn in the plains, but it’s well worth it for the great balance of extra health and extra stamina.

Meads

Bring along at least five each of the medium healing mead and the minor stamina mead, in case you need to recover either resource quickly.

You should craft a few frost resistance meads before the fight, but leave them where your bed is at, or near the portal you’re using to get to the fight. That way, if you die during the fight you can activate the frost resistance mead and run back to your body, without worrying about the cold debuff. These potions don’t stack with the frost resistance from your wolf armor, so don’t worry about using them in the fight.


Moder summon

Moder is located in the mountains. To discover her exact summoning location, you need to either find a rune in the mountains, or find the altar while exploring.

Moder’s summoning altar in Valheim Image: Iron Gate Studio/Coffee Stain Publishing via Polygon

To summon Moder, you need three dragon eggs, which you can sacrifice on her altar. The eggs are extremely heavy and cannot be teleported. This means that the eggs also aren’t worth collecting. Instead you should find the mountain that Moder can be summoned with in your game, search for eggs in that area, and carry them back one at a time.

Because Moder is an extra dangerous boss, set up a portal nearby the summoning location, but safe from her attacks. Then if you die, the portal will get you back to your gear quickly. While it’s normally a good idea to set up a bed near fights instead, the mountain’s cold debuff makes that much more difficult.

Before you summon Moder, make sure there are no enemies nearby and that it’s early in the day, so that you don’t have to deal with the increased spawns of night.


Moder boss tips

Moder attacks

Moder has three kinds of attacks — one that she uses while she’s flying, and two that she uses when she lands.

Aerial attack
  • Moder shoots several shards of ice at a player’s location. The ice crystalizes on contact and freeze whatever they hit. Absolutely do not get hit by this ability. Each shard moves slowly which makes them easy to dodge, but if you get hit by two or three of these in a row, you die.
Ground attacks
  • Moder swipes with her front talons, hitting anything in front of her. This is Moder’s most traditional attack and her quickest. If you see her bring her claws back, run away immediately or prepare to dodge.
  • Moder shoots a freezing breath attack in front of her. This ability does lots of damage, but it can dash to the side just before it comes out to avoid its cone of damage.
A Valheim player looking up a Moder as she flies around a mountain Image: Iron Gate Studio/Coffee Stain Publishing via Polygon
Attacking Moder’s weaknesses

There are two ways to kill this boss.

The most effective is to hit her with needle or poison arrows while she’s in the air, causing a meager amount of damage, and then rush up to her when she lands and use your sword. For this method, you have to be very careful to dodge her attacks, because taking just one hit means you need to retreat and heal.

The far safer (but much more time-consuming) option is to stay as far away from Moder as possible and only use your bow to hurt her. For this, you only need to dodge her ice shards attack, which should keep you fairly safe. However, this method takes a very long time to complete and burns through tons of food and arrows.

Moder rewards and trophy

Moder drops the Moder trophy, as well as her shrine power — which grants you favorable winds for sailing. Moder also drops several dragon tears, a crafting item used to craft things necessary for smelting black iron into ore and making black iron tools.

The next level of puzzles.

Take a break from your day by playing a puzzle or two! We’ve got SpellTower, Typeshift, crosswords, and more.

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